How To Create Your Own Imperial Knight House

Guide to Creating Your Own Homebrew Imperial Knight Household

 

Introduction

To aid my fellow hobbyists to design and flesh out a background for your own household of Imperial Knights I have crafted this handy guide that will walk you through the steps to create your own unique house, including its colors, allegiance, heraldry, origins, size and more. So lets get started!

Step 1: Allegiance 

 

Much of what follows will be informed by the fundamental allegiance of your household. Who it serves and why will help inform your color scheme, heraldry, faction, the particular rules you may use and even the character and personality of your house. To start off with you need to decide if your household will serve the Imperium or Chaos. Those knights who fight for the Imperium equip their armors along specified patterns with long and storied traditions, they fight for honor and glory in service to the Emperor or the Omnissiah and march alongside the fighting forces of the Imperium be they the Astra Militarum, the Adeptus Astartes, the Adeptus Mechanicus or even the God Engines of the Adeptus Titanicus. Those knights who serve chaos are fueled by their own bitter pride and a lust for violence and bloodshed. Chaos knights are rampaging monsters whose engines can become physically warped or tainted by long exposure to the warp. Chaos knights do not limit themselves as much to the rigid armament patterns of the Imperial Knight houses but are perfectly willing to mount powerful ranged armaments in pairs to better to destroy their foes.

Option A: Imperial - Option B: Chaos

Once you have chosen for your house to serve either the Imperium or Chaos then you will need to decide whether your house falls into one of a few additional categories. For the Imperium those would be Questor Imperialis, Questor Mechanicus, Freeblade or Titanicus Vassal. A Questor Imperialis House is a house that has sworn service to the Emperor and the Imperium directly and remains independent from the control of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Sometimes this independence is down to a stubborn refusal to submit to the intrusive will of the Adepts of Mars, at other times it is a result of a house that has managed to preserve its strength or machine lore sufficiently through the Dark Age of Mankind that it does not need the aide of the Mechanicus to survive.

Questor Imperialis households bear bold heraldry and march to war alongside the armies of the Imperium, seeking glory and honor in combat against the most dangerous and powerful of enemies. Few in the Imperium can order a Questor Imperialis household to do anything and so the Imperium must rely on negotiation and diplomacy, yet it is ultimately the lord of each household that decides when, where and how the lances of the house will fight.

Questor Mechanicus houses are those who have entered into the complex and archaic oaths of allegiance with the Adeptus Mechanicus known as the Sidon Protocols. For some households this pact is a mutually beneficial one, whereby the house swears loyalty to the Adeptus Mechanicus, often binding itself to one or more particular Forge Worlds, fighting in the Taghmata of those forges and supporting the campaigns and exploratory expeditions of the Tech Priests. In return the house will receive significant material and technological support, advanced bionics and machine lore for the scions and Sacristans of the house, a steady supply of newly built knight armor and even access to more rare and advanced patterns of Imperial Knight and esoteric weapons of considerable power. However for some houses who enter the Sidon Protocols the alliance is more a form of indentured servitude. Perhaps the house negotiated poorly when striking a pact with the Adeptus Mechanicus or perhaps the martial strength of the house was so poor and their situation so desperate that they had no other choice than to strike a bad bargain simply to survive. In such cases the nobles of those houses are treated little different than any other military asset of the Forge Worlds, no better than the robots of the Cybernetica or the cyborg-soldiers of the Skitarii, ordered into battle at the whim of the priests with little regard for the opinions, honor or pride of the scions themselves, yet perhaps such a fate is still preferable to extinction.

Two rarer options for an Imperial house remain, Freeblades or Titanicus Vassals. In the instance of choosing a Freeblade option this represents not a true Imperial Knight house, but rather a company or loosely associated band of nobles who have sworn the “Freeblade” oath, abandoning their houses, obscuring or changing their heraldry and taking to the stars alone. For some nobles this oath can be the result of some deep shame, failure or exile. Perhaps the noble committed some dire crime or sin for which the house does not wish to execute them and end their bloodline but for which some grave punishment must be meted out. Perhaps the noble suffered a bitter defeat and in shame seeks redemption fighting alone among the far reaches of the galaxy. In other times a noble may take the Freeblade oath to escape an obligation or join a campaign against the wishes or orders of their superiors within the house. Some Freeblades are the last of their house or their line, wishing to fight to the death against impossible odds while others are favored warriors with a bright future should they return from their self-imposed exile drenched in fame and glory. On the tabletop a player may wish to represent a whole army of Freeblades who have banded together into a Freeblade company. Each warrior may have chosen to adopt a shared heraldry, or perhaps each individual knight bears its own unique paint-scheme and iconography, resulting in a bizarre array of individual tastes and personalities.

The fourth and final option for your house is to design a house that has sworn service to one of the Titan Legios of the Adeptus Titanicus. Often as a punishment or a service sworn out of desperate need for material support a Knight House may choose to forego all independence and individual authority and swear themselves to the service of one of the Legions of the Collegia Titanica as a vassal. Vassal houses are often large and extremely well equipped, the home forge world of their Titan Legion masters able to produce a steady supply of new knight armor to keep the armories of the house well stocked. Such supply is necessary however given that a vassal house is also expected to suffer considerably higher rates of attrition than a typical Questor Imperialis or Questor Mechanicus house. Fighting alongside the great God Engines of the Titan Legions is a dangerous prospect, even for the relatively large and powerful armor of the Imperial Knights. Most houses are used to being among the largest and deadliest engines of war on whatever battlefield they have joined while the warriors of a vassal house conversely inevitably take to war as among the smallest and least powerful of their kind, constantly overshadowed by the might of the battle-titans of the legions. Should a player already possess a Titan of some kind and wish for their Knight House to fight alongside it, or plan to get one in future, or are perhaps designing a Knight House for use in the Titanicus game, then the Titanicus Vassal House may be a good way to go.

Similarly for those players who have chosen to create a chaos household there are three distinct options. The first, similar to the Questor Imperialis houses, are the Iconoclast Chaos Houses. Iconoclast houses are those Knight Houses that have fallen to the sway of chaos but who do not serve the Dark Mechanicum and are not bound to the infernal forges and dark powers of the Heretek priests. Rather Iconoclast houses have maintained their independence and either maintain their own twisted machine-lore and ability to manufacture new knight armors or survive on piracy and the raiding of rivals or Imperial houses to acquire new engines. Some Iconoclast houses have served the dark powers of chaos since before their discovery by the Imperium, while many others fell to chaos during the Horus Heresy or in dark circumstances in the ten millennia since that terrible war. Among the Iconoclast houses are brutal and bloodthirsty scions who fell to chaos willingly, embracing the dark strength of the warp the better to crush their foes and revel in bloodshed and slaughter. Other houses fell to chaos through more tragic circumstances. To a noble of a knightly house honor and duty are everything, the Code Chivalric demands a noble uphold their sworn oath no matter what while also maintaining a strict adherence to the principles of honor and nobility. For some houses who made the unfortunate decision to swear oaths of allegiance and support to one of the Traitor Legions, or a Forge World that threw in with the Warmaster Horus in his rebellion, those oaths may have become impossible to uphold without betraying the dictates of the Code Chivalric. To be caught in such a situation forced the nobles of many houses into an impossible situation. They were honor bound to serve their sworn allies in battle no matter the cost yet they were being required to turn their weapons on the Imperium, to slaughter civilians, purge worlds, make pacts with daemons and coat themselves in the blood of the innocent. Many nobles minds shattered under the strain of such an impossible conflict and became maddened monsters, driven by pain and rage to destroy any foe in their way.

The second option are the Infernal Chaos Houses. These are those chaos houses that serve the Dark Mechanicum, those Tech Priests who swore service to the Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy. To the Dark Mechanicum no avenue of inquiry and experimentation is off-limits, the hereteks of the chaos forges are willing to bind daemons into amalgams of flesh and metal, engineer warp fueled scrap code and machine viruses, create abominable machine sentience and employ corrupt and proscribed weapons of terrible potency. Those houses bound to the Dark Mechanicum may have become so for various reasons. They may have served the Tech Priests in the days before the Horus Heresy and been dragged into treachery by their service, they may have been subdued and enslaved by the power and will of the fallen priests or they may have sworn service willingly in search of power and resources, willing to give their military strength to the Dark Mechanicum in exchange for the boons of the heretek priesthoods most deadly weapons and a steady supply of new armor. Some Infernal houses are little more than puppets and playthings for their Dark Mechanicum masters, the scions of the house merely flesh-and-blood machine parts entombed in their Thrones Mechanicum and treated no better than a circuit board or power cell, experimented on and bound at the whim of the priests. Others are cunning and savage fighters whose knight armors are deadly expressions of dark genius and forbidden science, forever being modified, enhanced and experimented on to create ever deadlier weapons of war.

The last chaos option are the Dreadblades, the dark equivalent of the Freeblades of the Imperial Knight houses. Among the fallen knights sworn to chaos there are those who serve no house or whose allegiance has long ago been blasted from their battered and abused armor plates, no longer discernible underneath the damage of war and the tarnish of ages. Perhaps the scion inside has simply forgotten who they serve, wandering from warzone to warzone as a deadly vagrant of death, their mind no longer able to recall their name, identity or distant homeworld. Others have chosen to abandon their former houses in search of their own dark glory, to pursue an esoteric goal, or swear service to a particular chaos lord or raider fleet. Still others were once proud members of an Imperial Knight house, driven into heresy by tragedy or circumstance, left as hollow shells of pain and rage who exist now only to bring death to those who wronged or failed them. At times Dreadblades may band together into a loose company or warband, either serving a piratical chaos lord or perhaps dominating and enslaving a chaos warband to their own desires and leading their peons into battles of their own choosing. Much like a Freeblade company a player may wish to create their own splinter warband whose numbers are too few to constitute their own distinct house but who bear a shared heraldry and identity, or perhaps field a collection of entirely idiosyncratic and individual chaos knights who share no iconography.

Imperial Options:
A: Questor Imperialis – B: Questor Mechanicus – C: Freeblade Company – D: Titanicus Vassal

Chaos Options:

A: Iconoclast – B: Infernal – C: Dreadblade

Choosing the allegiance of your force is an important first step in designing your own distinct force of Imperial Knights. Whether Imperial or Chaos this choice can help inform your color scheme, markings, heraldry, equipment and more. You may already have an idea of what choice you will make or perhaps you may need to consider it a while but once you have chosen an option then it is time to move on to the next step.

Step 2: Color Scheme

Now that you have chosen the allegiance of your household it is time to decide on a color scheme. Truly your options are effectively numberless, it is your army and should look how you want it to look and maybe your color choice will in part reflect your painting ability or personal tastes and it can take time to figure out the exact scheme you want for your army. However the choice of allegiance you made can help inform that decision somewhat and give you some general idea of what colors you might wish to adopt for your house. Here I will lay out a rough outline of common schemes for each of the allegiance options from Step 1.

Questor Imperialis Households

-Questor Imperialis houses often bear bright pastel colors, blue, yellow, green, white, purple and orange are common examples of dominant colors. This primary color will then be balanced by a secondary color, often black, red or white which will be featured as the background for the Imperial heraldry of the house that is typically marked on the inside halves of the shin plates and the back-facing halves of the shoulder plates. The secondary color may also be used to adorn the plates of weapons or be used to denote rank or show honors on certain armor plates. Most Questor Imperialis knights will bear the Aquila of the Imperium on their top carapace as a symbol of their allegiance to the Emperor.

Questor Mechanicus Households

-Many Questor Mechaincus houses will feature some shade of red as their dominant heraldic color, in honor of the red-sands of Mars. Black, yellow and white are common secondary colors used as backgrounds for showing the Questor Mechaicus allegiance markings on the inside of shin plates and back half of shoulder plates. Honor and rank markings also often feature these secondary colors. In recognition of their service to the Omnissiah and the Mechanicus most knights of Questor Mechanicus households will feature the Cog Mechanicus as an icon on their top carapace. 

 

Freeblade Companies

-A Freeblade Company may feature any variety of colors or heraldry, its knights may all share a heraldry distinct to their group or may all feature completely individual markings unique to the scion piloting each knight. Unlike Questor Imperialis and Questor Mechanicus houses Freeblades need not display the Aquila of the Imperialis loyalty or the Cog Mechanicus of the Martial loyalty but instead will often feature a skull and laurel icon on their top carapace as a symbol of their independence.

Titanicus Vassal Households

-Vassal households of the Adeptus Titanicus may bear their own distinct heraldry conforming either to the Questor Imperialis or Questor Mechanicus schema, or may incorporate elements of the Titan Legion to which the house is sworn, or may be painted in exact replica of the heraldry of their sworn Legion.

 

Iconoclast Households

-Iconoclast households often bear heraldry similar to that of the Questor Imperialis households save that they will replace the Aquila of Imperial service on the back of their shoulders and shin plates with the eight-pointed star of chaos. Often the colors of an Iconoclast house will be darker and dirtier than those of the Imperial households, the fallen nobles taking less care in maintaining their colors. Secondary colors are used as background for their chaos allegiance markings and to depict rank, honors and so forth. Another small difference is that Iconoclast houses often feature their chaos allegiance marked on the outside half of their shin plates rather than the inside half typical of Questor Imperialis households.

Infernal Households

-Some Infernal Households appear as dark reflections of their Questor Mechanicus counterparts, with red featuring heavily in their colors and their heraldry featuring cogs and machine symbols. Some Infernal houses do feature other distinct colors than red as their primary color however symbols of the Dark Mechanicum, cyborg skulls, cogs and the like still often feature heavily in their markings.

Dreadblade Companies

-Like their Freeblade counterparts Dreadblade Companies may feature a unified and distinct heraldry or a diverse panoply of colors and markings, each completely different and distinct from any other. Perhaps the company is a long-standing band of renegades or a completely random accretion of scattered individuals who have come together for a single campaign or raid and owe no greater allegiance to one another and thus adopt no unified heraldry.

Step 3: Heraldry and Name

For a homebrew Knight Household choosing heraldry can be one of the most difficult steps. For many hobbyists the option to freehand a unique heraldic design may simply be beyond your painting skills, similarly custom printing transfers and applying them with products like microset and microsol may not be something any individual hobbyist is comfortable with. However those options are a good way to go if you do wish to go all in and design your own custom Knight heraldry. This heraldry may be informed by your own family heritage, perhaps there are elements of your lineage that you wish to incorporate into the design of your fictional Knight house. Or perhaps there is simply a design that you heavily favor and wish to use. Alternately it may be easier to take existing transfers or designs, be they from those transfers supplied with the Knight models themselves or sourced from Astra Militarum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astartes or Chaos Space Marine boxed sets respectively, or more besides for that matter. An ambitious hobbyist may decide to cut up several existing transfers, wings from an Astra Militarum vehicle aquila to go alongside an Imperial Fist transfer and create a custom design that way. You may wish to source 3D printed components or icons from any of several creators on Shapeways or sculpt something from green stuff or other two-part epoxy putty. Honestly there is no wrong way to go about pulling off the heraldry of your custom knight army and exploration and experimentation here can be a great help in finalizing a design. To assist I have outlined some notable heraldic base rules for each typical allegiance noted above, rules to which you may adhere, modify or abandon at your own discretion though personally I find sticking within a framework helps a custom home brew feel more connected to the established universe.

This is also the step at which you should really consider and finalize the name for your household. There is really no bad option to go with here, only that the name is suitable to and interesting to you as the hobbyist. You may choose to name your house after your own family name, taking inspiration from your own heritage, or name it after a prominent historical figure you admire, or a military force that you respect, or you may choose to take inspiration from some piece of history, mythology or religion. Any of these influences and more are totally suitable for the purpose of inspiring a name for your house, and the name you choose may also inform your decision about heraldry, iconography and markings, or visa versa.

Questor Imperialis Households

-Knights of a Questor Imperialis Household will typically bear an Aquila marking displaying their allegiance on the back half of their shoulder plates and the inner-facing half of their shin-plates. The heraldry of the house in its simplified form will then be featured on the front-facing half of the left shoulder-plate and outer half of the shin plates and the house heraldry will appear in full on the tilting shield of the knight and the banner that hangs between the knight's legs. The front-half of the right shoulder-plate will feature the individual heraldry of the scion piloting that particular knight. Kill markings and honors are often depicted on the banner below the full heraldry of the house. Rank markings may be shown with stripes in the secondary color of the house from front to back along the main carapace. Two stripes along either side of the pilot's hatch represent a Baron while a single stripe down the middle represents a High King or Seneschal. 

 

 

Questor Mechanicus Households

-Like their Imperialis kin the Questor Mechanicus houses will feature their iconography of allegiance, the cog-mechanicus on the back-half of their shoulder plates and inner half of their shin plates. Unlike their Questor Imperialis counterparts Mechanicus knights do not typically display personal heraldry but often feature the simplified heraldry of the house on the front-half of both left and right shoulder plates as well as on the outer half of their shin plates and the full heraldry on the tilt shield and banner. Carapace markings may indicate the rank of the pilot or in some cases are more indicative of the age and experience of the knight armor itself than the pilot. 

Freeblade Companies

-Freeblades do not conform to the typical armorial heraldic patterns and prescriptions of Questoris households instead choosing to adopt heraldry unique to the individual that often spreads over multiple armor plates. The shoulders, shins, tilt shield, banner and even carapace of a Freeblade may feature various forms of the same or varied heraldic symbols and elements.

Titanicus Vassal Households

-Sworn to the service and command of a Legion of the Adeptus Titanicus a Vassal House may bear its own unique heraldry, either a new heraldry created to represent its service or the ancient heraldry of the house from before its tenure of service with a Legion began. Alternatively a Vassal House may feature heraldry that incorporates elements of the Titan Legio it is bound to or simply bear the complete heraldry of that Titan Legion with no particularly unique or individual heraldic aspects to mark the house out as an independent body of its own.

 

Iconoclast Households

-Iconoclast Households will often feature their markings of allegiance to chaos on the back half of their shoulder-plates and on the outer half of their shin plates. The inner-half of their shin plates and front half of their left shoulder plates will feature the simplified heraldry of the house. Unlike Questoris households the Iconoclast Households may or may not feature a more complete or ornate variant of their household crest on their tilt shield or banner, if they have one, but will often feature a variant of their own personal heraldry on those spaces different in addition to, and often a little different than, the typical personal heraldry shown on the front half of the right shoulder plate.  

 

Infernal Households

-Similar to the Iconoclast Households the Infernal households may feature their allegiance to the Dark Mechanicum in a twisted cog symbol on the back half of their shoulder plates and outer half of their shin plates. Household iconography will then be displayed on the inner-half of their shin plates and front half of the left shoulder plate while the front half of the right shoulder, the tilt shield and banner will display variants of personal heraldry.

Dreadblades

-Like their Freeblade counterparts Dreadblades can feature any variety of personal heraldry that does not need to, nor appear to, conform to any particular schema or pattern. The markings may signify something ritualistic in their placement or composition or may be the result of the mad ravings and dark visions of the pilot or perhaps even denote allegiance or membership in some chaos cult or renegade warband.

Step 4: Homeworld 

 

Congratulations! If you have reached this step you may simply choose to stop and be done, you have an allegiance, color scheme and heraldry and that may be all the further you want to go with designing your own custom Knight household or army. However, if you wish to expand that concept further with more background then this step and those that follow can help with that. First and foremost lets discuss the homeworld of your house. Much of the character and nature of the house will depend on that homeworld, it may inform the character of the house, may be reflective of the heraldry or color scheme, may inform the personality and beliefs of the scions of your house. Many things are tied to the character of the world from which your house hails. So lets discuss some options.

Many Imperial Knight worlds are feudal backwaters. Often Knight worlds survived Old Night because the esoteric systems of the Thrones Mechanicum molded the scions who piloted them, forging the pilots into a distinct set of behaviors and values that often imitate the ancient feudal societies of Old Earth. As a result knight worlds often rejected new technology, eschewing the use of the Men of Iron, abominable intelligences, bio-engineering, psychic powers and chrono tech that so devastated the great colonies of mankind at the outset of the Dark Age of Technology. When psykers arose in the populations of knight worlds they were often hunted down and destroyed as abominations and witches, protecting knight worlds from daemonic incursion and anarchy. The very isolationism and backwards attitudes towards innovation and technology insulated the knight worlds well from the chaos that befell many of their neighbors. As a result however many knight worlds possess a modest population that lives in a pre-industrial level of technology, the peasant servants of the houses plowing farm fields with animal drawn equipment and chopping down trees with saws and axes for firewood while the nobles stride out from castles of carved stone in their adamantium and ceramite clad warmachines armed with energy weapons capable of slaying Titans. What manufacturing and industrial capacity does exist on many knight worlds is almost exclusively the purview of the Sacristans of the Knight house, those technologically trained servants of the house responsible for maintaining and repairing the arms and armor of the house and in some cases the forging of new weapons and armor.

Yet not all Imperial Knight worlds are quite so backwards, some are more industrialized, maintaining considerable mining and manufacturing infrastructure, with some relatively modern cities and industrial centers scattered across the surface, yet few feature the vast hives or sprawling manufactoria of heavily populous Imperial worlds. Some knight households do not possess worlds of their own but call one of the many Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus home. The knights of House Taranis are famous for their origins on the legendary world of Mars for example. In these cases the scions of the house may be used to walking the halls of sweltering forge complexes, weaving their way around scuttling Tech-Priests, lumbering labor servitors and buzzing servo-automatae as they stride across gantries above rivers of molten metal or great lines of machines hammering out components from sheets of plasteel. Outside these forges the environments of these worlds have often fallen into a completely inhospitable and toxic hellscape, great dunes of waste material dotting the landscape between pools of volatile spilled fuel or toxic runoff. Radiation, rust and choking fumes have likely rendered the barren wastes inimical to life, populated only by those few hardy souls trying to salvage useful scrap from the waste piles, shrouded in hardened environment suits and clutching to precious tanks of breathable but questionably-pure oxygen.

Still other knight households may have lost their homeworlds entirely. Perhaps some ancient cataclysm shattered their home and scattered the nobles to the stars, or recent catastrophe has driven them from their keeps and domains to escape the widening great rift or the hungering tendrils of the Tyranid Hive Fleets. Perhaps these nobles seek somewhere else to settle or have sworn to fight to the bitter end to reclaim their lost home or die trying.

 

Whatever the nature of your household's homeworld that world represents the origin and stronghold of your house's culture, history and beliefs. It will be where the greatest relics of the house are stored, the burials and monuments of your house's greatest heroes, it will store the great Vault Transcendent where the knight armors of the house are kept between campaigns, the forges and libraries where the tech-lore of the house is used and maintained. The nature of the world can inform the type of imagery used by the house, the character of its nobles, the language they speak, the way they dress and the ideals they uphold. After the allegiance and heraldry of your house your choice of homeworld is an important aspect of the background of your house. For convenience I have laid out some general options listed below that can help make that choice.

Feudal World

-This knight world has been kept in a state of medieval technology for many centuries, the inhabitants tending the land, living, laboring and perishing under the harsh necessities of a life without most modern technologies, watched over by the scions of the house from their fortress keeps. The people of this world are hardy and strong but poorly educated and heavily reliant on the nobles of the house to protect them should their world come under attack. 

 

Feral World

-The majority of the population of this world have been allowed to regress into a near stone-age level of technology, living as nomadic hunter-gatherers or in villages of mud huts or perhaps living in tents made from animal bone and cured hide. The knight scions who rule the world live in isolated fortresses forbidden for the natives to approach and the nobles and their knights are viewed as mythic gods of war and death among the feral tribes people. From time to time the nobles of the house may sally forth on a hunt to cull the tribes and prevent them from ever attempting to rise up and assail the fortresses of the knights, or the nobles may hunt deadly native megafauna, their titanic battles viewed from a distance by the awed natives who scurry away into the shadows at the slightest sign of notice.

Agri World

-This pastoral knight world has been largely tamed, the wilds rendered into vast stretches of farm where crops are grown or animals are raised and harvested. Whether tended by hand or with the aid of industrial machines the vast fields and pastures of this planet produce a vast wealth of food which is primarily shipped off world to feed the ever hungry populations of nearby Hive and Forge worlds. The nobles of this world oversee their domains from their fortresses, striding out to defend their world alongside peasant militias should an enemy ever come or taking to the void to join distant campaigns as the need arises.

 

Ocean World

-This knight world may be largely or almost entirely covered in vast stretches of ocean. The native inhabitants exist clutching to what few landmasses exist or afloat on massive flotillas of vessels or floating fortresses and cities. Perhaps the nobles have even managed to craft underwater keeps and habitats where the population harvests the wealth of the oceans from their homes beneath the waves. Sealed in their heavy armor the nobles of the house may stride across the ocean depths, hunting titanic sea monsters for sport or to protect their vassals.

 

Desert World

-Little water or vegetation can be seen on this planet from orbit, the natives crawl across the surface darting from oasis to oasis, their lives measured in the reliability and protection of wells and aquifers and their ability to avoid the predators that prowl the sands. From their fortresses carved into the mountains and valleys of this world the knight scions stride out to hunt great sand wyrms and monstrous giant scorpions that infest the world and prey on the natives.

 

Shrine World

-This knight world has fully embraced the creed of the Ecclessiarchy, embracing the Emperor as their one-true God this world has been completely given over to the worship of the Imperial cult. Perhaps in centuries past a storied saint visited this world in its hour of need, helping to drive off the forces of chaos or halt a xenos invasion, or perhaps the nobles earned great renown defending a Cardinal world and were declared saints themselves, their sacred bones interred in their tombs now sites of worship and pilgrimage for millions of the faithful from across the galaxy.

 

Paradise World

-Whatever dangerous flora or fauna or invasive xenos once plagued this world have long been driven off. Now the carefully managed pastures, forests and lakes of this idyllic paradise are fervently protected by the nobles of the house who have preserved their world in all its beauty from the rigors of mass exploitation, mining and manufacturing that would spoil its beauty and contaminate its environment. The nobles of the house strive to preserve this natural state of harmony and will stride out from their marble-fronted bastions to cull predator populations, exterminate invasive xenos species or drive off any enemy foolish enough to lay foot or claw on the precious soil of this world.

 

Death World

-What lunatic madman thought inhabiting this world in the distant past was a good idea has now been lost to history. For good or ill this world became a knight world and the nobles who call it home fight a bitter struggle for survival every day. Savage jungles are hacked and burned away before they can claw their way up the sides of the household keeps and strangle the turret weapons in their sockets. Native flora and fauna are culled regularly, great beasts and terrible infestations of deadly plants are torn up, blasted and burned before they can threaten the nobles or their non-combatant servants who carve a meager existence from this brutal world.

 

Industrial World

-The hammer of industry can be heard for many leagues across the surface of this planet. What rugged beauty it might have had in the past has slowly been tainted by the smog of industry and the vast stretches of rockcrete and plasteel of manufactories, habs, storage hangars and dockyards. Shuttles regularly rise and fall through the sky, ferrying material on and off world in a steady, relentless stream, the product of this world's forges and factorum fueling the endless wars and expansion of the Imperium. From their fortresses the nobles garrison this world and protect its industry from any threat, their own armories stocked to the brim with weapons and munitions forged in their own halls and the walls manned by well-equipped planetary defense troops.

 

Hive World

-Somehow this knight world has left the limitations of tradition and isolationism behind, either through dire necessity or strange circumstance and become home to billions of souls, toiling, fighting and dying in the artificially lit depths of vast and sprawling hive cities likely without ever having seen the open sky once in their lives. The great avenues of the city have been forged to allow the great engines of the house to stride along their lengths without impediment, the great gun batteries and bastions along the outer skin featuring battlements sized for the knight armors of the house to man them. Dominating the center of the capitol hive is the great fortress of the house, a monumental bastion to the power of the house and home to the Vault Transcendent and great armories.

 

Fortress World

-Whether positioned along a strategic warp route, situated closely to vital resource worlds or simply finding itself on the brutal frontier located dangerously close to some Ork Empire or persistent warp storm home to the legions of chaos this world has been forced through bitter necessity to transform itself into a planetary fortress. Vast stretches of plains are dotted with hundreds of miles of razor wire, tens of thousands of mines and hundreds of remote turrets. Trenches encircle strategic fortresses and bastion cities, thousands of grim and hardened planetary defense troops and Imperial guardsmen manning the barracks and watch-posts, their eyes ever scanning the horizon for any sign of a threat. Time and again the scions of the house stride out from their battle-scarred fortresses to bring battle to the foe and drive them from their world once more.

 

Forge World

-Like the distant red-planet of Mars in whose likeness this world was crafted the home of this house is a ravaged wasteland of mass industry. Huge open-air mines plunge hundreds of meters into the crust of this world where thousands of tonnes of ore were stripped from the earth and fed into the forges. Huge mountains of iron dot the plains, their flanks lit with the fire of countless forges and their spires spitting clouds of foul exhaust into the air in an endless stream. From the great manufactoria everything from the humble lasgun to the mighty God Engines of the Titan Legions are forged, ready to be fed into the endless and ever hungry wars of the Imperium of Man. Sworn to the service of the red priests the knights of the house garrison the forge fanes, standing sentry at the gates of the principal forges, patrolling the avenues and scouring the wastes for any sign of a threat. When called on the nobles take ship and embark on military expeditions to recover lost technology, defend the assets of their masters or fight alongside the great engines of the Collegia Titanica.

 

Dead World

-Scoured by solar radiation, purged by virus bomb or ravaged by orbital bombardment, whatever catastrophe has befallen this knight world has left it dead and inimical to life. No plants grow here, no water remains, what little atmosphere remains is not breathable. The surface of this world is dotted with the ravaged carcasses of dead cities and scorched forests, nothing but bleached bone and dust remaining of a once vibrant civilization. Yet the nobles of the house that call this world home refuse to leave. From inside environmentally sealed fortresses the embittered and dour survivors of the house continue to garrison their ancient domain, sallying forth to join the Emperor's wars or to protect what remains of their holdings from any and all intruders. No matter how much has been lost, to the nobles of this house their pride and their duty remain and so long as one of their number yet breathes they will not abandon their home.

 

Lost World

-Pastoral paradise or brutal death world, whatever the ancient home of this house once was it has now been lost. Ravaged by natural disaster, destroyed by their enemies or swallowed up in a warp storm the home of this house is now gone. Those nobles who survive now live a nomadic existence, traveling from warzone to warzone, salvaging replacement armor where they can or bartering for fresh material in exchange for military aid to whomever will take their service. Scavengers, beggers, even thieves, this house has stooped to many ignoble deeds but one thing remains certain, they will not surrender to their fate, no matter the odds they will survive. Maybe they seek to reclaim their lost home, avenge their tragedy on their enemies or carve out a new home for themselves on some long-lost frontier, or perhaps the last few survivors seek only an honorable death in battle and have already accepted the ultimate extinction of their house.

 

Daemon World

-Whether embraced willingly or not the homeworld of this house is now a madhouse and plaything for the whims of daemons and monsters. Huge yellow eyes the size of Titans swivel in fleshy sockets in the mountains shaped from bone to watch as the knights of the house battle each other in savage duels across plains of undulating human skin and through forests of crystallized blood. The mad scions of the house take ship alongside the traitor legions, renegades and pirates to reap a bloody tally against the warriors of the corpse emperor. The scions who call this world home are ever desperate for vengeance or the chance to earn brutal glory in the fires of combat, especially against those of their own kind who still serve the Emperor or the Omnissiah.

Step 5: Size 

 

Now that you have determined the homeworld of your house it is time to consider the total size and military strength of your house and whether it shares its home with other houses or is the dominant force on its world. As with many things in the Warhammer 40,000 universe exact numbers are often left rather unclear, leaving much room for speculation and exploration, allowing players and hobbyists to fill in the gaps. Yet for Imperial Knight households we do have some rough numbers for classifying the size of a house thanks to the Horus Heresy books. Most Imperial Knight houses will fall along the line of one of several grades denoting the number of knight armors and pilots available to the house at any given time, these are as follows:

Household Grade Primaris: More than 300 Knight Armors

Household Grade Secundus: Between 100 and 300 Knight Armors

Household Grade Tertius: 100 or fewer Knight Armors

Mors Obselarus: Too few Knight Armors or Scions to survive

These grades can help inform the total size and strength of your own knight house. Perhaps your house is large and well equipped and falls into the higher end of the Secundus Grade, or perhaps long attrition and misfortune have meant that your house now falls into the Tertius Grade or perhaps the loss of your house homeworld and terrible casualties have meant that the last few scions of your house are all that is left and their only remaining desire is to seek vengeance against the enemy, and regain their honor in ceaseless combat. Typically only the most ancient and powerful Knight Houses will field armors numbering in the Primaris grade and even then likely capping out somewhere around five to seven hundred knight armors in total.

However a knight world is not necessarily home to merely one knight house but may be home to several or even a dozen different knightly houses, each with their own domains, armors, heraldry and traditions, all vying for a position of rulership and dominance among the labyrinthine political hierarchies of their world. In such an instance each house may be unable to field more than a few score of knight armors and fall well within the Tertius grade of strength, but when taken in total the grand strength of knight armors on that particular knight world may stand in the Primaris grade. It should also be noted that the strength of a house counts only those machines equipped with a full Throne Mechanicum, such as Questoris, Dominus, Acastus and Cerastus pattern armors, not the smaller Armiger class engines. Thus a house graded in the Secundus rank could include some two hundred Knight armors but twice as many Armigers. While considering the total number of knights it can also be helpful to consider what type of knights predominate in the house. Maybe the house is fortunate enough to contain many Cerastus patterns or has managed to preserve an ancient and potent Acastus class knight, or perhaps the greater bulk of the house is simply made up of the most common Questoris patterns, those most readily available and in production still across the Imperium.

A household's strength will also, depending on the house and its access to technology and resources, include a not insignificant number of additional forces. Each house will, no matter it's fortunes, include at least a small number of household troops or guard of some kind, to serve as bodyguards and garrison the fortress and holdings of the house. Some houses will possess substantially greater support forces including planetary defense troops, artillery, tanks, gunships, interdiction fighters and bombers all to protect the domains of the house. Certain houses, particularly those not sworn to the service of the Adeptus Mechanicus or Dark Mechanicum will possess and maintain their own modest fleets, both for the protection of their homeworld and domains as well as to transport the forces of the house from warzone to warzone. Those houses not fortunate enough, or wealthy enough, to possess their own fleets must catch rides on Imperial navy ships, Rogue Trader expeditions or perhaps even strike cruisers of the Adeptus Astartes to get from one battle to the next.

Households sworn to the service of the Adeptus Mechanicus or under the thrall of the Dark Mechanicum however do not need to maintain their own fleets or support troops. Questor Mechanicus houses fight alongside the entire strength of the Taghmata of the Forge Worlds to which they have sworn allegiance. This means that the nobles of a Questor Mechanicus house can call upon the support of the Skitarii Legions, the battle-robots of the Cybernetica, hosts of augmented battle-servitors, servitor-piloted aircraft, dropships and berths on the Ark Mechanicum and explorator vessels of the Mechanicus and the mass conveyors of the Adeptus Titanicus. Similarly those scions under the thrall of the Dark Mechanicum need not dominate their own lesser warbands or join their might to renegade pirates for troops and transport but can rely on the strength of the heretek's own warbands of mutated and warp infused cyborg abominations and warmachines and transport on whatever ancient warp-corrupted vessels the Dark Mechanicum uses for its purposes.

Obviously the size of a knight house and its attendant forces is going to be influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the homeworld from which the house hails and its access to allies and resources. A house sworn to the Adeptus Mechanicus or the Adeptus Titanicus can call upon a sizable supply of fresh knight armors to replace losses and expand its ranks while a house scraping by on a Feudal or Desert world located in a remote region of space, separated from the bulk of civilization by some hazardous zone or far from a stable warp route will struggle to maintain a steady supply of new arms and armor and will likely number fewer functional suits at any given time. If a house has been driven from its homeworld perhaps it once numbered in the high Secundus grade but time and losses have driven it down into the Tertius. Meanwhile a once battered house recently rediscovered by the Imperium might number only a few dozen armors but swearing allegiance to a Forge World and getting resupplied could lead the house ranks to grow rapidly into the hundreds.

Step 6: Culture

 

With the foundation of your homebrew house or company now fully established it is time to add some true background flavor to the army and the best ways to add a unique flavor to a house or army is in the culture of the house. A player may have chosen to set their house on a feudal world, sworn to the Imperium, possessed of a modest Tertius grade number of knights following closely all the specified markings conventions and yet still present a very distinct force by featuring a heavy Egyptian influence in the culture of the house. Markings and personal heraldry feature heiroglyphics, the helm masks of each knight have been converted to feature Anubis style helmets and Reaper chainswords have been modded to look like great Khopesh blades. Another player might make their house more industrial in nature, eschewing the martial honor and glory-seeking to present a house that is more blue-collar, featuring drills and rock-hammers in place of claws and swords and with lots of hazard stripes, chipped paint and patch jobs to show a house that is less prosperous and more hard working than the more noble aesthetic typical of Imperial Knights. Some of these distinctions can be represented purely through the background even if little is shown in the modeling or painting of the army, perhaps your house features many storied duelists and sword masters or is renowned as artists and poets off the battlefield. The culture of a given homebrew house can flow from the allegiance, homeworld and relative power chosen for the house or be somewhat unusual. You could have a house sworn to the Mechanicum that prefers to avoid augmentation and does not particularly worship the Omnissiah but instead focus their attention on art and music when not on the battlefield, or have a small feudal house with few knights that are kleptomaniacs hoarding lost knowledge and artifacts that they have little capacity to truly understand or use but hoard anyway. For convenience I will now list some common and effective examples to help you create the culture of your house.

Bitter Campaigners

-The nobles of this house have seen much war and many losses, though still possessed of decent strength many are the seats that sit empty at feasts, the wine may still flow, the music may still play, but the campaigns of the house have taken a bitter tole and the manner of the nobles has become increasingly dour and fatalistic over the centuries. Once boisterous and proud the nobles of this house now march to war with grim determination, executing their foes casually and mercilessly, eschewing honor duels and ritual combat in favor of brutal efficiency. It no longer matters how glorious the victory, only that it is a victory.

Cruel Aristocrats

-The nobles of this house hold themselves as incalculably superior to the warriors of lesser military orders, viewing themselves as more deadly, more effective, and more valuable and honestly they are correct. An Imperial Knight house is an extremely valuable military asset to the Imperium and the nobles of this house know it. Worlds that seek their aid must cough up considerable material recompense as “tithes” to the nobles lest their calls for aid go unanswered. Moreover lesser Imperial forces have learned not to get too close to the knights of this house lest they become an inadvertent victim of accidental “friendly” fire.

Significant Cultural Influence

-Whether boasting drunkards in knotted beards wielding ornately etched axes or oiled aristocrats swathed in silk robes with their faces hidden behind golden masks the nobles of this house boast an obvious cultural influence from the ancient civilizations of old earth, cultures carried to their world aboard the colony arks from the lost golden age of mankind's expansion across the stars, likely further entrenched and exaggerated by the technology of the Thrones Mechanicum.

A Glorious Life and a Short One

-The nobles of this house are ambitious, driven, aggressive and hungry for glory. Whatever the wider strategic concerns of a battlefield the nobles of this house will eschew all thought for tactics and the orders of their allies and will seek out the most formidable enemies to fight, facing off against their chosen foes one on one if possible and slaying them in ritual combat. Only through such honorable means may a warrior of this house prove themselves and earn renown and they will pursue this objective no matter the odds or circumstances.

Machine Gifted

-The nobles of this house, whether through the careful preservation of knowledge long hoarded by the house from the days of Old Night, or through careful study and the instruction of the Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the scions of this house possess a notable affinity with the machine, often performing minor repairs and maintenance on their own knight armors and boasting technologies and mechanisms in their armors unknown to the warriors of most houses.

Ancient Arsenal

-Well preserved over centuries of war the knight armors of this house are old, many dating back to the dark times before the coming of the Imperium. Long millennia of war has left scores of psychological imprints of past scions on the systems of each knight armor of this house, granting the spirits of their Thrones Mechanicus considerable wisdom and experience but also bellicose and grim characteristics. The nobles of this house have learned to utilize the hard-won knowledge of their thrones to their benefit, often anticipating the actions and strategies of their foes, forewarned by the insight and experience of their armor's past pilots.

Zealous Crusaders

-Firm believers in the Imperial cult, the nobles of this house are ever ready to march at the forefront of the many wars of faith that rage across the galaxy, marshaling for war at the behest of Ecclessiarchy Cardinals or Inquisitors of the Ordo Hereticus and often fighting alongside the warriors of the Adeptus Sororitas. Wherever the plague of heresy can be found so too can the nobles of this house, their armor bedecked in purity seals and symbols of faith, their horns blaring hymns of worship these nobles stride into the fire of battle guns blazing as they purge the mutant, the heretic and the traitor.

Explorers of the Outer Dark

-Used to long isolation and independent operation the many lances of this house have often been attached in small groups to the fleets of Rogue Traders Militant and Adeptus Mechanicus Explorators as they set out on expeditions of discovery into the uncharted reaches of the galaxy. Though they may be gone for years, or even decades at a time, the nobles of this house have earned a wealth of experience fighting foes most warriors in the Imperium have never heard of, and that may well no longer exist and seen sights few souls have ever witnessed.

Pirates and Scavengers

-Few in number and possessing even fewer allies the nobles of this house have been forced over the years to turn to ever less savory methods to continue their existence. Legitimate sources of supply and re-armament have dried up, been lost or broken down and now the nobles of this house must scavenge or steal what they can to survive. Many an ally has found their battlefield dead picked clean, fallen armors stolen in the aftermath of the fighting before they could be recovered, supply stores raided and fuel depots emptied. When such simple looting fails or no force is willing to countenance the presence of this house they may simply fall upon isolated supply fleets and take what they need by force, after all, anything is preferable to extinction.

Steadfast Allies

-The nobles of this house have a long history fighting alongside particular fighting forces of the Imperium, be they storied regiments of the Astra Militarum or chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Whatever the case may be the house has forged firm bonds of brotherhood with their fellow warriors and will answer the call to aid their friends if and when it comes, no matter what.

Genetic Deviance

-The nobles of this house are quite simply odd looking in some way. They might be unusually tall, or their skin color an unusual shade, perhaps their eyes or facial structures are particularly distinct or their fingers unusually long. In some way the nobles of this house are somewhat visually distinct from the greater mass of humanity scattered across the stars, the legacy of some genetic manipulation that was performed on the bloodlines of the house in the distant past, the better to enable them to survive the harsh environment or peculiar conditions of their homeworld.

Unusual Composition

-The nobles of this house field knight armors of less common patterns in numbers rarely seen within the ranks of other houses or organize its lances in a way that is unusual. Perhaps this house fields a sizable number of Cerastus-pattern armors, ancient relics long preserved by the great care and attention of the house Sacristans, or freshly-forged material provided by a rare Forge World still capable of their manufacture. Perhaps the nobles of this house field lances of unusual composition, entire formations of Gallants or Crusaders, their roles entirely focused to maximum effect or field lances that only ever comprise a single full-sized knight armor supported by a number of smaller Armigers, rather than concentrating the heavy armor of the house together.

Mysterious Character

-For some reason the nobles of this house comport themselves in a manner that is mysterious and often off-putting to their allies. Maybe the nobles only ever appear with their faces hidden behind ritual masks, never allowing their faces to be seen by outsiders, or the nobles of this house may simply never allow themselves to be seen outside the cockpits of their knight armors, appearing in strategic meetings only ever by remote hololith. Why the nobles of the house behave this way is unknown but so long as they continue to serve loyally and comport themselves well in battle most within the Imperial military are willing to overlook this quirk.

Tragic Fall

-Through no real fault of their own the nobles of this house have fallen from grace, been castigated as heretics or traitors or been incurably tainted in some way. Perhaps the fleet transporting the bulk of the house was caught in a warp storm, the knight scions becoming twisted by the empyrion and devolving into horrid mutants, or their homeworld was swallowed by the great rift, sealing the fate of the house as the power of chaos corrupted everything it touched, including the minds and bodies of the nobles. Or perhaps the fall was more political, the house marching to the aid of an ally only to learn too late that they fought to protect traitors or heretics, inadvertently tainting themselves by association and being declared Excomunicate Traitoris by the Inquisition for their unintended crimes. Whatever the reason the surviving nobles of this house are now traitors by deed or circumstance and have been forced into the arms of the great enemy for survival.

Recently Discovered

-Long isolated by warp storms or the absence of stable warp routes this house has only recently been rediscovered by the forces of the Imperium and brought into contact with the rest of the galaxy. Hardships suffered through its many centuries cut off from the wider galaxy has left this house with few functional knight armors and though now benefiting from promises of resupply by a newly allied Forge World the nobles of this house have yet to truly make an impact on the Imperium, have earned little glory or renown and are still largely unknown. The functioning of the Imperium and the myriad agencies and orders of its military and bureaucracy are also still mysterious to the nobles of this house who still struggle to integrate themselves into the fighting forces they now find themselves serving alongside.

Inescapably Bound

-Whether tricked into a terrible deal or forced into one by dire necessity the nobles of this house now serve the Adeptus Mechanicus or one of the Legions of the Adeptus Titanicus as little better than indentured servants, bound utterly to the will and command of their masters with little or no remaining independence or authority. The nobles of this house cannot truly decide where or when they will fight or how but must serve at the beck and call of their sworn lieges, throwing themselves into battle on the orders of others as though they were no better than the cyborg soldiers of the Skitarii Legions.

Matriarchal Society

-Throughout its long history the lords of the house have all been honored Matriarchs, the women of the house holding positions of greater power and prominence than the male scions of the house. The Barons and lance commanders are all typically women and the High Queen of the house is the ultimate authority and ruler of the house homeworld.

Reaver Lords

-The nobles of this fallen house are often wont to take over and dominate bands of renegades and pirates, not content to serve in the warbands of random chaos lords or traitor space marine commanders this house prefers to lead, not be led. Striking from the raging warp storms of the great rift the ramshackle fleets of pirates and renegades this house has forced into its service raid the fringes of the Imperium, armies of raving cultists and half-mad mutants soaking up the munitions of the Imperium's soldiers before the nobles of this house deign to take to the field and finish off their weakened foes.

Battered but Unbroken

-The homeworld of this house was recently ravaged by invasion that was halted only at great cost. Whether a splinter tendril of one of the many Hive Fleets of the Tyranids, or a rampaging greenskin Waaagh the invasion cost this house dearly. Perhaps it was once one of several houses on its homeworld but now stands alone or once possessed hundreds of knight armors now reduced to a mere handful of still functioning survivors. No matter the circumstances the losses have been severe but the battle was won and the nobles of this house are determined to rebuild, recover and exact revenge.

This list is far from exhaustive, nor does each example go into too great a detail rather these should hopefully serve as examples and inspiration for potential directions to take the culture of your own homebrew house.

Step 7: Finishing Touches

 

Now that you have worked out the allegiance, colors, heraldry, homeworld, size and culture of your knight house or company it is time to consider and work out the remaining elements of your house's identity, personality, combat doctrine, beliefs and so on. In this step I am going to lay out a series of characteristics and decisions to be made to help fully flesh out the character of a homebrew knight house or freeblade company. Many of these characteristics are going to be in part or in whole informed by the previous decisions made about your household, the size and strength of your house, the nature of its homeworld, will obviously have an impact on its doctrines and beliefs, political associations and general mien of the knight scions who serve the house. So lets lay out some characteristics.

History

-How old is the house, when was it discovered by the Imperium, a short list of the most significant battles fought in the history of the house, these details can help fill out the background of your house and give it greater character. You do not really need to compose a fifty-page long treatise on the entire history of the house stretching back ten thousand years to the ages before the Horus Heresy but a few pages summarizing the most significant events and distant origins of the house can really help further establish and reinforce its particular character. Over time this aspect of a house can be further added to as you play games and forge stories for your knights. I personally like to keep track of the games I play and the notable kills my knights make and try to weave them into the ongoing history of my house.

Beliefs

-One of the first aspects of a house or company's personality to consider is their beliefs. If the house is a Questor Imperialis house does its scions worship the Emperor as a God or do they eschew the tenets of the Imperial Church, leaning on the independence and martial strength of the house to flaunt the strictures of the Imperium's faith without drawing a charge of heresy. Perhaps the household's refusal to acknowledge the Emperor as a god has led to conflicts with the Ecclessiarchy or perhaps the household is a devout body of zealous warrior monks who will leap at the opportunity to fight alongside the armies of the faithful. If the house is a Questor Mechanicus are its scions devout worshipers of the Martian creed who conduct rituals of purification over their own machines or do they remain somewhat atheistic, preferring to focus on martial disciplines and leave the binary cant and incense to the Tech Priests.

Combat Doctrine

-Most knight households, be they Imperial or chaos aligned will favor close quarters combat of one variety or another. The brutal close combat weapons of Knights are incredibly destructive and capable of laying low many a foe. Even Titans fear the damage that knights can cause if they can get in close and hack at the legs of the God Engines. Even so not all houses may choose to charge straight into close quarters combat, perhaps your house favors ambush tactics or, having suffered grievous losses in its long history, has learned to soften up targets with waves of disposable conscripts before committing the knights of the house. Maybe your house contains more Knights Errant than normal, the better to target and destroy enemy armor or fields entire lances of Gallants to rush into combat and tear out the throat of the enemy as savagely and swiftly as possible. Each house will fight somewhat different to others and favor different types of knight armor, different tactics and will differ on how disciplined the house is versus the willingness of its nobles to abandon a strategy or set of orders to pursue personal glory and renown. Some houses are veteran campaigners who stick to a battle plan and are reliable and efficient allies, while others are reckless and self-centered, the nobles quick to abandon an ally to seek personal combat against worthy foes regardless of the impact on the greater battle.

Political Relations

-While all knight houses are largely focused around fighting battles against fierce enemies from the thrones of knight armor all houses great and small, Imperial or chaos will have forged political relationships, made enemies or otherwise encountered and made an impact on various agencies in the galaxy in one way or another. Some houses may have fought many battles alongside a particular Space Marine Chapter or chapters, or have forged bonds with storied regiments of the Astra Militarum. Still others may have sent lances to participate in the expeditions of Rogue Traders Militant or explorator missions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Yet others may have fought at the leading edge of crusades of faith or purged heretics at the behest of agents of the Inquisition. Yet more may have sworn oaths of military support with Legions of the Adeptus Titanicus or committed to provide protection to nearby worlds in exchange for a tithe of resources and equipment. Apart from friendly or beneficial relationships a house may have angered a Lord General Militant by disobeying orders and causing a battle to be lost while pursuing combat against a hated enemy, or perhaps the house has refused to acknowledge the Emperor as a God and must dodge the attentions of Ordo Hereticus Inquisitors from time to time. While there is no need to list out a dozen or more such political relationships one or two established friendships, bitter rivalries or hated enemies helps add more depth and character to the background of a house.

Ranks and Titles

-What are the particular ranks and titles used within your house, you may simply choose to use the common Barron or High King/Seneschal titles or you may choose to create something more unique. Perhaps Barons in your house are known as Knight Lieutenants and your Seneschal is the Grand Marshal. Perhaps the nobles of your house are referred to as Protectors and the High King as the Lord High Warden. Maybe your house has its own distinct titles and roles for the nobles within its Exalted Court or the High King maintains a chosen enforcer whose identity is a closely guarded secret. It is probably best not to go overboard here but a few distinct features here or there in regards to the ranks, titles and roles within your house can help make it feel more fleshed out.

Notable Figures

-Who is the current ruler of the house, who are the nobles who serve in the Exalted Court, who commands the garrison of the house homeworld when the Seneschal is away, what are the names and identities of those knights you field in your army. I like to give each of my knights its own name, heraldry and identify the pilot of each knight and keep track of their deeds on the tabletop. Adding these names and deeds to the background of your house is a great way of slowly building up character and individuality to the knights of your army. Perhaps you have a knight that managed to destroy an enemy super-heavy by throwing a sentinel at it with their thunderstrike gauntlet and this deed earned that noble a promotion to the Exalted Court of the High King, or perhaps you have a knight that has fallen in every game but has always achieved some notable kill, these distinct attributes or accomplishments can come together over time to create interesting and memorable characters to help add to the story of your house.

These are all further aspects of your household's background that can be expanded on or kept relatively minimal depending on your own decisions. You may choose to meticulously track the deeds of your house in game or keep the background of your house relatively separate from your army's performance on the tabletop, you may wish to expand your background with a wealth of unique titles and roles or keep to the common standard versions, it is entirely up to you on how much or how little detail to add.

Conclusion and Example

Well, that's pretty much it, if you have gotten this far you have covered pretty much everything I can think of to help fully flesh out and construct your own distinct and unique homebrew Imperial or Chaos knight house or company, with its own colors, heraldry and background. Hopefully this guide has proven helpful and served as an effective walk through the steps of planning out and implementing your own custom force of awesome giant robots in the Warhammer 40,000 universe! But as one final bit of potential inspiration I will now share the rough outline of my own custom Imperial Knight household created along the guidelines I have outlined above. So here it is:

House Cenwulf

Allegiance: Questor Imperialis

Color Scheme: Dark Gray and Black

Heraldry: Black Wolf's Head

Homeworld: Industrial World of Andlang

Size: Tertius Grade

Culture: Norse Influence

And there you have it, step by step, a custom Imperial Knight Household of my own creation that I have taken into battle on the tabletop and displayed for Armies on Parade for the last four years. I hope you have enjoyed this guide and it serves you all well in creating your own households.