Halo 4: full details of Promethean Knights, Watchers, Crawlers and their weapons

If they're half as gnarly as 343 says they are, the Prometheans are going to eat you and I alive. Well, me at least. I still don't have a positive K/D ratio in Halo: Reach multiplayer. Preorder? Frankly, I might just cut out the middle man and hit myself over the head with a spade.

The latest issue of GameInformer (via the Halo Council) contains more details as to Halo 4's deadly Forerunner line-up. You've heard about the Knights, fearsome bipedal warriors who occupy a similar position to the Elites in Forerunner hierarchy. But did you know they come in four, increasingly zesty flavours? The vanilla variety wields a Light Rifle - the Promethean DMR, in short - and a rapid-firing Suppressor. The Lancer gets Promethean Vision, allowing him to spot enemies through walls.

The Commander packs an Incineration Cannon, billed as a mix of rocket launcher, flamethrower and shotgun, and can deploy Autosentry turrets to stave off assault. And the Battlewagon, finally, is a thudding great badass coated in Hardlight shielding, also armed with turrets, who'll blow your unmentionables off with a Scattershot if you get too close.

There's only one kind of Watcher, and that's probably for the best, because Watchers sound bloody annoying. They can summon Crawler reinforcements, drop shields in front of Knights and resurrect those Knights should you actually manage to bring one down. Crawler species there are three - the basic pack unit, a sniper and an Alpha type armed with a Suppressor. The Forerunners have a grenade of their own devising - the Pulse Grenade, which both damages people and slows down vehicles.

Mike had a blast, so to speak, with the Promethean Knights in a recent Halo 4 hands-on. The main antagonist is rumoured to be the Didact, the great Forerunner general who held off the Flood for decades prior to the activation of the Halo array. Speaking of the Flood - is it too late to say we'd like them back, please?