It will come as no surprise that, in an organisation as scientifically curious as the Adeptus Mechanicus, some Tech-Priests arise with a particularly sharp set of skills in one field of study. These individuals are often inducted into the ranks of the Holy Orders, specialised departments dedicated to the mastery of one pursuit above all others.
By paying a nominal cost in points or Power Level, your Tech-Priest models can hail from one of four Holy Orders. Far from just being a flavourful footnote,* each Order provides two specialised skills to further customise the leaders of your army.
The first skill allows you to lower the Command points cost of a critical Stratagem when you need it most, with each Holy Order dedicated to their own code of war. The Magi, for instance, are a dab hand at accomplishing Epic Deeds.
The second skill, however, is something rather different. Called progressive abilities, these rules come in two parts – an Initial part that’s in play from the beginning of the battle, and an Advanced part that you can choose to activate by having your Tech-Priest take the Activate Advanced Protocols action.
Activating the Advanced part can drastically change the bonuses granted to your nearby units, giving your force the ability to switch tactics on the fly and keep your opponent guessing. If the Initial part is really floating your boat, however, you can always keep it active for the entire game.
A Magi Tech-Priest is the perfect companion to a unit of Skitarii Rangers or Vanguard hot-footing it up the field, adding an extra spring** in their step before boosting their firepower.
You can find out what each of these Orders does when the full codex arrives on Saturday, but in the meantime here’s another example to whet your appetite.
We don’t know about you, but we’re already cooking up some new strategies to make use of the Holy Order abilities. Get ready to pre-order Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus and a whole host of other goodies this Saturday.
* Although you’ll definitely want to refer to this in your Crusade force’s story.
** Perhaps literally…