The Adeptus Mechanicus are the stars of our penultimate Faction Focus, so what have the Priesthood of Mars been cooking up for their new detachments?
Cohort Acquisitus
The Skitarii legions can be configured – literally – for any kind of mission, and with the quest for lost knowledge at the forefront of the Adeptus Mechanicus’s agenda, they frequently find themselves kitted out with advanced scanning equipment. It’s great for finding ancient relics and hidden enemy units. Who knew?
NOOSPHERIC RECON
Force-loaded with enhanced divinatory augurs, far-ranging Skitarii are the unblinking eyes of their masters and cast their sensors in overlapping noospheric nets to root out the enemies of the Machine God.
Friendly PTERAXII/INFILTRATORS/RANGERS/SERBERYS RAIDERS/SERBERYS SULPHURHOUNDS units have RECON AUGURY.
Friendly RECON AUGURY units have the following ability:
Enhanced Augurs: In your Shooting phase, this unit can select one visible enemy unit within 12". That enemy unit is analysed:
While a unit is analysed, that unit has +3" detection range.
The units that can pack the new Enhanced Augurs ability are among the fastest in the Codex, so they are perfect for closing with the enemy and revealing their hidden VIPs.*
That speed won’t do you any good if you get shot to pieces on the way, granted, so it’s a good job your Serberys Raiders can go invisible(ish) at will. Their guns have 18” range too, so if you play your cards right, you can spit Devastating Wounds carbine rounds from complete safety.
STEALTH-SCREENED CYBERCANIDS (Upgrade)
These veteran raiders have been bestowed with rarefied cybernetic mounts that incorporate stealth-screen projectors, silenced servos, and photo-adaptive hides, rendering them all but invisible until they near their prey.
SERBERYS RAIDERS unit only. This unit has Lone Operative 15".
In a ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ moment that would bring warmth to the Tech-Priest’s heart if they hadn’t replaced it decades ago, Recon Augury units can buddy up and support each other’s shooting with the Defect Scrutiny stratagem. Ignores Cover is an outstanding ability in this edition, since nobody likes a penalty to their Ballistic Skill at the best of times.
DEFECT SCRUTINY (1CP)
COHORT ACQUISITUS STRATAGEM
By focusing implanted augurs with split‑second analysis, the foe’s flaws can be exposed and broadcast in a clarion call to the rest of the Omnissiah’s faithful.
WHEN: Your Shooting phase, when a friendly ADEPTUS MECHANICUS unit is selected to shoot.
TARGET: That ADEPTUS MECHANICUS unit.
EFFECT: Select one visible enemy unit within 12" of a friendly RECON AUGURY unit. Your unit’s ranged attacks that target that enemy unit have [IGNORES COVER].
Lords of the Forge
Of course, the Adeptus Mechanicus wouldn’t be a thing without its Tech-Priests, so it’s only fair they get a detachment of their own. The Lords of the Forge is suitably impressive, and turns even the most modest of Tech-magi into immovable objects with an improved Invulnerable Save and the Feel No Pain ability.
WAR-FORM MANTLES
When battle looms, many Tech-Priests don their war forms, replacing more delicate mechanical appendages with steel-shod bionics that incorporate auto-repair subroutines. Some also outfit themselves with narrow-band screed casters. These project streams of incomprehensible code that overwhelm the cogitator cores of enemy vehicles and baffle augury.
Friendly TECH-PRIEST models have:
4+ InSv.
Feel No Pain 5+.
Friendly TECH-PRIEST models have the following ability:
Baffling Data Screed: In your Shooting phase, when this unit is selected to shoot, if this unit is not battle-shocked, you can use this ability. If you do, roll one D6:
On a 2+, select one enemy VEHICLE unit within 12" of this unit. That enemy unit makes a battle-shock roll, with -1 to that battle-shock roll. A unit cannot be selected for this ability more than once per turn.
Or: On 2+, those ranged attacks do not prevent this unit from being hidden.
We don’t need to tell you why not dying is a great skill for your Characters to have, and their Baffling Data Screed ability is the icing on the cake, giving you a flexible ability to debilitate enemy Vehicles or safeguard your own troops.
Interesting abilities for enhancements are all well and good, but wouldn’t you rather have a really big gun instead? We’re not going to write the name of this one, because we can’t find the ‘zero with a line through it’ key on our keyboards, but suffice it to say this ‘modest-seeming casket’ is a work of pure destruction.
TL-4Ø9
This modest-seeming casket is named for the almost indecipherable sigils on its ancient casing. The prevailing theocratic dogma is that this artefact is a weapon, for when its iris shutter is opened, a night-black beam of incredible power is released.
TECH-PRIEST model only. This model has the following weapon:
TL-4ø9 [DEVASTATING WOUNDS, HAZARDOUS]
Range | A | BS | S | AP | D |
24" | 3 | 2+ | 11 | -2 | D3+2 |
Securing precious relics is the primary duty of many Tech-Priests, and there’s not a thing they’ll let distract them when technological miracles are on the line. Their enhanced minds are perfectly capable of an archaeological dig while directing their defenders in battle, and woe betide any who get between their Holy Avarice and the next big discovery.
HOLY AVARICE (1CP)
LORDS OF THE FORGE STRATAGEM
When a miracle of technology is identified, a Tech-Priest will go to bloody lengths to retrieve it, simultaneously directing the acquisition of their prize and the dismantling of anyone who threatens it.
WHEN: Your Shooting phase, when a friendly TECH-PRIEST unit starts an action.
TARGET: That TECH-PRIEST unit.
EFFECT: That action does not prevent your unit from being eligible to shoot.
Luminen Auto-choir
Electro-Priests are, frankly, a little bit weird, but their dedication to the Motive Force is second to none, and they can hold their own against the horrors of the galaxy with finely honed martial skills… and blasts of pocket lightning.
CYBER-STATIC CANTICLES
With voices or binharic emissions raised in holy verse, the disciples of the Motive Force roar their worship. Thunderheads of potentiality roil above them, and rival sects vie to prove the supremacy of their visionary dogma with coruscating intensity.
Friendly CORPUSCARII units’ ranged attacks have [LETHAL HITS].
When a friendly FULGURITE unit has fought, that unit heals D3 wounds.
This detachment has the DATA-PSALM tag and cannot be taken with another DATA-PSALM detachment.
Fulgurite Electro-Priests already make excellent Bodyguards for your Tech-Priests thanks to their native -1 to Wound when escorting a Character, and now that they can heal while whacking people with their electro-staves, they’ll only stick around longer.
Running headlong into combat is what they do best, but a surprisingly effective bout of Overwatch can spell doom for Electro-Priests who aren’t that good at rolling 5+ Invulnerable Saves. Don’t like it? Just ignore it! The Voltagheist Reliquary practically turns off Overwatch against your Tech-Priest’s unit.
VOLTAGHEIST RELIQUARY
The wild voltagheists said to inhabit this holy casket are more aggressive and intrusive than those that guard the Electro-Priests, and surge in interfering pulses that scramble the foe’s sensors.
TECH-PRIEST model only. Enemy units cannot target this unit with snap shooting attacks.
Punishment can also be an effective means of prevention, especially when you’re trying to convince your opponent that gunning down your sparky boys is a bad idea. Momentum Feedback is a persuasive argument, because anything they don’t kill will be barrelling straight towards the source of their umbrage.
MOMENTUM FEEDBACK (1CP)
LUMINEN AUTO-CHOIR STRATAGEM
Harnessing the force of the blasphemous enemy’s attacks into energy to fuel a holy retaliatory surge is an act of righteous transmutation.
WHEN: Your opponent’s Shooting phase, when an enemy unit that targeted a friendly unengaged ELECTRO-PRIESTS unit has shot.
TARGET: That ELECTRO-PRIESTS unit.
EFFECT: Your unit can make a surge move of up to D6".
All three of these detachments are very different from each other, so between them, you’re sure to find something that works alongside your favourite Codex detachment. Just look at all of the things you could do with Skitarii Hunter Cohort and the Cohort Acquisitus working together – loads of boosts for your Skitarii legions, and with Stealth in their package, you won’t even need to worry about your cyber-mounts fitting inside terrain.
There’s just one more Faction Focus to do – can you guess who it is? We’re pretty sure we said last week, but just play along: it’s the enigmatic Necrons!
* What the Pteraxii call Very Important Ptargets.
