The Ad Mech Tech-Priest Holy Order rules will give you a little bit more flexibility and efficiency for only a few points- check it out!
Warhammer Community just unveiled an interesting new mechanic for upgrading characters similar to the Drukhari codex. For 25-35 points the holy orders will allow you to specialize characters with additional auras and special abilities.
Each one has two parts an ability and a progressive ability. Some are only once per game, while the others are active multiple turns. It’s an interesting mechanic but could be a little confusing. Maybe they just seem that way without everything laid out, but we’ll just have to wait till we play with it!
Ad Mech Tech-Priest Holy Order Rules Preview
The book will go on pre-order this Saturday, so if you’ve been waiting to get these guys on the field, get ready! While they are only getting one new mini with the release, it’s always fun to get a new book. But enough about the codex, let’s check out the rules.
Holy Orders Point Cost
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.
They only show the Artisans and the Magi rules, but they are pretty interesting. First off you get to lower the command points for a stratagem once per game, which looks to usually be a single point taken off. Then you have the progressive one, which is two parts. The initial part is active all game and gives buffs right away, but then you switch to the second progressive part. Meaning you gain different buffs, but can’t go back to the initial one. The points costs aren’t anything too crazy, because they do grant some decent buffs.
Abilities
Nothing too crazy, but lowering a stratagem late in the game could be very helpful when you just don’t have many CPs left to go around.
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.
It seems once you change to the advanced part, you can’t come back to the initial one. But like it says if you want to keep the first part the whole game you can. Still, with this one, you will probably move on to the second one pretty quickly, as scoring additional hits on 6’s is seriously nice.
Again, the first part is all based on movement, but this one is a little trickier when deciding to switch. Because adding the strength can be nice all game, but the first part won’t really be used until further into the turns. They don’t say if you can switch on turn one, but we’ll know soon enough as the codex drops soon!
Previous Rules Released
If you want to see all the rules that have been revealed so far, just click on any of the links below:
- Electro Priests
- Walkers
- Serberys
- Dunecrawlers
- Cawl
- Pteraxii
- Archaeopters
- Kataphron
- Skorpius Tanks
- Forge World Dogmas
- Canticles
What do you think about the new Holy Orders? Are you excited about the book?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
