Signatures4

Deep in every war-servitor's cortex runs a set of combat protocols that treat damage as an interruption to be worked through, not a reason to stop. A Kataphron with an arm shot away, a Servitor half-crushed, a Kastelan venting sparks — each keeps grinding forward on cold instruction long after a living body would have fallen.

When a Construct fighter suffers its first Flesh Wound in a battle, it ignores that Wound's penalty. The first time such a fighter is taken down this battle, it does not test for going Out of Action — it stays in the fight, grinding on until a priest can reach it and the Rites of Repair finish the work. The protocols carry the machine through that first collapse only; once spent, a second take-down is answered in the ordinary way. It is the mechanical face of the wall that will not stay broken.

Aura of the Omnissiah: The Machine God tends its own. While a Tech-Priest stands on the battlefield, every friendly Construct within 6" of that priest is wrapped in the machine-spirit's blessing. Whenever such a Construct suffers a Wound, it may make a 6+ shrug — a single save against that Wound, taken regardless of the attacker's Armour Penetration, though weapons that already deny this save still deny it.

This is not resurrection but maintenance made passive: the well-tended engine that keeps grinding simply because a priest is near. The aura asks nothing of the priest's activation — it radiates for as long as the priest lives. Cut the priests down and the blessing lifts, and the machines fight on with only their own hulls to protect them.

Canticles of the Omnissiah: A maniple of the Machine God does not fight as a mob of individuals but under a liturgy chanted across the whole force. At the start of each round, the senior Tech-Priest — the Dominus, or any fighter with Canticle Adept should the Dominus have fallen — declares one Canticle. Its blessing grants a gang-wide aura to every friendly fighter until the end of that round, when it lapses; a different Canticle may be sung the next round. It is a rotating stance, never a hoarded pool.

The senior priest chooses one of the following each round:

• Shroudpsalm — every friendly fighter counts as being in partial cover, even in the open.
• Incantation of the Iron Soul — friendly fighters auto-pass Nerve tests and the gang takes no Bottle tests.
• Chant of the Remorseless Fist — friendly fighters gain +1" Move and may charge after a standard Move.
• Litany of the Electromancer — a friendly fighter's first melee or arc Hit each round inflicts one extra automatic Hit.
• Invocation of Machine Might — friendly fighters' melee attacks gain +1 Strength.
• Benediction of the Omnissiah — friendly fighters re-roll ranged Hit rolls of 1.

Only one Canticle is ever active, and only while a priest with the Voice still lives. With no priest to lead the liturgy, the maniple fights as a silent, doctrine-less rabble.

Rites of Repair: Where other soldiers press an attack, a Tech-Priest may instead kneel and work. In place of its own shooting or melee action — it may still move — a Tech-Priest performs a Rite of Repair on an adjacent friendly Construct within 1": a Servitor, Kataphron, Kastelan Robot, or Ironstrider or Sydonian walker. It may never mend itself, and never a flesh-and-augmetic Skitarii or Electro-Priest.

A single Rite does one of the following: restore one lost Wound to the Construct; remove one Flesh Wound as the damaged servo is re-welded; or, if the Construct is Seriously Injured or Down, haul it back online, standing it up with one Wound. A Tech-Priest may perform one Rite per round. This is maintenance, not miracle — the machine rises only because a living hand reached it and worked. When the priests fall, the constructs they tended stay where they dropped.