Signatures4

Honour of the Household is the heraldry a lance rallies on — the banner of a household that has not broken in ten thousand years, borne by the Knight Preceptor or the Knight Seneschal.

While a friendly fighter is within 12" of the banner-bearer, it stands under the household's oath. Such fighters — the war-engines of the lance and their Sacristan crew alike — automatically pass Nerve tests and are immune to the Terror that war-engines and monsters cause. Once per battle, a fighter within the aura may re-roll a single failed Ion Shield save, the banner turning aside a blow that should have told.

The aura reaches only 12", and it moves with the bearer. A foe that isolates an engine beyond the banner's reach, or cuts the bearer down, strips the lance of the discipline that holds it together — and a household that loses its standard fights the rest of the battle alone.

The Ion Shield: at the start of each round, each war-engine's pilot declares one facing — front, left flank, right flank or rear, a single 90° arc. Until the start of the next round, any attack that originates from within that declared arc is saved on the engine's Ion value, an invulnerable field that ignores AP — a Questoris on 5+, a Dominus-class or command Knight on 4+, an Armiger on 6+. Attacks from any other facing meet no field at all, only the fixed ceramite hull.

The field faces one way, and that is the seam a determined enemy works: surround the war-engine, strike from the unshielded flank and rear, and the titan stands on its hull save alone against the flood. No token is spent and no pool is tracked — the pilot declares a facing and reads the angles the round will bring.

Sacristan Repair: the household Sacristans are not warriors but the lifeblood of the war-engines. When a Sacristan is within 2" of a friendly war-engine and spends its activation on a Repair (Double) action, it welds the hull to restore D3 lost Wounds, or re-raises a downed Ion Shield. A given war-engine may be repaired only once per round.

This is the Household's only means of mending a titan mid-battle, and it is a slow one — a single crew keeps one engine standing, never the whole lance. Against massed fire the Sacristans cannot weld a hull faster than it is breached; they buy a war-engine one more round of walking, not deliverance. The much-mended thralls scramble beneath the legs under fire to do even that.

Towering War-Engine: every war-engine carries the systems that come with a body of its scale.

Facing & Arc-of-Fire. A war-engine has a front, and its heavy guns fire only into that front arc; it pivots on the spot before it moves, and strides over intervening terrain and low walls as though they were not there — a titan does not climb.

Stomp. In close combat a war-engine may make a Stomp, a crushing foot at S+4, AP-2, Knockback against a fighter in base contact.

Unbowed. A war-engine cannot be Pinned, automatically passes any Nerve test caused by its own losses, and causes Terror in enemy fighters within 6".

Reactor death-throes. When a war-engine is taken Out of Action, roll a D6: on a 6 — a 4 or higher for a Dominus-class titan — its reactor goes critical, a Blast (large), S8, AP-2, D2 detonation centred on the wreck that strikes friend and foe alike. Even felling a titan draws blood from those who did it.