Declared Prey is the deepest study a xenos-hunter carries into the fight. A fighter with this skill shares in the warband's Declared Hunt, but against the named breed its training runs further than any other's: it re-rolls a failed Hit and a failed Wound both, not one or the other. It has killed this thing a hundred times in the drills, and the hundred-and-first is only bookkeeping. Against anything that is not the declared prey the skill is silent — this is the knowledge of a single foe, not general marksmanship — and when the warband re-declares its prey mid-battle, this fighter's edge moves with it. It is handed to the killers who most need their blows to land: the Marksman, the Death-Cult assassin, the agent pointed at the alien that must not survive.
Skills6
Hunters Unseen is the retinue's own echo of the Deathwatch insertion, learned the patient way, on foot and in shadow. A fighter with this skill may set up in hidden deployment or in Reserve rather than on the board with the rest of the warband, and arrive by Infiltrate — placed more than 6" from any enemy — from the first round. It is not on the table until it is already where it wants to be. It hides the warband's killers, a Death-Cult assassin or a Marksman with special-issue rounds, and brings them out of the dark onto the body that most needs to die, a full move ahead of where the enemy thought the line stood. The enemy's only defence is to leave no soft angle — and a battlefield is all soft angles.
Jokaero Digital Weapons is the gift the bound artisan works on an agent who fights near it. While a Jokaero stands within Short of this fighter, its ranged weapon gains a digital-weapon shot: once per round, one ranged attack may re-roll a failed Wound, the alien's tiny augmetics turning a graze into a kill. The benefit is the creature's nearness — a fighter drawn away from the Jokaero loses the digital-weapon shot with it. It rewards a firing line built around the artisan, a knot of guns clustered in the retinue's heart where the alien's craft can touch them all, and it fails the moment the enemy hunts the strange beast down.
Special-Issue Ammunition is the mastery of the case rather than the single round. When this fighter shoots, it may load one of four blessed shells for that attack: Hellfire, which auto-Wounds on a 2+ against a multi-wound or large target; Kraken, which adds +1 Strength and AP -1; Dragonfire, which ignores cover; and Vengeance, which gains Rending against a horde. The choice is made each time it fires, and no round is strictly best — each is a trade for the body in front of it. So the special-issue agent never has the wrong gun: it reads the target coming, loads the shell that target cannot survive, and adapts shot to shot where a single-purpose weapon would be dead weight against the wrong foe.
Trophy-Taker makes doctrine of an old hunter's truth: the first kill is the hardest, and every one after is easier. Once per battle, after this fighter takes a member of the declared prey Out of Action, this fighter and all friendlies within Short gain +1 to hit that prey until the next round — the kill emboldening the whole hunt while the body is still warm. It triggers on prey kills only; cutting down some incidental enemy does not stir the same fire. It rewards a warband that keeps its hunters clustered and drops the priority alien first, the accuracy rolling out across the line exactly when it means to press and clear the rest of the breed before they scatter.
Xenos Lore is the hunter's study of the alien's one trick — the necron that stands back up, the tyranid that shrugs off fire while its synapse holds, the eldar that grows crueller as it bleeds. When the warband declares its prey, this fighter also names one xeno special rule the prey relies on, and for this fighter's attacks that rule does not apply: the necron it shoots stays down, the swarm it fires into draws no ward. It is surgical — one rule, named at declaration, switched off for one hunter's guns — so it does not break the enemy warband, only unpicks the single trick this fighter's study has learned. The alien's answer is to lean on more than one gift at once.