Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus – Tech-Auxilium – Rank Abilities

by Falagar / Articles, Warhammer / 28 Nov 2018

Tech-Auxilium – Rank Abilities

Rank 1 ability – Cognition Freedom. This is probably one of the most powerful abilities in the game. Once every three turns, you can turn this on to make your next weapon attack cost zero CP. In the early game when you’re unlikely to have a weapon that costs more than 1 or 2 CP to use, that’s moderately useful, but as soon as you unlock a few power weapons that take 3 or more CP to fire and use that as a balancing factor, this ability swiftly becomes game-breakingly powerful. If you’re finding things difficult or just want to cruise down easy-street, every TechPriest buying a single level of Tech-Auxilium for this ability alone is a huge boost in overall firepower.

Rank 3 ability – Defensive Protocol. Whereas Cognition Freedom is one of the most powerful, this ability is forgettably useless. You can now use your Servo Skull to give a single TechPriest +1 Physical armour for the rest of the turn. That has minimal applications, it’s easy to forget that the buff is even there, and there are almost always better things to use your Servo Skull for in the early game, and in the late game the bonus is too small to really matter.

Rank 5 ability – Bless. This is the TechPriest version of the Secutor’s Command ability, offering either +2 damage to the next attack each TechPriest makes or +2 to both armour types for the rest of the turn. This completely overshadows Defensive Protocol, but ultimately you’ll almost always be using this for the bonus damage.

Rank 7 ability – Master Refractor. This makes Refractor Fields block an additional two damage. Refractor Field Generators are another backpack augment that projects a bubble that provides some temporary HP to yourself and all allies within about 3 metres for the rest of the turn. These temporary HP don’t show anywhere but they ablate incoming damage very well. In version 1.05 this ability was bugged, but it’s difficult to tell if the devs fixed it with version 1.06 as there’s no visual indicator of how much ablative HP you’ve gained – enemy attacks just deal less damage, and tend to just say “DMG absorbed” without it being clear how much damage was actually blocked. This ability, combined with either a pair of Refractor Field Generators or a Refractor Field and a Spot Light can make for a very effective front-line tank that can soak up hits while taking minimal damage.

Rank 9 ability – Overzealous. This is another very powerful ability, but takes some significant investment to get to. Canticles are powerful once-per-mission abilities that give a variety of bonuses. This ability allows you to cast one of them for the price of 2 CP without using it up from your stock, once every three turns. This can result in all sorts of nasty combinations, such as ignoring enemy armour, shredding enemy armour, healing a unit in an emergency, boosting ally armour, gaining a huge bonus to movement, etc. The sky is really the limit for this ability. Of note – the game calculates whether or not you can use the ability based on the 2 CP cost before you cast it, but when you use it, the canticle will trigger first and the CP cost will be spent afterward. Fot Blessing of the Omnissiah, this means that you’ll need to have 2 CP to use Overzealous, then it will give you 3/6/9 CP from the canticle, which will max out at your normal maximum, THEN the 2 CP will be taken out to pay for it. Depending on the size of your CP gauge, that may make Blessing of the Omnissiah a less-than-useful canticle to play with Overzealous.

Armour Parts:

-Head – +2 Energy Armour

-Torso – +4 HP, +1 Physical Armour

-Legs – +2 HP, +2 Movement

-Arms – +1 HP, +20% Critical chance

Tech-Auxilium has some of the better armour parts to choose from. The head armour gives +2 energy armour but no HP, but since the majority of enemies make energy attacks, that’s actually a benefit. The torso gives the same HP as the Secutor but also +1 Physical Armour, making it a candidate for best-in-slot unless you’re specifically stacking Energy Armour (in which case you’ll go with EnginSeer or Dominus). The Leg slot is an acceptable alternative to the Explorator or Dominus, being 1 HP less and 1 movement less than the Dominus and only 1 movement less than the Explorator, but you’ll still want the Dominus legs on most builds. The arm is the only disappointment, being the same as the Secutor but 1 HP less, and critical hit builds aren’t really all that important compared to other factors.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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