Exorcists - Chapter Combat Doctrine: The Chapter shows a high-degree of adaptability and unpredictability in battle, both in terms of tactics and the weapons its Astartes employ. When an enemy counters one tactic used by the Exorcists, the Chapter plans accordingly, adapts, and changes strategy, enabling it to outmaneuver its enemies and catch them completely off-guard.Exorcists Astartes are known to utilise certain occult mental arts to enter an almost trance-like state of higher consciousness which allows them to become completely devoid of fear and pain, even when confronted by the sanity-destroying horrors of the Warp. This capacity is not unknown amongst the Space Marines, but the extent to which the Exorcists are able to employ these techniques to distance themselves from physical and spiritual hardships and continue to operate has become legendary.Exorcist battle-brothers are also masters of arcane lore concerning Chaos and the daemonic on a level unseen in other Chapters and unrivalled in the Imperium save by the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus itself. They are particularly adept at recognising the wiles of the Daemon and its work and know how to combat them.To enable themselves to spiritually ward their arms and equipment against Chaos influences, it is said that each battle-brother must master the use of all six-hundred-and-sixty-six verses of the Ordo Malleus' Liber Exorcismus, sunder the seven seals of Salomoneth and become adept at the use of unicursal hexagrams. This degree of forbidden and dark knowledge is cause for grave suspicion of the Chapter by those within the Ecclesiarchy as well as certain Space Marine Chapters with a fervent hatred of witchcraft of any kind, even when wielded by the loyal servants of the Emperor, such as the Space Wolves and the Black Templars.In contrast, the Exorcists have an unusually strong political alliance with the Inquisition, especially compared with the normal friction between the Adeptus Astartes and the Holy Ordos, so they face fewer difficulties or obstacles than many other Chapters when dealing with the Imperial bureaucracy or the High Lords of Terra.Despite their superficial similarities with the Daemon-hunting mission of the Grey Knights, the combat doctrine of the Exorcists differs greatly from that of the sons of Titan. From their inception, they were conceived as a Chapter with wide-ranging strategic capabilities modelled on the tenets of the Codex Astartes. Where each Grey Knight is a psychically-gifted Firstborn Astartes warrior equipped with weapons and artefacts of extreme rarity, Exorcists Space Marines possess no specialised resources other than their hardened spiritual resolve and their wealth of archived lore.Whether deployed against Daemonic foes or otherwise, the Exorcists strive to be a step ahead of their enemies at all times. Key to this doctrine is effective reconnaissance, and the Exorcists make extensive use of the large numbers of neophyte Scouts necessitated by the Chapter's merciless recruitment process, deploying them behind enemy lines on covert intelligence missions. Indeed, the Exorcists also ask their Scout forces to endure combat duties that would normally fall to fully fledged battle-brothers, ostensibly to hone their martial skills but in reality to temper their spirits and weed out weakness before they pass through the possession ritual. A favoured tactic is to work neophyte forces into positions where they appear vulnerable and then reveal them, drawing out the enemy by giving them a false sense of tactical advantage before crushing their advances with the full weight of the Exorcists' main force.In the Era Indomitus, the Exorcists have integrated the capabilities of Primaris Space Marines into their existing doctrines, notably by designating their entire 10th Company as a Vanguard company. These Mark X Phobos-armoured units have become a natural component of the infiltration missions that precede Exorcists assaults, while other Primaris elements such as Hellblasters and Repulsor tanks lend unprecedented strength to the Chapter's battleline.Long before the Primaris technologies of Belisarius Cawl reinforced the Chapter, the Exorcists fought alongside Ordo Malleus forces seconded to the Radical Plutonian sect, and this close cooperation still continues on occasion. Whether the Inquisitors in these instances deploy purely as allies or to monitor behaviours that have concerned them within the Exorcists' own ranks, their specialised knowledge and potent wargear have proven decisive to several victories in the Chapter's history.