Dredging the Grimdark: Ordo Chronos

This post was featured on House of Paincakes. It is a really awesome site, with a lot of great writers and a lot of really cool topics and ideas on gaming. Make sure to check it out, you'll be glad you did!

 This article is a part of a series called "Dredging the Grimdark" that reviews how you can use old, out of production (OOP) Citadel models or odd fluff armies in your games of 7th Edition Warhammer 40k. In this edition, we will be looking into how you can represent the Ordo Chronos on the table top. Have a favorite mini or fluff concept you'd like to play with on the table? Let me know and it could be the focus of a post down the line.

There are no Bad Wolves on Fenris

 By far, the best part of my hobby life (painting, playing, reading, and writing erotic fan ficiton) is that it all happens in the 40k universe. The Warhammer cannon is so revered and beloved that even one sentence can spark the imagination. That is a lot of responsibility for those select few who curate and create the future of our beloved game. And, how do you keep your ego in check with so much at stake?

 You get the feeling that there is this eternal battle at GW Headquarters between the fluff police and the trolls who want to throw stuff into new books to make us all lose our minds. In my head, it must look exactly like the fight scene between Gandalf and Balrog, except with British guys and not inside a mountain. I mean, imagine how it feels to control the destiny of an entire fictional universe. Then, imagine being in a room with ten other people who feel the exact same way. These dudes killed Sly Marbo. Nothing is safe.

The design meeting for the new Eldar codex were INTENSE

So, back in 2013 the Inquisition codex came out. And, in this book was a one page snippet about the Ordo Chronos. If you've never head of them, here is a quick review from Lexicanum:

The Ordo was established to study the anomalous passage of time during interstellar travel through the warp. This is because of the fact that time works differently within the empyrean; in rare circumstances, vessels can arrive at their destination much later than intended ... Tales of such dreadful fates are common knowledge amongst void travelers and accepted as one of the risks of warp travel. In extremely rare circumstances vessels may even arrive back into real space at a time before they actually set out.

Ok, so I'm reading this and I start to get all hot and bothered about my new army of Time Lords. Quickly flipping through the pages on my iPad, I come to the rules for three types of Inquisitors (Ordo Malleus, Hereticus, and Xenos). Wait, where are the rules for the Ordo Chronos? What... the... HELL! That was a tease. I ended up giving up on it, and the whole idea got thrown on the back-burner (right next to that Genestealer army I'm going to start one day).

Fast forward to a couple months ago. I ran across this excellent blog post written by Andy Hoare, who is credited with creating the Ordo Chronos in a Dark Heresy supplement. The whole thing is worth a read, but this snippet in particular piqued my interest:

To return to the discussions I was reading about the Ordo Chronos, some people did seem to view them as one-dimensional, 40k Time Lords. That's not the case at all, as after all, existing to combat the effects of the time distortion doesn't mean they bring it about. However, as Inquisitors they would be just as subject to factionalism as their peers. Perhaps Puritan Ordo Chronos Inquisitors ('Time Hunters'?) ruthlessly hunt down anyone who has fallen prey of a mistimed warp jump, just in case anything happens to alter the Imperium's fate. Equally, perhaps Radical Time Hunters seek to utilise heretical technologies, and consider changing the course of history a valid way of keeping the Imperium alive? Just imagine the wars that these two factions could be fighting without the rest of the Imperium ever even knowing about it!

I really love this concept. Puritan and Radical Ordo Chronos forces fighting these secret wars over the fate of time itself! Scenarios like this have to be played out on the table. I mean, what's the point of even rolling dice if you can't fight out shadow wars between rival Ordo Chronos inquisitors? How cool would it be to get six buddies together and have two playing in the "past", two in the "present" and then have the Ordo Chronos bouncing between the tables in order to dictate their own vision of the future. So cool! Now, all we need are rules. How can we represent the Ordo Chronos, while still keeping with the rules and current codexes of 7th Edition Warhammer 40,000? Here are some of my ideas.

Time Lord 2.0

 The Rules

Option One: The Inquisition Codex

Ok, so this one is by far the most obvious to me. I would use an Ordo Xenos inquisitor due to the cool alien weapons and build up a retinue however you see fit. The real fun in this would be the modeling (more on that later). The largest advantage of this rule set being that you don't really need to explain all that much to your opponent. Overall, a nice plug and play option if you care less about the rules and more about the narrative.

Option Two: The Craftworld Eldar Codex

Ok, a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. Battle Focus feels very Ordo Chronos to me. It is really literal (actually bouncing around in space-time), but would also give a lot of character to an Inquisitorial list. I would limit your unit choices to Farseers, Autarchs, Guardians, Dire Avengers, and Warp Spiders as all of these have rules that represent the ability to time-shift or replay scenarios. You could incorporate other parts of the codex, but I don't see the Ordo Chronos representing more than 500 to 750pts in a list.

Option Three: Militarum Tempestus Scions Codex

Deep-striking out of the Warp is not just for Daemons and Dark Eldar anymore! Take a bunch of Scions, throw in an Ordo Chronos in Terminator armor (actually Ordo Malleus, but who's checking), and viola! You have your time-shifting Time Lords! Honestly, I think this one is the best choice. It hits all the marks (enhanced stats but still human toughness, Imperial, and fairly easy to explain to almost any opponent). The real fun with this list will be the converting, and I do fear that the tactics would eventually become a bit stale. But, that's just my poor deep-strike rolling skills talking.

The Models

There should be a lot of freedom in a project like this. Following the fluff, you could imagine an Ordo Chronos Inquisitor collecting equipment and people from a wide variety of places and time periods. And, the more radical your warlord, the more radical his or her force should be! Due to my love of OOP models, I'd throw in some of the older Storm Trooper models (hey, you're making an Ordo Chronos army, that just screams OOP to me). But, don't let you imagination stop you there. Do your research and some eBay searches and you'll find a treasure trove of pewter in need of some serious TLC.


Until next time!