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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
