HH 1.0 Ordo Reductor “Book 1: Betrayal” only Tactica Part 2

Ordo Reductor “Book 1: Betrayal” only (Part 2: Allies, Opponents & Zone Mortalis)

This was the first sniff of an official army list for the Mechanicum long before the Skitarii were introduced to 40K. Technically it wasn’t a stand-alone army list; it was an appendix to the main army list to allow any Legion Marine player greater scope in what Lords of War and allies they could use. Of course that didn’t stop us from just using the units there as a main army list, but it did lump the player with limited ways of playing “The Mechanicum”. This tactica is for using that allied detachment in ’The Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal’ only as a full army list with the 40K 6th edition, 7th edition or 1st edition Age of Darkness main rule book (whichever core rulebook is to hand or cheapest to acquire) for battles set on Isstvan 3. Later books expanded upon the units weapons and Wargear available to this list, but this tactica is for using ’Book 1: Betrayal’ exclusively (you and your opposition).

Abbreviations

AA – Anti-Aircraft

AV – Armour Value

CC – Close Combat

CotO – Curse of the Omnissiah

DG – Death Guard

DT – Dedicated Transport

DZ – Deployment Zone

EC – Emperors Children

FOC - Force Organisation Chart

HK – Hunter-Killer

HS – Heavy Support

LR – Land Raider

MC – Master-Crafted

MLR – Mechanicum Land Raider

OR – Ordo Reductor

SoH – Sons of Horus

TL – Twin-Linked

USR – Universal Special Rule

WE – World Eaters

ZM – Zone Mortalis

Changes Between Editions

This space is for noting any relevant differences in a USR etc between the editions Interceptor: interceptor paired with skyfire to allow full BS shooting at all targets only in 6th edition.

Structure Points: Clarified in ’Book 2: Massacre’ but not the update documents – a Structure Point is equal to three Hull Points for all Super-Heavy unit profiles.

Allies

The first disappointment of using Legion Marine Allies is that they do not have access to anything which has the eligibility requirement of being part of a ’[Legion Name] Space Marine Legion Force’ since as Allies they are included in an ’Ordo Reductor Mechanicum Force’

Second disappointment is that by the Allied Forces Chart, every faction is either Fellow Warriors or Sworn Brothers but the only faction on Isstvan3 the OR are sworn brothers with are the Sons Of Horus. This means the fluffy allied combinations (World Eaters led by Shabran Darr or Death Guard led by Crysos Morturg) do not provide any additional benefits beyond being there, fluffy and very very cool.

Since DG, WE and EC are basically a separate force in every respect the tactics used are legion specific only. If you are carting Calleb Decima forward then Legion Marines are a good follow up strike for the passengers when Callebs CotO ability takes out a transport vehicle and use the Storm Eagle/LR Spartan as insurance for that requirement.

The strategy used for Garviel Loken is also the best of all available Legion Marine Allied Detachments, delivering the HQ into a unit from an assault vehicle with an entourage of some kind. This can be enhanced by combining a Storm Eagle Assault Gunship or Caetus Assault Ramwith a Skyshield Landing Pad to have the entire lot on the board from turn 1 and with a 4++ if the enemy shoot first. The Allied Legion Marine Detachment provides the CC hammerblow you want from an HQ Warlord but don’t get with the OR.

Death Guard

DG & Crysos Morturg is the second best option – his trick is the Endurance Biomancy Psychic power but this can’t be applied to OR units. His infiltrating, stubborn rule, power sword and Rad Grenades put him as the best of whats left behind Garviel Loken. Deploying him in a transport grants the transport the infiltrate rule so have fun doing Creeeeeeed! Impressions in a LR Spartan. Makes taking an artillery unit for the heavy support choice ultra-fluffy. (coughphosphexmedusacoughcough)

Emperors Children

Captain Saul Tarvitz is okay with artificer armour, a sniper rifle and a CC weapon which has rending As an allied detachment you have to choose between Rylanor the Unyielding or having Apothecaries. Tough call. The Legion specific buffs can get lower level HQ choices hitting before some very noteworthy enemy characters which has utility in a world of Paragon Blade HQs.

World Eaters

Shabran Darr is probably the weakest option – he has access to a jump-pack but he only has an MC chainaxe and his buff is to gain rending but only when in a challenge. Possibly the cheapest of the Legion Marine Allies since Shabran Darr doesn’t need a transport – can work well with a Skyshield landing pad deployed in no-mans land unfurled. Deep-strike Shabran Darr and an Assault Squad onto the pad and immediately set it to Shielded. Bit of a waste of a good landing pad though…

Sons Of Horus

If these Legionnaires outnumber the enemy at initiative step 1 of a CC then they each get an extra attack if they attacked already, so worth tooling up for maximum bodies in your squads and an apothecary to keep as many alive till the end as possible. The additional attack is with their own weaponry and stats too.

Allied Force Composition

Gravel Loken in a Storm Eagle with an Apothecary and an 18 man tactical squad with chainswords is well under 1000pts and delivers a fairly devastating CC unit (and a tactical squad) into a lone infantry unit – which if you are trying to use Calleb Decimas CotO rule may be suddenly available since the passengers of an LR Spartan are usually characterful and well armoured. This is best used to clear Tactical or Recon units from the board (and presumably off objectives) inside the enemy DZ; assaulting from the Storm Eagle and re-embarking Gravel Loken to do it again solo; possibly assisting an on-going Thallax CC without even needing to join it with the Leadership bubble. The Heavy Support slot should be used to take a Vindicator Laser Destroyer or maybe a Caestus Assault Ram.

Garviel Loken

Bit of a monster, this guy. No Artificer Armour but Iron Halo, a Paragon Blade, 4 attacks and I6. He’s a pretty competent HQ killer for only 175pts. No DT so you have a good reason to take a Storm Eagle Assault Gunship in the Allied Fast Attack slot and enjoy the SoH bonus of rerolling 1s for the reserve roll. Or maybe just rely on the Explorator Augury Web in the Primary Detatchment to re-roll any failures? (or successes if you are a lunatic) Technically speaking he’s not in a Sons Of Horus army so cannot access Dreadclaw Drop Pods when he is the HQ of an Allied Detachment. He gives his leadership value to any friendly units within 12” which Therefore includes any OR units and can buff a locked-in-combat Thallax to his Ld 10 without needing to even join in.

Elites

Legion Apothecarion Detachment

You shouldn’t need Artificer armour on them – they have the Character special rule and in 6th edition can be sniped or in 7th edition can have Precision Shots and Precision Strikes applied directly to them which are usually AP2. The units Seargent can Tank wounds with Artificer Armour, not the chap giving out Feel No Pain tablets.

Troops

Tactical Squad

Maximum bodies for minimum points is the play here – only room for 18 in a Storm Eagle after Gravel Loken and an Apothecary are aboard so base unit cost is 230pts. Upgrade boltguns to chainswords for free. Do not take any weapons which force a model to strike last (power fists, chainfists, Thunderhammers,etc)

Fast Attack

StormEagle Assault Gunship

Equip it to take out a transport vehicle so the embarked unit can assault the passengers. That will be a TL Multi-Melta and twin TL Lascannons bringing the base price to 265pts. It’ll end up in hover mode a fair bit so extra armour and armoured ceramite can give you a nice sense of false security for +30pts. Remember that the Storm Eagle has the Machine Spirit rule so if an enemy transport has already been cracked open you can machine spirit the Vengeance Launcher on the disembarked enemy unit and fire the proper weapons elsewhere. You may end up relying on them so don’t cheap out on your Storm Eagle weapon upgrades.

Heavy Support

Caestus Assault Ram If you want Garviel to charge with Terminator support and don’t mind missing out on a proper Heavy Support choice from below this is a brilliant unit to smash into stuff with – an invulnerable save on the front arc which also works against ramming damage is basically ordering you to set ramming speed to as high as it will go. Freeing up the Fast Attack slot might afford some jetbikes to join in the fun or a landspeeder etc.

Legion Vindicator

A strong candidate for the sole Heavy Support choice when fitted with the laser destroyer array. Consider never taking the Demolisher Cannon ever.

Legion Artillery Tank Squadron Why have one Heavy Support tankwhen you can take three?! (See the Legion Artillery Tank section earlier in this article)

Opponents

General Legionaires

Heavy Bolters (S5 AP4) are a basic heavy weapon to the legions and most legion vehicles can take an additional one on a pintle mount. If your opponent can tool their terminator units to task (magnetized CC weapon) then their power weapon can be a power maul which ignores Thallax armour and boosts the strength of the attacks to S6, wounding your Thallax on a 3+ for no additional cost. Watch out for this. Fielding Thallax makes Whirlwind Launchers Vengeance warheads worth taking as their S5 AP4 wounds them on a 4+ and ignores their armour for 75pts each. Large blast too, so watch your spacing if the enemy has these.

Legion Marines have access to a number of assault transports which will likely be carrying very hard hitting units which will strike before any of your models can – your answer is pre-emptive action unfortunately. Taking out any assault vehicles as soon as possible is advisable.

Drop pods can really ruin the party if you are doing the Legion Artillery unit thing consider using a Thallax Cohort for protection – if using 6th edition a Fortification with an Icarus Lascannon or Quad-Gun will get shots on an incoming drop pod in the enemy movement phase.

Sons of Horus

This is fairly bad news in close combat generally because they will outnumber your unit in CC and get an extra strike at I1. It’s like them having the Rage rule the WE and Ferrox Thallax get but applied every phase instead of just on the charge. Avoid CC against the Sons of Horus. Unless you’ve taken some of your own Sons of Horus in which case pick your fights very carefully – try to get a ranged weapon unit to trim some of theirs off before you attempt an assault because one of you is going to get those bonus attacks.

World Eaters

These Legionnaires are a worry for Thallax because their free chainaxe upgrade allows them to ignore Thallax armour making them a very potent adversary in CC – even basic tactical legionnaires can trade their boltgun for a chainsword for free or can take one additionally for 2 points per model – both options then upgrading to chainaxes for free because style matters. Your Thallax will be hitting first but that’s a small consolation when the enemy get 3+ armour saves and ignore yours while wounding your dudes on a 4+. Give them a taste of their own flavour by assaulting first with a Ferrox augment cohort with heavy chain blades or just invest into large cohorts with Phased Plasma Fusils to wither their numbers ahead of the inevitable charges into CC.

Emperors Children

As with the WE, it’s important to get charges against their units first to limit the amount of attacks they get against you. It’s not quite as important as with the WE since any initiative boosts they get from charging aren’t going to make a difference because your infantry already hit after them at I2 but stopping them getting bonus attacks from charging is still a top priority. It will matter against your HQ choice though since some of their weaponry has better stats on the charge. Like Pheonix Spears. The EC get an extra VP for killing your warlord but you get an extra VP if he survives so placing him in a vehicle with a basic servo-automata unit in case they crack the MLR open is a valid strategy. This legion also get an extra D3 added to any sweeping advances they make so it’s likely that losing a CC to these guys (also quite likely) will destroy the unit regardless of how many remain. Borderline avoid CC with them altogether; the Stubborn rule helps avoid getting swept but engaging in melee is basically gambling a unit with bad odds.

Death Guard

In later publications the DG gained a number of capabilities which would affect weapon selection, but in this incarnation their Legion specific buffs were only of use if there was a Primarch on the opposite force. This makes them pretty close to a vanilla-marine force if it weren’t for their unique units, wargear and weapon choices.

Zone Mortalis

Well, you’re not going to be using your fast attack or heavy support slots; so all you have to work with is Calleb Decima, Thallax and Legion Techmarine Covenants. (and a Spearhead Sentry Gun/Fire Wasp/Breacher Charges if using Strategem Points) If you are using the ’enemy unknown’ optional rule consider not using your Thallaxii jetpack move until they have been sighted by the enemy to keep your opponent guessing which blip is which.

Calleb Decima

The Servo-Automata are good with flamers now they have shred Calleb Decima has melta bombs standard and an inferno pistol and a maccinator array with armourbane – bulkhead doors do not exist to this guy. You do meet dreadnoughts frequently in ZM so his CotO ability is still very potent, but it is also an AP3 weapon so if he’s going to get cornered he can use it on infantry to reasonable effect.

Legion Techmarine Covenant

Scenario requirements in ZM can require this unit in your OR force but sadly a conversion beamer is a bit wasted. For most ZM setups there will not be 42” lines of sight so it will be placing a S6 AP- Small Blast most of the time and a S8 AP4 Small Blast the rest of the time. This is helped by the shred special rule on all templates in ZM Melta Bombs are a must-take for bulkheads which are AV13. Rad Grenades are not necessary because in order to reach the lower strength threshold to cause instant death with the Techmarine or servo-automata’s CC attacks, they need to take weapon upgrades which would reach that threshold on T4 models anyway (thunder hammer, lascutter, power fist). UNLESS you think he will meet another Techmarine and servo-automata, in which case the Rad Grenades will be an actual requirement to reach their instant death threshold with thunderhammers, power fists or lascutters.

Thallax

Stopping infiltrators is good – deploy accordingly. You have a giant 24” radius bubble around every cohort; given the book recommends using a 4’x4’ board (page 169) a single cohort can cover nearly half of the board. Three 40mm bases and 2” coherency centred in a line along the edge of your deployment zone does leave some wiggle room to the sides but effectively pushes back any infiltrating unit into the opposite half of the board. This may cause your opponents to spend ’Stratagem Points’ to outflank (flanking counter-assault) or deepstrike (tunnel access). You can pay army selection points to make Thallax deepstrike, so you can now spend your ’Strategem Points’ on a ’Spearhead Sentry Gun’ or some Breacher Charges

Strategem Points

You get one for participating, and another for each 500pts you use at force selection. Under 500pts and you have 1 If the game is 1000pts and you have 2 At 1500pts (!) you have 3 A single Strategem Point can provide: a Fire Wasp (available only to attackers) has some utility – better than the barricades defenders are offered. If you are the defender, give two Thallax or two legion Techmarines a Breacher charge instead – there is a low chance of it going wrong on those models (Ballistic Skill 4) and could shatter a terminator units day.

Usually you will have 2 Strategem Points and these should be used gaining a Spearhead Sentry Gun. Unless you like dolling out the Breacher Charges of course, you can take four now.

Breacher Charges

A one-per-model single use small blast (shred) at S8 AP2 and can be carried by any infantry model no matter how lowly. You get two for your Strategem Point and you can take it as many times as you want.

The template has to be placed in base contact with the carrying model and can’t cover any friendly models so take care with positioning and have one possibly two models in between the carrier and the enemy for the sake of Overwatch but make sure it’s going to be one of your models which is in the front line and in base contact with the enemy. The optimal user is an Empyrite Augment Thallax Cohort of 3 since a low model count rarely limits the placement of the template and deepstriking inside the enemy DZ is the polite thing to do.

Fire Wasp

Only available to the Attacker for 1 Stratagem Point and is a reasonably natty bit of kit – it is infantry and has scout so outflanking with a Breacher Charge with it is doable – it’s got a good chance of getting itself due to poor weapon skill though so its best function is forcing your opponent to reveal their unit blips early on when using the Enemy Unknown optional rules which you’ll probably be using since Stratagem Points are optional rules too. The negative side is that it counts as a separate unit and is quite weak so that will have implications for the ’Atrittion ’ rule and ’Search And Destroy’ missions. It will give you a unit to hide somewhere to avoid a ’Wipe Out!’, allow your units to defend the other two objectives for ’Force The Breach!’ and could be worth 3 Victory Points if it’s still in your opponents DZ at the end of the game in an ’Invasion’ mission – one of the few times re-rolling a successful reserve roll would be advantageous.

Spearhead Sentry Gun

Counts as Terrain, so no holding or contesting objectives with it.

Your 2 Stratagem Points get you two wounds at T6 and a 4+ with a single TL weapon. Those attributes aren’t enough to resist a units shooting attacks, but it will make them use their shooting attacks on it instead of on your dudes. Just in case it survives, choose your weapon! TL Heavy Bolter – the best choice, most things will get their armour save but you have to wound first. S4 at least means wounding a Marine on a 4+ TL Heavy Flamer - more of an area denial choice; the enemy isn’t dumb enough to walk into range of a TL Heavy Flamer with shred. Or are they? Bad deepstrike scatter is possible after all. TL Rotor Cannon – In order to roll to wound you must first hit.. A single extra shot over the Heavy Bolter in exchange for wounding marines on a 5+. Range is irrelevant but it is shorter range than the Heavy Bolter

Categories: Ordo Reductor Tactica