Ordinatus
"A weapon the size of a Titan.
A near-perfect expression of the Omnissiah's grandeur and, of course, his puissance. Armies are thrown to the wind by its glorious song, and mountains themselves skitter aside at its demand. Nothing stands before a sacred Machine Spirit so mighty without its consent."
- – Tech-Priest Garrulon Vyme
In the rare event that even the Titan Legions just can't get the job done, the Imperium of Man brings in the specialized war-machines known as the Ordinati. These are basically unintelligent (so far as we know) Bolos built with Imperial technology, and are the angry black matriarchs of the AdMech's arsenals.
The size of an Ordinatus varies A. LOT., if you thought the size of Titans was inconsistent as fuck, the Ordinatus got them beat. This is due to the fact that each Ordinatus is a unique specimen, meaning that the size of these things varies upon their specialization. Some like Ordinatus Golgotha is noted to have its missile to be as tall as a Reaver Titan, making it on the small end of things. Others like Ordinatus Armageddon mounts a Nova Cannon, which if scaled properly (Assuming it isn't a miniaturisation), puts it in between 500-1800 meters, whilst the traitorous twin Ordinatii engines, Eradicant and Obliteratus, is described as having tracks two storeys high which ran for hundreds of metres. And then you have the Ork-looted Ordinatus Mars on the right, which is just fucking ridiculous.
- Length: 0.5-1.8km; approx
- Mass: 0.8-7 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 2,000- 14,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 0.2-14kph; approx
Overview
Unlike the standardized Titans, each Ordinatus is custom-built by the Adeptus Mechanicus for a specific objective and named after the world it was constructed on. A special branch of the Admech called the Centurio Ordinatus is responsible for their creation, use, and maintenance, similar to the Collegia Titanica. The Ordinati themselves vary widely in armaments, size, shape, and role - some are armed with guns that would make an Imperator Battle Titan jealous, others are designed to carry entire battalions of troops, but all are more than capable of winning a war on their own. Most of them are only used for one battle and then get mothballed.
Using each one for only a single fight seems kind of wasteful given how stupidly powerful they're supposed to be, but you must first realize how the Mechanicum sees them. To the AdMech, innovation is one of the most dangerous things in the galaxy - if they invent a new Ordinatus it is only out of extremely dire need, and even then only the Centurio Ordinatus Magi are entrusted to do so. After it fulfills its purpose, the new Ordinatus should by all means be left alone unless it needs to perform its specialized role again. After all, it's a new technology not based at all on any pre-existing STC, and as such using it without a very, very good reason is seen as sacrilege if not outright tech-heresy, and if you push the wrong button you might vaporize somebody's favorite mountain by accident.
In light of that, actually deploying one at all is a very rare event compared to that of their Titan counterparts. Most of them were either destroyed, lost, damaged beyond repair, or just plain forgotten during the Horus Heresy. They're typically deployed separately from any Titan Legions or Skitarii, and are used only when any other options have failed. One was constructed in the middle of the First battle for Ullanor in the war of the beast, and fired PLASMA DRIVES (famous for powering BATTLE BARGES on their own). This was so effective, it could one shot a column of Ork Gargants. Unfortunately it met a sticky end when the Beast's PERSONAL TEMPLE-GARGANT fired all its weaponry (and there's a lot) at it, and still only just managed to cripple it. WOW.
Ordinatus engines are absolutely massive land crawlers that can run over and squash Baneblades, and are protected by a specialized energy field called a Dispersion Field on par with a Titan's void shields. Unlike the Titans, Ordinati are usually not meant to directly assault enemy positions, but tend to be better suited as really big back-line artillery. They are (very relatively) squishy for their size and firepower - and fairly indiscriminate at unleashing said firepower - so they need support armies to keep enemies at distance as they blow everything within several hundred miles of them to pieces.
Speaking about firepower... While Titans and huge ass super heavy tanks tend to have multiple guns on them, Ordinatus engines always mount only one ridiculously OP weapon system which can be as large as an actual Titan. Most (if not all) of those systems were once specifically designed to solve one particularly difficult problem. Let me reiterate this: The Mechanicum, the guys who see innovation as one of the most perilous things in the galaxy, actually invented these things. Not just "in the distant past before much knowledge had being lost" but right the fuck NOW - some of the famous Ordinatus weapons were invented in M41 to fight off Waaagh! Ghazghkull. It's no surprise to anyone that the cogboys consider them the most sacred "relics" that they possess.
Ordinati Minoris
The "small" Ordinati, which are still each the size of three Leman Russ tanks lined up end-to-end, are typically armed with weaponry normally seen on Titans. They're easily recognized in silhouette by the two pairs of tracks they possess: two at the front and two at the rear. All of the big, "regular" Ordinati have three pairs of treads. Granted, each of those treads could wholly crush an Ordinatus Minoris, but that is besides the point.
They're also the only Ordinati which have rules for them available and they can be taken in both 30k and 40k (40k rules awaiting the release of Fires of Cyraxus) Admech lists. Both of the available Ordinati Minoris are Super-Heavy Vehicles with AV14/13/13, 14 Hull points, Blessed Autosimalcrum, Armored Ceramite, Anbaric Claws, an Ordinatus Dispersion Field (an improved Flare Shield that's most effective early in the game: initially it grants a -3 S to all shooting attacks and rolls on the D chart, which goes down by one until the third turn, where it remains at a -1 penalty to all incoming shooting attacks and strength D hits), three turret-mounted Volkite Culverins, and a built in 6++ save. The catch is that they also have their own Catastrophic Damage table in which the closest range is always Strength D no matter what gets rolled, so if it ever does go down it's guaranteed to fuck over anyone nearby.
The IRL reasons for the Minoris existence is because full size Ordinatus models would not only be larger than Emperor Titans, but also bigger than the table and cost at least double the price of both put together. Therefore, you are never going to see Ordinatus Majoris models outside of Epic. At the very least with the Minoris people will actually play with you. On that same note, trolling players who deploy Knights and Titans in Escalation is always going to be funny.
Currently, three Ordinatus Minoris variants have their own rules:
Ordinatus Sagittar
The sniper and anti-titan of Ordinatus Minoris.
The Ordinatus Sagittar was a type of Ordinatus engine used during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. A smaller Ordinatus Minoris design, the Sagittar was equipped with a Belicosa-pattern Volcano Cannon used to destroy enemy Titans and most often carried on Warlord Class machines. Secondary weapons consisted of a trio of Volkite Culverins.
Crunchwise, did you ever say to yourself "Hey, I wish I could mount a Titan-grade Volcano Cannon on something other than a Shadowsword"? Well, you're in luck- for "only" 700 points, the Ordinatus Sagittar can fire off a blast of Strength D Apocalyptic Blast goodness from 180' away, allowing you to snipe enemy vehicles and everything vaguely close to them from the other side of the table. The Machine Destroyer rule on it is a little overkill, but very nice against Titans.
Ordinatus Ulator
A rare and truly arcane weapon system of UNLIMITED POWA!!!, the Ulator is one of the most potent war machines at the Imperium’s disposal. In the time of the Great Crusade the Ordinatus macro engines were rarer than even the Battle Titans of the Collegia Titanica, and only a handful of Forge Worlds had the resources or indeed the doctrinal blessing and religious authority to produce or maintain such embodiment of the Omnissiah’s divine wrath. Such was the sacredness of these machines above all others, that an entire subcult of the Mechanicum was devoted to their worship and propitiation. The Ordinatus Ulator carries a trio of Volkite Culverins as its secondary armaments, but its primary weapon is the terrifying Ulator class Sonic Destructor.
On tabletop, 1075 points nets you the Ordinatus Mars' little brother, armed with its own Sonic Destructor. At first glance, its rules are nasty as hell- 72' range, AP1, Armorbane, Instant Death, Pinning, and Ignores Cover in one package. However, the meat of its effectiveness comes from its "Ulator Sonic Wave" rule. Instead of measuring the shot normally, you place a Massive Blast marker so it touches the Ordinatus' hull, and move it forward in any direction from its firing arc (so long as the first model hit by it is an enemy; mind you, friendly units can be hit afterwards) until it either reaches the max range or it leaves the table. Everything that the template passes over even partially is automatically hit, with squads taking a number of hits equal to the number of models that the template covered as it moved. Yes, this includes fliers too. From there, its strength changes depending on what got hit- it acts like S5 on infantry/bikes/beasts/jetbikes/cavalry, S8 on MCs and non-tank vehicles, S10 on tanks, and the almighty D to super-heavies, buildings, and GCs. Between its ability to tear apart an entire army in one shot regardless of what's being fielded and the fact that it literally cannot miss, it says a lot that this is still one of the "small" Ordinati. In addition, it sounds something like this.
Ordinatus Aktaeus
The Ordinatus Aktaeus is a type of Ordinatus engine used by the Mechanicum during the Horus Heresy.
Essentially a massive assault drill, the super-heavy transport is actually two vehicles combined into one. The first is the Ordinatus you see while the second is the giant drill, which is called the Mole; combined, this allowed for the delivery of troops directly into the heart of the battle. The weapon also unleashes potent seismic forces upon the enemy in the process.
The Adeptus Mechanicus of Forge World AcM3 have done it again, after vigorous field tests in catching the elusive 'road runner' they've finally cleared their giant novelty rocket for use as a war machine, right after they repurposed it into a drill. It's better known as the Mole. Presumably, they did so after playing a few too many games of FATAL and they wanted to make something so huge, no roll for Anal Circumference could possibly save you.
Ordinatus Mars
During the Schism of Mars, one traitor Magos holed himself up in a mountain citadel, sending his armies to harass Loyalist factories. Four companies of Imperial Fists led by Sigismund were sent to stop him, but discovered that the Magos possessed a peculiar xeno artifact that caused any ship that got too close to it to be blown up or thrown into the Warp. A ground attack was decided to be a more viable approach...if it weren't for the half-mile thick walls made of the toughest materials known to the Imperium.
The Mechanicum responded by creating the Ordinatus Mars, armed with a Sonic Disruptor that caused the citadel to shake itself apart with the force of its sound waves. As the walls of the fortress crumpled the Loyalist Tech-Guard was able to storm the citadel and execute the traitor Magos with no difficulty. Probably being used by the Fabricator-General for fuck all, as no-one knows what happened to it after that.
One Mars, Ordinatus Hervaras, as you may have already known from the image above, had been looted by Orks. One must wonder where the self-destruct button was.
Ordinatus Golgotha
After Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka fled Armageddon, Yarrick managed to track him down to the planet Golgotha. Sometime after his capture by the greenskins and later escape, he returned with a punitive force of Titans and Skitarii. The sheer size of the Ork WAAAGH! made it impossible for them to gain an advantage, warranting the creation of an Ordinatus made specifically to deal with overwhelmingly massive hordes.
Carrying six Hellfire Missiles, capable of annihilating massive swathes of enemy infantry and light vehicles. The Golgotha's Hellfire Missiles were perfect for the job, and routed the Orks within a week. Since then it's been deployed in any battle where the enemies of the Imperium outnumber even the Imperial Guard. To this day, no one knows how the great weapon is reloaded. The only real way they could pull that off is if it was loaded into an Ark Mechanicus or a Cruiser or something. Either way it would take the better part of a day or longer.
It was first used on the Squat homeworld of Golgotha against invading Orks.
Ordinatus Armageddon
The Ordinatus Armageddon was designed during the First War for Armageddon to defend against a particularly dangerous horde of Daemon Engines. The plasma-based cannon gives it the ability to melt Titans in one shot and disintegrate entire tank battalions with a salvo. Supposedly, it was 'inspired' by an old Squat anti-Titan vehicle. The book Helsreach speculates that the Ordinatus Armageddon's main gun was basically a Nova Cannon (a weapon typically used only on Imperial Navy warships) modified to use an auto-loading system instead of a crew of thousands of slave workers.
It is the only 'large' Ordinatus that can be properly estimated based on size. While not official, it can assumed that its maximum size puts it in the same weight category as Imperial Destroyers or Frigates. We got this size by estimating its Nova Cannon with that of Imperial Battleships and scaling it with the Armageddon. Of course do note that this is just taking into the presumption that the Nova Cannon on the Armageddon is the same size as those found on Battleships and that changes in its size can fluctuate. This is unlikely to be true because a titan is a hell of a lot smaller than a ship and requiring a "salvo" to destroy a tank battalion implies (relatively) rapid fire capability so the shots must be far smaller than those of a true nova cannon. So we may or may not be looking at a Macrocannon scenario with the likes of the Aquila Strongpoint. Nevertheless, an alternate answer is that the Nova Cannon is of the same size, but sacrifices power with an increase rate of fire. After all, starship Nova Cannons takes tens-of-minutes at best to reload every shot, whereas the one on the Armageddon could fire in 'salvos'. It also makes sense both in terms of behavior and cost-effectiveness to modify a pre-existing Nova Cannon than creating a entirely new, small but modular pint-size powerhouse (Just look at the AdMech and the Stormsword Cannon fiasco); the implications of which would be a game changer for the Imperium. Imagine, fielding Nova Cannons small enough that could be put on a Ordinatus Minoris.
Anyway, during the battle of Helsreach the ranking Space Marine commander, Chaplain Grimaldus, ordered his Techmarine to go find the Ordinatus and reactivate it. This took about five straight weeks of hacking, just to get in the hangar bay's door. And when the Titan Legions found out the Marines had done this they threatened to destroy the Ordinatus and kill all the Space Marines, that's how big a deal these machines and the "never use, ever" doctrines are to the Mechanicus. Luckily basic logic prevailed ("if you don't let us use this the Ork gargants are going to kill us and loot all our Titans) and the Mechanicus Titans stood aside to let the Ordinatus start shooting. The battle changed from an imminent Imperial defeat to a decisive victory shortly thereafter.
Ordinatus Priam
Essentially the Hades Breaching Drill's big brother, the Priam was designed during the Siege of Priam to bypass the defenses of an occupied city by drilling directly through a planet's crust, traveling through the mantle underneath, and then reemerging behind enemy lines. It was successful at deploying four companies of Imperial Guard to break the aforementioned siege without incinerating them in the process, but was rendered inoperable afterwards due to its shielding partially failing during the attack. Since most Ordinati are only intended for one battle anyway, this wasn't an issue and they certainly would have sent the data to Mars anyway.
Ordinatus Gehenna
The Gehenna was armed with an Apocalypse Cannon strong enough to shoot straight through a planet's crust hard enough to trigger magma flows. It was fought over by the Imperium and Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade. I'm not sure what an Apocalypse Cannon is but i'ma go out on a limb and say that it's a beefier version of a Volcano Gun that can destabilize the geological activity of the planet it's sitting on.
Ordinatus Volcanis Ultor
A rare example of a Traitor Ordinatus, made by the Dark Mechanicum of Volcanis Ultor to wipe out an advancing force of Grey Knights. Its exact armament was never described, but judging by the description of it being able to fire pinpoint salvos of multiple warheads it may have been capable of firing missiles or shells of some kind. However, it was never actually used- the wreckage of a Grey Knight Strike Cruiser that had just been destroyed by the traitors' warships crashed on top of the war machine, obliterating its cannon barrel and ammunition loading systems by accident.
Ordinatus Ullanor
A destroyed Capitol Imperialis command vehicle and a ship-based Plasma Annihilator taken from a downed Ark Mechanicus, the Ordinatus Ullanor lived a brief life during the battle against WAAAAGH! Beast during the events of the Beast Arises series. It showed up, killed a few Gargants, then got nuked by the beast's mountain-sized Gargant in one shot salvo.
Gallery
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The Ordinatus Mars, making Emperor Battle Titans feel insecure since the 31st millennium.
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A size scale between the maximum to minimum possible size of the Ordinatus Armageddon. Makes you feel small eh?
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