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So as you may be able to tell from my sig, avatar or anything i've ever posted on this forum that i play Ordo Reductor Mechanicum.
Our options have changed quite drastically over the years, starting off as an allied detachment only, but now we have everything the taghmata had and more - glorius artillery batteries!!
So i felt some attention was worth being shone on this briliant unit and maybe convince other mechanicum adepts to have a blast with the Ordo Reductor.
This thread is for the Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank Battery available on page 84 of the new Mechanicum LRB.



So you start with one 'engine' which is a whirlwind; 85 points and free choice of missiles - Vengeance, Castellan or Hyperios; up to 2 more can be added for the same points and are deployed as a squadron and take up a single heavy support slot.

First neat thing: in a battery of three you can mix and match the missile variants - you could have a hyperios in a squadron with two normal ones and use the interceptor rule to engage seperate targets (sort of)

The missile launcher can be upgraded and all engines in the battery have to have the same weapon upgrade, here are the options..
demolisher cannon
quad lascannon
dual melta cannon
earthshaker cannon
medusa cannon
mars-colossus bombard

This was a real nice surprise because it allowed you to keep your legion artillery batteries as part of your force, but the stand-out star of the show (for me) was the dual melta cannon - only 24" range but essentially is the melta cannon from a knight errant, but twin linked!
Second neat thing: each engine with this gun costs 105points (!!) hmm - knight errant or three of these with upgades...

The awesomeness continues with the equipment you can take (which can be taken by any engine) ...
machine spirit (!!!)
hull mounted HB or HF
one HK
dozer blade
auxilliary drive
extra armour
blessed autosimulacra (!)
seige plating

And then any model can take a pintle TLbolter, HB or HF



I really like that they are able to shoot at different targets with a machine spirit, gaining hull points back with blessed autosimulacraand also being scoring units in the enemy deployment zone (!) in normal games and obsec units in maelstrom missions!

Its down on power compared to the demolisher cannon but has better AP, TL and is heavy not ordinance which makes this loadout quite attractive despite being a 20 point upgrade which is double the cost of the demolisher cannon..

I'll be updating this thread as i play games and learn how they get on against the enemy (30k and 40k).
I'll be happy to fill anyone in on rules or points costs if they dont have the book yet etc..

Cheers for looking!

edited for correctness - Cheers, Zuul!

I just received my copy of the Mechanicum red book the other week and am also very excited about the Artillery Tank Battery.

Looking forward to reading about your experiences in battle.

Huzzah! It really is glorius - it could almost have been released as a lazy 'Mars' campain book with a few fluff additions! Anyway...


I came up with a 1500 list to test out the batteries i currently have in production; here it is..

HQ: Calleb decima with decima invictus upgrade and a cyber-familiar - 235
Troop1: thallax cohort six strong, destructor augment and two phased plasma fusils - 290
Troop2: thallax cohort six strong, destructor augment and two phased plasma fusils - 290
Fast Attack: crusade fleet avenger strike fighter with 2 pairs of kracken missiles battle servitor control and infra-red targeting - 215
Heavy support: Ordo Reductor artillery tank battery, plus one engine two medusa cannons 2 machine spirit, 2 HB - 300
Heavy support: Ordo Reductor artillery tank battery, plus one engine both with hyperios launchers - 170

Making exactly 1500pts!

I need to finish painting the second medusa, the avenger and two old skool whirlwinds currently in bits.
Lots to do... ....so little time!....

I even did a deliberately small entry into the unofficial dakka painting challenge so i could get on to these sooner rather than later.

Also - I was told that ordinance weapons on a vehicle can fire after it has moved 6" anyway and i'm confusing them with infantry ordinance rules - is this true?

Yeah, vehicles can scoot and shoot ordinance.

I'm really pleased with that clarification; certainly makes me much happier that my batteries can be active models and move around without comprimising thier ability to shoot - i think i my first tactic will be to place all the objectives i can in my enemies deployment zone - i don't like the idea of 'castle-ing' and not having scoring tanks in my own 'zone forces me to be pro-active about objective grabbing.
Plus; it's really fluffy the way the playstyle is looking - shift stuff off the objective with thallax and roll the big guns up after them to secure it.

I could still have objectives in my DZ but i'd have to keep some thallax there (using the list above), and that seems like a bit of a waste of a cohort to me.
I thought about exchanging the two sets of kracken missiles on the Avenger for a blob of ten fearless tech-thralls (rite of pure thought bringing them to 50pts) but thats quite a loss of firepower for a small blob of fearless scoring-meat.

I arranged my first game for a week on wednesday but will still be using partially painted models i'm going to be borrowing a blood angel whirlwind to fill out my numbers - i'm comforting my pedantry with the notion that it's fluffy for me to do that...

The game is going to be against a Tau army currently being put together by Seb the owner of 'Atlantic Games' in stroud based on the new codex.
1500pts of tau looks quite intimidating tbh, multiple large suits and big rail guns making my vehicles look quite flimsy!
So i revised my list a little

Calleb Decima with 'decima invictus' and a cyber familiar for 235

Thallax cohort with a phased plasma fusil 145

Thallax cohort 135

Thallax cohort 135

Scyllax cohort bodyguard 155

Avenger strike fighter with battle servitor control, infra red targeting and a pair of kraken missiles 195

Artillery tank battery with medusa siege gun, hull HB, siege plating and machine spirit 165

Artillery tank battery with medusa siege gun, hull HB, siege plating and machine spirit 165

Artillery tank battery with hyperios launcher 85

Artillery tank battery with hyperios launcher 85

which all comes to 1500points.
I've never really played against tau before so does anyone know what nasty surprises are coming my way and what i can do to mitigate the damage?

I don't know enough about the new Tau to offer any real advice on that, but I would suggest trying to find the points to give the other two Thallax units a plasma fusil, too. It almost doubles the unit's firepower, which helps to make even more use of their -2 modifier to cover saves.

I know you're busting for the Ordinatus, but in true reductor style, you should get a Minotaur (or two if you're allowed the Legion trick of taking a squadron of super heavies up to a total of 12 hull points)! Rain of shells indeed...

One small problem: the Ordo Reductor version of the Minotaur is not a superheavy.

 Peregrine wrote:
One small problem: the Ordo Reductor version of the Minotaur is not a superheavy.

Really? But still part of the Reductor army list (1 per heavy support slot I'm presuming with similar stats to IA1-2nd Ed)? Ooooooo, nice. Really need to buy the Mechanicum red book...

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would suggest trying to find the points to give the other two Thallax units a plasma fusil, too. It almost doubles the unit's firepower, which helps to make even more use of their -2 modifier to cover saves.

totally, i usually would but i'm a sucker for WYSIWYG hence the hull mounted HB's and machine spirit on the medusa's.

maybe it'll be worth dropping the avenger to get another artillery battery (the thermal cannon one) with blessed autosimulacra and siege plating, pay for the p.p.fusil's and still have 45pts spare.


On the minotaur end of things, it's up to 3 in a squadron for 205 ppm base in a single HS slot - i think i may start an ordo reductor tactics thread next summer to go over the minotaur and ordinatus as well

I noticed that there is another type of ordinatus-minoris macro engine - "...such as the Ulator, Sagittar and Urkallac classes...." loadsa missiles?

Looking at your list, I'd say don't bother with Hyperios tanks - use the slots to get more shell lobbers. Minotaurs for one (3 Minotaurs and 6 artillery units - nowt'll survive that drubbing)! The change for Minotaurs is genius, but irritating for Solar Auxillia especially since they were pictured with one but never had rules.

Consider looking at the Hyperios Tarantulas for Anti-Air as an alternative.

The idea behind the hyperios is that they are there to fend off outflankers or deepstrikers with a couple of S8 AP3 shots each for the low cost of 85ppm - if Calleb had access to cyber-occularis i would take the normal whirlwind loadout for anti-horde duty and leave one next to it but i'm pretty sure there's going to be outflanky shenanigans when dealing with tau which i'd like to discourage.

 SirDonlad wrote:
The idea behind the hyperios is that they are there to fend off outflankers or deepstrikers with a couple of S8 AP3 shots each for the low cost of 85ppm - if Calleb had access to cyber-occularis i would take the normal whirlwind loadout for anti-horde duty and leave one next to it but i'm pretty sure there's going to be outflanky shenanigans when dealing with tau which i'd like to discourage.

Don't forget that they're snap shots against non-flyer units. IOW, not worth it.

It's all good, they have skyfire and interceptor for full BS against both.

I don't want to drop them cause i want to see how they work out in practice before i start tooling them up with exotic weaponry.

 SirDonlad wrote:
It's all good, they have skyfire and interceptor for full BS against both.

Not in 7th they don't. Interceptor no longer gives full BS against ground targets.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not in 7th they don't..

Ugh...
7th edition...

whirlwind launchers it is then.

 SirDonlad wrote:

On the minotaur end of things, it's up to 3 in a squadron for 205 ppm base in a single HS slot - i think i may start an ordo reductor tactics thread next summer to go over the minotaur and ordinatus as well

I really really the vision of the Ordo Reductor. A line of punishing artillery: 3 minotaurs and 6-9 Bombards/Earthshakers/Medusas. That'll reduce anything to rubble and it would be terrifying to face such Firepower. Also, looks like you can run quite a nice armoured list as well.

Finally, why wait to summer to start a thread, start it now!

We got an awful lot of artillery and tanks didn't we! (see sig for caveat)

Perhaps you're right, i just don't like it when people profess the merits and failings of stuff without having the model(s) to 'run a test'.

 SirDonlad wrote:
We got an awful lot of artillery and tanks didn't we! (see sig for caveat)

Perhaps you're right, i just don't like it when people profess the merits and failings of stuff without having the model(s) to 'run a test'.

Well, no harm in running the odd proxy here and there. Otherwise, there goes £90 odd quid on something that you may not like. Though, hard to not like 7" twin linked earthshaker blasts pummeling the enemy (assuming you're talking about the Minotaur here)!

I think at least 1 minotaur is necessary, two would have me sated thou..

who am i kidding i need 4.

and one of each ordinatus.

Anybody else having the issue with battlescribe where there is no artillery options for the ordo reductor? Did they lose it in the red book?

No, the only things lost in the new LRB was the dedicated transport 'mechanicum land raider' and it's weapon set.

All the legion artillery options got ported across to the Ordo Reductor artillery tank battery (whirlwind, WW hyperios, medusa, basilisk) except we get to add awesome extra stuff - like 'blessed autosimulacra' and a 'machine spirit' plus all the new options like the quad lascannon or dual thermal cannon are fething sweet!

Actually, that was confusing for me - why port over the artillery, but not the weapon options of the mechanicum land raider?
I was really liking quad HB sponsons with the TL HB on the hull - and i'm also pretty miffed that the graviton cannon option got taken away; 36" range with a 5" blast of difficult/dangerous terrain was really useful!



edit: I refined my army list since I found out my opponent has no fliers, lots of dudes, a ghostkeel formation and a riptide.

HQ: unchanged 235pts
Cohort 1: unchanged 145pts
Cohort 2: added destructor augment 145pts
Cohort 3: added destructor augment 145pts
Scyllax: unchanged 155pts
Avenger strike fighter: removed missiles and infra-red targeting, added chaff launcher 175pts
Artillery battery 1: unchanged 165pts
Artillery battery 2: unchanged 165pts
Artillery battery 3: whirlwind launcher 85pts
Artillery battery 3: whirlwind launcher 85pts

I'll be taking photo's and whack it up on the battle reports section with links to and from here.

Well, turns out that a bunch of kids who wanted to play 'magic' appeared and took all my mates time up (he has a business to run so i'm cool with it) but another mate who was itching to try out what he had painted of an emperors children force (including fulgrim) was up for a game, so i tweaked my list back to the first one since he wanted to use 6th edition. models were borrowed, rules were ignored, but we both walked away having had a great game.

my dice rolls sucked for most of the game especially while trying to 'intercept' a deathstorm drop pod, but i have learned much!
some things became obvious:

1. the ordo reductor detachment makes ALL units ignore the effects and penalties of moving through areas of rubble, ruins, minefields and trenchworks - nearly every bit of terrain we had fitted these categories! I'm pleased that i didn't take dozer blades as they would have been a waste of points.

2. getting to go first is critical - the armour isn't strong enough to endure proper anti-vehicle weapons, they are basically light vehicles with big guns

3. splitting up the batteries into two columns going up either side was useful for splitting the enemy fire but it was easy for him to get round the sides for that AV10 - one large armoured column may be the way to go?

4. machine spirit is an auto take at 10 points because it allows your template weapon to fire it if you have a 'crew shaken' result (if it survives the enemy shooting phase it will have this result applied to it tbh)

5. cover is a massive thing for these vehicles because of their low AV - cover saves saved them more than twice for each one of them (i had 4)

6. you have to play this list fluffy - these are your expendable artillery pieces and you should equip and throw them at the enemy as such.

7. i thought that 'siege plating' was a bit useless and i was just taking it for wysiwyg reasons, but having seen a mortis dread with TL LC, an LR and two quad mortars using shatter shells only bring one to one hull point remaining and 'crew shaken' i can see it having a use!

8. use old style models because they are smaller and less threatening to your opponent; i found he went for the medusa guns despite the plating and they are noticeably bigger - i was able to completely conceal the whirlwinds behind the wrecks!.

i only lost by a single VP because all attention went on my tanks and flyer while the thallax put themselves in a position to score VP's.
None of the batteries made it to the enemy deployment zone where they would have netted me more VP's but it was kinda like every one of them was a 'distraction carnifex' in their own small way.

I probably won't take the hull HB's next time and 'machine spirit' is now mandatory for my engines! 'blessed autosimulacra' could have kept one of the engines on the board a turn longer but it's a big 'could' - a better idea would probably be a 'macrocarid explorator' with a 'servo rig' and a tech-priest auxillia unit inside with an enginseer sitting next to them to garuantee those hull points back and be the bigger distraction.

Awesome wright up! I would like to see the battle report!

I've had good luck parking my artillery units under the protective cowl of a void shield generator.

Nice write up.

I know I keep harping on about it - but Minotaurs! Heavier armour, much bigger blasts, they'll serve both as killers and fire magnets as they have the HP and Armour to weather the fire and 7" Earthshaker blasts will annihilate pretty much whatever it lands on. And my next Forgeworld order will contain a Minotaur for definite!

Then stick a Macrocarid Explorator with your Enginseers next to the battery and watch your opponent weep. They'll waste a huge amount of shots to take down 1-2 Minotaurs leaving the rest of your batteries to pummel him!

Thanks guys, it's a pleasure to provide some useful info for those who want to know!

hey, zuul - how did you get a void shield generator in your FOC? need to know how that's done!

yeah, I think you're probably right 'zedmeister'; the artillery batteries can't really win the war on their own - time to create the 'Ordo Reductor' thread. I'll set to it later this eve.

Cheers for the interest and i'll See you in the new thread...

I take it in my fortification slot. Check the updated rules for battles in the age of darkness in book 5. They state it's totally cool to take any imperial fortifications from stronghold assault!

Ah. The matrix of ruin says i can't take allies or fortifications.

edit: going to make the new Ordo Reductor thread tomorrow now

Btw, Heres what data i could get of the battle..
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/670881.page#8268962