Pyriel- wrote:Wow, thats logical indeed.

Wow, thats logical indeed.



Page space isn't unlimited.

Even reading through the Imperial Fist section you can tell it was written for the main rulebook but obviously cut due to space restrictions.

there are actually a bunch of threads @ FFG's forum on the custom stuff for various chapters (ravenguard seem to be *VERY* popular for this somehow... can't complain seeing as how i did just that as my first one too!). It's probably not appropriate here in the news thread but you could always start up a separate thread here in the RPG subforum and i'd post my thoughts/ideas there.

warboss wrote:so... i guess the OP or a mod should change the name of the thread to reflect the 4th RPG now.

Kanluwen wrote:Part of it is that FFG's hopeless with their release dates.

The Warstore, where I got my copy of Rites of Battle from, still actually had it listed as "preorder, shipping in April".

And that's a week after I had my copy in hand.

aka_mythos wrote:I've heard the same. So what it comes down to is FFG is small enough they've had to choose to allow you to get your books from Amazon or everywhere else. FFG's chosen the latter

H.B.M.C. wrote:It's because Black Crusade doesn't yet have a release date as it is far from done.

Friday, 25 February 2011Existential cogitations on the Inquisitorial Ordos
Scanning the interwebs recently I came upon a discussion on a minor piece of background (sand-boxed to the Fantasy Flight Games setting) relating to an arm of the Inquisition that I myself am responsible for creating, and it was interesting to see people’s reactions to it and their theories as to just why it was created. The discussion reminded me of my own chain of thought during the writing of the piece in question, so I thought I’d write a blog entry on the subject.

The arm of the Inquisition in question is the Ordo Chronos, and it first appeared in the Dark Heresy: Ascension supplement. It came into existence not as a random whimsy or any desire to introduce a Time Lord-like archetype into Warhammer 40,000, but, initially at least, as a response to a design challenge. When we wrote Ascension, Games Workshop’s Manager of Intellectual Property, Alan Merrett, provided us with an overview of the current standing of the Inquisition. Alan’s document was thorough and presented a guide for writers working on any subject relating to the Inquisition, ensuring we all knew which themes were worth pursuing and which weren’t. One piece of wisdom addressed the question of Inquisitorial Ordos, stating that there are three which we really care about and should focus on, but that others do exist, if only for a short time or specific place.

This got me thinking, because I’ve always felt that the three Ordos cover between them every single threat to the Imperium we could possibly imagine. What enemy of Mankind couldn’t be encompassed within the mandate of the Ordo Hereticus (the Enemy Within), the Ordo Xenos (the Enemy Without) or the Ordo Melleus (the Enemy Beyond)?

In the past, both writers and players have invented other Ordos, but to be honest, they’ve never really ringed true to me. We’ve had the Ordo Sicarius, established to look out for and deal with rogue assassins, but wouldn’t that be a job for the Ordo Hereticus? We’ve had other Ordos described as dealing with all sorts of other things, including Plague Zombies, which to me would fall under the remit of the Ordo Malleus, being products of Chaos. To me, the three main Ordos exist to combat truly existential threats to the Imperium and to Mankind, and so any new ones we invent should do so too, and be clearly delineated.

So what existential threats might exist beyond the three already covered by the main Ordos? I could think of two, and I’m quite sure others will be able to come up with more. The first is the notion of time distortion, a phenomenon already seeded into the Warhammer 40,000 oeuvre via the hazards of miscalculated warp jumps. That’s why I created the Ordo Chronos – not as some huge, fanfared plot device, but as a nice little example of the sort of threat that should, in my view, merit an Ordo all its own.

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 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!

Sounds cool to me, so as a hobbyist, I want to know what these guys might look like. Perhaps they’re a bit steam punkish, with cog emblems, huge mechanical goggles, idiosyncratic technologies and eccentric costumes? Maybe the Radicals are accompanied by all sorts of riff raff washed up by the tides of space-time? I can certainly picture a little ‘Victorian sci-fi’ here, but maybe that’s just me!

What of the other existential threat then? Well, this one is a little vague, but Stewart Brand once said something along the lines that ‘information wants to be free’, and in the Imperium, the ultimate oppressive state, that would make it pretty dangerous. Dangerous enough to warrant an entire Ordo to keep it under control? Maybe! Who do you think it is that goes around deleting files in the Imperium’s archives? They don’t just get corrupted, they get wiped, from everywhere, and that’s some undertaking! I have a tongue in cheek name for these guys – the Ordo Redactor – and I imagine them as grey-suited, blank-faced agents who ensure information is kept under control. Maybe the Puritans believe in hiding the truth away, deleting it even, so that it never escapes. Perhaps the Radicals believe it better to hide it in plain sight, as many conspiracy theorists believe actually happens today?

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the relevance of the Ordos and the existential threats they combat. Hopefully this whimsical diatribe also reveals something of my thinking too (though maybe not!) I’d be very interested in hearing if anyone else can think of some more

Hello Rogue Traders,

This week to help preview the upcoming Battlefleet Koronus, we asked writer Andy Chambers to pass on a few thoughts about his work on the book. For Andy, Battlefleet Koronus was an interesting opportunity to revisit topics he had touched on in some of his earlier games, including Games Workshop’s Battlefleet Gothic. Take it away, Andy!



Battlefleet Koronus was a welcome opportunity to expand on some of the ideas in Battlefleet Gothic, mainly long talks with Gav Thorpe and Jes Goodwin back in the day. We talked about how creepy it would actually be if you were on an Imperial ship—some thousand year old flying fortress/monastery/cathedral/mausoleum powered by leaky plasma reactors and hurtling through the daemon-infested void. You'd have to have a lot of faith, that's for sure.

Chain of Command

That's about when ships getting corrupted by Chaos all the time really starts to make sense. How long would it take being adrift in the warp with daemons clawing at the hull before you'd sacrifice someone just to be left alone? How long before you start making deals with the devil to bring you home from the void?

One of the discussions I had with Sam Stewart on Battlefleet Koronus was whether to term the crew of Imperial Navy 'shipmen' or 'voidmen.’ I wanted to mention an older name for the common voidman, a shipman: man of the ship. After all, the ship is their world and the void is something outside it, always predatory and hungering. As part of the background for Battlefleet Koronus we created a rank list from the lowliest Rating to the Lord High Admiral, a pleasingly arcane and bureaucratic mess with overlapping ranks, temporary elevations and weird asides to cover strike craft crews that feels like just the kind of thing you'd expect in the ten thousand year old Imperium.



We also got into digging around about naval ship design, specifically 17th/18th Century when the broadside was king. Extrapolating how that might apply to adamantium plated starships was particularly facinating, since Warhammer 40,000 starships have strong ties to the wooden warships of yester-year. Taking a more in-depth look at the different kinds of decks aboard a ship offers great opportunities for planning adventures, from fine dining in the Nobilite towers to hunting xenos vermin in the bilges. Ships in the 41st millennium make fantastic adventure settings, each one is a mobile city with its own collection of characters, problems and plot hooks.

The whole thing was lots of fun to write, I hope you enjoy reading it. For those of you interested in such things, much of my inspiration came courtesy of C S Forester, Patrick O'Brian and Dudley Pope which all make my recommended reading list, and from the hefty and exhaustive 'The Fighting Ships of The Royal Navy 897-1984' by E.H.H Archibald (which is, you'll have to admit, one hell of a name).