Hands Over Fists: Techmarines II

Follwing on from December's post:

 

But that’s enough of me complaining.  What about the good things with Techmarines?  Yes, there are good things, so I can’t pout too much.  Here we go.  You may have noticed that in my previous griping post, I was going on and on about how they are nowhere near as good as they used to be in combat.  But that’s a little too narrowly focused to be a fully valid complaint.  Techmarines are a lot easier to accept when you realise that their role has become more of a support than it was before.  They used to be a nice close-combat surprise with an added ability to repair vehicles and do the whole Dreadnought unlock thing.  Now, with Hull points being very much de rigeur in 6th edition, their repair ability becomes much more of a primary focus.  In 5th ed (and you may be spotting a theme here), vehicle destruction was very much in the lap of raw chance with that bloody damage table.  Vehicles could keep going forever if your opponent kept rolling those ones on the table.  Now, with Hull Points, vehicles die quicker, but are functional and useful for longer (snap firing’s still better than no firing).  It’s very difficult to stop a vehicle firing without killing it completely.

The ability to restore hull points can be crucial when dealing with attrition, especially in the higher AV units that are more likely to receive glancing than penetrating hits.  As to whether that ability alone is worth the points, I would hazard not, unless you have entire vehicle firebase at the back of you army.  The servo-arm alone only gives you a 5+ chance, but that can be readily upgraded with cheaper servitors who also act as ablative wounds. 

Speaking of servitors, they are the cheapest way of getting plasma cannons into your army if you want that kind of thing.  A handy bolster for a firebase, as you can get two cannons for only 60 points total.  They still mindlock like the lobotomised little cretins they are, but if you have a Techie in there they’ll be fine and can still fire while he focusses on repair.  Either that or you go for more of a firebase feel with a conversion beamer Master of the Forge.  Remember, you don’t need a servo-arm to repair, just the Blessings of the Omnissiah rule!  Also to bear in mind is the handy rule that the heavy weapons guys can still fire as normal if they personally stood still, allowing greater freedom for the repair guy to get into the gut of the nearby damaged vehicles, particularly if you’ve decked the unit out with additional servo-armed guys.

The other deployment option for them is to stick them in your front-line units and view them as squad upgrade guys more than anything else.  They come into their own in transport vehicles to keep them going where they need to go.  But once they are out of the vehicle, what do they do.  Is there any point to getting them out with the rest of the unit?  I think so, as they are still useful at a pinch.  2+ armour and a S8 AP1 attack are not to be discounted, especially as the combat rules can have you deflect damage to the Techmarine onto the other squad members, meaning he is far more likely to land the blows you want him to and helping make up for the lack of an invulnerable save.  There is also the possibility of using him as a bit of a damage soak if you want to entrust his fate to a tonne of 2+ armour rolls.  Probably not your best call in a bog standard tac squad, but could be useful for more specialised units, or when you want to keep that troops choice alive as long as you can.  Personally, I feel that is you are going to go for a front line Techmarine, you are far better served by taking a deep breath and going for the full servo-harness.  This gives far more than the 25 points bump should do, certainly when you compare it to some of the other tactical squad options.  What’s the better deal: giving your Sergeant a power fist, or giving the Techmarine an extra attack with a better power fist, a flamer, a twin linked plasma pistol and a better chance to keep the transport running?  I know which I’m rooting for.

A final point to bring up is the slight tweak they’ve received in the Force Org chart.  Instead of consuming an entire Elites slot to themselves, they now take a phantom HQ slot, one per regular HQ choice.  This gives you far better flexibility in your choices, as now he doesn’t have to content with the host of other, more combat-effective Elites options.  I’ll also add that the Iron Hands expansion allows you to take two per regular HQ slot or three per Master of the Forge, really opening up your choices, and looking damn cool while they do it!

Hands Over Fists: Techmarines 1

So, how has the new edition treated my beloved Techmarines and Master of the Forge?  Not great, by all accounts.  Not great.  They’re not unusable, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not what I wanted out of the unit.  My problem is that I just keep comparing them to the guys in the old codex.  No, not the 5^th edition one, the one before that.  A regular Techmarine was a proper veteran, with a minor character statline, and had access to a vast array of technology and other doodads to really kit him out.  Sadly, that version has long since departed, replaced with the relatively watered-down creation we got in 5^th ed, without any option of an invulnerable save.  The Master of the Forge was a new character, although he was basically the old school Techmarine with servo-harness standard and slightly better leadership, and the regular Techmarines were just weak.  Yeah, you could give them a servo harness that allowed them to act as short-range weapon platforms and help out a bit with vehicle repairs.  However, with the way vehicles and vehicle damage worked in that edition, you barely ever needed to repair and they took up an entire Elite slot for a single one wound model, which was hardly an enticing prospect for a guy that was weight in at 75 points.  Bolstering terrain was cool, but a Thunderfire Gunner can do that, and you get an awesome gun in the process, so really, why would you, unless you were full on Heavy Supports.  Which I guess was a possibility.

But now, how have things changed.  On the combat side (in my opinion) they’ve got even worse.  This is due to one factor.  The servo-arms no longer provide additional attacks like they used to.  What used to happen is that the Techmarine would get his regular batch of attacks at usual initiative and would get an extra one or two (depending on whether it was an arm or a harness) at Strength 8 and (effectively) AP2.  Now, they are just an AP1 Power Fist.  That’s all.  I was a bit annoyed at that to be honest.  Not only does it have the effect of massively reducing the number of attacks you can get out of them (a bog standard techie would get 2 regular with bolt pistol/close combat weapon and then 1 with the arm, now they only get one total if you want to use the damn thing), but it’s also made servitors less of a threat as they are only hitting at S6.  Not that anyone used servitors, but that’s not the point.  At least servitors are cheap now.

In a straight fight, they’re worse than before.  AP 1 close combat is nice if you need to dismantle vehicles fast I suppose, and now at least it’s theoretically possible to give you Master an Invulnerable save if you go for a hideously expensive Relic to do so.  Also, as a side note, you strangely get the option to purchase a power axe for fifteen points as one of the standard option for the techmarine or master.  This is odd to me, as they can access the melee weapons list, which grants them access to a tonne of weapons including the power axe, at exactly the same points value as listed on the entry.  This baffles me slightly, not only because it seems redundant, but also because the power axe is worse in nigh on every single regard to the servo arm.  It strikes at the same time as the arm, but for less strength and worse AP.  You can get an extra attack by pairing it with the bolt pistol, but if you’re springing for that axe, why not pay the extra 10 points to get the full harness? You get the same number of attacks but with a better weapon plus a flamer and plasma cutter.  Anyway, that’s my bitching out of the way.  I don’t want to be negative all the time, but I really like Techmarines and Masters of the Forge and it’s annoyingly to have them constantly diluted down in combat.

But it’s not all bad news.  Next up, the good things…

Raukaan Roll!

So, the Iron Hands Supplement.  Yeah, yeah, I know it’s technically Clan Raukaan, but for me it’s the Iron Hands book.  Sadly, the dreams of a bona fide Iron Hands Special Character remain but the half formed imaginations of a madman, but at least we get something out of it.  I’ve had a brief look over it over the weekend and I’ll give you guys some impressions.  First things first, it follows a similar format to the other supplements.  A lot of fluff (60+ pages of iPad screens), some army list tweaks (but no new units) and some items to mess around with.

I’m not going to go the whole hog and go through every single item and new rule, for a couple of reasons, but I’ll mention a couple of interesting snippets.  I also (by way of further disclaimer) haven’t been through all the fluff yet, so don’t expect much from me on that score yet.  The inevitable question when dealing with these kinds of things is always the same: ‘Is it worth the money?’  I’m going to be honest and say no.  That’s not to say I regretted my purchase or that I’m not glad I got it, but on an objective scale, it’s not enough stuff to justify itself to the average buyer.  If you’re really into the Iron Hands or Clan Raukaan specifically, then you’ll probably enjoy the background and the rules tweaks and scenarios are nice and flavourful.  Unfortunately, the scenarios are probably going to be the part of the book I’ll get the least out of, as with pickup games and tournaments and the like, I'm probably just going to stick to the basic missions and leave it at that.  I might try to get someone in on them to try them out though, so you never know.

Right, let’s get into some rules chatter.  The army itself has to be chosen from the core Codex Space Marines and the Iron Hands Chapter Tactics (like you’d use anything else, really) and give a couple of unit tweaks.  With Raukaan rules Dreadnoughts (of all ilks) can be chosen as either Elites or Heavy Support, so you no longer need a Master of the Forge to unlock that option.  The other addition is that for each HQ choice, you can have two Techmarines instead of one.  Increase that to three if that HQ choice is a Master of the Forge.  I really like both of these rules, although the tactical benefit they’ll give you is somewhat limited.  Techmarines are expensive for one wound models, man.  The multi-Dread option without needing the Master-tax is nice though.  I’ll probably mess around with a couple of my lists to fit some more Techmarines in there though, because it’s such a thematic possibility, and it’ll look awesome!  The problem I’m finding is that there is always the temptation to load them down with more stuff.  You have your basic Techie for 50 points.  He packs a S8 AP1 power fist attack and a 2+ save, plus his ability to get your transports running again, making him a nice addition to many squads.  But them for another 25 points, you can give him an extra servo-arm attack, a twin-linked plasma pistol and a flamer, plus make him even more reliable in vehicle repair, which (let’s be honest) is a fairly good deal.  But by that point you’ve spent 75 points on a 1 wound character.  Well, at least servitors are cheap, if you want to run that way.  Nevertheless, for theme, there’s nothing better!  I really want to bodge together a hyper Command Squad by attaching a bunch of Techmarines to it.  How awesome would that look?  Ignore the points.  Please.

We get a new Warlords table, and I have to say I really like it.  It runs a nice gamut of abilities, but they are all useful.  A couple of particular note are the result that lets your Warlord repair vehicles even if he’s not a Techmarine (if they can already repair, they get a reroll), and one result that allows you to use the old Chapter tactics rule from 5^th and automatically fail Morale tests.  Given the way ATKNF and rallying works now, this is tactically very tasty indeed, allowing you to fall back from approaching assaults and disengage from disadvantageous close combats at next to zero risk to the unit (unless you’re a few inches from the table edge, that is).  A big thumbs up for this table from me!

Special items are interesting.  All of them are Relics recast.  If a character can chose from the Marine Relics, then they have to select from the Gifts of the Gorgon list instead.  You have some very nice items and some ‘eh’ fairly average options, but they all feel good.  There’s a librarian weapon that is essentially a Force Power Fist, a boosted power axe that becomes a power fist on rolls of a 6 to hit and even a helmet that houses a powerful comms system that allows your nearby units to use the HQ’s leadership and even reroll 1s to hit with shooting.  They specify that this item can be used even inside vehicles and building (which seems like an odd distinction to make, as that’s how everyone seems to play aura-effect items anyway).  But unlike the magic banners that become more inspirational when locked up inside a vehicle where no-one can see them, this helmet actually make sense in those terms.  It’s a comms network.  LoS isn’t a problem.  One odd thing about the Gifts list is that there are no restriction as to what you can take other than 'only 1 per army'.  No wepaon replacement, or distinctions as made as to which replace weapons and which do not.  I'll use my common sense on this one, but basically follow the same selection rules as the mainstream codex just to be on the safe side.

My favourite item is probably the Chains of the Gorgon, which provide defensive benefits based on how many time the character is wounded.  The trick is that it become less effective, the more wounded the bearer is, which is not what I would have expected.  It never gets worse than a 4+ invulnerable though.  It does mean that if your character is tooling around with a Command Squad , is wearing this and rolls the right result on the Warlord Table, you can be dealing with 3+ Feel No Pain roll.  Brutal!  I made a character using the regular Space Marines codex and built him for durability and tarpitting.  His name is Leythan Korduskaya, ‘The Wall’.  I think he may be getting an upgrade!  I really want this Mega Iron Council now!

So that’s my initial review of the release.  If you aren’t hardcore about the Xth, then it’s a definite miss for you, but that’s the way of these supplements from what I can tell.  Just know what you’re buying before you buy it.  If it’s just for the rules, I don’t think I can justify it to you.  I’m enjoying it though.

End Of Line.

Hands Over Fists: Ironclad Dreadnoughts

It’s fair to say that in 6th Ed, walkers have taken a bit of a hit with a confluence of the new rules working steadily against them.  Vehicles have got significantly less resilient with the Hull point and with the relative ease with which grenades and bombs can be slapped on them.  Combine that with Smash attacks and the walker situation can start to look very sad.  You may also notice that most of these new vulnerabilities in walkers are confined to assault.  Gunboat walkers are pretty much as viable as they always were.

Given that they are pretty integral to the Iron Hands chapter character and that they’re frickin’ awesome, it was never going to be in question that I would include some Dreads in my new Marine list.  The question was which type of dread.  Your standard one can pack a multitude of weapons and is fairly cheap, with the Venerable upgrade being massively reduced in price (presumably due to the lack of reliance on the Vehicle Damage Table to kill them now).  The Ironclads are back, relatively unchanged in cost and stats from last edition.  In the end (as evidenced by my previous post) I plumped for them instead of the more versatile regular Dreadnoughts.  There are a few reasons for this.

First is that I like assault and think it still has merit and importance in 6th edition, regardless of all the naysayers and the Iron Hands list I arrived at didn’t pack too much of that, so I felt I needed a presence there.  Second, the armour boost on all fronts does a great deal to boost survivability.  It’s now impossible to kill with bolters and shurikens, even from behind and is nigh-on krak-proof in close combat.  Third, is the look of the thing.  I really like the bulked out and armour-plated heft of the Ironclad, and I wouldn’t feel right using a gunboat dreadnought in an Iron Hands list as it notably lacks one key physical asset. A hand. With tanks you can overlook that kind of thing, but ‘Noughts?  Couldn’t justify it to myself.

Right, so that’s the choice of dreadnought, but what about the loadout?  In the end, I ran with dual heavy flamer for the integrated weapons.  I could have gone for a meltagun there I suppose; try for some drop-pod tank killing (now made even easier with 6” disembark!), and ranged tank-killing is one thing may army distinctly lacks.  But I know the curse of the drop pod melta all too well.  I decided to focus on killing infantry and causing more widespread havoc in the backfield.  Also, I like the security of a weapon that doesn’t require a BS roll to hit anything.  They can also be used to blunt horde assaults before they start and clear out heavy weapons teams and firebases from even reinforced cover.  Seismic hammer or chainfist?  Much of a muchness for me really.  I’ve got one of each, although I think the Chainfist is a better performer for killing vehicles.  It certainly looks cooler.  It’s not a hand though, is it?  Everything else is pretty much barebones to cut down on points.

I’ve found them very useful as an intimidation tactic and a way to force my opponents hand.  Even if they fail to cause a single casualty when they turn up, they force a reaction.  Mobile vehicles have to get out of the way, assault troops or point holders have to assault or blockade it to prevent it getting to the firepower units at the back.  At the very least, they need to use firepower to bring the Dreads down that could otherwise be levelled at my scoring units and transports.  Using this, I can force the opponent into a reactive posture from the off and use the free time to manoeuvre my troops to better positions further up the field.  If possible, I can also rid Interceptors and Anti-air units of their crews, limiting the risk to my incoming Stormtalons.  If the Ironclads survive (and are mobile) into turn 2, that’s a bonus.  They’ve normally done their jobs by Turn 1…

Hands Over Fists 2

So here’s my general game plan for this army.  When it comes to set up, the Master of the Forge goes in with the Sternguard in their Drop Pod and the tactical squads split, the heavy bolters manning some reinforced scenery along with the Thunderfire Cannon and the Centurions. The forward combat squads with Meltaguns and Sergeants start inside the Razorbacks and either hid behind reinforced scenery or ready themselves to gun the engines and head upfield.  The Scouts in their storms normally start on the board, infiltrated far forward.  If I can Scout closer, I do (depending on quantity and disposition of enemy units in their area).  The Ironclads are prepped to go in on Turn 1.  Basically, I start aggressive from the off.  It’s one of the many advantages of Drop Pods.  I try to get as much stuff as I can into the face of the opponent from turn one.  This usually means a combo of combat scouts and Ironclads.  Although they can’t get into combat in the first turn, the wealth of heavy flamers in close is there to target backfield guns and objective holding troops, plus anyone arming gun emplacements.  The Drop Pods are also handy for obstructing fire lines and hampering movement, especially as you can disembark so much further from them now.  Supporting fire is obviously provided by the Thunderfire and Razorbacks primarily and sometimes the tacticals may get lucky with the heavy bolters.

What are the Centurions doing though?  Probably not much in the first turn; the Cannons are woefully short range for that kind of thing.  The guy I bought them from found that they couldn’t accomplish much as they were massive fire magnets and tended to get killed by anti-tank fire before reaching decent weapon range.  So I’m trying a different tactic with them and using them primarily as board control.  Having gone against them a couple of times, I was always anxious about getting anywhere within that 24” firing range and so they seem like an ideal deterrent for anyone thinking about getting rid of my objective scorers.  Plus, the lack of an Invulnerable save seems less of a big deal when you’re tanking with 3+ Cover.  However, I may want to take a more aggressive stance with them and rely on the Ironclads to take most of the high Strength low AP shooting for a turn or two and buy the Centurions time to advance.  Time will tell as to which tactic seems the best use for the big guys.

The big down side with turn one is that most of the time I will probably be giving away first blood.  However, as I see it, it’s a sacrifice that’s worth making if I can strip objectives from an opponent.  Nevertheless, most of the time, I’ve just got to weather the return fire.  The Ironclads will probably die and if I position them wrong, the scout will take quite a few casualties as well.  They’re really not meant to be encountering massed firepower, aiming instead for backfield or outlying units to harry and distract.  The other downside with this initial rush attack is that I have woefully little decent anti-tank in it.  Make no mistake, the Dreads and Scouts can definitely deal with vehicles, but they need to be in assault in order to do so.  My first turn has to be about putting the opponent on the defensive, but also bearing in mind that I need to assault stuff a keeping targets in mind for that next turn.  This has worked fairly well versus more manoeuvrable opponents, as I have enough stuff with enough freedom of movement (or at least a free choice of where they drop) to cover most of the board with threat.

The second turn is when some more punching arrives (hopefully) as I have two Talons and my Sternguard in reserve to turn up and they can provide some effective shooting.  The Talons in particular have managed to achieve a great deal with their relatively cheap loadouts and BS 5 (versus most targets).  Never underestimate Strafing Run!  They are primarily for dealing with light-medium armour that I can’t get to normally, or for deshelling troops inside a transport.  In my last game against the Eldar, the were to blame for three dead Wave Serpents, so they definitely paid for themselves in terms of effect rather than raw points.  Once the Guardians and Aspect Warriors are out of their cans, they are very easy to remove…  The Sternguard are pretty much just as good as they ever were, but a few points cheaper, which is not something I’m going to complain about!  I have different views on the Master, unfortunately, but I’ll save that for a different post.  He can definitely work well, but I feel they’ve taken quite a few downgrades in this new book.  He in there for the fluff and feel of it more than anything.  Plus I really like the conversion I’ve done for him!

I don’t really have much else to write about my tactics beyond turn 2 though mainly because from that point onwards for me, the game becomes about adapting to the battle and the opponent more than any set plan.  Plans 1 & 2 don’t always go to plan either.  Regardless, I am trying to  train myself to play to the objectives, or at least keep one eye on them throughout the game, as ages of DE play made me too complacent in grabbing stuff at the last second and not all armies can keep up with that lack of planning!

I’ll go more in depth into a couple of things from the SM Codex later, mainly focusing on a few rules queries I’ve noticed and the strengths and weaknesses of some of the units I use.

So long!

Hands over Fists!

Right, in the long break between posts, something interesting appears to have happened in the hobby world.  Namely, the new Space Marines Codex.  My general thoughts on this are quite positive by and large, but then again, that’s been a familiar enough tune from me over the last few releases.  I feel the new Marines have not drastically changed, more than been brought into line.  Very few new units; just the Centurions at last count.  I’m not counting the Raven and Talon for that as they were both usable beforehand, but not in the codex proper.

A lot of the changes have been more tweaks than anything.  The biggest of these is definitely the Chapter Traits system which, although not the return to the broad customisability of the fourth ed dex is still very characterful and will encourage each player down a certain route depending on their chosen progenitor chapter.  I initially wrote ‘force’ instead of ‘guide’ in that sentence.  That’s one of the good things about this new system is that it doesn’t feel like it is forcing you to do certain things or create certain armies.  They all have broad advantages that benefit the majority of your army, just are in starker relief and greater effect in certain areas.  That said, let’s go onto my particular (possibly predictable) key focus in this area.  The Iron Hands.  The cold bastards of the Legiones Astartes.

The focus for their Chapter Traits appears to be sheer bloody-minded durability, although in only minor degrees.  I quite like it, but when comparing it to the more offensively aligned chapter tactics it can be easy to think that they’re hard done by.  This isn’t a ramp up to a complaint or anything though.  The Iron Hands traits are very useful, although they are unlikely to come into effect on individual occasions.  The unique thing for the Tenth is that their rules pretty much affect everything you have on the board.  However, the down side is that you need to be lucky for those things to have an effect.  You cannot actually rely on them.  You just have to hope that the dice come up in your favour.  An extra Strength on Hammer of Wrath is inviolable.  Once you charge, it’s there.  Same with Hit and Run, or Relentless.  You can go through an entire game with any of the Iron Hands doctrines helping you at all if you just don’t roll right.  Or you can be borderline indestructible.  Either way, it’s all just rolls on the dice, a fact that will turn many people off using them.

Nevertheless, they are my Legion/Chapter and I’ve naturally devised a list for them, trying to make the most of what they can bring and adding a couple of new things.  May as well let you in on it, as it seems pretty solid.  That said, like untempered iron, I might find them a touch brittle as well.

2,000 points incoming!

HQ

Master of the Forge: Xandrei Kimmel – Combi grav, Auspex

Elites

Ironclad Dreadnought – Twin heavy flamers, Seismic hammer, Drop pod

Ironclad Dreadnought – Twin heavy flamers, Chainfist, Drop pod

7 x Sternguard – two heavy flamers, Drop pod

Troops

10 x Tactical Marines – Meltagun, Heavy bolter, Meltabombs, Razorback with Assault cannons

10 x Tactical Marines – Meltagun, Heavy bolter, Meltabombs, Razorback with Assault cannons

5 x Scouts – Bolt pistols, Combat blades, Meltabombs, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy flamer

5 x Scouts – Bolt pistols, Combat blades, Meltabombs, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy flamer

Fast Attack

Stormtalon – Skyhammer missiles

Stormtalon – Skyhammer missiles

Heavy Support

3 x Centurions – Grav cannons & amps

Thunderfire Cannon

And that brings me up to about 2,000.  It’s not my typical list, certainly not for marines.  I’ve normal been a footslogging guy for them, but this time round I’m experimenting with mechanised.  Let’s see how that goes!  I’ll talk a bit more about my thoughts behind this list and some of my practical experience with it next time.

Good to see you’re still here!

Drükkskar Rises...

Well, Clan Drükkskar is currently arrayed in a variety of boxes in the corner of the room.  I can’t lie; I haven’t really done much with them since their acquisition in this current raw state.  I flung a few justifications around:  I haven’t had time; I want to have the whole clan together before I assemble.  Nothing that really held water though.  I just can’t be bothered at the moment.  That will change though, most certainly.  Last time I talked about my clan I estimated the total list at about 5,000 points.  Unfortunately that has changed; it’s inexorably on the increase.  Especially with the release of the Stormtalon.  Now, a lot of people have problems with how it looks.  People always have problems with how marine vehicles look.  They are ugly.  Always have been.  It’s the aesthetic.  We heard bitching about the Stormraven, saw it in the plastic and some people hated it.  Others thought it looked better now that they could see it out of the promo shots.  I never thought it was that bad.  I still don’t.  That probably why the Drükkskar are going to have a couple.  Aside from everything else, these guys need transports and I still oddly averse to the Rhino chassis.  And if I have to struggle with another bloody drop-pod I’ll fire jagged pins of hate into the wall.

So I was thinking that I may as well give my few inexplicably (occasionally) interested readers a quick and quite possibly slightly inaccurate rundown of my plans for my clan.  Now, the Iron Hands don’t run strict Codex.  They share more of a similar setup to the Space Wolves in that the various chapter subdivisions are based on clan and family.  This means that although they have ten clans, just like other chapters have ten companies, each clan is effectively a chapter in microcosm.  Each clan will have its own Librarians, Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Scouts, etc.  I’m happy with this arrangement as it provides me with a greater license to get the clan how I want it.

Nevertheless, the core of the clan is the Tactical Squad and that’s no different for the Drükkskar.  I’m packing 4 full tactical squads, each lead by a sergeant in Terminator armour, each with a different weapon load out.  Apart from the sarge though, each squad is kitted out the same way.  Ten-man squads, one Meltagun, one Heavy Bolter.  Proper all-rounders in the mould of the Xth.  Next up are a couple of Devastator squads: one kitted out to the gills with heavy bolters, the other with the more conventional tank-busting weaponry.  Then I’ve got a bit of an odd choice.  I’m packing a jump-packless Assault squad with no dedicated transport.  I might (might) get a Drop Pod for them, but that’s sketchy.  This is more a flavour and cheapness thing than anything else.  I’ve got a load of chainsword/bolter arms and a load of standard tactical marines.  I may as well have a footslogging assault list.  Gives my Iron Father some guys to tool around with.  I might promote them to Vanguards though.  It’s still a bit up in the air.

Backing up the 70-strong core of the clan, I’m going for a large, but bare bones Sternguard squad, the special ammo not really needing a replacement and playing really well with the Relentless bolters rule I’m giving the chapter.  And next up: the Dreadnoughts.  I’m packing a lot of Dreads.  Two regular, one Contemptor, two Ironclad, maybe one more Contemptor with a Heavy Conversion Beamer for kicks.  That covers ground forces.  In terms of air support, I’ve already assembled my Storm Eagle (really nice model, but precisely the wrong shape and size for any container I own!) and I plan to run a couple of additional Ravens for transport duties.  Accompanying them will be a full wing (probably three, although if I sell my vestigial third kidney, I might get six) of Stormtalons because they’re ugly as all hell and I love ‘em for it.

Now we move on to a decidedly oddball choice for me.  I’m going to convert up a Nemesis Dreadknight for the Clan.  This guy is going to be decidedly one-off.  Especially as I’m going to use him as a Dreadknight.  My reasoning is that being the Iron Hands and unfathomably deep in with the Mechanicum, they have managed to acquire and retrofit one of these chassis to suit their needs.  This is going to be a fairly big conversion project for me, as I’m going to try to give him a Mechanicum axe to use as a Greatsword and to replace the stupid counter-intuitive design of the pilot’s cradle with a cockpit.  You see, the Storm Eagle contains all the parts for the Stormraven’s turret mounted guns, but none of those parts are ever used.  I am going to use them for this piece.  I’m not a fantastic converter, but I’m looking forward to trying my hand at this one.

Speaking of being deep in with the Mechanicum, I’ve also got a Mechanicum detachment planned for the clan.  I’ve already got a Shadowsord Baneblade variant painted black (bought it second hand from an Overlord) and I felt that I needed some indenture Mechanicum type to accompany it.  I managed to find a load of Micro Arts Studio models that work really well as Techpriests and Skitarii and so I constructed some decent ‘counts-as’ rules for them using the Grey Knights Codex.  Steering clear of most of the filth.  In fact, with the addition of an Assassin to make up the points, they’re a perfectly functional 750pts list.  Nothing horrific (apart from the Assassin if you hate them.  I don’t because they’re too easy to kill).

Finally, we have Independent Characters which is where the fun is.  I’ve rambled on enough for now, so I’ll get into them and their retinues at a later date.

So long.

Iron Hands: In with the new Clan

As I said a while ago, I had put a massive amount of work and words into my Iron Hands Codex back in the day before jingles and ugh, ‘40k power’ ^shudder^.  It’s a project that I was quite proud of at the time, and I still have a soft spot for now.  Some good ideas in that book.

However, it fell into disuse for a while and I never resurrected the project.  But recently (since BLL at least), I’ve been working on an alternative.  You see I didn’t want to bring the old fandex out of retirement just in time for 6th Ed to spring up and force a rewrite.  So instead I decided to just do an Iron Hands expansion pack of sorts to add to the regular Space Marines Codex and add their (woefully underrepresented) style to those other fine Chapters.  The idea was simple enough, and the alteration needed to be small enough to rattle through them quickly pre-game.  After lots of umming and ahhing (and probably erring as well, while we’re at it), I finally reached a solid conclusion.  Seeing as this is my blog, I’ll rattle through them now, just so I’ve got them written down somewhere.

Chapter Tactics:  Iron Hands gain “Relentless-Bolt Weapons” at the cost of Combat Tactics.

Wargear:         Non-Terminator-armoured Independent Characters can purchase a servo-arm for+25 pts and a full servo-harness for +40.  This cost does not include Artificer armour, which must be bought separately (if available).  Models with either a servo-arm or harness gain ‘Blessing of the Omnissiah’ as per the Techmarine entry in the main codex.

                        Veteran Sergeants may purchase a suit of Terminator Armour for +30pts.  The armour itself comes with one of the following loadouts: Storm Bolter & Power Fist, Storm Bolter & Power Weapon, Two Lightning Claws or Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield.  For +5pts, a Terminator may replace its Storm Bolter with a Heavy Flamer or its Power Fist with a Chain Fist.  It may not choose both. Scout Sergeants do not get this option.

Force Organisation:     The Iron Hands count as a Codex Marine Chapter for all forge-world entries, including the Storm Eagle Gunship and Contemptor Dreadnought.

                                                The Iron Hands may use the Storm Raven as a Fast Attack choice.  All options and rules are identical to the Blood Angels entry, except that the Bloodstrike Missile are replaced with Multiple Rocket Pods (as per the Imperial Guard Valkyrie) for no change in cost.  This exchange is not optional.

And that really is it.  I’ve also been thinking about giving the Command squads the option to upgrade to Terminator Armour, as it would look cool as all hell and tie in nicely with the theme.  However, it opens up a bit of a can of worms when it comes to equipment loads and points costing.  However, if anyone has any ideas, suggestion or objections on that score, let me know.  It’s all grist to the mill.

The key shift I think is the Chapter Tactics.  I initially thought to give them Stubborn, as they are meant to be singularly unyielding and focussed, but the Imperial Fists and their successors already have that.  Having read the Iron Hands novel and Chris Wraight’s stuff, the steady, relentless advance with bolters really seemed a prominent part of their fighting style, and reflects well on the tabletop without tipping the balance too far.  Plus, extending the relentless ability to the Heavy Bolter guys as well makes clearly the worst heavy weapon option available into something cool and usable.  It will never be as effective as a missile launcher, but the ability to move and fire, to reposition and still keep the pressure on enemy infantry really elevate this weapon to a viable choice.  Plus cinematically it looks cool as well (in my head, anyway).  Naturally, in my clan, Heavy Bolters abound!

Speaking of which (and seeing as I’ve clearly gone of the deep end at this point) I am creating my own Clan, both in concept and in models.  This is clearly a stupid idea, but I have plans to have a full Clan deployment sorted out by the end of the year.  I’ve worked it at about 5,000 points.  It’s going to have back-story and everything!

Behold the rise of Clan Drükkskar!

Purge the weak! The rest is secondary!

There’ll be more to come on this theme later.

So long, lads.

Iron Hands: Compare and Contrast

The Iron Hands novel and the short story ‘Flesh’ both present very different views of the Iron Hands.  So I thought I’d compare and contrast and provide a brief review of the two works.  The first is ‘Iron Hands’ by Jonathan Green.

Jonathan Green has written various bits and pieces in the 40K universe, but I think this has been his only novel.  I read the re-release but the original was published in 2004 (I think) and this is very telling.  I reckon we can all agree that the shape of 40K fiction now (particularly in the case of the Astartes) is very different to how it was 8 years ago, and it shows in the book.  The depth to the characters that we almost expect now is just not there.  Most of the characters are just names attached to suits of power armour and only a few of the cast are fleshed out (apologies for the pun) beyond their combat role.  The only four actual characters in the book are Iron Father Gdolkin, Librarian Melchor, Magos Omega Thule (no relation to Davian, although it would be strangely awesome if that were the case!) and the final antagonist, a Word Bearer named The Iscariot.  Oh, and an Iron Hands Shipmaster called Strake.  So make that five.

Now, I realise that the previous paragraph may have sounded a little harsh.  The novel is by no means a bad book.  The fight scenes are very good and there are plenty of them, across a variety of opponents which helps keep things interesting.  The prelude involving a reading of the Emperor’s tarot is excellent; easily a high point for the book, even if there are no Iron Hands in the scene.  There’s an epic fight with a defiler and an encounter between a squad of Cadian guardsmen and some Death Guard makes for excellent, albeit highly queasy reading.  But I feel that this book, in common with many Space Marine centred works at the time focussed on action to the detriment of character, and a lot of the personalities end up feeling flat and one-note.

Gdolkin himself, the protagonist, does not come across at all sympathetically.  He’s just a very angry, humourless individual with a machine fetish, which is a very common view to take of the tenth legion.  In fact, minus the whole cybernetic angle, the Iron Hands are interchangeable with almost any other Astartes Chapter.  It was the way of things at the time.  Even in the established chapter series of books, it was more that individuals were given more personality, rather than adding personality to the chapter as a whole.  As the individual characters in this book aren’t lavished with attention, then little is gained in terms of chapter insight. That said, although the character of the Iron Hands isn’t really built on, there is a lot of detail about them included and referenced in the book.  Their training exercises, the selection process of the novitiates, the clan system, the rules and strictures.  Iron Hands Dreadnoughts for example always have a close combat arm.  No irritating riflemen dreads in the chapter.  You can still gain a lot of information about the chapter from the book.  You just don’t get into their heads.

This moves us on to Flesh, the short story by Chris Wraight.  It was originally in an issue of Hammer & Bolter (no idea which one I’m afraid) but released as a mini e-book by Black Library for £1.50.  One of my mates (who is an avid reader of Hammer & Bolter) recommended this story to me, and he was damn right to do so.  So; thanks Alex!

It’s not a long book.  It’s a short story concerning a Chaos-plague epidemic in an Imperial Hive and the mutant uprising it causes.  Think of it like a zombie virus scenario.  Except Chaosified and with mutants.  Lots of disgusting imagery going on, which certainly plays as a strength in the story, the explicitly fleshy nature of the infection and enemy involved making a perfect counterpoint to the Tenth.  The story is told from a variety of viewpoints, a prospective Iron Father, a relatively fresh Iron Hands tactical marine and the commanding officer of the local PDF.  All contribute very well to the atmosphere of the story and contribute greatly to the major strength of the piece; the Iron Hands themselves.

For such a short story, it really packs in a lot of detail.  The relationship between the chapter and the Mechanicus, the trials of the Iron Hands aspirants, the hand-amputation rite of passage; all of these are touched upon and briefly explored.  Various interesting elements and ideas are brought forth such human reaction to the Astartes.  The description of a Space Marine from one of the human officers to another is a high point in the story for me and really helps portray the fear that the Astartes can inspire in the common man.  You hear various rumours circling about the Iron Hands from the human troopers and, brilliantly, these are neither confirmed nor denied.  It lends a further menacing aspect to an already scary concept and is aided by the already inhuman nature of both the Astartes in general and the Iron Hands in particular as portrayed in the work.

In terms of the personality of the Legion, Wraight manages to get a great deal across to the reader in such a short space.  The Legion have changed greatly from how they were in the Heresy, becoming increasingly removed and disinterested.  Far from the hair-trigger temper of their Primarch, they present as singularly cold and dispassionate.  It would be easy to write them off as emotionless automatons, but Wraight has done a very good job of portraying them as suppressing emotion rather than simply removing it.  He has done an excellent job of injecting a note of sympathy into what could be a very cardboard archetype, and it’s exactly what I wanted to see from the Tenth.

I advise anyone with even a peripheral interest in the Iron Hands to give this a read.  It’s cheap, quick to get through and provides a lot of character and atmosphere as well.  Highly recommended.  Seeing as Wraight is the guy who’s written the upcoming Wrath of Iron (the Iron Hands entry in the Space Marines Battle series), his short story has made me very excited about what that book will bring!

Anyway, lunch is over; you know the drill.

With any luck, soon I’ll go through a Tenth Legion minidex I’ve been cooking up and hopefully help in adding some Iron Hands character to the tabletop.

So long!

The Iron Hands: A little back-story

Ahem…

Hello everyone.

It’s been a while.

How are you?

Well, that’s nice/unfortunate (delete as applicable).

Anyway, back to it.

Ages back, I wrote an Iron Hands fandex for a codex competition.  I possibly wrote too much, as the word count for that little project topped that of my University dissertation.  There might be something wrong with me.  The Iron Hands are, I think, the least representing of the loyalist Legions.  Even now, I believe that’s true, although the White Scars are similarly under-represented (but at least they get a Special Character in the Marine Codex).  The Iron Hands get nothing.  They don’t get a Special Character, they don’t get their own Chapter Tactics, they don’t even get a larger than average chapter description in the codex.  They are paid as much heed as the Mentors or the Death Spectres.  Nothing against those two chapters, but as one of the original Legions, I would expect a whole lot more.

Especially as they were one of the things that got into 40k in the first place.  The idea of genetically enhanced super-soldiers in hulking power armour was cool enough to the fourteen year old me, but ones that voluntarily cut off their own limbs and replaced them with robot ones?  That was just creepy.  In precisely the right way.  Anyway, this is all just a roundabout prelude to what I actually wanted to talk/write about today.

Chatting with people at the Black Library Live event last month got me thinking about the tenth legion, and I decided to invest myself in them a little more.  The epically overblown fandex had been lying fallow for yonks and I thought that if I wanted to make the Iron Hands feel right in the game, I’d need to find out a bit more about them before crafting rules.  So I picked up the Iron Hands novel, which was available there in its reprint format.  It helped that the book is very nice looking to boot.  There is precious little illuminating back-story for the Iron Hands (until Wrath of Iron comes out, I think that they only have one novel), but this has the side-effect of almost allowing me a greater sense of authorship in deciding (at least in my own head) what this chapter is like.  Wow, that was a crappy sentence.  I’ll try to phrase it better.

It’s one thing to be told that a chapter does this thing and that thing and have these habits and so on, but another thing to be told why.  With little pre-existing written about them, I was relatively free to make up my own personalities to give the chapter.  They favour Dreadnoughts; they prefer the mechanistic to the biological, considering the latter to be flawed and inferior.  They don’t brook weakness and (in the 41st millennium at any rate), they are relatively outcast; partially due to unacceptably close ties to the Mechanicus and partially of their own volition.  They are looked down on by most of the other chapters and they look down on most of the other chapters in turn.  But these are all superficial aspects, all effects rather than causes.  What type of personality would be the root of all these quirks?

That is one of the things that I had most fun with and that I found most gratifying in creating the Iron Hands fandex.  Constructing the personality that I felt best fit the preferences of the chapter and I found that personality fascinating.  I understand that this may seem like egregious self-praise.  It’s not meant to be.  I’ve always been good at rationalising things so, when it came to the bizarre nature of the Iron Hands in the grand scheme of things, the personality I hit upon was a mix of self-loathing and arrogance.  A constant striving towards improvement, to overcome perceived weakness in themselves.  A lot of this reaches back to the Heresy.  The value of replacing the ‘flawed’ biological system with machinery was something that had existed since Manus, so that was not new.  However, back then it was in emulation of a father figure and according to a creed of instruction.  The Heresy, I believed, had turned this into a full-on psychosis.

The Iron Hands were hit early by the Heresy and hit hard.  In practically the first full engagement against the fresh traitor legions, their Primarch was cast down and desecrated and much of the Legion was destroyed.  This had caused the self-loathing of the chapter, the belief that they were not strong enough, that they were imperfect.  Their father had told them that through the Creed of Iron after all.  Their contempt for the other legions though was probably because the betrayal of Manus by Fulgrim was that much more personal.  Anyone who’s read the Horus Heresy series (or pieces thereof) will have figured out pretty quickly that a lot of the Primarchs don’t like each other.  In fact, full-on friendships between them were quite rare.  The friendship between Fulgrim and Manus was one of the rare, honest ones (at least before it all kicked off).  And Fulgrim tore it up, killing his friend and brother brutally.  And if a friend can do that, it is natural to shy away from such bonds in the future.

This happens (albeit less hyperbolically and more metaphorically) in real life.  If a good friend betrays you if you perceive that s/he has done so, then it’s not only that friendship that suffers.  The seed of doubt has been planted in all your other relationships too.  Are they really you’re friends?  You thought this other one was your friend and s/he betrayed you.  Why are these other friendships so different?  It’s natural to close yourself off, to isolate yourself from future possibilities of betrayal.  It’s a variant on the whole Night Lords ‘betray before you are betrayed’ ethos, but focussed more on preventing betrayal by never giving anyone the opportunity.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on a little, and lunchtime is definitely over.  So I’ll leave this cod-psychological analysis where it is.  Next time, I’ll go over a couple of pieces of literature about the tenth legion and review and compare: Iron Hands (the novel) and Flesh (the short story).  Who knows, I may even try and wax pseudo-psychological again.

So long!