Supplemental

The nights are drawing in and I find myself with hobby time again! One of the more recent things I did with it was play some 40k, most recently against the new Iron Hands.

Yeah.

Now, I'm sure that those who think of themselves as wise old heads will be telling anyone who'll listen that it's too soon to declare the Iron Hands as the new top of the pile, but one can only truly judge these things by personal experience. The guy I played was a friend of mine whose Iron Hands I've played against several times before- to be clear, we're not talking about some kind of scene-kid or bandwagon-jumper here. He was also running models he'd had for some time and had used before, with the notable exception of the new Iron Father.* Unfortunately (for me) that includes two Stormtalons and a Stormhawk, as well as three Castellax Battle-Automata who were being Venerable Dreadnoughts because there's not much of a Heresy scene around these parts and he wanted to use his nice models.

For my part, I brought an Emperor's Children army with a small smattering of Daemons, deliberately taking some Noise Marines because hey, you're playing against Iron Hands so it's rude not to. You might now expect me to describe how the game went, and I would if we'd actually had one. But after a first turn in which any foot infantry model in my force that could shoot got deleted by the Stormtalons (whilst in cover) before my winged Daemon Prince got killed on Overwatch by a Stormhawk having previously lost only a single wound, it was pretty much over.** (Not only do Iron Hands Overwatch on 5+, they can improve this to 4+ with a Stratagem)

I also picked a bad day to try out my new Mutilators

To bring up the first point I'd like to address today, the Iron Hands supplement is utterly bonkers. Even ignoring the new stuff (like Repulsor Executioners) older models like the Stormtalons are amped up to extreme levels without the controlling player needing to do anything more than put them in the list and stay in Devastator Doctrine. (If you're not aware of why this is, in Devastator Iron Hands reroll 1s to hit with Heavy Weapons, ignore the penalty for moving and firing them, and still gain the additional -1 AP, so ignoring outside factors the Stormtalons hit on 2+, re-rolling 1s, with all their weapons at all times.) I've seen it said that the Iron Father doesn't do a great deal besides his 5++ save aura and repair ability, but he also packs a Heavy Bolter with an additional point of Damage, allowing him to sit there giving out his buff whilst still killing enemy infantry- and a 3-shot, S5 gun with -2 AP, hitting on 2s and re-rolling 1s and inflicting 2 damage per hit would be a useful model if that was all it did.

I've also seen the oft-repeated mantra used that one should 'play the mission' and avoid LOS to counter the Iron Hands. Unfortunately avoiding the fire of Flyers is extremely difficult even if the table is terrain rich, (not to mention Whirlwinds and Eliminators, who don't care about LOS anyway) I think, though, that this ignores the most important point- we don't play 40k to put our models on the table and then do nothing but hide from the enemy for five turns. Sure, if an army has a nigh-on unkillable castle blob that destroys anything it lays its gunsights on with contemptuous ease you might be able to outmanoeuvre it and 'win' that way, but outside of a heavily prize-supported tournament who really wants to waste two hours on that game?***

I've seen quite a few video BatReps featuring the Iron Hands already, and what strikes me isn't just that the poor sod playing against them is having to work extremely hard to put a brave face on the game (even often whilst technically ahead on VP). No, what strikes me is that the guy playing them is often either not enjoying himself, or is actually embarrassed by how little he's having to think.****

In this batrep, we see an Iron Hands player gradually realise what he has become.

Now, some people will tell you that this isn't a problem outside of tournaments, but I'm inclined to disagree. The problem is, as has been said by many other commentators, that in order to even begin to get a game out of facing the Iron Hands opponents have to bring nothing but the very strongest lists their Codex is capable of, even if their opponent is playing fairly casually. That has a toxic effect on a local scene, because players turning up at their FLGS in search of a casual game end up facing nothing but WAAC lists that were built on the off-chance that the local Iron Hands player might be looking for a game. That even sucks for the Iron Hands players themselves, who find themselves inadvertently transformed into That Guy even if they've been playing the army for a decade and spent most of that time putting up with a limited 6+ FNP and nothing else.

To come to the meat of the problem though, I fear GW have backed themselves into an extremely dangerous corner here. We're approaching Chapter Approved time, and traditionally the response to an army being obviously overpowered is to increase their points values. Unfortunately, however, since the Iron Hands rules were added in a Supplement, there's no simple way to do this without punishing people playing other Chapters.***** Should they go the other way, making everything else cheaper (I'd like my 12 point CSM and 180 point Chaos Land Raiders, Chapter Approved Santa), the effect is still the same. On the other hand, simply removing some of the extra rules the Chapter gets is going to greatly annoy people who bought the book. One possible solution might be to add, say, a 10% point 'tax' on Iron Hands, but this sets another dangerous precedent- that of actively saying than one Chapter is 'better' than another.******

Of course, it looks like the 40k rules and background are heading for another big shake-up with Psychic Awakening and this is a game constantly in a state of flux, so it may be that all these concerns will look quaint in the space of a few months. But I can't help thinking that the new Supplements are going to prove hard to swallow for those who aren't lucky enough to get a good one.






*I've nicknamed him Ferrero Rocher, and I'm determined it's going to stick.
**There was more to the game than that- I killed a squad of Tacticals with Possessed!- but it was mostly a sideshow.
***On the other hand I managed to spell 'outmanoeuvre' right first time, so now I feel like an Ultimate Spelling Wizard.
****The gender choices here are accurate based on the videos I've seen. We really need more ladies doing BatReps!
*****Admittedly, unless the local scene is very strict about paint schemes or they really, really like another Chapter, that'll be about one person.
******Of course this is basically true at the moment, but it'd be a big thing for GW to actually come out and say it.