Had another fight with the hands after some time off, playing with my other armies.

I faced Tau and won 2-0 mainly due to the opponents poor activation rolls...

My build was:
Clan with 2x tacticals 375p
Clan with 2x tacticals 375p
Dreads with hunter 275p (garrison, 3 lascannon 1 assaultcannon)
Dreads with hunter 275p (garrison, 3 lascannon 1 assaultcannon)
Heavy inf with extra dread and iron father 425p (BTS in Thunderhawk)
Thunderhawk 200p
Thunderhawk 200p
Dreads with Iron father 250p (in thunderhawk, 3 Assaultcannon, 1 Lascannon)
Predators with lascannons 250p (knowing my opponent would field a lot of skimmers...)
Stormtalons 200p
Scouts with razorback 175p

The plan was to hold the middle ground and to protect my objectives with the big clans and to grab the opponents blitz with the thunderhawks. Worked fine but after the landing the army kind of lacked any punch...

Midgame picture


Some conclusions/suggestions as always

1. Change the devastators to Missile launcher and Graviton gun. Make the graviton gun small arms only and MW or something similar. Goes with the fluff to have strange mechanicum weaponry

2. Not sure about this one but do we really need the Heavy infantry? We have the Clan that is very similar and if you lowered the number of tacticals to 2 + 2-3 options it would cover the present loadout?

3. Please change back the Captain to an Iron Father, the unit is very iconic for the Iron Hands and should be in every clan.

4. This list has ATSKNF don't they? If so we should move the titans to Allies or similar to show that they are not marines. (Or do you play them as marines?)

5. I know you might disagree but I think we need to take away some units from the list just to make it look nicer and to point building in the direction the rational explains. Also we have a lot of OR options that combines with the clan options make this list more complicated than it needs to be. I could loose Bikes, Assault, Thunderhawk bomber and perhaps the Landing craft. Maybe even the Scout formation...
And perhaps loose the Mobile fortress for now, I really like it but I will never play with it in the current state.
Also do we need three Razorbacks? (Take away the Heavy bolter?)

+1

Nice write-up. thanks!


Still think you're approaching this list more like Codex w/ lots of dreads [TBrick, I look at thee]


Yeah I've already made up my mind to do just that. 20cm AP5+/AT5+ shot, FF MW ability (graviton weaponry falls off quick with range). I too like the imagery of weird arceotech as well


Yeah I dig that. Simplifies things. So Clan is 2 tactical stands and 2-3 mandatory additions. Word that.


Sorry, not giving away a 50 point inspiring character in each formation, mate.


ATSKNF is a marine only specific trait. It's already by definition not included with Titans regardless of where they appear in a list.


Same here. I'm having trouble finding a reason to take them myself. They're only there for people that care to field them as part of their collection. I think I'd rather them just gone myself (and I'm a huge proponent of the Predator / Bike combo)

Assault Marines and the landing craft will stay in, however.


But no one gives any suggestions about what we should do with it (or playtests). [hint hint]
An 8BP cannon (that's +1 BM and two templates mate hitting everything on a 4+) main cannon and bunch of lascannons is nothing to sneeze at, especially for Marines facing Eldar and Orks, albeit for radically different reasons. Add in an almost indestructible SC and ATSKNF, you've got a nice deal. Station a hunter or a bunch of Devestators in it and it's literally a void shielded fortress that you double down the center and park it and force the enemy to deal with it. I'm expecting the price point needs to drop a bit but I'm unwilling to futz with it until someone other than the local at least plays it. It's just like a Warlord Titan in that it's purpose is in 5kish level games.


I'm inclined to agree.


I've got no problems with the armoured support upgrade being available to predators. Personally I'd rather just do away with it entirely and simply allow any combination of 4-6 preds and vindis vehicles. They seem to open the same formation up either way.

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agree with that but what other build do you suggest? The ability to strike at any unit on the board before they can activate is really good. The role that needs filling is a long range attack role, to take out deathstrikes or hammerheads that is out of reach for the marines unless they drop pod. And now with the new devastators you almost always kill the target unless its a warlord or similar

Nice but I would suggest making them into small arms only. Why 20 cm? nothing else has that range, it would just be weird don't you think?

Why not? We already got the Captain in there and he also costs 50p...and before that we had the Iron Father... Right now the Clan formation have a discount of 25 points compared to vanilla marines but the army has some other benefits taken away so I do not see it as too good. I usually struggle with the activation count when playing this list compared to the ordinary one for example

actually I have played with it two times but I only play 3000 point games so you might want to ignore my opinion
My suggestion would be to take it away. At 600+ points or so I would rather take one of the Warlord titans or a Reaver. The only reason for me to take the fortress would be if we were to take the warlord out of the list. (and I do not want that)
The main reason for not having it is that it is too expensive and static. Load it up with marines and a hunter and you reach 1000+ points for a unit that has 20 cm move and that people will avoid... Might be worth it at 5000 points, I have no idea so keep it if it fits there

Keep up the good work

Graviton weapons have 24" range (same as assault cannon) but I nerfed her a bit to represent their fiddliness. Too much?
I also played with the disrupt idea since they've got a killer Ld penalty. Might be a better representation.

600 point Fortress, eh? Probably needs to lose a couple of void shields then but if that makes it a competitive choice...

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Great to see this moving along! As Uvenlord stated maybe it's good to "clean" up the list a little. Base it off Codex Marines and the add/take away some units.
The mire special units and rules you have the more trouble to get a balanced list.

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Nah, the bolter have a range of 24" also if I remember correctly... I just don't like us inventing a new range. MW is really powerful and I just fear that by making the devastators too good they will be an auto-choice each time. Do they need to be able to shoot? I just use them for assaults, and if they need to fire at someone they still have the missile launchers... Take the landspeeders for example. A very good tactic is to move them up close to the enemy, fire some MW shots and then (retain and) engage with another unit so the speeders can lend some MW support. Do we want the Clan to be able to do the same thing? I think it might be too good...

The 600+ points was not a suggestion just a marker that to me units that costs 600 points and upwards is limited to 1 (or mabye 2) in a 3000p army and that it needs to be really good to be worthwhile. Making it cheaper/worse will not be very fluffwise so keep it as it is if you like it

Edit:Reading through the 0.6 and it is looking good
Some minor suggestions on wording and formatting: (I could help with the work if you don't have the time)
Iron Hands Upgrades What would happen if we went with this instread?

Said this before but I'm worthless at remembering stats so this would make my life a lot easier In the last section please sort the units like they are in the other armies. Characters first then Infantry, light Vehicles, Armoured Vehicles, Warengines, Aircraft, Spacecraft...
And if it is not to much work do something similar in the other sections as well (not that important)

Graviton gun and MW in fire fight. Write it like the Landspeeder instead of in the notes. Looks better.

/Uven

Sorry for slack reply and lack of assistance, I'm away with work so have only limited access to PC.

Anyhow, I like the gravition gun idea, though i'd suggest AP5/AT5, disrupt? and either 15cm for the grav gun or 30 for the graviton cannon if your going to represent the one on a rapier carriage.

3 razorback was my suggestion to bring in a IH unit, and it was in some way supported by fluff in the SM codex - plus all options actually have a model. In saying that, I don't really care if you take the HB or LC/TLPG away but I have used the LC/TLPG it in 1-2 games and basically used it to drive up clan formations within 15cm, shoot with LC and TL PG before lending support fire.

I'm still not sold on the use of Dreds as a core formation, they should be in formations (one of the lists main features) but as a core it just feels a bit wrong. yes the IH have more but they are still an elite unit and not that plentiful.

Ref unit reduction/removal. I'd like to see assault and bikes stay, haven't used the THawk bomber though, and probably wont. I think JZ it might be time to revisit or confirm your "mission statement" work out what specifics you want this list to be, and perhaps work through a couple of phases, and remove the extras from testing for a little bit.
As an example, perhaps test the clans, larger armour and dreadnought formations, and any special rules. Then play with the extras like THawk bomber, alternative devs, removal or reduction in typical core SM units like bikes or scouts. Then finally add in the weird stuff like the fortress.

Speaking of the fortress, sorry, I still haven't had a chance to play with the fortress yet, we decided to consolidate our groups playtesting a couple of months back so the IH haven't had a run. One thing I did find testing the Space wolves list though was the strength of large SM formations being used aggressively in drop pods. This is something I think the IH list could be rather effective at so I'm going to try that with large clans and dreadnoughts when I get a chance.

In no particular order:
==========================




The Cap Imperialis is taller and longer than a Warlord Titan. The thing is supposed to be gigantic really, so I started around the defensive strength of the Warlord. However the thing is largely a rolling armorury / building so there's huge amounts of open space so perhaps it makes sense to base her back on the Reaver and price from there? It's not really destroying anything fluff-wise and to be frank, anything Warlord-ish isn't going to show up in less than 5k lists generally. Reavers get common enough at 3.5k and above with Marine synergy.
==========================

Iron Hands Upgrades What would happen if we went with this instread?

I'm with you on this. If you want an uber 1500 point clan, then knock yourself out Reduces the verbosity quite a bit. It's naturally self limiting. Thoughts?
==========================


I know you're all up in pushing Space Wolves over the line to Approved. I've been spending quite a bit of cycles in the back-end here helping get subAC positions filled, discussing design on IF/BA with their owners, and tied up on Onslaught lists so I grok your situation.
==========================



I'm completely with you on this. I slept on it and the more my subconscious worked on it, the more I feel the disrupt it the way to go. Weird, quirky, and AdMech-esque. For the record, the stat line is Graviton guns vs Graviton Guns. The subtle bit of fluff, going all the way back to Rogue Trader there, repeated in Imperial Armour 1 and again in HH book 3 about the colloquialism of the term meaning the range of Graviton weapons when not the proper noun. The point being that it's meaning the range of them, from heavy weapons to specialist weapons mixed all together (Guns, Imploders, Cannon, etc). I should probably instead just call it Graviton Weapons and be done so it doesn't get bogged down into concrete discussions on individual weapon stats from 40k and be a generalization of the class itself.


And bolters are small arms with 15cm range in epic so not always a good thing
==========================


Yes the IH are total Razorback lovers and a great bit of fluff you picked up about that. I've pulled the HB off just to trim the number of variants for now. If there's a big need for them it should be apparent. The plasma version feels more IH to me (It's a generalist weapon which is the formation theme for the army and more technical savvy equipment which is fitting for the tech heads they are).
==========================


Ummm they are. Until .6 they were identical to the order that the Codex list has them ordered (a couple have moved up or down by one this last version as I was too lazy to recolor them). Shoot me your email and I'll send you an edit link and you can reorder the unit stats in whatever pattern makes you happy. I'm obviously missing something here.


That's not going to happen as that's a feature of the list design itself. This list isn't designed the same as the Imperial Fists or the Ultras (aka Codex) so there's no intrinsic commonality to the sections among lists.
==========================


You've nailed the deployment theme of the list right there. SW and, hopefully, IH are really the two drop optimized lists in marine land. It doesn't mean that you can't play any other way, but you're going to lose out on your goodies/specials by taking things like THawks.

Clans in support range of each other are deadly if you get them up close to your deployment zone. Add in the high init of marines and you're really in trouble. Eldar, Guard, and LatD especially, orks and marines (loyal and traitor) not as much. NO CLUE with Nids and DE. No one plays them here so we're super weak on that front, I can only math-hammer there. Regardless, if you don't play super aggressive with this list from the start, you're probably going to lose, even more so than lists closer to the Codex one.

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I'm with you on the Disrupt. Call them Graviton Guns please, Graviton weapons sounds "foggy"
My suggestion based on gut would be to make Devastators = 2x 30cm 5+ AT/AP,Disrupt and (Small arms) Disrupt

For me it would be ok if we didn't add/removed more units for a while. Leave the Fortress for later and focus on the graviton guys and to make the list stable.

I have looked at the Space wolfs and if you compare the lists we might need to adjust some points if we are going to survive. They have a 6 man strong clan with a Hero (who might be an inspiring rune priest) for 300 points.

OK restatement of theme/value proposition of the Iron Hands.
-Based on older fluff / theme from Index Astartes with forces are based on the campaign on Medusa itself fighting off the 13th Black Crusade.
-Wider and more general access to specialist Titans than most Marines due to close ties to the Mechanicum. Less flexible air assault assets during the campaign. (e.g. Titans or Flyers)
-Deliberate methodical mechanized infantry that can take a bunch of BM to the face and still not break. Drawback is that your formations are larger therefore require more mutual support than average (e.g. less forgiving)
-Reduced fast attack options for increased ability to drop pod deadly formations (you can drop pod terminators into the opponents deployment zone). Speeders are present as they are the main source of Marine MW attack and without them an armoured force would eat them for lunch. Assault marines were specifically used to launch counter attacks from the fortresses themselves (you can counter charge from the fortress afterall).
-Formations are more geared towards being an "all-comers" ability with a wider mixture of AP/AT. Drawback is that they are not as effective against homogeneous targets until you're in FF range. Deliberate choice of harder to synergize ranges/abilities for shooting attacks.
-Specialist character allowing cheap BM removal / bonus to rally. Inspiring Walkers with penalty of BM when they are lost.

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And without formation upgrades THERE'S 0 SHOOTING ATTACKS for the Space Puppies (Grey Hunters have bolters and that's it). We're at the same price point and have more ability to project fire at range. Which leads me to the realization I forgot to reduce the starting price of the Clan when we went from 4 to 2 tactical stands. Starting price should be 125

The sad fact is that the only character worth 50 points is a Chaplain. NO ONE is going to take Commander vs Inspiring ever. We've probably got a few thousand bat reps around and tourny lists posted making that point clear-it's a no-brainer. You pretty much see them only with dedicated shooting formations that you don't want to be in an assault with when you've got 50 points but don't need a chappy (Land Raider formations to reduce suppression accounting for the other 80%). The insane almost pathological need to make everything divisible by 25 prevents any discussion about reducing the others to be competitive leads me to ask why even use 25 point increments at all then? Why not just make a Razorback cost 1 point and a Land Raider cost 3? [grumble mode deactivated]

The fact was the list never had a free Iron Father, they had a free Captain. I typed Commander into an older version of the list because I was having a senior moment evidently

So I can do this:
-Up the Clan formation by 25 points and allow Commanders or keep the free Captain. I care not which. Choose wisely

I'll go with this more "standard" range if it is less contentious (though I could rant about our pathological need to have ranges always divisible by 15 ).
Gravitron 30cm 5+ AT/AP,Disrupt

This makes no sense however=>

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well, I rarely shoot with my Clan. Its 80% engagements and 10% move place BM and support and 10% shoot something. Give or take a few % and the Wolfs have 3+ in CC so with my playstyle they would be better and cheaper but it was your mistake in forgetting to lower the cost I was after

Senior moment or not the Iron Father was "free" for a couple of fights

My vote is on the commander and +25p any day!

Hmm, I tend to agree. If we do this it will force us to take more clans as there is a 2 detatchment per core thing... Will try this out in my next game, I usually use the Dreadnoughts because I have painted a lot of them and to boost activations, that and to be able to garrison AA...

To make them disrupt things in firefights...

Two issues,
1. Disrupt is a shooting ability by definition
2. The looser of an assault automatically breaks. Disrupt wouldn't do anything there as when you break BM's as a count are meaningless (in fact you remove them and mark the unit as broken). When you rally you get BM at your formation size.

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Perhaps it is unnecessary but just to disagree...
1. why? every hit = 1 BM you deal hits in engagements too, don't you?
2. Guessing you will never be on the loosing side with the graviton guns then, because then you could benefit from them

But by all means take the firefight disrupt thing away, complicates the list with almost no benefit. I wasn't thinking very long just wrote down what I had in mind.