Iron Hands

Iron Hands
Battle Cry	The Flesh Is Weak!
Number	X
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	N/A
Successor Chapters	Red Talons, Brazen Claws, Sons of Medusa, Steel Confessors
Chapter Master	Kardan Stronos/The Great Clan Council
Primarch	Ferrus Manus
Homeworld	Medusa
Strength	1000 Marines
Specialty	Bionics
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Black and White

An Iron Hands Space Marine.

The Iron Hands are (like most of their fellow chapters who originated from the first founding) completely bat shit crazy. The chapter believes that flesh is weak and as a result the marines try to replace their body parts with machinery and cybernetic implants. This is all part of an undoubtedly freudian complex brought about by penises a deep-seated oedipus complex the loss of their primarch during the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V. Of course, the chapter decided to blame everyone except the legion whose primarch made Ferrus Manus considerably shorter.

The chapter itself is ruled by the Great Clan Council, composed up of 10 seats, each representing one of the ten clans (the Iron Hand equivalent of a company). The clans themselves are all highly autonomous and are nomadic, travelling across Medusa in mobile fortresses. Each clan nominates a warrior to represent them at the Great Clan Council and together, the ten warriors get into all sorts of debates and political shenanigans. The logic behind this is that with no central leadership role, the chapter cannot be lead astray like so many others have. This immediately makes the Iron Hands smarter then the rest of the fucking Warhammer 40,000 universe because were smart enough to realise that having everyone lead by a defacto dictator was a pretty retarded idea. Then again, they also believe that replacing their dicks with drills is the best fucking idea in the world, so I suppose your mileage may vary.

Organisation and doctrine wise, the chapter follows the basic idea of the Codex Astartes, while changing all the bits they don't like or cannot follow due to the heavy losses/destruction of equipment at Isstvan V (yup 10,000 years later and the departmento munitorum has not yet resupplied them, fucking REMF's). Each company is called a "Clan" and there isn't a specific company for Scouts; instead each Clan recruits their own Neophytes. One the recruit is indoctrinated, his left hand is replaced with a cybernetic replacement. There are also rumours that dead warriors are instead replaced with automatons rather then new Neophytes. Due to the destruction of equipment at the Drop Site Massacre, the chapter lacks in Terminator armour and Dreadnoughts; this means that neither of these are common in Iron Hand forces. However veterans are often given suits of Terminator armour and placed in charge of leading squads of Tactical Marines, who see the suits giant pauldrons as inspirational. Additionally, those few Dreadnought chassis are highly revered and sought after pieces of equipment, and being entombed within a Dreadnought is the considered the best fate possible for an Iron Hands Marine. Finally, due to their shared love of machines the Iron Hands and Adeptus Mechanicus are pretty much bros 4 lyfe. 01011001010011110101010100100000010010110100111001001111010101110010000001001001010101000010000001000010010100100100111101010100010010000100010101010010 - much love Mhu Rho 6.

In spite of all this weirdness and being part of the First Founding, the Iron Hands remain one of the most forgettable Chapters among Games Workshop and the fandom at large. Seriously, even /tg/ forgets about them half the time. The only chapter who has it worse are the Raven Guard, barring Kyvvan Shrike. The fandom remembers the Raven Guard, the Iron Hands don't even get that consolation prize. To add self mutilation and cybernetic enhancement (insult) to injury, those who do remember them often get confused with the Iron Warriors, and these people are worse than heretics because at least a Heretic knows the difference between Corn and Khorne, but the term Iron seems to confuse many. Leading to much fuck'tardery comments like "Iron Within, Iron Without", these people are total bell-ends and deserve to be scorned.