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

The Iron Hands were the X Legion of the Space Marines during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Their Primarch was Ferrus Manus.

History

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 worships their ancient Father who got a bad case of worms and ended up with Silver metal hands (sounds a bit like the 18th century method of using mercury to cure Syphilis) and subsequently now believe that flesh is weak and as a result the marines try to copy their Primarch and replace their body parts with machinery and cybernetic implants, which even Ferrus himself thought was obsessive. 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. WE BLAME EVERY--FUCKING--ONE! But a special place is reserved for the Traitors and the two Legions who lost heart and failed to carry the Assault to the Traitors and broke and ran. WEAK!

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 they're smart enough to realise that having everyone led 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. As an Iron Hand serves his Chapter he gets more and more augmented: appendages, limbs, organs; the whole shebang until the Marine is little more than a brain in a shell. There are also rumours that dead warriors are instead replaced with automatons rather then new Neophytes. Because of their extensive augmentation the Iron Hands are amongst the strongest Space Marines: strong enough to dual-wield weapons that regular Space Marines would need both hands for like the Multi-Melta. 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 (seriously that was like 10,000 years ago, WTF have they been doing all this time? Even the Crimson Fucking Fists got their shit together faster than these guys.). 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, with much Bro-mance and fist bumping. 01110100011011110111010001100001011011000110110001111001- Mhu Rho 6 (Which you would think this would mean they would have a ton of special gear like Terminator Armor but no)

The Iron Hands are the most gritty of the First Founders. You could even call it... True Grit.

In combat they are utterly unforgiving and relentless, hate Daemons and the warp with a rare and intense hatred and utterly despise heresy and cowardice. During one particular campaign involving the rebellion of an entire sub-sector, the Iron Hands got in and fucked shit up so bad that they executed a third of the sub-sector's entire population. That is not killed. Executed. As in the ones they did not kill in battle, and those who surrendered and begged for mercy. Despite this they are seen as a wholesome and pious chapter, unlike some others that murder everything within sight regardless of whose side they're on or level refugee camps because there are hostiles within the perimeter. Either way, don't piss them off lest you fuel their murderboner; and whilst on the subject of boners, it is believed they hate Slaanesh with the intense hatred of a billion Æonic Orbs because she's the Prince of Excess and the Iron Hands believe THE FLESH IS WEAK (the previously-mentioned one-third-of-a-subsector-getting-blammed was because of Slaaneshi orgies and daemons). This could mean they are more apt at fighting the minions of She Who Thirsts, but there is, as all things Iron Hands related, not much to elaborate on this except they are getting shit done.

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. With the publication of the Horus Heresy books the powers that be have finally begun to remember that the Iron Hands were one of the original Space Marine Legions, but we're still years away from getting a named characters let alone a unique army. But Iron Hands don't care they are too busy kicking arse, taking names and getting shit done. That said, they really are the Emperor's Tin Men, in every sense of the word.

Daily Rituals

A rare Iron Hands Terminator showing why metal is superior and why THE FLESH IS WEAK.

While each Clan Company has its own rituals and traditions, the following should be considered an outline of the Iron Hands daily routines:

04:00-Morning Prayer: The Iron Hands of the Clan Company are awoken from their power stations and reconfigure their Power Options for best Performance, ready for the Iron Father to lead them in sermon.
05:00-Morning Firing Rites: The Iron Hands engage in fire practice.
07:00-Battle Practice: The Iron Hands gather for practice in the cages. Often the Iron Hands end up repairing the damage they inflicted on the practice servitor themselves. On more than a few occasions Chapter serfs have been unable to tell the difference between a battle-brother and a servitor.
11:00-Morning Maintenance Rituals: The Iron Hands polish and repair their wargear and augmentics.
13:00-Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the Chapter serfs and occasionally accidentally given to a Servitor - lol oops.
13:30-Tactical Indoctrination-The Clan-Commander gathers the Iron Hands for a tactical sermon on potential enemies, pointing out the vulnerable weak flesh to fire bolters at.
14:30-Land-Behemoth Maintenance: The Clan Company assists in repairs to the Land-Behemoth which serves as the Clan's mobile fortress-monastery. Mostly because by this point the vessel has taken on too much ash and soot from Medusa's volcanoes to continue mobility. Raising questions about whether this means machines are weaker than flesh earns a battle-brother one hundred days of penitential duties.
16:00-Evening Firing Rites: Having gotten the Land Engine working again, the Clan Company assembles for evening firing practice. Again, they will often repair any damage they inflict on the practice servitor.
18:00-Evening Prayer: The Iron Hands gather for the Iron Father to preach to them. Areas frequently covered include the sinfulness of still having your own kidneys, why washing machines are superior to many humans and mortification of pathetic, weak flesh by poking yourself repeatedly in the eye.
20:00-Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the Chapter serfs. Overcooking or undercooking the food will result in the serf being banished to the Enginerarium decks by being blown out of the goddamn Airlock. Cooking the food just right will see the serf rewarded with being made a cooking servitor.
21:00-Evening Maintenance Rituals: The Iron Hands spend the rest of their day overseeing maintenance of their wargear and augmentics.
00:00-Rest Period: The Iron Hands retire to their power stations for the evening where they configure themselves to low power mode and watch a couple of DVD's and a downloaded Torrent, after spending an hour trying to find the right codec, all this whilst half their Brain sleeps.