Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

==={{W40Kkeyword|[[Iron Hands]]}} and {{W40Kkeyword|[[Sons of Medusa]]}}===

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[[File:Iron Hands Livery.jpg|100px|left|]]In the grim darkness of the far future, the Flesh is Weak.<br>
Thematically, these guys are more machine than <s>man</s> Astartes, having a strong affinity with machines. With calculated Rage, they are unyielding, precise, and show no mercy.<br>
On the tabletop, these guys are one of the most durable chapters for infantry and vehicles and have a strong affinity with heavy weapons and tanks. Makes you feel like [[Death Guard]] with everything having ''Feel no pain'', Damage reduction, and vehicle stats take more wounds to degrade, experts at wielding heavy weapons of all types, and as an added bonus Optimizes gunfire and sword swing for both Cyborgs and tanks. <br>
''If you like '''big guns and bigger tanks''', the Iron Hands is the Chapter for you.''
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====Special Rules====

*'''Chapter Tactics - The Flesh is Weak:''' 6+++ Feel No Pain - ''this doesn't work with supercharged plasma since that slays models without wounding them (except the ones mounted on vehicles; spam those plasma redemptors)'' - and Scions of the Forge (models with a damage table are considered to have double the number of wounds with respect to said table). So not only is Steel strong, but it's also ''reliable''.
**Being more difficult to kill is an obvious bonus to your Warlord, but unlike Guilliman, who is classified as a {{W40Kkeyword|Monster}}, your {{W40Kkeyword|<chapter> infantry}} Captain can be healed by an Apothecary. And then you add the Shield Eternal...yes, it's [[Chapter_Master_Smashfucker#8TH_EDITION:_CAPTAIN_SMASHFUCKER_AND_THE_IRON_BASTARDS|Smashfucker]] all over again.
**Stronger than it first appears, because there is an interaction with units of multiple multi-wound models and weapons that deal more than 1 damage. After failing your save, you are allowed to roll for each lost wound individually. For example, a unit of 2 wound models being attacked by a D2 weapon is approximately 35% more durable. This is because if you save either one of the lost wounds (27.78% chance to resist exactly 1; 30.56% chance to resist at least 1) it takes a whole second shot to even try to kill that model, thanks to damage not spilling over.
***This improvement is still ''best'' on 1-wound model units - the interaction above means it's not as worse on multi-wound as it first appears, and Iron Hands have some kick-ass Primaris units, but the ability is generally more noticeable the fewer wounds the model with it has remaining.
***While your boost to survivability is around 20% to the RG's 25%, yours isn't situational, and even works in the melee Shock Assault urges you to be.
**Vehicles also get a noticeable boost from this. Even before you account for the FnP effect, the slower rate of stat loss from damage will keep your tanks and dreads at full effectiveness for much longer than vehicles of other Chapters. 
***The boost's benefit also varies with Wounds, as GW tends to use the same algorithm to build all of your degradation tables.  By and large, this ''reduces'' the tendency of wounds to be useless - for example, ordinarily going from W13 to W14 is not useful, because the extra wound happens in the middle band of the degradation table, compared to going from W10 to W11, where the extra wound happens in the top band.  Under Iron Hands, both wounds show up on top.  The effect is particularly noticeable on W11 and W15, and at its absolute worst when Wounds is a power of 2 - your W16 Land Raiders will get the least benefit from this compared to most other things you can field. 
*'''Combat Doctrine - Calculated Fury:''' Whilst the Devastator Doctrine is active, models with this ability do not suffer the penalty for moving and firing Heavy weapons. In addition, when resolving an attack made with a Heavy weapon by a model with this ability, re-roll hit rolls of 1.
**Fully half of your Chapter Tactics only apply to models that weren't suffering a penalty to moving and shooting anyway, but don't let that worry you.  Plasma Redemptor Dreads can make ''excellent'' use of your Chapter Tactics + this re-roll.
**GW, in all its wisdom, has decided to roll back the changes to Doctrines automatically cycling in Q1 2023. This means you can now continue to stay in the Devastator doctrine for the entire game, and because SM no longer pay for weapon options, [[Bullshit|you can go ham on the heavy weapons with additional AP, no movement penalty, and re-rolling 1s.]] (Devastators? Nah, think Eradicators).
***This is especially egregious when you consider that Iron Hand Devastator spam ''was the entire reason'' for the change in the first place: powergamers would take drop pods filled with Grav and Melta, then first turn wipe anything that could potentially be a threat. And because they had a 6+++, they were very sturdy and could potentially take 2 turns to remove, and then the opponent has to deal with the Repulsors/Leviathan/character dreads that are slowly marching from your Deployment zone.

====Crusade Additions====

*'''Not an actual Crusade addition, but worth mentioning:''' One of the Battle Honors a Space Marine infantry unit may receive when it ranks up is the Centurios Service Studs, which allow the unit to disregard whichever Doctrine is active for the rest of the army and just pick one in the Command Phase. This is absolutely nuts on Iron Hands: If you're [[that guy|willing to go hardcore on a Crusade campaign]], give this to Eliminators (Who will never miss with BS2+ and rerolling 1s and will murder 2-3 terminators every shooting phase [[awesome|while still being able to move]]) or Eradicators (Who will be moving and double tapping with their intact BS, giving a world of hurt to whatever you point them at). Hellblasters with heavy plasma incinerators are suddenly a good idea as well, as they basically become 5-men Eliminator squads. Basically any Heavy Support infantry unit you give this to will become something that your enemy cannot afford to ignore.

====Secondary Objectives====

*'''Cold Fury:''' - NO MERCY, NO RESPITE: One Victory point for each of the following conditions you meet:
*# One or more Iron Hands Vehicle (not Aircraft) wholly within the opponent's deployment zone
*# One or more Iron Hands Vehicle wholly within 6" of the center of the battlefield
*# One or more enemy units destroyed by a Vehicle's ranged attacks
*# Same as above, but by Melee
**A fluffy secondary, with a bit of both killing and board control, but as a result tends to be all over the place. Don't take this as a secondary all on its own, but to give you an additional VP as you score other secondaries. E.G. if you're also taking Behind Enemy Lines, you can at least gain an extra point from this, or gain an extra point when using vehicles to score Bring it Down.

====Stratagems====

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<tab name="Battle Tactic">
*'''Mercy is Weakness (1 CP):''' ''Mercy is Weakness, it's your opponent's fault for not playing Space Marines'' Choose after a unit decides to shoot or fight. Select an enemy unit, and until the end of that phase, every {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} model that attacks this unit wounds twice on unmodified wound rolls of 6.  Since this is like +1 to wound rolls (only better), this is functionally ''better'' than the strats some others have to hit twice on hit rolls of 6, as wounding hard is more difficult than hitting hard.
*'''Vengeance for Istvaan V (1 CP):''' Use in the Fight phase, when choosing an {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} unit to fight.  Re-roll hit rolls vs {{W40Kkeyword|Alpha Legion}}, {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Warriors}}, {{W40Kkeyword|Night Lords}}, and {{W40Kkeyword|Word Bearers}}.
*'''Wrathful Machine Spirit (2 CP):''' Used in the shooting or fight phase when a {{W40Kkeyword|vehicle}} is chosen to shoot or fight; it can re-roll hit rolls for that phase. Went from a '''no''' to a '''yes''' with the 9th codex, let Iron Hands remember the fun of re-rolling dice on a gun platform.
*'''Reject the Flesh, <s>[[Meme|Return to Monke]]</s> Embrace the Machine (1 CP):''' Use in any phase when an {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands infantry}} unit in your army is chosen as a target for an attack. FNP on 5+++.  If it's a Warlord with All Flesh is Weakness, he gets a 4+++. 
**Radically better on Successors, as this overlaps with the stock Iron Hands tactic (and with Apothecaries) ''and'' can't be used on anything with W10+, meaning it has no synergy with the other half of the stock tactic.
*'''Engine Purge (2 CP):''' Use at the start of your movement phase if the devastator doctrine is active (so, your first movement phase).  Until the start of the next battle round, when resolving an attack made with heavy or grenade weapon by an {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} model in your ''army'', an unmodified 6+ to wound increases the AP of that attack by an ''additional'' 1 (presumably, this means it stacks with the Doctrine bonus to AP). 
*'''The Gorgon's Rage (1 CP):''' Use in the Fight phase, when choosing an {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} unit to fight. Until the end of the phase, that unit adds +1 to melee hit rolls. If the target is {{W40Kkeyword|emperor's children}}, enjoy an additional +1 to wound. 
*'''Optimal Repulsion Doctrines (2 CP):''' A unit during your opponent's charge phase that's already firing overwatch now enjoys 5+ overwatch. If you're Iron Hands and not a successor, enjoy 4+. If you use this on a unit next to a chapter master then you'll have 3/4 shots hitting in overwatch, brutal - albeit expensive, at 1 CP to fire Overwatch and then 2 to bump up the accuracy.
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<tab name="Epic Deed">
*'''Machine Empathy (1 CP):''' After a Techmarine heals a vehicle, that model can use that ability again. Remember, our vehicles' wounds count as double for the purposes of their bracket, so even a single repaired wound can bump up a damaged vehicle to a better bracket. While it's inconvenient that it only allows you to repair two different vehicles rather than double heal one, it'd definitely help if you're seeing these tanks/dreads taking a beating.
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<tab name="Strategic Ploy">
*'''Methodical Firepower (1 CP):''' If the devastator doctrine isn't active at the start of your movement phase, pick a unit. Now it is for this unit. No need to say how good this is on units with heavy weapons.
*'''Souls of Iron (2 CP):''' Deny on 4+ within 24" of an Iron Hands unit.
*'''Mnemonic Auto-Savant (2 CP):''' If your WL is on the battlefield upon completing a tactical objective, do not discard it. You can use it again in the subsequent round. Nice.
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<tab name="Requisition">
*'''March of the Ancients (1  CP):''' Once per battle, after nominating a warlord, select a single Dreadnought in your army. That Dreadnought gains the {{W40Kkeyword|Character}} keyword and adds 1 to its attack and Leadership characteristics. Beware that Dreadnoughts with 10 or more wounds can still be targeted, and Cogitated Martyrdom now doesn't protect vehicles. Still enjoy having a Venerable Dreadnought Rifleman who has the protection of being a character! Or, finally be able to screen that Ironclad Dreadnought as it runs up with the Chainfist, appreciating the extra attack!
**9th has also added contemptor dreadnoughts to the list, with the Relic version included.
*'''Scions of the Forge (1 CP):''' Your sergeant gets toys! Yay! Special issue wargear to sergeants (chosen from m-c weapon, digital weapons, Teeth of Mars, and Haywire Bolts).
*'''Bequeathed by the Iron Council (1 CP):''' Iron Hands relics for successors. Yay!!!
*'''Paragon of Iron (1 CP):''' Bonus warlord trait for your non-named character. Must be from the chapter's list. The usual supplement special, but ideal for you, because it lets you put a warlord trait on the character dread you made with March of the Ancients.
*'''Cogitated Martyrdom (1 CP):''' Use at the start of an enemy shooting phase. An {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands infantry}} unit can intercept attacks before rolling FNP for non-vehicle {{W40Kkeyword|Iron Hands characters}} within 3". On a 2+, take a MW on the infantry unit. 
**Enjoy treating Intercessors as drones, especially the heavy ones. Particularly useful as your characters will be high priority targets for your opponent like the new iron father or anyone with the ironstone. Maybe use it for servitors. This lets you shove some poor sod in front of the Sniper-lascannon aiming for your characters.
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====Warlord Traits====

#'''All Flesh Is Weakness:''' 5+++ FNP.
#*This is just better than Iron Resolve in general, if that's what you wanted.
#'''The Will of Iron:''' Can deny a psychic power. If they can already deny, they can deny one more.
#'''Adept of the Omnissiah:''' Can repair vehicles like a techmarine, but only repair 1 wound. If you can already do this, you repair d3+1 wounds instead.
#*Barring an FAQ entry we don't have yet, you have to choose this ''or'' your Master of the Forge ability if you're a Master of the Forge with this Trait, since both replace healing 1d3 with a new rule (i.e. neither one can legally replace the other, only the original), so just don't take this, since it's Master of the Forge but worse (same average result, more variance).
#'''Merciless Logic:''' The Warlord's ''unmodified'' 6 (''not'' 6+) to hit with any attack procs an extra attack with the same weapon, which can't proc this again.
#* Essentially multiplies his attacks by 7/6; a good choice for that Character Dreadnought you brought along.
#'''Student of History:''' When consolidating, the Warlord can move up to 6", and doesn't need to move towards the nearest enemy. Malkaan Feirros has this as his warlord trait, not that he wants to be in melee.
#*Great on smash captains if you want more mobility rather than hitting things, lets him run from enemy swings, or engage a bubble-wrapped character.  Remember, you can Heroically Intervene in, hit some things, then Consolidate back out with this.  Also good on Character Dreadnoughts.
#'''Target Protocols:''' In the shooting phase, pick a friendly {{WH40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} unit within 6" of the Warlord. They can re-roll one hit, one wound, and one damage roll that phase.
#*Good for ensuring that forgeworld death titan cannon destroys something while the techmarine babysits it.

====Psychic Discipline: Technomancy====
The best spells here are Blessing of the Machine God and Psysteel Armor, in general.

#'''Blessing of the Machine God (WC5) Blessing''': Grants +1 to hit for a friendly {{WH40Kkeyword|Iron Hands vehicle}} unit within 12", like a Techmarine but with more range and working on melee hit rolls in exchange for only having a 5/6 chance to succeed. You need to get at least an 8 on the psychic test to use this on {{WH40kKeyword|Titanic}} units, so better take the repairman if you want to buff that Fellblade or Astraeus.  
#*Note that this +1 will stack with both a Techmarine's +1 and a Chaplain's, should the need arise (the cap of +1 to hit happens after all additions, so e.g. if you're shooting a target with a -2 to be hit, you can stack all three modifiers to reach +1 to hit), although both of them only buff range and the Chaplain only works on Core/Character.
#* This works on entire units, unlike a Techmarine, and ignores both Core and Character restrictions, unlike a Chaplain.  That means you can hit an entire unit of Land Speeders with it, or, if you prefer, an Invictor Warsuit (putting this on something that's about to charge will let you take advantage of getting +1 to hit on both range and melee).
#'''Objuration Mechanicum (WC7) Malediction''': If manifested, select one visible enemy unit within 18". When that unit rolls unmodified 1s to shoot, it takes a mortal wound after it finishes the gun in question. Enjoy self-immolating bolter aggressors, Tau fire warriors, and Chaos havocs with miniguns.
#*While the actual output of this weapon depends on the number of shots the target unit makes, and penalties to hit won't affect it (although re-rolling will), one of the big values is forcing your opponent to decide if shooting with the unit is worth the mortal wounds it will suffer.  It also has better scaling the more guns the unit uses to make those shots, since a given gun gets all of its shots before any mortal wounds happen, but mortal wounds will happen between guns.
#**Without any relevant buffs, the number of shots the target has to make to suffer at least as much as Smite would have - bearing in mind that this happens ''after'' it shoots, not before, as it would with Smite - is 19, so anything with at least that many shots - such as a Leman Russ Punisher, or 5 models within 12" with Storm Bolters, or what have you - will die to this power ''faster'', with, again, the caveat that the mortal wounds won't happen until ''after'' each gun fires.
#*Point at plasma wielding squads for double the fun; now a roll of 1 on an overcharge will both kill the gunner ''and'' drop a mortal wound on one of its buddies. If you really want to cheese it, get something to force -1 to hit modifiers on your unfortunate victims and your opponent will just plain give up on shooting with them (it won't help this power hurt them, of course).
#*Naturally, this power won't have any impact on shooting weapons that don't roll to hit, like flamers.
#'''Fury of Medusa (WC6) Witchfire''': Select an enemy model within 18". Draw a line 1mm wide between the psyker and target. For every enemy unit the line crosses, including the target model's, roll 1d6, adding 2 for {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}}s; the unit takes a mortal wound on a 4 or 5, and 1d3 mortal wounds on a 6. 
#*This needs to cross 4 non-vehicle units, 2 vehicle units, or 1 vehicle and 2 non-vehicle, in order to outperform Smite.
#*This is basically Fury of the Ancients, only instead of 6/6 mortal wounds per target, it's 4/6 per non-vehicle and 8/6 per vehicle, with the added major downside of having more variance (i.e. being more swingy).  You're better off, if you can, taking a Librarius librarian with that instead.
#'''Psysteel Armour (WC6) Blessing''': Select an {{WH40Kkeyword|Iron Hands}} unit within 12" of the psyker. Add 1 to non-invulnerable saving throws for it.
#*Because this stacks with all other armor save bonuses, this is particularly powerful in combination with the Stealthy successor tactic.  To give you an idea of what it looks like at an extreme, this plus light/heavy cover plus a combat/storm shield on a base 2+ unit (such as terminators) takes you from 0+ to -1+, meaning even ''melta'' only reduces you to a 3+ save.
#'''Reforge (WC5) Blessing''': Heal D3 lost wounds on a {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}} within 3".
#*This turns your Librarian into a much more expensive and much less reliable Techmarine, and you don't even get a range benefit.
#'''Machine Flense (WC6) Witchfire''': Select a visible enemy {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}} unit within 18". It takes 1d3 mortal wounds. Then select an enemy unit that was within 6" of that {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}} and visible to it when the power was manifested (meaning the original target ''need not'' still be on the table). Roll 1d6 for each mortal wound the original target suffered. On a 3+, the secondary target takes a mortal wound.
#*After the cast, this will on average deal 2 mortal wounds to the target and 4/3 mortal wounds to the secondary target, meaning that this power actually does do more mortal wounds than Smite (1.79 for Smite, 1.44 to the target, 0.96 to the secondary target, 2.41 total mortal wounds dealt by this power, taking cast odds into account), assuming no bonuses to the cast are available.  Of course, the power isn't even castable without a vehicle to target - you can't cast this against Tyranids, for example.

====Relics & Special-Issue Wargear====
Don't forget, you are explicitly banned from giving {{W40Kkeyword|vehicle}}s relics, even if you use a strat to make them a {{W40Kkeyword|character}}.
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<tab name="Relics of Medusa">
*'''Aegis Ferrum''': Primaris Model only. +1T and the model takes -1D (to a minimum of 1).
*'''Axe of Medusa''': Replaces a power axe. Gives it S+3 AP-3 D3, or relative to the base weapon, +1S -1AP +2D. Completely identical to a Master-crafted relic blade except for what it replaces (and hence who can carry it). For non-primaris only simply because primaris haven't earned the right to swing axes yet.
**Note that this ''can't'' replace an Omnissian power axe.
*'''Betrayer's Bane''': Replaces a Combi-Melta. The Melta part becomes Assault 2. Yay. You will probably never take this. 
*'''Gorgon's Chain''': 4++ and equipped model has -1 to be wounded by ranged attacks. 
**Can't be wounded on anything worse than a 3+. Sadly nerfed from its 7th edition incarnation, but now Smashfucker has a few new toys to play with above such as the Aegis Ferrum or the Ironstone.
*'''Ironstone''': At the start of the battle round, select one friendly {{WH40Kkeyword|Iron Hands vehicle}} unit within 3" of the bearer of this relic. Until the start of the next battle round, when resolving attacks made against that unit, if the bearer is within 3" of that unit, you can reduce any damage suffered by 1 (minimum 1, explicitly won't stack with any other damage reduction). 
**Another method of keeping the damage tables from getting to you never hurts. Give it to a techmarine and the vehicles he sticks near will never die. Sadly, this no longer stacks with Duty Eternal. 
*'''Mindforge''': Force Sword, Axe, or Stave. Your force power fist of choice! Sx2 AP-3 Dd3, essentially a force power fist. You get the hint that they want you to take non-captain characters?
**A Master-crafted Force Sword will serve you better, if you're really after giving a Librarian a melee upgrade.
*'''Tempered Helm''': Roll 1d6 for every command point spent whenever you use a stratagem while the equipped model is on the battlefield. On a 5+, the command point is refunded. Only 1 command point can be refunded in this way per battle round (no limit on stratagems used outside of a battle round, i.e. before the battle begins).
** Per the September 2019 FAQ, you can't use this to refund command points before the battle begins, even if the model is on the battlefield.
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<tab name="Special Issue Wargear">
The first four relics in the Special Issue Wargear section are copy-pastes for each Supplement, then there's a selection of unique mini-relics.
*'''Adamantium Mantle:''' 5+++. You have a Warlord trait that does the same thing, but because it's Wargear, this relic is also available to successors and lets you add some variety to your unkillable characters.
*'''Artificer Armor:''' 2+/5++. Excellent on Lieutenants and Librarians who don't get invulnerable saves to start. Or, throw it on a Sergeant with Scion of the Forge.
*'''Digital Weapons:'''  Do an additional attack when the model fights. If it hits, the target suffers a mortal wound.
*'''Master-crafted Weapon:''' +1 to the damage characteristic of one of the bearer's weapons, which is then considered a relic. D4 Thunderhammer baby!
*'''Automedicae Bionics:''' Heal 1d3 wounds at the start of the turn. Actually a decent pick!
*'''Dataspike:''' Roll 2 dice and drop the lowest result when healing vehicles.  Generally speaking, this will turn 1d3 healing from average 2 to average 2.44, change the odds of rolling at least 2 from 67% to 89%, and change the odds of rolling 3 from 33% to 56%, in terms of your ability to repair a target enough to change wound brackets.
*'''Haywire Bolts:''' Affects a bolt weapon. It can only do 1 shot, but when targeting a {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}}, an unmodified wound roll of 4 or 5 does d3 mortal wounds, and a 6 results in a flat 3 mortal wounds, in addition to normal damage. Can be useful for chipping off the last few wounds from a vehicle. You know, in case your Heavy Weapons under the Devastator Doctrine somehow didn't finish the job.
**The additional damage is both mortal and additive, so the effect is more noticeable on a weapon with poor AP and D to begin with, and it happens on a 4 or 5 even if the shot failed to wound, so also more noticeable on low S, and for obvious reasons, you want to take it on a 1-shot weapon to begin with.  The upshot is that while this is very efficient on an Eliminator Sergeant, it'll have more of an impact on a Primaris Lieutenant with a stalker bolt rifle.
*'''Teeth of Mars:''' Replaces a chainsword, SU AP-2 D2 A+1; becomes Sx2 AP-2 D2 A+1 when resolving attacks against {{WH40Kkeyword|vehicle}}s.
**This isn't as good as a Master-crafted Lightning Claw, so smack yourself if you find yourself contemplating this.
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====Special Units====

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<tab name="Iron Hands">
*'''HQ'''
**'''Malkaan Feirros:''' The Iron Hands' first named character and is a Primaris Techmarine Master of the Forge. Stat-wise he's like a Gravis Captain with 7 wounds, 5 attacks, a 2+ save, and a 5+ FNP instead of the Chapter's 6+ FNP, and offense-wise his Gorgon's Wrath is an AP-2 D2 Heavy Bolter, and his Harrowhand is a S+3 AP-2 D2 axe. Naturally, you want him for his buffing abilities, as awesome as his punch and durability may be. He gives all Iron Hands INFANTRY units (FAQ) within 6" a 5+ Invulnerable save. He's also a superior techmarine (which should be obvious being the Master of the Forge and whatnot) and repairs a flat 3 wounds to vehicles instead of d3 wounds (or 6W with Machine Empathy strat). He also has a Signum Array that gives a friendly unit within 3" +1 to hit with Ranged weapon at the start of the shooting phase, Practaly BS2+ on marines. 

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<tab name="Sons of Medusa">
*'''HQ'''
**'''Vaylund Cal(Legends):''' Chapter Master/Techmarine.  If you ever wanted to see the mechanized fusion of a Techmarine with a Chapter Master, this is the motherfucker for you. Also makes an excellent anchor for a Dreadnoughts, because he gives both a re-roll bubble, +1 to hit, ''and'' can repair vehicles. His price was dropped to 165, making him a clear pick over a tech marine with an upgraded captain. While slightly less flexible, it will save you a few points. 
** if you want to go Dreadnought Crazy, also brings a Cheif Techmarine with March of the ancients Warlord trait, and may also include a lieutenant and Chaplain for cheesy time with friends. 
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====Tactics====
In the month following the release of their codex supplement but before the October FAQ nerf, the Iron Hands enjoyed an unprecedented level of popularity and brokenness. An article on Warhammer site Goonhammer reported a winrate of 71% overall in 234 qualifying games, far higher than any other faction had enjoyed since the launch of 8th edition. This helps to explain why, on October 17 of 2019, an initial, rather anemic FAQ was amended within hours to include a number of changes to try and get ahead of the situation. As a result of these nerfs, the tactical situational for the Iron Hands is in something of a transitional state. It remains to be seen if the changes will have their intended effect. In the mean time, here is a brief list of several of the most popular units from before the nerfs.

*'''[[Steel Rain|Iron Rain]]''' - Turn 1 drop pods + Devastator Doctrine means no move penalties and re-roll 1s on your within-12" Multimeltas. It is only the most logical course of action.<s> ''Go on, remind them about the Drop-site Massacre.''</s>
*'''Stormhawk Interceptors, Stormtalon Gunships, and Stormraven Gunships''': A popular choice on several competitive lists. All three flyers pair well with the Iron Hands Chapter tactics, and units like the Stormhawk and Stormtalon, which have heavy weapons but not power of the machine spirit, benefit greatly from both the Devastator doctrine and the chapter doctrine.
*'''Thunderfire Cannons''': Another popular competitive choice and almost an auto-take in an Iron Hands army thanks to the interaction between Devastator doctrine and the Chapter doctrine.
*'''Repulsor Executioners''': Initially broken as fuck due to the interaction between Feirros and the Ironstone. Now far less so thanks to the nerfs to both units, but still solid for all the expected reasons.

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