How can GW tone down the Iron Hands?

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**Ishagu**

These are my suggestions:

Calculated Fury:
The unique doctrine should only apply to infantry. Iron Hands already have a powerful chapter tactic that bolsters their vehicles.

Iron Father Feirros:
Increase cost to 220 points. Feirros is the best Astartes named character in terms of utility (In the HQ slot), specifically when combined with Iron Hands tactics and rules. His costs need to reflect this simple fact.

March of the Ancients:
Change to 2CP, and can only be used once per battle. At the moment if you have a Dread with less than 10 wounds in your list you automatically use this strat. At least make me think about it.

Cogitated Martyrdom:
Change to 3CP. It costs 3CP to make some Intercessors target a character. Make it cost 3CP to negate their attacks in return. Alternatively change it to 2CP but limit's it's use to the Tactical Doctrine.

Machine Empathy:
Change to 2CP. Far too powerful when combined with Feirros and the psychic power

Iron Stone:
Change the effect to work only once per battle. Activate at the start of a turn of the controlling player's choosing. This is currently the best relic in the game, it need to be toned down.

Souls of Iron:
Change to once per battle, or change cost to 3CP. In combination with a CP re-roll and regular deny-the-witch this makes Iron Hands shut down psykers too reliably.

Blessing of the Machine God:
Change to WC6

Psysteel Armour:
Change to WC7

**Tibs Ironblood**

From what I've read on the current scene of competitive Iron Hand builds they're fairly varied and many do not even run as pure Iron Hands, but rather successors. It would appear what most of the winning lists build around is not Feirros, but rather the ignoring the penalty of moving and firing heavy weapons and re-rolling 1s.

A lot of the things you are suggesting is attacking things that are not really the core problem, but I see your strategy. Nerf a bit of everything to bring the whole thing down which is fair, but personally I think if a few things are the outstanding offenders then those things should be specifically targeted.

How to go about that I am not yet certain as I've not played enough as or against them yet.

**Slayer-Fan123**

text removed,
Reds8n

**Ishagu**

Azrael's invul doesn't work on vehicles. That's also only one of his amazing rules.

You don't know much about his abilities it seems, or why they are so strong in the context of the full IH rules

My sweet summer child, I urge you to take a look at some of the recent podcasts that discuss the IH. 40k stat centre and Chapter Tactics. I don't want to write essays on why he's so strong.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Ishagu wrote:
Azrael's invul doesn't work on vehicles. That's also only one of his amazing rules.

You don't know much about his abilities it seems, or why they are so strong in the context of the full IH rules

My sweet summer child, I urge you to take a look at some of the recent podcasts that discuss the IH. 40k stat centre and Chapter Tactics. I don't want to write essays on why he's so strong.

I've seen his abilities. He's not worth 220 points. You're literally throwing out an arbitrary number. OR are you saying you calculated it?

**Ishagu**

Except he's the best named HQ character in the Astartes faction.

He heals vehicles, can increase the BS of a unit to 2+ even if damaged, has fantastic shooting and melee, and doubles the survivability of a unit like a Repulsor wounded by anything AP-3

He is worth those points yes. Some people think he's worth MORE. Even if you can't understand why when combined with various strats he's so powerful, doesn't mean he isn't.

**Spoletta**

Not sure about 220, but 185 for what he offers is the minimum.

He is not only a 5++ bot, he also has some impressive stats and other buffs.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Ishagu wrote:
Except he's the best named HQ character in the Astartes faction.

He heals vehicles, can increase the BS of a unit to 2+ even if damaged, has fantastic shooting and melee, and doubles the survivability of a unit like a Repulsor wounded by anything AP-3

He is worth those points yes. Some people think he's worth MORE. Even if you can't understand why when combined with various strats he's so powerful, doesn't mean he isn't.

Heals vehicles that are hanged up on and die in a turn because healing is basically useless, doesn't give everyone full rerolls to hit like a regular Chapter Master ala Azrael would, and his shooting is basically just that of a Heavy Bolter. Oh and in melee he hits on a 3+ with no rerolls.

He's not near the best Marine character and your ignorance is outstanding. You just made an arbitrary number you pulled out of thin air.

**Ishagu**

IH have free re rolls lol, they don't need them.

He can heal 6 wounds a turn for 1CP, a unit can recover 9 in one turn with the Iron Hands.

You really don't know about the rule stacking and combinations it seems, Slayer-Fan. Go read the supplement in detail then come back.
You dismiss something you know nothing about. But that's the Internet, hey ho.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Ishagu wrote:
IH have free re rolls lol, they don't need them.

He can heal 6 wounds a turn for 1CP, a unit can recover 9 in one turn with the Iron Hands.

You really don't know about the rule stacking and combinations it seems, Slayer-Fan. Go read the supplement in detail then come back.

They have free rerolls of 1 for Heavy Weapons. Nowhere near the same thing.

**Ishagu**

Is Feirros the only character in an IH army? Do I need him specifically to grant re roll auras I can get for cheap from another character that I will always take?

**Vaktathi**

The problem is that IH don't really have anything in terms of unqiue models or units, but GW (or more probably, a major fanboy on staff) wants them to have a unique subfaction book anyway. As there's nothing models-wise to add, all they can differentiate them by is rules, and GW basically chose to do that by giving them a combination of rules and abilities that most other factions only get access to one of or that can only be applied to single units via Stratagems.

IH vehicles for instance are essentially getting the Cadian, Valhallan, and Tallarn doctrines with the Defensive Gunners stratagem and the Tenacious warlord trait, all active at the same time on all their units, on top of their existing Space Marine abilities and doctrines.

Short of major points increases or removing multiple abilities, I'm not sure there is a way to balance them.

**Ishagu**

The fact that I can stack the following onto an IH Repulsor looks comical when you write it down:

-Ignore wounds on a 6+
-Profile doesn't degrade
-Overwatch on a 5+ or even 4+
-5+ Invul
-Reduce Damage by 1
-Repaired 6+D3 wounds a turn
-Always hit on a 2+
-Improve Save by 1
-Natural re-roll 1s
-Extra AP for shooting attacks
-Same re roll auras as other chapters

These are the crazy stacking bonuses that make units over powered in an Iron Hands army.

**Elbows**

How else did you expect GW to shift a boat load of Primaris?

**Ishagu**

Elbows wrote:
How else did you expect GW to shift a boat load of Primaris?

lol, that's the thing. They literally stated that the Astartes faction are still by far the biggest sellers

**chimeara**

I was at the Michigan GT this past weekend. I saw a ton of R.Ex. of the 118 people playing, I saw probably 20 total. With 2-3 people using triple. Of the people using them, 4 were pure IH. Others were soup. If anything needs adjusted, it's that particular vehicle. But exactly how? How do you balance a single unit that can be used in a dozen armies without making the non offending armies strictly worse?

**Ishagu**

You alter the Iron Hands rules, not the unit rules.

A Repuslor in any other army is a little bit over-costed. Great firepower, but easy to destroy.

**Dr. Mills**

Ishagu wrote:
These are my suggestions:

Calculated Fury:
The unique doctrine should only apply to infantry. Iron Hands already have a powerful chapter tactic that bolsters their vehicles.
Agree. Vehicles have enough buffs without this.

Iron Father Feirros:
Increase cost to 220 points. Feirros is the best Astartes named character in terms of utility (In the HQ slot), specifically when combined with Iron Hands tactics and rules. His costs need to reflect this simple fact.
220 is a bit too pricey. 150-170 seems fairer as this is +50% his base cost essentially. Increase him too much and no one would use him.

March of the Ancients:
Change to 2CP, and can only be used once per battle. At the moment if you have a Dread with less than 10 wounds in your list you automatically use this strat. At least make me think about it.
1CP for one dread, 3CP for two dreads. Follows the relic strat cost.

Cogitated Martyrdom:
Change to 3CP. It costs 3CP to make some Intercessors target a character. Make it cost 3CP to negate their attacks in return. Alternatively change it to 2CP but limit's it's use to the Tactical Doctrine.
2CP in the tectical doctrine is fair and much more sensible.

Machine Empathy:
Change to 2CP. Far too powerful when combined with Feirros and the psychic power
This is a combo issue, the strat is fine. I'd like to see the nerf on the Psychic power by either making the power harder to cast or only effect unfixed vehicles

Iron Stone:
Change the effect to work only once per battle. Activate at the start of a turn of the controlling player's choosing. This is currently the best relic in the game, it need to be toned down.
Rather than once a game, make it effect one MODEL only a turn.

Souls of Iron:
Change to once per battle, or change cost to 3CP. In combination with a CP re-roll and regular deny-the-witch this makes Iron Hands shut down psykers too reliably.
3CP is too expensive for essentially an auto DTW on a 4+, but it is an excellent strat. Make it allow you to deny with a non psyker character using normal rules for DTW and its much fairer like the Custodes strat.

Blessing of the Machine God:
Change to WC6
agree

Psysteel Armour:
Change to WC7
keep it the same, as other powers are much better

**Aenar**

- IH Chapter tactic: take away Overwatch on 5s and 6s
- IH super-doctrine to: re-roll 1s to hit when stationary (while in Dev Doctrine), full stop.
- Ironstone: max 1 target per turn
- Character Dreadnought stratagem: max 1 per game
- double repair stratagem: on unit not already repaired this turn
- Feirros: up his cost to 150-160 at least

This would be a start. IH would still be very good but less obscene.

**Tibs Ironblood**

One of the hardest things I find about balancing the Iron stone is that it swings from amazingly strong or really useless. If it only works on one model then it's pretty much useless if you have more than one vehicle because the other guy is just gonna shoot the others next to it.

I think if any change is going to be made to it I would make it once a game only similar to the cadian relic, but boost it's range to 12 inches. So you have one turn of big coverage and protection, but after that it's used up.

**Waaaghpower**

We've got multiple versions of this thread, one in YMDC and another copy of it cropping up in every Iron Hands discussion thread. People suggesting that IH get nerfed to the ground, and other people suggesting that those people are terrible at balance, and nothing actually getting done.

My suggestion? Change things in small, gradual amounts. Try to weaken abilities without taking away from the core of what they're supposed to do.

Oh, and change the Ironstone to a healing ability instead of a reduce-damage ability. There's just no way to balance reduced damage in an aura.

**Yarium**

It's popping up because we got a lot of major players voicing their concerns on a lot of platforms, and the echo chamber is strong. However, just because it's an echo chamber, also doesn't mean it's wrong. Having these armies posting nearly 80% win rates (was 78% according to Stats Center) at tournaments, and doing so with a very wide variety of lists (which drives home the point of the "this isn't even my final form" scenario, where there's even better versions of Iron Hands waiting to come to light), is insane. For a great comparison, back when there was a lot of complaining about Ynnari during 8th edition, they were only in the mid-60% range for average win rate. The sample size as well is not insignificant at some low 200-something games recorded. If this trend holds true for another 800 games, that will be a very significant sample size, but even now... that's not good.

So, yeah, there's some very VALID reasons that people are saying Iron Hands are OP. The main questions now are; does anything need to be done about it, will GW do anything about it, and what could be done about it?

**Karthicus**

Aenar wrote:
- IH Chapter tactic: take away Overwatch on 5s and 6s
- IH super-doctrine to: re-roll 1s to hit when stationary (while in Dev Doctrine), full stop.
- Ironstone: max 1 target per turn
- Character Dreadnought stratagem: max 1 per game
- double repair stratagem: on unit not already repaired this turn
- Feirros: up his cost to 150-160 at least

This would be a start. IH would still be very good but less obscene.

This seems like a very good start. I'd say bump Feirros to the 170 range. 220 does seem a little high.

**Sunny Side Up**

Vecting a psychic power needs to go up to 2 or better 3 CP IMO.

It's as much a gg as the genuine agents of vect if they turn off a no-overwatch spell or something and the match is just over.

**Ishagu**

We should ask ourselves, at what point level would people STOP taking Feirros?

I think 250 is too high, 220 is about right - that's double his current cost. At 160-170 he's only 30/40 points more than Jain Zar, and that seems pretty crazy to me seeing as many people are calling her overpriced. He is definitely more useful than Marneus Calgar, who comes in at 200 points.

Aenar suggested changing the Iron Hands Doctrine to re-rolls 1s when stationary - this is a brilliant idea! At the moment their rule makes them too mobile and hard hitting, we have this funny scenario where Iron Hands assault bikes and speeders are better than they are as White Scars. Now they still get a fantastic bonus, but they are no longer the best pilots in the Imperium lol

**Waaaghpower**

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Vecting a psychic power needs to go up to 2 or better 3 CP IMO.

It's as much a gg as the genuine agents of vect if they turn off a no-overwatch spell or something and the match is just over.

Keep in mind that, unlike Vecting, it's only a 50/50 shot. (And a bunch of other factions have this same strat.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ishagu wrote:
We should ask ourselves, at what point level would people STOP taking Feirros?

I think 250 is too high, 220 is about right - that's double his current cost. At 160-170 he's only 30/40 points more than Jain Zar, and that seems pretty crazy to me seeing as many people are calling her overpriced. He is definitely more useful than Marneus Calgar, who comes in at 200 points.

Aenar suggested changing the Iron Hands Doctrine to re-rolls 1s when stationary - this is a brilliant idea! At the moment their rule makes them too mobile and hard hitting, we have this funny scenario where Iron Hands assault bikes and speeders are better than they are as White Scars. Now they still get a fantastic bonus, but they are no longer the best pilots in the Imperium lol

I wouldn't be taking Feirros if he was anything more than 130 points. He's not actually that good.

**Karol**

I don't get one thing. Why is it a problem that one faction is more better then other? Is it because top players have their armies in other colours then black?

**Waaaghpower**

Karol wrote:
I don't get one thing. Why is it a problem that one faction is more better then other? Is it because top players have their armies in other colours then black?

Because it makes tournaments boring and samey. I don't want to fight the same army five times when I go to a five-round tournament.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Nobody is going to take him at 220 points. You're delusional.

**Sunny Side Up**

Waaaghpower wrote:
Sunny Side Up wrote:
Vecting a psychic power needs to go up to 2 or better 3 CP IMO.

It's as much a gg as the genuine agents of vect if they turn off a no-overwatch spell or something and the match is just over.

Keep in mind that, unlike Vecting, it's only a 50/50 shot. (And a bunch of other factions have this same strat.)

Well, it's a 75% shot with a re-roll, and if it's game-ending, you'll take the roll. Either way, a 50/50 chance at insta-winning against armies like GSC or Ravenguard or so is great value.

Yes, other factions have it, specifically those that are "in the lore" without psykers such as World Eaters and (formerly?) Black Templars.

Maybe too fidgety, but since Aeldari now have some strats with different costs for some sub-factions in Psychic Awakening, it'd ideally want to see it rolled into mono-faction bonuses: e.g. if you play mono-World Eaters or Graia, it's a 1 CP strat, but if you soup, it's a 3 CP strat, since it just becomes just another safety net in addition to your psykers, etc.. and just shuts down some armies way too hard IMO.