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So with the new SM codex ironclads have seen a huge boost - with the increase in attacks - meaning your opponent must deal with them when the drop down or something will feel the pain.

With this in mind, what's the optimum loadout on the ironclad?

I've been toying with melta/flamer and seismic hammer but I can see the benefits of dual flamers.

Any thoughts?

hes a CC dread and imo the best use for him will probably be to drop pod him in to lie in ambush and then burst from a conveniently large enough bush and whack them in the face.

however he has a problem he is fighting for this spot with some real monsters over at forgeworld. the chaplain dread also has 3 in addition to hatred and that makes him more reliable to hurt someone in cc than the ironclad. you also have the now neutered contempor/mortis with his 5+ invul and 3 attacks who also has relic plating and the same armor line as the ironclad which makes him a nasty customer to bring down if you can lock him up in close combat

you also need to recognize that the standard dread is a lot more affordable than the ironclad who is lets be honest here considerably more expensive and in some cases you can get two standard dreadnaughts for the price of one ironclad or spend the savings elsewheres which makes him not so much of a loss should he die.

imo the ironclad is in an odd position and i cant say id field him if the entire range of options were available to me. id say only if you dont own one of those two forge dreads and your not buying forge that the ironclad is best for this role. beyond that i probably wouldnt make him my first choice

the above being said i am largely just looking for the most optimal choice of unit for the same job as the ironclad and so if your going to just be goofy with anyway then do what you like.

Don't know how ionusx is running his normal Dreads, but an Ironclad (135) is not really more expensive than a Rifledread (120).

I don't think Ironclads have a default optimum loadout.
If you burst out of the Drop Pod, you can either reduce infantry with dual flamers or try to pop a vehicle/transport with the melta. So I would say it depends on your enemy. Just take two with different loadouts. One is not enough anyway.

 ionusx wrote:
hes a CC dread and imo the best use for him will probably be to drop pod him in to lie in ambush and then burst from a conveniently large enough bush and whack them in the face.

however he has a problem he is fighting for this spot with some real monsters over at forgeworld. the chaplain dread also has 3 in addition to hatred and that makes him more reliable to hurt someone in cc than the ironclad. you also have the now neutered contempor/mortis with his 5+ invul and 3 attacks who also has relic plating and the same armor line as the ironclad which makes him a nasty customer to bring down if you can lock him up in close combat

you also need to recognize that the standard dread is a lot more affordable than the ironclad who is lets be honest here considerably more expensive and in some cases you can get two standard dreadnaughts for the price of one ironclad or spend the savings elsewheres which makes him not so much of a loss should he die.

imo the ironclad is in an odd position and i cant say id field him if the entire range of options were available to me. id say only if you dont own one of those two forge dreads and your not buying forge that the ironclad is best for this role. beyond that i probably wouldnt make him my first choice

the above being said i am largely just looking for the most optimal choice of unit for the same job as the ironclad and so if your going to just be goofy with anyway then do what you like.

Thing is with those FW dreads is most of them can only use Lucius pods, which IMO are overcosted. Also the AV13 on the ironclad is insanely useful as only S7 and above can hurt him - so no krak grenades, scatter bikes or anything can hurt him. 6 S10 AP1 attacks on the charge are nothing to be sniffed at. I'd say normal dreadnoughts aren't worth their points as much as him.


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 Hanskrampf wrote:
Don't know how ionusx is running his normal Dreads, but an Ironclad (135) is not really more expensive than a Rifledread (120).

I don't think Ironclads have a default optimum loadout.
If you burst out of the Drop Pod, you can either reduce infantry with dual flamers or try to pop a vehicle/transport with the melta. So I would say it depends on your enemy. Just take two with different loadouts. One is not enough anyway.

Yea, agreed. I'm looking at a 5 drop pod list with at least 2 ironclads.

I don’t think there is a bad option these days for them. Really depends on what you want to hunt, and what your list needs.

Even the hurricane bolter might be a little more viable, especially if you are walking him. When they had two attacks base, the extra attack from the second fist was needed to prevent getting bogged down. With more attacks stock, is it as critical to get the extra? How many times to you need to slap something with a seismic hammer/chainfist before it goes away?

If you're drop-podding him, I'd take twin flamers;

A Meltagun is never a bad weapon, but one meltagun does not reliably kill a big tank on its own, and - more importantly - if you're in melta range you're generally in range to charge and hit something with a hammer, which is a far more effective form of antitank

By comparison, heavy flamers are protection from getting buried in a tarpit of scarabs/termagants/conscripts/etc, which even with the bonus attacks will take forever to dig yourself out of again.

I use the twin flamer variant. And it's awesome.

But the ironclad is such a big target. People always go to shoot it down as quickly as possibly.
Which is why I have also tried running a regular dread with a TL HF and an underslung HF. The flaming is stronger and when it gets shot down before it can get in to close combat, im not out so many points.

Ironclads are cool, but it really depends on what your doing with the thing,


I generally run 2 dreadnoughts with a multi-melta heavy flamer and a power fist in a free drop pod.
The extra attack and +1 av on the front of the Ironclad is nice to have but its not really necessary for my purposes ( which is to put out a lot of TAC AV for my opponent to deal with)

As I also usually run 2 drop podded asault marine squads with flamers for anti-infantry and 2 drop podded grav devastator squads for big stuff I feel that my dreadnoughts always have a way to help contribute against whatever threat shows up on the table next.

Iron Clads do the job a bit better, but not well enough for it to be that noticeable. I would rather save the 50pts and put it into other parts of my list

I was running 2 Ironclad Dread with dual flamer all the time on my Salamander list. And that was with last codex.