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My girlfriend was in warhammer world and picked me up the Horus heresy iron father model and as I don't play iron hands I'm looking for a way to use him. Techmarines is what I'm obviously being drawn too, does anybody use these or are they not seen due to them not being in the most competitive formations?

Well, let us see...
Mech Gunline armies make the most use out of his rules. Multiple Rifleman Dreads seems like a fit. You can give him a Beamer too while he camps safely. Bike would be mandatory, and luckily that'll open up Biker troops.

Also, Thunderfires are stupidly awesome.

What's the rest of the list look like?

I go with two minutes troop squads with missile launchers, grav cent unit in a pod, relic leviathan in a pod, culexus in a pod, hammer nator termies and vanguard vets with jump packs, it's for a league where all infantry/jump/bike squads are 0-1 except troopd

One problem with them is trying to fit them into formations. A lot of the more competitive lists are utilizing the gladius, and they don’t slot nicely into that. The other big problem is that if you are taking a CAD, why not librarians? Which is an issue. It’s not that techmarines are bad. They have some nice tricks. Bolstering ruins, good BS, 2+ save, free power weapon, reasonable cost. But they can’t make things invisible, shoot death beams, or otherwise bend reality to their whim.

If you have a unit on foot that could use a guy with a 2+ tanking, they can do that. Keep making saves until you fail one, the LOS the rest.

Use a fortification with a gun. Man it with BS5.

Pick up a TFC counts-as, use him as a gunner.

If you want tanks, he’s the needed HQ for the armored company.

All the time when I play my Iron Hands. If you are playing a mechanized force, then you really want some techmarines in there. Servo harness every time too :-)

I have one from the TFC i use but it's hard to justify him as an HQ choice when the librarian is the same cost but gets you so much more.

I'm not sure I'd ever run one in a cutthroat, WAAC-ish, tournament-type setting, but any other time, I rather like them, especially if you use a lot of vehicles. The cover buff is also useful if you have anything that wants to hang out in cover, like Devastators or TFCs (though of course the TFC comes with one anyway).

A tooled-up Techmarine can also be a decent beatstick in a choppy command squad. A lot of folks would favor a Librarian or Chaplain instead, and I can see why, but the Techie is a good fighter and pretty cheap, if not having an invuln save isn't a showstopper.