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Interesting issue came up today in a practice game. I had an Iron Hands tactical squad under a void shield and my opponent targeted them with a heavy support squad with lascannons. Normally the inviolate armour rule would reduce the strength of the lascannons to 8, but in this case they hit the void shield first. Does the inviolate armour rule apply in this case, or does it not apply until all shields are down and shots start to hit the marines? I feel like it does since the rule says it affects shooting attacks against them which makes it seem like it applies when they are targeted, before any to hit rolls are made.

Your interpretation seems correct to me; Involate Armour affects shots declared against a unit with Legiones Astartes (Iron Hands), regardless of whether they actually hit them.

I agree with Rake; RAW the strength of the shots would be decreased before the Void Shield is struck.

That said, if I played Iron Hands, I would allow my opponent the grace of having the regular weapon strength against the Shield and then reducing whatever remained after the Shield layers were depleted in strength when rolling to wound against the unit in question.

That's HIWPI though. Definitely not RAW.