Anyway, I felt a lot better yesterday after fighting off a fever on Friday, so I went to Dreamers Vault to continue building my Steel Dragons army. To my disappointment, the Iron Hands codex supplement was completely sold out. What the hell?! Since when was Iron Hand so popular? Instead, all the Raven Guard stuff was there. But Raven Guard and Shrike are too emo for me. Besides, I'm an armored guy. My Imperial Guard army are mostly tanks. I intend to build a similarly mechanized Space Marine force based around heavy armor and robots as well. I'm pretty sure I'm the exception - who the Warp plays an armoed Space Marine force? Don't they run, like, Terminators and all that? Or drop pods? Or...smash Captains?
Why Iron Hands?
Doesn't really matter. The Iron Hands codex supplement won't be going anywhere. If anything, I'll just order it online if necessary, but it's not that urgent. My army isn't even complete yet, and it's just a Successor Chapter. I don't really like the Iron Hands because they're so cold and ruthless, but I like how they play with armor! So to reconcile that, I have an Iron Hands Successor Chapter that learn the ways of the noble Salamanders and prioritize the lives and welfare of mortals over victory. Yes, I know it's an incredibly idiotic backstory and I'm probably violating the fluff. Sorry about that.
Back to my army. What I have right now is built around a single Repulsor Executioner tank. The core of the army is the three squads of 5 Intercessors - as you would have notice, one of them has a Thunder Hammer (so does a second, but I lack the points so I'll probably replace the Thunder Hammer with a power sword instead). There is no Primaris Captain to lead them yet because the store hasn't restocked them (ouch). So I am making do with a Primaris Librarian for now. Aiding the Primaris Librarian is a regular Librarian, but unlike the Primaris Librarian his wargear options are a lot more flexible, so I gave him a force axe instead of a force stave. Cool! I think.
Wait...what? Why Librarians? Where are the techmarines? Yeah...you would think I should include techmarines. But again, I can't find any. Where are the damned techmarines? Apparently there are only metal and resin models, and I'm reluctant to buy those. I don't need the Servitors and after the nightmare of Battletech, I don't want to deal with pewter or metal models if I can help it.
Besides, my Successor Chapter doesn't agree with the Iron Hands's doctrine of "flesh is weak." Not only do they refuse to cut off their arms to replace it with a bionic, they insist that man and machine must work together in perfect harmony. The Librarians, with their technomancy discipline, epitomizes that. That's why they have a lot more psykers and not many techmarines or Marines with bionics and augmetics. They believe in the human body and its potential - psychic potential, maybe - and refuse to just give themselves over to the machine. It was this split in ideals, both regarding the attitude toward mortals and the treatment of flesh that caused the founding Chapter Master to leave the Iron Hands during the Fourth Founding and found his own Chapter, the Steel Dragons, based on his ideals. My idea is that during the War of the Beast, this particular dude and his platoon saw how Vulkan and the Salamanders fought valiantly to save the mortals from overwhelming tides of Orks during several of the Imperium's darkest days. Inspired by Vulkan's courage and the Salamanders' nobility, the dude found himself disgusted by the callous and ruthless attitudes of his fellow Iron Hands toward mortals, and how they callously sacrifice civilian camps or lives just to level a city to maximize the kill count of Orks, and hence when Lord Protector Drakan Vangorich and Lord Commander Maximus Thane organized the Fourth Founding, he seized the opportunity to leave the Iron Hands and found a Chapter based on his ideals - combining the cold steel and armored efficiency of the Iron Hands with the selfless valor of the Salamanders. That was how much the impact of firsthand witnessing Vulkan, a living and breathing Primarch, coming back to life and leading the war effort against the Beast and his Orks was. They said a Primarch can inspire, so why not do that?
Anyway, I digress. In addition to the Librarians and Intercessors, we have Devastators. I'm going heavy plasma on this, true to form. But because each Devastator box only has 2 plasma cannons (curse you, Games Workshop!), I can only build 2 plasma Devastators. So I plan to eventually get a second box and build 1 squad of plasma cannons Devastators, and another squad of 4 heavy grav Devastators. Why heavy grav? Because it's the next coolest weapons. Lascannons and missile launchers are pretty meh, and I like the hi-tech stuff like plasma and grav. Multi-melta and lascannons only offer one shot each, which doesn't really fit what I have in mind, considering I already have a Repulsor Executioner with a heavy laser destroyer. I mean, I have plasma, so I don't care about that, honestly, but I guess I was thinking along the lines of, "what can I play with Space Marines that the Imperial Guard can't?" Grav, that's what. We have multi-meltas, lascannons and missiles in the Guard, but no grav. Okay, we have plasma cannons, but I'm a plasma guy and I already have lots of plasma. Actually, I don't have enough plasma. Never mind. Anyway, grav it is. If you got a problem with it, then that's your problem. I know people will tell me that grav sucks, that lascannons are much better and I should build more anti-tanks or build efficient lists, but who cares? Just let me build what I want and equip my Marines with whatever weapons I want. They are MY dudes. Not yours. At most I'll just sell the extra grav Devastators. They should fetch me some much-needed money for other models. Heh.
Rounding out the infantry, both battleline and heavy fire support, is...you guess it, even more plasma. I managed to get a Contemptor Dreadnought with dual heavy plasma cannons! Yes, you can tell that I really love plasma. And then you have an Invictor Tactical Warsuit right next to the Relic Contemptor Dreadnought because apparently I need a non-Relic Elite unit to unlock the Relic Contemptor Dreadnought. That's fine. I love giant robots, and hence my list shall have giant robots! YAY!
Now all I have left is to get a Primaris Captain, another Devastator box, another Contemptor Dreadnought, another Invictor tactical warsuit, and 2 Impulsors. Hopefully. We'll see. You'll never know! Oh, and the Iron Hands codex supplement, of course. Yeah, people will tell me Ultramarines are more competitive, but I don't want to play Ultramarines. I want to play heavy armor and the Iron Hands chapter tactics make more sense for my heavy armor list. All my vehicles (the Repulsor Executioner, the Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts, the Invictor tactical warsuits and the Impulsors) have degrading stats, so the Iron Hands' Scions of the Forge Chapter Tactic is going to help me out a lot!
As an aside, I also got a third Cerastus Knight Lancer for my Adeptus Titanicus stuff.
You say you rape the fluff but when you read about the character Primaris you will see that you have moved away but not by much ... and then it is your fluff!
ReplyDeletefor techmarines, I'm afraid there are only finecast or metal but, in the devastators box, there are those interesting backpacks with servo arm for those who carry missile launchers, so to speak ...
Thanks for the suggestion! You might be right! I should try converting here and there, but I'm also looking for the techmarine armor (it's a 2+ armor, apparently). There's also the problem where I can't squeeze it into my 2,000-point list, so I'm tight on points, ha ha.
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