# Iron Hands Portrayed...



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

...badly?

Every story I've read that's included Iron Hands has given the impression to me that they are pretty stupid in just about everything, be it with their trust, their tactical prowess, their attitude in general, is it only me who thinks this? 

I want a pre-heresy army and I've been going through each army to decide which I prefer based on their crusade era lore, their look and the characters within them and while I like the look of the Iron Hands, everything else about them is screaming NOoooo!


----------



## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Kyme's _Feat of Iron_ hardly helped their rather dull perception.

I welcomed the circulated rumours a while ago which suggested the heresy series may feature renegade Iron Hands in the future. Theres an interesting story to be told concerning the Iron Hands post-Isstvan and how they dealt with the death of their Primarch.


----------



## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

Depicted really badly, Feat of Iron portrayed them as idiots, every Legion had their own flaws but at the end of the day they are meant to be the best humanity has to offer which with the iron hands is not conveyed. Iron hands look great but really need a fluff boost


----------



## Sem'ael Elear (Nov 6, 2011)

I have a horrible habit where every time I think of the Iron Hands I see Fulgrim chopping off Mannus's head....


----------



## revan4559 (Aug 9, 2010)

Its the way that Ferrus Manus made his legion to be. He wanted them to be straight forward and get rid of any signs of weakness(thus their own flesh which proved their downfall in Feat of Iron.) Ferrus Manus supposedly knows abit of tactics but from what ive read his prefered method is to do and Angron and go straight toward the enemy and hammer them to death.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Words_of_Truth said:


> ...badly? Every story I've read that's included Iron Hands has given the impression to me that they are pretty stupid in just about everything, be it with their trust, their tactical prowess, their attitude in general, is it only me who thinks this?


Yes, it's quite annoying. It was rather painful for me to read _Fulgrim_, in which the Iron Hands are beaten by the EC at every turn
I mean, Ferrus Manus is beheaded by Fulgrim, the Morlocks are suprise-beheaded by the Phoenix Guard...couldn't Gabriel Santar kill Julius Kaesoron for a tiny bit of redemption? No, he has to die horrifically

There is one little gem though. Bion Henricos' appearance in _Little Horus_


----------



## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

And then he dies at the hands of Little Horus.


----------



## Lost&Damned (Mar 25, 2012)

the salamanders and iron hands have next to no role except dying on isstavan during the heresy,they get no love whatsoever, i actaully feel bad for the iron hands never portrayed in a good light, their primarch killed before he could do anything epic, then their entire legion gets butt raped.
i just hope they get a major role to play during the 41k era and that the salamanders do something epic before the heresy is over,though the book promthean sun, in my opinion did a really good job for the salamanders and gave vulkan an in depth look.


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

I think only the First Veteran Company of the Iron Hands where destroyed, the rest of the legion hadn't turned up before Ferrus wanted to rush in, they turn up in another short story with the Death Guard, and they seemed pretty crappy there to.


----------



## BlackGuard (Sep 10, 2010)

The Iron Hands do need a lot of redoing. I've only read limited portions about them but I agree -- they get no love. 

Actually in one sense you cannot entirely say that. They were kicking ass against the Traitors, who no matter what Horus' plan was were not just sitting them dying for no reason they were trying to defend themselves. The Iron Hands fought on well after the Raven Guard and Salamanders fell back. Even once they realized the extent of the Heresy they fought on -- even with Ferrus dead they fought on, in a grim and bitter struggle to their brutal, horrific deaths.

You have to give them epic props for that.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

The newly released Wrath of Iron book expands upon the Iron Hands perception of themselves.

Light spoiler


Starting with words of Ferus Manus talking of how his silver hands wasnt his, and how he had come to depend on them as crutches, and wanting to eventually remove them. Seeing how his legion had begun to remove their hands and replace them with augmetics in his honor, fearing it could lead to a loathing of the flesh. A notion we see repeated many times in the book, that the Iron Hands is damned to a 'hell' of their own making. Damned by the loss of the Primarch.


----------



## cragnes417 (Jul 22, 2010)

Brother Lucian said:


> The newly released Wrath of Iron book expands upon the Iron Hands perception of themselves.
> 
> Light spoiler
> 
> ...


Indeed and interesting thought of perception for ferrus


----------



## kwak76 (Nov 29, 2010)

I'm surprise that the Iron Hands were not completely wiped out after the heresy. 

I do agree that there should be some new stories that sheds the Iron Hands in more of a positive light.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

kwak76 said:


> I'm surprise that the Iron Hands were not completely wiped out after the heresy.
> 
> I do agree that there should be some new stories that sheds the Iron Hands in more of a positive light.



Well if youve read a recent blog about Wrath of Iron on the BL website, the author was contemplating the iron hands. speculating if he should write them as that werent so bad after all, to give them a bit more humanity and make them more endearing. But he ended choosing to show them as damned by themselves after the death of the primarch.


Edit: Found it: http://www.blacklibrary.com/Blog/Blog-of-Iron.html


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Brother Lucian said:


> Well if youve read a recent blog about Wrath of Iron on the BL website, the author was contemplating the iron hands. speculating if he should they werent so bad after all, to give them a bit more humanity and make them more endearing. But he ended choosing to show them as damned by themselves after the death of the primarch.


So not only are that portrayed terribly in every book they are in but they are also damned.

Why is it the loyalist legions have all the problems, but the traitor legions, in 40k at least, only have to worry about whether to wipe their bums or not. Why can't a traitor legion decide to repent?


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Words_of_Truth said:


> So not only are that portrayed terribly in every book they are in but they are also damned.
> 
> Why is it the loyalist legions have all the problems, but the traitor legions, in 40k at least, only have to worry about whether to wipe their bums or not. Why can't a traitor legion decide to repent? because they are basically destroying the Iron Hands.


Read the bloglink i added in my last post.

I hardly think them as destroyed, they are cold, focused and monomaniac. It gives them a terrible strenght which allows them to victor on Contqual. They are nearly completely estranged from their human origins.


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

"This maniacal pursuit of purity makes them utterly lethal. Few mortals of the Imperium welcome the news that the Iron Hands are heading their way – even a rumour of their impending arrival is enough to restore the slavish loyalty of restive populations. With the Iron Hands, you know what you’re getting: no mercy, no compromise, no half-measures."

I'd like to see this happen without any screw ups, every time iron hands show up, yeah they may eventually succeed but will undoubtedly do everything in their power to screw it up along the way.


----------



## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

Words_of_Truth said:


> Why is it the loyalist legions have all the problems, but the traitor legions, in 40k at least, only have to worry about whether to wipe their bums or not.


I assume then that you've never read the Night Lords novels, or the Word Bearers series, or even the codex really. As all are chalk full of internal divisions, a lack of military ability and abundance self-destructive behaviour. The Traitor Legions have lots and lots of problems (I'd say more, and more real, than the loyalists do), its just that the writers who write about such problems do a good job with them.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Words_of_Truth said:


> "This maniacal pursuit of purity makes them utterly lethal. Few mortals of the Imperium welcome the news that the Iron Hands are heading their way – even a rumour of their impending arrival is enough to restore the slavish loyalty of restive populations. With the Iron Hands, you know what you’re getting: no mercy, no compromise, no half-measures."
> 
> I'd like to see this happen without any screw ups, every time iron hands show up, yeah they may eventually succeed but will undoubtedly do everything in their power to screw it up along the way.


Infact they are eerilly alike the pre-heresy Night Lords. 

As a punishment for weakness, the Iron Hands decimated every third of the survivors of the chaos invasion, to stand as a dire warning to the rest of the imperium as the fate of traitors. Which would be a good deal of those whom fought for their own world..


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

MEQinc said:


> I assume then that you've never read the Night Lords novels, or the Word Bearers series, or even the codex really. As all are chalk full of internal divisions, a lack of military ability and abundance self-destructive behaviour. The Traitor Legions have lots and lots of problems (I'd say more, and more real, than the loyalists do), its just that the writers who write about such problems do a good job with them.


I have done, at least the night lords, I was warned off reading the Word Bearers since only one of the books is supposedly any good. Well, it's really only those who decide to "desert" from the main body of the legion that you see having problems, this is different though, this is the eventual fall and probably death of an entire loyalist chapter and former legion. It would be like the the Emperor's Children on whole deciding they did wrong and turned themselves in to the imperial forces where they'd be summarily executed.

The way he makes it sounds, either the Iron Hands fall to chaos..which is both boring and potentially stupid since they'd probably just get wiped out, or they literally go nuts and probably get wiped out by the Imperium.

Couple their eventually downfall without a single redeeming feature since everything seems to come back to their idea they are weak, then I think it's a pretty rubbish idea. I would of much enjoyed them having redeeming features like Chris thought of doing, if you want to destroy something, destroy some crappy successor chapter, but not a progenitor.


----------



## sadLor (Jan 18, 2012)

Words_of_Truth said:


> "This maniacal pursuit of purity makes them utterly lethal. Few mortals of the Imperium welcome the news that the Iron Hands are heading their way – even a rumour of their impending arrival is enough to restore the slavish loyalty of restive populations. With the Iron Hands, you know what you’re getting: no mercy, no compromise, no half-measures."
> 
> I'd like to see this happen without any screw ups, every time iron hands show up, yeah they may eventually succeed but will undoubtedly do everything in their power to screw it up along the way.


I've just started Wrath of Iron but they are extremely unlikeable in the first 1/4 of the book. You know you have a problem when the psycho Night Lords/Emperor's Children are way more likeable than the loyalist Iron Hands. They have no redeeming qualities and it's hard reading about them. I'm not saying you can't write about bad people and have people interested. ADB with the Night Lords proved that it's possible to make the reader care about characters that are despicable. So far, there has not been one author that has made me want to read about the IH.

Oh, and I learned more about Ferrus and the Iron Hands in the first 2 pages of Wrath of Iron then I did in the entire Feat of Iron short story in the Primarchs.


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Words_of_Truth said:


> I have done, at least the night lords, I was warned off reading the Word Bearers since only one of the books is supposedly any good. Well, it's really only those who decide to "desert" from the main body of the legion that you see having problems, this is different though, this is the eventual fall and probably death of an entire loyalist chapter and former legion. It would be like the the Emperor's Children on whole deciding they did wrong and turned themselves in to the imperial forces where they'd be summarily executed.
> 
> The way he makes it sounds, either the Iron Hands fall to chaos..which is both boring and potentially stupid since they'd probably just get wiped out, or they literally go nuts and probably get wiped out by the Imperium.
> 
> Couple their eventually downfall without a single redeeming feature since everything seems to come back to their idea they are weak, then I think it's a pretty rubbish idea. I would of much enjoyed them having redeeming features like Chris thought of doing, if you want to destroy something, destroy some crappy successor chapter, but not a progenitor.



I found the word bearers trillogy to be a pretty good and intense read. you do yourself a disservice by not reading it, just because of a few naysayers. For the record, I own nearly every BL release and the WB trillogy I found to be one of the better wh40k series.


----------



## Cowbellicus (Apr 10, 2012)

I think it all stems from Ferrus. He is just.....a lunkhead. It's very difficult to rectify a "demigod genius genetic superhuman" who is so _dumb_ and narrow minded. It works for Angron because he's crazy. But Ferrus? Seriously, the way he's portrayed it's like his archetype is "the slow-witted brother".


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Cowbellicus said:


> I think it all stems from Ferrus. He is just.....a lunkhead. It's very difficult to rectify a "demigod genius genetic superhuman" who is so _dumb_ and narrow minded. It works for Angron because he's crazy. But Ferrus? Seriously, the way he's portrayed it's like his archetype is "the slow-witted brother".


As earlier mentioned, in the very start of Wrath of Iron, Ferrus was thinking his silver hands wasnt his and wanted to remove them. As he had come to see them as a crutch and having noticed his legion removing and replacing their hands with augmetics in his honor, fearing it could lead to a loathing of the flesh.

Though judging from Feat of Iron, the legion was -quite- extensively mechanized in even the preheresy time, when Ferrus still was around. Perhaps not to as a degree of current IH, but still quite severe given the problems the eldar was capable of inflicting on them. Which would seem to imply it certainly didnt have that great a priority for him to straighten out, prefering the strenght they could give his sons.


----------



## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

I could only bare to do a successor of them now, maybe drawing inspiration on that Iron Hand who doesn't use much in the way of bionics and who is put in charge of the human forces. We were asking for more on the Iron Hands before, hoping their portrayal in Fulgrim was just a one off, unfortunately every writer seems to of gone a long with it :/


----------



## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

Words_of_Truth said:


> Well, it's really only those who decide to "desert" from the main body of the legion that you see having problems, this is different though, this is the eventual fall and probably death of an entire loyalist chapter and former legion.


That's not really true though. What you see all the Traitor Legions suffering from is a loss of focus and identity, stemming primarily IMO from the loss of their Primarchs. This is exactly what the Iron Hands are suffering from. The way the book is described isn't the "eventual fall and probably death" of a legion its a Chapter drifting away from its founding principles, focusing increasingly on a few tenets and blowing them out of proportion. Much the same thing can be seen with the Ultramarines increasing reliance on the Codex over adaptation, or the Salamanders in there new books blowing the whole fire and pain thing out of proportion. 



> The way he makes it sounds, either the Iron Hands fall to chaos..which is both boring and potentially stupid since they'd probably just get wiped out, or they literally go nuts and probably get wiped out by the Imperium.


That's not at all what I took away from the statements he made. I agree that both such outcomes would be terrible (though the likelihood of complete annihilation is quite a bit lower than you indicate).


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

MEQinc said:


> I assume then that you've never read the Night Lords novels, or the Word Bearers series, or even the codex really. As all are chalk full of internal divisions, a lack of military ability and abundance self-destructive behaviour.


Don't know about the WB

...but the NL in their recent series face their challenges but they always manage to inflict heavy casualties on the Imperials before escaping to fight another day. They overcome overwhelming odds on a regular basis. If you're a fan of CSM, you'll love this stuff. 

The Iron Hands, on the other hand, are good at two things: dying in droves and being tactically inflexible. Their strategy seems to be "plod forward despite heavy casualties...maybe we'll win before being wiped out...oh wait, I'm dead" 

I haven't read Wrath of Iron. Perhaps their performance is better in it. I don't know...


----------



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

The newly released Horus Heresy - Kryptos eshort features a pretty cool 2man stealth mission featuring a Ravenguard and Iron Hands marine, both survivors of Istvaan.

The IH marine is quite mechanized and does the whole flesh is weakness routine.


Edit: On the Iron Hands Successors
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sons_of_Medusa

Anyone having an idea to why these Moirae Iron Hands was exiled from the parent chapter? What was their radical divergence in belief that would see them thrown out?


----------

