STARTING AN IRON HANDS ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: THE FLESH IS WEAK, THE PLASTIC IS ETERNAL
The Iron Hands are the chapter of Ferrus Manus: black armour, bionic limbs, and more sanctioned machinery per square inch than any other Space Marine force. This page covers the infantry box to start on, the Dreadnought and Feirros, and the armoured centrepiece.
Black plate lives on the edge highlight
Start with the current Marine Combat Patrol for your infantry core; Intercessors and a leader are the reliable spine of any Marine starter. Use it to nail the scheme. Black armour lives or dies on edge highlighting: a steady grey line on the panel edges, drybrushed metal on every bionic, and the squad reads as grim and gleaming rather than flat. The scheme is forgiving (black plate, gunmetal bionics, a white or red accent) and it scales, looking as good on a single marine as on a battle tank. Convert enthusiastically. Every head swap to a helmeted or bionicked alternative and every replaced limb pushes the squad further from generic Marine and closer to Medusa.
Dreadnoughts and Feirros
The Iron Hands venerate their interred ancients above all, so a Redemptor-pattern Dreadnought belongs among your first boxes, the way a chapter rite belongs at the start. Follow it with Iron Father Feirros, the chapter's signature character, a walking fusion of priest and engine and one of the best character sculpts in the modern range. A squad, a Dreadnought and Feirros already reads as Iron Hands, which is more identity than most chapters manage in twice the boxes. If your favourite part of any army has always been the Dreadnoughts and the vehicles, the sons of Ferrus Manus were built for you.
Recommended: Redemptor Dreadnought
Recommended: Iron Father Feirros
A wall of ancients
Armour, obviously; the question is only which. A Land Raider is the venerable choice, a rolling cathedral of guns that suits the chapter's reverence for old machines, while the largest current grav-tanks offer a more modern silhouette with a similarly commanding shelf presence. Or commit to the bit: a second and third Dreadnought, painted as a wall of ancients, is a centrepiece no single kit can match. There are worse fates than being the player whose entire army walks on iron legs.
Never trust data older than your last audit
Points and datasheets were rewritten for 11th edition, and starter sets change over time, so consult the current points and contents before you finalise a list. The Iron Hands would approve.
The flesh is weak, and so is the wallet
- A motor pool before a single tank is painted. The ancients judge unpainted armour harshly.
- Every Dreadnought pattern at once.
- Character bloat. Feirros runs this chapter and does not need an entourage yet.
- Anything bought purely because it has a big gun. Fine, one thing bought because it has a big gun.
The audit of Medusa
No chapter would appreciate meticulous collection tracking more than the Iron Hands. Log every kit on arrival and record its state without sentiment: boxed, built or finished. The unpainted pile is an inefficiency, and inefficiency is a flaw of the flesh; the finished column growing is the closest the hobby comes to machine satisfaction. The complete catalogue of everything the chapter fields, from the newest recruit to the oldest interred ancient, is on the Iron Hands faction page under Data.