The Flesh is Weak…
Once the Iron hands were a proud Legion, but they lost their way when they lost their Primarch. Similarly, I started with a plan for my Iron Hands but lost my way along the journey. Now there’s a far grander plan in motion.
Behold the might of The Iron Tenth, a multi-part plan to forge an army from my weakness, I mean, Shame pile.
It’s funny how quickly things change in this hobby sometimes. Or, maybe it’s not so much how fast the hobby moves but how slow I moved in the hobby this year. The Iron Tenth project was initially slated for at least three acts. You’ve (hopefully) read the first part already.
The Second Phase was supposed to be a full Armored Spearhead army consisting of heavy transports and battle tanks and super heavy options. Iron Hands tanks could, at the time, heal themselves, on top of the help that I had ordered in the vein of a few Techmarines. The third part would likely center around finishing the miscellaneous units that didn’t slot into an earlier project, like destroyers, rapiers and more characters, including Ferrus himself.
But, That was then. That was second edition. Third edition crashed Koolaid-man style right the fuck through my plans. The rules got simplified: not so much that the game resembles 40k (which I find boring), but enough to change things drastically. Iron hands infantry stayed much the same, but, their tanks no longer get any rules. Let us not forget that Rites of War, the old way to create a narrative list, such as a tank army, are gone. No tanks get Legion rules for that matter.
So, yeah. Time to adapt and overcome.
Goodbye Second Edition. Greetings Third Edition Heresy.
Undoubtedly, at some time in the near future I will write an article about the changes that happened in transferring from 2nd edition to 3rd. You know, once I have a more thorough understanding of the intricacies. Yet one important aspect needs to be discussed here, as it totally derailed my plans.
Official rule previews appeared on the Warhammer Community website and leaks dropped unceremoniously into the neurotic cesspool of the internet. Insanity ensued. The Heresy community literally tore itself apart without having all the information and it created a crazy week or two. Combined, the two early sources of information indicated that one of my favorite parts of heresy had been destroyed. Rites of War. They were left to history as Heresy marched forward.
This development left my Iron Hands stranded and The Iron Tenth project teetering on the precipice of disaster, or at least abandonment. Luckily, before the models were relegated to a semi-permanent spot in my Pile of Shame alongside many 40k and AoS projects, and non-GW games, I came to a revelation.
It took some serious soul-searching, but I came to realize that the loss of the Rites of War was actually a positive thing for the game. The process wasn’t easy. I was initially opposed to the idea, but eventually I realized that the ancient Force Organization Chart was actually the problem. It was a relic of an older time, and wasn’t sufficient for a modern game. I didn’t want to see it go away entirely, as this was another reason that I quit Warhammer 40k. I was relatively happy with the adjustment.
The change to the way Heresy armies are built in 3rd edition kept the spirit of the old force org chart and rite of war alterations while reducing the bloat. The Rites of War had to exist to allow themed lists to be crafted using the basics of army building which hadn’t fundamentally changed since something like 1997, and also allowed non-troop choices to become scoring units. Both of these factors were removed in the new edition, so, I was able to come to terms with the change and ultimately support it.
That being said, my plans for Phase Two of The Iron Tenth project was still kinda up in flames. Fuck it. Guess we’ll just paint some more minis.
Get Shit Done
Instead of collecting an army worth of pastic rhino and sicaran tank chassis to make an Armored Spearhead list, I was just going to paint what I already had. I do want some vindicators and predators eventually, but I would settle for a few Land Raiders for now. Somewhere along the way I had bought a Cerberus and a Deredeo for the 10th as well.
The first part of the project would be the Land Raider Proteus and a Cerberus. Both were built the same, The central hull and then both sides and sponson weapons built separately, with the tracks left on the sprue, with some of the connection points cut and cleaned up. The whole pile was primed black and then the sponson guns and tracks on sprue were then sprayed leadbelcher. The parts of the hull were airbrushed Abaddon Black all over, then Corvus Black from the top. Metalic details were painted and the whole thing was washed with my custom Iron Hands wash mix, then edge highlighted. That was easy, that’s why I like tanks.
Next came the most exciting model in the collection: a Land Raider Achilles I got complete in a Forge World bag from Ian as part of the payment for helping him with his Steel Legion tank army project. The Achilles was added on as kind of a bonus, with the provision that I had to paint it up soon(ish) and not leave it in my shame. I was originally going to paint it up for Ultramarines, as that is still my largest collection, but the 2nd Ed Iron Hands rules convinced me that I should dedicate it to the Tenth Legion. It would have looked great in royal blue, white and gold, but ended up black, near black and silver.
The Achilles was looking boring, and I literally felt bad for painting it black. Ryan supplied me with a great idea to make it stand out a bit on the tabletop during one fateful Hobby Night. We will just start with the fact that I just totally suck at freehand designs on models, and the Achilles was no exception I used a curved implement to add a cog shape on one side and haphazardly painted the legion iconography over the opposite top and side. Then I spent more time cleaning up the edges.
Then, still dissatisfied with the quality of my work, I added battle damage to make it look war-worn and hide some imperfections. I liked the look so much, I added it to the previous tanks I had completed, and the Deredeo I painted after. The vehicles and dread did not seem to be enough to call it a complete Phase of the project, so I moved on.
Within the Pile of Shame there was a collection of characters, extra immortals and custom destroyers to paint up as Iron Hands. The characters that were ready to paint was a custom daul-graviton pistol Moritat on foot that I had 3d printed guns for and a Mk6 librarian that I was going to use temporarily for the 10th Legion until I could make a custom half-mechanical space wizard, after which I would redo a few colors and call him a Raven Guard Librarian.
Both of these characters were planned to support the army from Phase One in a full table game within the Company of Bitter Iron Rite of War: using the special rules, both would join a unit of immortals as support. The Librarian consul was supposed to support the Immortals with chainswords with Biomancy and the Moritat would shoot like crazy at the front of the Immortal squad using Volkite and Grav guns.
At that moment, the 3rd edition was about to release, but, it was widely known through the leaked books that the Medusan Immortal squad in the official Liber book could not use either Volkite or chainswords. What was worse, the custom made mk3 Destroyer squad on foot, made with the Iron Hands legion bodies and upgrades and tons of weapons sourced from other kits were no longer in the rules.
When I started painting them, they were illegally equipped or missing units, but, they were built and primed that way, so I was kinda committed. I had expected the free rules to make the units viable again, but GW was tight-lipped for a while and while I didn’t join in on the hate-mongering online, I was still concerned.Fortune would shine on me when the inevitable Legacies of the Dark Age document was released by Games Workshop.
For that matter, so were my Destroyers. I had made some custom destroyers with Iron Hands Legion Mk3 bodies, and arms and pistols from various kits. The rad missile launchers are just the old school resin legion missile launchers. I loved these models, and there were parts taken from a lot of kits and suddenly, they were no longer in the Liber book. What the actual Fuck? Anyway, I am glad I didn’t tear them apart as the WarCom article indicated that the Legacies PDF document would include rules for them. Honestly, they were super simple to paint up, as are all of the Iron Hands models, and I was able to paint them up rather hastily.
Although it was almost a month later, it made all of those options available again just as I was completing the models.
The plastic Rapiers kit released towards the end of the Phase, so I decided to add a set of Laser Destroyers and their crew. I could have magnetized these if I didn’t want to use bases, but, I didn’t want them to look out of place next to the Marines, so, bases it was. I did build them in sub assemblies, and glued one half of the carrier to the 60mm base, and left the other half, gun and front plate separate.
Since I was so close to the end, I decided to paint the Gorgon.
Project Complete
As of this moment, I consider this project finished. Complete. But what does that actually mean as far as the hobby goes. Very little, really. Simply put, it means I no longer have a chunk of my Pile of Shame dedicated to the Iron Hands army. With the launch of 3rd Edition and the plan to replace resin models with plastic, I can guarantee that I will buy more models to dedicate to the 10th Legion. They have already announced plastic Breachers and I have a feeling we will get scaled up Terminators in this edition, so those will definitely happen. I would also like to fill out the Support Squads at some point.
From this point on, I will work on any model kit I buy for the army immediately. The Iron Hands have been removed from the Shame! The catharsis is real. I am glad and relieved to be done. Breaking my armies up into phases to make the project more manageable continues to work for me and now I have over 4K in models painted.
This is the part of the article when I would usually indicate the next steps in the plan. Well, for starters, I felt that Ferrus Manus deserves his own article, so that will be the first post-completion article for the Iron Tenth project. After that, who knows. I have a nice collection of painted minis, but the new edition brings new opportunities and inevitably some of those will end up here for all to see. Until then.
Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man
