Thursday, December 11, 2014

Horus Heresy Review: Ferrus Manus


The Gorgon, primarch of the Iron Hands Legion, is as legendary as his background suggests he should be.

He is also one of the best ranged weapon primarchs published to date with his choice of two from: plasma blaster, graviton guns, grenade harness, or heavy flamer every turn. Seriously: these weapons are amazing.

And he has tremendous staying power outside of melee. Not bolter or anything with S4 or below can harm him due to the combination of his high toughness and the reduction in strength of incoming weapons. Forget about torrenting him to death with fury of the legion - it simply will not work. Heck, he can even survive a couple of las cannon blasts to the face and possess a good chance to survive or even not suffer a scratch between a 3+ to wound and an invulnerable save provided by his Medusan Carapace armour (basically 2+/3+).

His close combat weapon is "standard" for a primarch with AP1 and x2 strength. But one can take him for 40 less points if playing the narrative where he loses his hammer.

What really makes him shine are his special rules as sire of the Iron Hands, and the Master of Mechanisms. Both of these are superlative force multipliers. The former grants feel no pain to his sons (6+) whilst the latter will permit him to repair (with a good chance of success) any tank whilst giving It Will Not Die to the heavier tanks in the army.

His use is therefore primarily going to be as a force multiplier and therefore force an Iron Hands army build to rotate around these facets. I can certainly see a tank and dreadnought heavy army doing well with Ferrus Manus as a part of it. But I think if the enemy also has a primarch, like Fulgrim, then we probably want to keep Ferrus Manus away from combat with them. 

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Facebook

Sequestered Industries