Sinister_Miles

I don’t want to derail this further so this will be the last I say on the subject. I do want to say I respect your opinion but I disagree fundamentally. Turn one CAN be a hard advantage, it does not necessarily make it so. I could easily argue that any game decided on turn 1 is a game against an inexperienced player. I think bikes are much better served by tactical doctrine, scions may not do anything but the doctrine itself is superior for general bikes and then scions makes taking the attack bike upgrade not hurt. Hellbalsters are only better with CF if they take the heavy blaster, which puts you in the same territory as stalker bolters. Yes having a reroll of one is nice, that does not mean every option which would allow you to get that reroll is automatically superior. I can still manage to get some rerolls for my units and in general Hellblasters will much prefer being in tactical doctrine. Also you’re ignoring things like land raider crusaders, which clearly want to be in tactical doctrine as well. Other units also benefit more from tactical doctrine like bolter focused centurions. I think you are missing the forest for the trees here. Yes the benefit of CF is, on the surface, superior to the benefit of Scions. However I think Scions makes being in tactical doctrine hurt heavy things less, whereas CF does nothing for tactical or assault units. Certainly a mechanized list benefits a great deal from iron hands, but if we are discussing weaknesses I think it bears pointing out that that some of the most common and prevalent units in the sm arsenal are not served at all by CF, and while they may not directly benefit from scions, they may benefit far more from either being in tactical doctrine or simply having the versatility of more easily changing doctrines. Inflexibility is the great weakness I see in the ironhands. You don’t want to leave devastation doctrine and you want to emphasize the benefits of CF, that is going to make lists predictable and I just don’t think those benefits are so overwhelming that a good player can not seize on those predictabilities to advantage.

Actually this is kinda my point. I think iron hands ability is maybe the strongest of the first founding, but I am NOT certain of that. And I disagree that you can so easily and flat out declare that Calculated Fury is simply better than Scions. Particular situations is the name of the game, everything is the best in particular situations. The question is are my particular situations really so rare or convoluted compared to yours for you to so easily dismiss mine? I don’t mean to sound offended or whiny, I simply think there isn’t much introspection going on I think that saying the Iron hands ability is simply amazing is ignoring the point, which is that the ultramarines supplement is versatile and applies to many of the excellent combinations people have thought up. Bolter Fusillade is not a great option for Calculated Fury, since so few units will see the benefit of it, I recognize the reason for this is because of the wide sweeping nature of a universal reroll to heavy weapons, but i still feel that the lack of easy and competitive chapter tactic combinations is a weakness. Scions of the Forge is just 1/3rd of the iron hands ability! Which, I know, is a sign of how strong the iron hands ability is, but think about this: would the ultramarines supplement be stronger if it applied to the iron hands, or would the iron hands supplement be stronger if it applied to the ultramarines? Because I can make my ultramarines successor look like the iron hands. I am not as sure that making my iron hands successor look like the ultramarines is as beneficial. On a related note, people have repeatedly mentioned that Calculated Fury is stronger because it is in effect from turn 1. I think this is missing something: assault doctrine. It is much easier for an ultramarines player to transition their army into combat than it is for an iron hands player. I think people underestimate how valuable a universal -1 is in close combat. This is, again, not to say that the iron hands are bad at cc, or that the supplement ISNT the strongest, this is all to say that I just don’t think it is THAT much stronger or quite so obviously dominant as to utterly dismiss any other sm supplement from the conversation.

I’m sorry but I just had to reply. The ultramarines doctrine is not move and shoot heavy without penalty. It’s count as not having moved. So the super flying tank gets to move as far as it wants and still shoot twice, which is better than what iron hands get to do. And yeah, it super buffs aggressors. A unit of six with scions is pumping out 72 + 12d6 bolter shots, while still moving. It’s a huge buff. And then yes, your stalker intercessors will kill ultra bolt rifle intercessors very well. How good are you against guard infantry? How about chaos? How about anything not w2? Your stalkers are going to be firing less shots and wasting damage compared to rifle intercessors, and that’s ignoring the fact anyone can get rerolls of one to all bolt weapons and still have access to scions. There are a ton of the successor chapter tactics which work wonders with ultra and other supplements, I haven’t found many that do a ton for the iron hands. I think that’s a weakness. I think iron hands are strong, maybe even stronger than the ultramarines when taken as a whole supplement. But I just don’t think the doctrine comparisons are as clear cut as some here have treated it.