Iron Hands - Help expanding 2500 Bitter Iron to 3000pts

[RoadRunna]

Hello All - during 2021 lockdown I have been busy working on my new Iron Hands list which runs the Bitter Iron right of war which allows me to take Immortals as Troops. i want to take this to 3000pts running the same RoW so need help in adding in another 500pts...  Your suggestions would be appreciated 

 

The current list of 2500pts which is all built and painted sees my easter bunny Stormlord carrying the Legion Herald, 1 immortals squad and 1 tac squad into battle (yes many eggs are in one basket but it rolls very fluffy on the tabletop).  The Dready takes on my anti-air roll.  The termite and embarked immortal squad alpha strikes into the enemy back line to take out any armour or heavy weapons teams

 

       

Castremen Orth

 

      Legion Herald   Banner of the Aquila   Terminator Armour   Powerfist  

Cyber Familiar

 

      2 x techmarine  

2 x conversion Beamer

 

      Legion Mortis Dreadnaught  

Twin Lascannons

 

      Immortals (Troops)   Volikites (8)   Meltaguns (2)   Art Armour   Power Axe   Breaching charge  

Termite Drill 

 

      Legion Tactical Squad   Power Axe   Melta Bomb   Sgt Artificer Armour  

+Close combat weapons for the squad

 

          Immortals (Troops)   Volikites (8)   Meltaguns (2)   Art Armour   Breaching charge  

Power Axe

 

      Legion Tactical Squad   Power Axe on Sgt  

Rhino

 

      Legion Tactical Squad   Power Axe on Sgt  

Rhino

 

          Predator tank  

Lascannons

 

      Predator tank   Heavy Bolter  

Heavy Bolter Sponsons

 

      Stormlord   2 X Side Sponsons  

Armoured Ceremite

 

 

 

 

Thanks!

[Pearson73]

Look like a fun list with the Stormlord! Perhaps an Apothecary would help out the tactical blob and I could see the Techmarines benefitting from servitors to add some ablative wounds (and extra firepower, perhaps). Maybe giving the Stormlord Astartes crewmen would be beneficial too, to make the most of all those shots!

[Eternal Despair]

for 500 points you could score yourself some Gorgon terminators in a phobos with cyber familiar, chainfist as well as a dozer blade and armoured ceramite on the phobos. from memory that's 470 points so you could take an Astartes crew on the stormlord like Pearson73 suggested. this would give you a nice bit of melee punch which you seem to be lacking and would leave you with 15 points to spend on whatever  

[RoadRunna]

Look like a fun list with the Stormlord! Perhaps an Apothecary would help out the tactical blob and I could see the Techmarines benefitting from servitors to add some ablative wounds (and extra firepower, perhaps). Maybe giving the Stormlord Astartes crewmen would be beneficial too, to make the most of all those shots!

In relation to the stormlord, Orth goes in this giving it BS5 on all weapons and tank hunter

[RoadRunna]

for 500 points you could score yourself some Gorgon terminators in a phobos with cyber familiar, chainfist as well as a dozer blade and armoured ceramite on the phobos. from memory that's 470 points so you could take an Astartes crew on the stormlord like Pearson73 suggested. this would give you a nice bit of melee punch which you seem to be lacking and would leave you with 15 points to spend on whatever

Maybe a Warmonger to DS the terminators and increase the squad to 7 or 8? Or

 

Thanks for your thoughts…

[Unknown Legionnaire]

 

Maybe a Warmonger to DS the terminators and increase the squad to 7 or 8? Or

 

 

 

 

Sounds good. Though you'd need to fit in some sort of reserve manipulation, to have them come in reliably. 

 

 

Out of curiosity ... why use Tacticals in 'Bitter Iron' ?

[Eternal Despair]

Maybe a Warmonger to DS the terminators and increase the squad to 7 or 8? Or

 

Thanks for your thoughts…

good point about Orth I completely mentally skipped over the fact you had him in your list.

 

As for the warmonger you certainly could do that but I wouldn't for a few reasons, First off the turn the terminators come down they'll be exposed and while they do have FNP one vindicator shell and they go up in a puff of smoke of course if your local scene would have trouble removing 8 terminators in a turn at 3k it isn't much of an issue. At minimum they will spend a turn doing nothing as only the sergeant can take a combi weapon though granted if you take legion terminators you could arm them with the combis. Since they are slow on foot it isn't terribly hard to just back away from them to stay out of charge range for a turn. As it stands your list lacks both reserve manipulation and something to improve DS accuracy like a nuncio vox which by the time you add the warmonger, a proteus with the auger array since you don't have a HQ to run a damocles and a nuncio vox or two, granted the vox is only 10 points) you've eaten away the savings of not taking phobos and your still at a 5 man terminator squad. Again you could forgo all the stuff that'll help them come in consistently and safely but from personal experience deep striking 10 man terminator units it is very very easy to scatter into terrain and mishap. 

 

At the end of the day you could absolutely do it I reckon the 5 in the phobos is not only more thematic to the iron hands in general but is more consistent with less support. Anecdotally my unit of 5 in a phobos usually flies under the radar in my 2.5k games, granted I'm playing an armoured breakthrough list that also has a spartan party bus with 10 cataphractii in it but I'd imagine your storm lord could similarly pull your opponents attention.  

[Cadmus Tyro]

Ok, here’s my opinion on your list, for what it’s worth I would suggest you first concentrate on optimising what you have before moving onto to adding something. There’s quite a few issues with the list, which IMHO would struggle in a semi/competitive environment.

 

1) lacking anti armour, at 2.5K you will struggle against heavy armour and medium armour saturation. My general rule of thumb is to gear my force towards anti-armour, because most AT weapons are pretty decent at killing infantry as well! A smattering of lascannons might be ok at 1.5k but above this you might struggle.

 

2) inefficient anti-air, yes your Mortis is capable but if you use it in anti air mode it won’t be shooting at ground target which further compounds point number 1.

 

3) tacticals, as UL has pointed out, you don’t need them. The main benefit of CoBI is the fact you can avoid taking tacticals. My suggestion would be to use veterans, give them Melta bombs, Melta guns and Combi Meltas. You can then outflank them in rhinos or make them machine killers if you are facing armour saturation. It improves you AT, gives you deployment flexibility (which you lose by not using HoG RoW) and an increase in CC potential, all for a modest increase of 35points in base cost (plus weapons etc).

 

4) stormlord contents - love the concept of a stormlord, problem is the contents has very little CC impact. If I looked at the contents of the vehicle, it would have very little psychological affect on my gameplay. Tacs and immortals are not particularly scary in CC (which is the main benefit of taking an open topped transport LoW, right?). You might want to think about a more impactful assault unit in the storm Lord to complement the immortals.

 

5) no effective way of dealing with an opponents LoW. At 2.5k I could run my Glaive, i think you would struggle to put it down in a reasonable time frame, but even a typhon would give you trouble. Using vets helps a little with this (but relies on getting close) but it might be worth thinking about how you would handle an enemy LoW.

 

6) squad size, immortals are great, especially when fearless, but they do slowly lose over time to attrition. In my experience, larger squad sizes are better so consider how you could increase the unit size in the storm Lord.

 

7) herald, nice HQ, but loses some of his utility due to the fact that immortals are already able to score, but still worth it for fearless and to unlock the RoW. I would however suggest you upgrade him to carry a chainfist, 5pts for armourbane on 2+/3++, yes please.

 

Hope that helps?!

 

Cadmus

[RoadRunna]

Thanks Cadmus for your comments.  Certainly some food for thought and worthwhile considerations.

 

I was hoping that the tech marines with conversion beamers would add enough to the list as the beamers are Sth10 at long range.  

 

For 500pts I will look at perhaps a doublefisted boxDread with two meltaguns or grav in a cheap pod to DS turn one with the melta immortals in their termite to help with the AT factor.  I can perhaps drop 1 tac squad for some extra bodies in the stormlord and a vet squad (probably in their own Rhino). 

 

Or maybe another Morris dread to help with pulling double-anti-air duty but then with their combined points cost a deredeo would be more solid…. 
 

Anyway- all good suggestions 

Edited January 17, 2022 by RoadRunna

[Cadmus Tyro]

Just a further thought, rearranging some of the infantry/load outs might help.

Why not run the immortals as a full x20 man squad in the stormlord with the herald. The squad will take a lot of shifting! Use a standard tac squad in a rhino to fill the other compulsory troops.

 

Weapon swap some standard tacs with Combi Meltas and two Melta guns. Run them as vets and load them into the termite. Machine killer vets are much better AT than immortals and can take combi weapons for a more effective alpha strike.

 

My recent experience with deredeos is that they’re awesome, especially as a pair. They give reliable long range AT vs heavy armour and can tackle separate targets with their missiles. I rarely use them for anti air, but it’s nice to have the option.

 

A single box dread won’t have a great deal of impact, if you’re looking for further first turn alpha strike potential I would be looking at dread claws, again with vets or even seekers.

 

Cadmus