Advice needed on Iron Hands

[Pigshead]

Tonight I'm playing against a friends 2000 point Iron Hands force. We've had some very close games in the past, which is great, I love a good close matched game, but he generally wins. I think I only beat him once when the new Dark Angels codex came out, and I surprised him with a few things.

In the past I have taken the Lions Blade pretty much every time I think, and I switched the auxiliary choice around to try different things, I took the RWSS which was excellent, but then he started countering it with a thunderfire cannon and a vindicare assassin. I took the hammer of Caliban once, but wasn't too keen on it, and my tanks all ended up floundering around, getting in each others way and not achieving much at all.

My major problems have been dealing with the assassin and his dreadnoughts, of which there are usually 3, 2 of which might even be an ironclad. Does anyone have any advice for dealing with these? The assassin shouldn't be a problem if I can get close enough, but dreadnoughts cause me a real headache.

Thanks in advance.

[Cypher 102]

Keep in mind that because all of the vehicles of the Hammer of Caliban they don't block line of sight for each other.

 

Seeing as you're running the Lion's Blade do you have a bunch of Lascannon Razorbacks?  Is he running the Dreadnoughts in a squadron?  You can run a Ravenwing Attack Squadron with two meltas and a multi-melta.  They're not as susceptible to the Thunderfire cannon as the Support Squadron.  If you're running two Demi-Companies you should have no problem coming up with plenty of anti-armor.

 

The best counter to a Vindicare is more bodies and keeping in mind that he's only going to kill one model a turn, so seven at most during a game.

[Pigshead]

I found the issue with the hammer of Caliban to be them blocking each others movement, we play on terrain heavy tables.

I always use lascannon razorbacks, sometimes las-plas. But I think I have a techmarine who isn't intoning the correct prayers because I seem to roll a lot of 1's with them. He tends to run the dreads as individuals, and has one accompany each of his tactical/command squads.

I was thinking of going Ravenwing heavy for tonights game, so I'll probably take your advice on the Attack Squadron. 

I only use 1 demi-company, I don't have the tanks to exploit the double demi free transport shenanigans...yet...

The vindicare may only kill one model a turn, but it's usually something important, like headshotting a Librarian or Turbo penetrating a tank. 

[Cypher 102]

You can still use Look Out, Sir on the Vindicare's shots (on a 4+ for Independent Characters and 6 for non-Independent Characters).

[SnakeChisler]

Normally 2 squads of Legion of the damned come out when I'm facing allies as the Vindicare needs taking care of and the Thunderfire needs to die straight away the stupid ignores cover shell is able to take out all my speeders.

 

If you want to do it the nice way then drop podding a dreadnought with tl las will take care of the thunderfire (make sure you instant kill the Tech as the gun has 2 wounds) and a drop pod full of marines will kill the vindicare he only has 3 wounds and doesn't have a close combat weapon, my mates usual trick is to fortify the building he's on for +1 cover making it difficult, also the pod goes right in front of him blocking his line of sight so he has to move (snap fire) to get his next shot.

 

Put your guys in Rhino's so he can't snipe out specialist weapons  instead of LasBacks have more bodies with a Heavy weapon shooting out the top hatch

 

Take Ezekiel and role on Divination to try get ignores cover stick him in a Rhino

 

The Ravenwing idea isn't bad as you can tie the Vindicare up in combat and get round the back with outflank to take on the Thunderfire

[Pigshead]

Well he didn't take the assassin but the thunderfire was a bit of a nuisance. It popped my vindicator with the games opening shot.

I took from the advice above, and think it served me well, so thanks guys.

I ended up taking about 1000 points of Ravenwing and 1000 green, had a couple of dreadnoughts, one of which spent the majority of the game in combat with a librarian, while the other got squished by an Ironclad that spend the whole game munching on my backline and killing a squad of devastators by bringing down the building they were using for cover. Unfortunately I didn't draw great mission cards, and he won 10-2, I just didn't draw many good cards. Really starting to think I prefer Ravenwing over the Lions Blade.