Are Iron Hands Chaplains officially allowed or verboten?

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Hey all:

 

I just got into 40K over the summer. Currently I am thinking of starting an Iron Hands force. One thing that is vexing me is the current approach to dealing with Chaplains. It seems that in previous editions, they were considered out of place and their role was somewhat given to the Techmarines or Iron Fathers. But now with 8th, they seem to have been tossed back into the pool of available units without explanation. So it almost seems like a case of "inclusion by omission" where Chaplains are only allowed in Iron Hands lists because they haven't specifically been DISallowed (and because GW doesn't plan to give Iron Hands the attention it would take to treat them as anything but a "codex-compliant" chapter).

 

Going forward, would it be safe to just go ahead and treat an Iron Hands Chaplain like any other vanilla version of same (from a rules perspective anyway)? Or has there been some indication on GW's part that Chaplains are still off-limits for Iron Hands but the whereases and therefores are still forthcoming?

 

Given that there is still no Primaris version of a Techmarine, I could see GW releasing an Iron Hands upgrade sprue in conjunction with a Primaris Techmarine which would convert the generic Techmarine to a special Iron Hands unit with some Chaplain abiltiies (and therefore invalidating the inclusion of actual dedicated Chaplain units).

 

Any thoughts? Am I dreaming if I expect GW to even address this at all?

[Morovir]

For the past few editions, since the debacle of Clan Raukaan, Iron Hands have had Chaplains, named as Iron Chaplains, with Iron Fathers becoming some form of bizarre honorific rather than anything else. Since David Guymer started writing on the Iron Hands, he has set out the structure as having Chaplains, Techmarines etc, with Iron Fathers now drawn from Captains and Dreadnoughts who have been sent to Mars to undergo the same training as Techmarines.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

That works for me. Thanks!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

The Chapter's lore has been retconned, and many things that used to make us unique - the lack of Chaplains being the salient discussion point - have been written out of the fluff.

 

To the detriment of the lore, I think.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Chapter's lore has been retconned, and many things that used to make us unique - the lack of Chaplains being the salient discussion point - have been written out of the fluff.

 

To the detriment of the lore, I think.

Games Workshop should've made Iron Father models, giving them unique stats and Special Rules, the way the company did for Space Wolves Wolf Priests (Chaplain/Apothecary hybrids). Without such unique models and supporting rules, casual players- those who don't obsessively cannibalize multiple models for the parts to kitbash one unique unit- won't play Iron Hands armies, when [insert Codex Chapter] are easier to play.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

For the past few editions, since the debacle of Clan Raukaan, Iron Hands have had Chaplains, named as Iron Chaplains, with Iron Fathers becoming some form of bizarre honorific rather than anything else.

I'm of the opinion an "Iron Chaplain" is a Chaplain who's also an Iron Father, and the Chapter has regular Chaplains in addition to Iron Chaplains (which is less of a mouthful than "Iron Father/Chaplain").

[Morovir]

Not in the current lore.

[RandomMarine]

Iron chaplains have very little power in the current fiction. The iron father's get techmarine training and some secret brain bionics that normal techmarines don't. Also librarians seem to be treated with disdain

[PowerHungryMonkey]

@Lord Nord: Great to see new players flocking to the banner of the Iron Tenth. I don't think we'll be getting any special love from GW ever again really, not even with the IHs playing a major role in Vigilus. While the theme and fluff is great, aside from the Iron Fathers, we don't have a great deal that seperates us from a standard codex chapter. At least not these days.

 

Previous editions have allowed us to take Terminators as sergeants for Tactical squads, Dreads as HQ and bionics for all! The chaplian issue was also good I though. I always find restrictions to an army list give a better theme than inclusion of extra units.

 

As far as the fluff goes, what others have already said is true. Technically you can take a chaplain but I think you'll find that a lot of old-school IH players, like myself, still won't. It depends if you want to go more on the side of army list or fluff. For me, its always fluff. Playability be damned if I can have a really strong theme to my army.

 

If you want to go really old-school theme for the army and take the options I mentioned above then using the Space Wolves codex is a great start. This allows you to take Dreads as HQ and you can take a Wolfguard unit in terminator armour and split them up to lead your tactical (grey hunter) and assault (blood claws) units. This kinda even solves the chaplain issue too. You stake the Wolfpriest but focus more on his Apothecary aspect. For the IHs the Apothecaries would work closely with the Techmarines to implant bionics and service robotics. This would give them, to my mind, a position akin to the techmarines and therefore bestow on them the 'holy' aspect of the chaplains. Does that make sense?

 

Anyway. For me, the SW codex is the way to go for your good-ol' Iron Hands feel

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Hey PHM:

 

Thanks for the input. I was originally looking at going the Space Wolves route, but the more I learned about the various factions the more I found myself wanting to field an Iron Hands army. I'll probably hold off on getting a Chaplain since they're about the least interesting character choice anyway. Hopefully either Vigilus Volume 2 or the Index Astartes feature in White Dwarf will bring something more for Iron Hands players this year.