Iron Hands nerf?

[Happy-inquisitor]

 

Exactly. This errata missed all the things that are actually winning the games and only targeted math hammer junk.

 

 

 

The real feature of the analysis of the IH tournament results was not their performance in the hands of the very best players but their performance in the hands of the less skilled. Basically no matter how bad you were you still did well with Iron Hands because they were point and click and any muppet could win with them.

 

The point and click builds no longer work.

 

So yes the Invictor/Land speeder build or the Flyer build still work but they require you to have skill, to get a lot of good things done in the movement phase and to interact with your opponent much more than the unkillable castle. They reward skill. With sufficient player skill I think IH will be able to win as well as any top tier army which on the face of it they still are.

 

What will not happen is the ridiculous win percentage across the field because the strong builds require skill to play while the mindless point and click builds are no longer so strong. Let's face it if I come up against Nick Nanavati in a tournament I'm probably going to lose whatever faction he is using because he has a lot of skill and will be bringing a list that lets him exercise that skill - I am totally cool with the idea of getting beaten by skilled players who are playing well. Nobody is quite so cool with getting beaten by unskilled players piloting a point and click list of utter tedium that just rolls over you with broken rules; that was the problem they chose to fix in a way that left the faction still viable top tier for the skilled players. Time will tell if they got the level and direction of the nerfs right but I certainly think it is worth seeing how things pan out and if we have to wait until the spring FAQ for any further fixes that is probably OK from the position we are in now.

[Ishagu]

I think successor chapters shouldn't gain access to the same Doctrines but be granted a generic one.

 

That's something not relating directly to Iron Hands only.

[Lord Blackwood]

The list of nerfs is good ,  does a little bit to hit each of the lists that are crushing the meta without making the overall army seem considerably weaker unlike some of the called for nerfs. 

Looking forward to my next game with tthese adjusted rules. 

[RandomMarine]

Honestly the only change I have a issue with is the invul nerf it feels excessive tbh. List building will require more thought and you'll have to more careful with cp and your repairs.

 

I have some ideas coming to me built around walking the storm with 12 aggressors,a redemptor, ferrios, a lt

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The people winning GTs with Iron Hands are top players like Nick Rose. It’s not like Jonesy finally left the basement and won LVO.

[Lord Blackwood]

Honestly the only change I have a issue with is the invul nerf it feels excessive tbh. List building will require more thought and you'll have to more careful with cp and your repairs.

 

I have some ideas coming to me built around walking the storm with 12 aggressors,a redemptor, ferrios, a lt

Im not gonna lie , the loss of the 5++ Aura is going to maybe move me a little away from the redemptor   probably dropping from 2 of them to  1 so i  can squeeze in a leviathan  while it hurts repulsor executioners more , I  dont think either of the two i currently run will drop out of my list. 

[quasistellar]

Meh, I have lots of dreads that I accumulated over the years that have invulns precisely because most marine vehicles without them are pretty junk.  I know I'm arguing that losing the vehicle invuln was a mistake, but it has almost zero effect on my own personal army.

[MeltaRange]

Well, if you actually look at the designer's commentary in the FAQ, GW came about as close to acknowledging that they " 'ed up" when releasing the Iron Hands supplement as is a game designer company possibly can. So I would say that any of the nerfs coming out today aren’t a "mistake" per se; on the contrary, the mistake was that they released it in it's original, clearly OP form.

[Ishagu]

Remember these things are planned months in advance, and whilst they could have perhaps tested more/heeded advice they are releasing stuff Every. Single. Week.

 

If they did one book every six months it would be more air tight.

[Aothaine]

Remember these things are planned months in advance, and whilst they could have perhaps tested more/heeded advice they are releasing stuff Every. Single. Week.

 

If they did one book every six months it would be more air tight.

 

And they would lose 90% of their player base. No one wants to wait years for their codex to come out. No one should have to.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Sometimes we use to wait a year.

[emperorpants]

These changes are good. IH are still top tier, just not op anymore, which is exactly what I hoped for. This is good for everyone really. I'm kinda shocked with how well gw handled this.

[Ishagu]

Sometimes we use to wait a year.

It used to be 6 years between codex updates! Lol

 

Yeah things are better now for sure.

[Dark Legionnare]

Honestly the only change I have a issue with is the invul nerf it feels excessive tbh. List building will require more thought and you'll have to more careful with cp and your repairs.

 

I have some ideas coming to me built around walking the storm with 12 aggressors,a redemptor, ferrios, a lt

It was, at least for me, hands down, Feirros' most potent bringing. And the sole reason I said he should've been at least 160 points or so, maybe even more in the 200ish range. Would've much rather seen the dude get a thorough points rebalancing than lose the one thing that let my expensive vehicles have a chance of surviving stupidly mobile AP-4.  Hell, a points increase and a shrink of the range to 3" would've been fine. Don't even care about the repair strategem change, which I think was needed, 6 a turn was absurd.

 

It was nice having my one dread and repulsor stand a chance of surviving into turn three as opposed to being ripped to shreds by turn two or sooner by the usual 15+ dark lances and blasters that my common Dark Eldar opponents field. Oh well, back to vehicular suicide!

[MegaVolt87]

Remember these things are planned months in advance, and whilst they could have perhaps tested more/heeded advice they are releasing stuff Every. Single. Week.

 

If they did one book every six months it would be more air tight.

 

Every six months? Can we do this again at least for Horus Heresy like the good old days? 

[ERJAK]

This is actually a pretty good job from GW.

 

Iron Hands are still the strongest, but befire further nerfs it's worth seeing how they perform in more games.

Without the 5++ aura and ironstone being AoE they'll slot right into 'unsurprised to see them in the top 10, but unsurprised to see them much lower.

 

Very competitive but also exploitable.

 

Sometimes we use to wait a year.

It used to be 6 years between codex updates! Lol

 

Yeah things are better now for sure.

You guys were getting codex updates?

[tychobi]

Hmmm. While the nerfs did take out some rough edges and were exclusively to tone down the defensive stacking (as I predicted!) I worry the core problem has not changed. Super mobile super accurate super tough and no need of auras. The successors are where the top dogs are really showing their teeth. Take Space Marines as a codex and the numbers might be really skewed. The power creep is real!

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Do you advocate even more nerfs ?

[faithonwings]

In my opinion the nerfs really hit the tripple executioner list. Iron hands flyer list? Yes, but maybe not to the extend that some would suggest.

 

The iron father and relic bubble only worked on the first turn to begin with. so in 50% of the time you go first and the list still would work exacly the same. Also, now you don't put them in a 3" bubble around the relic anymore. Just stuff them in the back of the board like you use to, as much out of range a possible.

 

Also, the Iron Stone got nerfed, but I you played one Levi like I do, it doesn't matter all that much. You can still get the combo half dmg and -1 dmg. The  "heal an average of 8 dmg a turn" combo got nerved, but Levi's don't take that much dmg anyway. 

[Ishagu]

Yeah the flyers and the Leviathan are still overly powerful.

The flyers can be limited by core rulebook changes, alternatively an alterations to the IH doctrine could fix them. The Leviathan change should come in a FW Index FAQ, same as what happened with the Scorpius.

[Slasher956]

Well, if you actually look at the designer's commentary in the FAQ, GW came about as close to acknowledging that they " 'ed up" when releasing the Iron Hands supplement as is a game designer company possibly can. So I would say that any of the nerfs coming out today aren’t a "mistake" per se; on the contrary, the mistake was that they released it in it's original, clearly OP form.

 

 

its not the 1st time WHC /GW have come out and said 'oops that didnt work n the wild the way we thought it would' though.... so are GW rules guys learning yet?

 

<points back to March with the Sisters beta dex feed back'

[TrawlingCleaner]

Yeah the flyers and the Leviathan are still overly powerful.

The flyers can be limited by core rulebook changes, alternatively an alterations to the IH doctrine could fix them. The Leviathan change should come in a FW Index FAQ, same as what happened with the Scorpius.

 

While I agree that they're both overly strong I do think that, doctrine fixes just for IH flyers isn't the right call. I think that if they were to be nerfed and IronStone has been nerfed, we 'd see and uptake in Raven Guard and Ultramarine flyers. Sure both don't come into effect until turn 2 but Raven Guard ones would make mince meat of any characters not bubble wrapped effectively enough and ultras would struggle to miss, in the same way that IH have atm.

 

I think flyers in general need some changes and are often used as very effective character snipers.

[Ishagu]

Well you can argue it's still a bit odd that the Iron Hands are the best pilots, speeder pilots and assault bike riders.

 

I saw a good suggestion on Dakka. The Doctrine can be changed so IH units don't suffer a penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons. If they stay still they instead re-roll 1s. This keeps them mobile and accurate but they don't get the re roll bonus on the flying and fast moving units all the time.

 

As for the Leviathan, all it needs is a keyword change. Remove the Dreadnought Keyword and replace it with "Heavy Dreadnought."

[Morovir]

You could also argue that their close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus allow for better interfacing with their vehicles, giving them a slight edge in combat, if you want to go that way.

[quasistellar]

Honestly if they nerf more stuff I think Feirros should get the invuln bubble back. I think a lot of people are seeing the FAQ errata and seeing the lack of vehicle invuln and saying "great!" The problem is that's pretty much 90% of the reason to take feirros, another 9% being the double heal (impossible now), and the remaining is the Signum array. Without those things he's just meh. I really think he's a 90 point character now (where I figured maybe 130-170 before). Or whatever a basic gravis captain costs. A gravis captain can even be upgraded to chapter master and carry the iron stone--which are now more valuable than Feirros. Or even just a basic lieutenant with iron stone is a better choice.

I guess you could play a IH infantry list, but that kinda works against their strengths.

I would have been much happier with a big points increase than I am with complete functional change of the character.

 

In fact I'm going to actually send GW an email about it and see.

 

And don't take this to say I didn't think IH needed nerfs.  I just think they did this one particular thing the wrong way!  I still personally think the Levi needs some nerfs to make it easier to balance, and there is just a basic level of OPness when Calculated Fury (as it is written now) stacks with Dev Doctrine, and Flyers in general.