Adeptus Ridiculous - IRON HANDS: THE FLESH IS WEAK! | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Iron Hands were the X Legion of the twenty original Space Marine Legions, sometimes referred to as the "Iron Tenth". Their Primarch is Ferrus Manus. Like the other loyalist Legions, much of the Iron Hands forces would later, according to the dictates of the Codex Astartes, be re-organized into smaller Chapters. The Iron Hands are notable for their heavy use of bionics and their reverence for all things mechanical, and thus their close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus.Support the show

to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. His name is Bricky. We're going to learn about some really big iron hands, I'm assuming today. And before we do, though, if you enjoy today's episode, head over to the Patreon, patreon.com

slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. $15 tier gets you out of the HD posters you could ever want. And if we hit 20,000 big ones, I will do a Warhammer fantasy episode on the Skaven for Bricky.

So patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Bricky, tell them about the other super cool stuff. Well, we're out of mats. Oh, my God. So I bought a lot of mats and they're all gone now. I'm sorry. I didn't think they would go that quick. Wow.

We're out of mats. I wasn't planning on restocking it, but we might do that sometime later in the summer. You could still buy the big music of the third print, though. The print's sticking around. So if you still want the great artwork, you can still buy the print. Also, the other poster, the classic monthly poster done from Shai and Halestay and the gang. You know, the classic one we normally do is also up for purchase if you would like.

Nice little more relaxed, not cursed, imperial guard style. one excited because I know that it's a good one, but that means that there will be an enormously cursed one after that, as there tends to be. I was going to say, enjoy it while you can. And I think, besides that, D.K., are you done with Kingmaker? I am super-duper close. I have like less than three hours, so we could record the book club real soon. Might be an idea to record it sometime this week, so we might have a book club this weekend.

Maybe. So we will see. And then we will talk about the next book club after that. But yeah, that's about it. Merch down at Orcate.com. Check it out in the description. Grab your stuff. And yeah.

Needo burrito. Neatto. Let's go. D.K., we've talked about this before. What is your breakfast burrito of choice? Is it like, what was it again? If I could customize it. it would be like a California breakfast burrito.

Right, right. Yeah. Oh, man, I've never seen that anywhere, but oh, God, I would have, I would go into a food coma for it. That is fair. I like myself a good steak or an egg or like chorizo burrito. I think, I think, like, spicy jack cheese is underutilized in breakfast burritos. Oh, absolutely. I think spicy jack cheese are.

just melted spicy jack cheese is completely underrated, period. And, you know, speaking of underutilized, our topic today, the iron hands. How are we going from spicy jack cheese to the iron hands? I just told you, speaking of underutilized. Certainly the iron hands aren't underutilized. You told me last time that they have literally broken the meta several times. Okay, that is true. That sounds like they're overutilized.

But you could paint your minis as whatever you wanted, and then you could paint them ultramarines, and then walk up and call them iron hands, because you're allowed to do that, because they're not going to restrict you from your painting. Right, but that's not underutilized. That's just someone being stupid. No, no.

This is a gameplay perspective. You're on the wrong side of the world. Hey, guys, I brought my iron hands that are painted like space marines. What? Yeah, well, most iron hands are... That doesn't make them underutilized? Most Iron Hands are painted like Space Marines, you dork. I meant ultra Marines.

I know what you meant. Shut up, man. You said it wrong. Dorks. You dumb one here, not me. You damn Ed boys, you dorks. Stupid Ed boys. Stupid Ed boys.

The Hats of Discipline. Do you live in a cave? Anyway, the Iron Hands. Yes. So, last episode was on Ferris Manus, the name that means Iron Hand in Latin with his Iron Hands, the chapter Iron Hands and his ship, his capital ship, Fist of Iron. Subtletty is about as subtle as Iron Hands.

I got to tell you, Bricky, the Ferris Manus episodes was head and shoulders, your best episode. God, it just doesn't get old, does it? It certainly doesn't. It really doesn't. There are so many people are probably so sick of it already. but I just don't really care. Bricky, it was a cut above. Chai says, oh yes,

Shriis says we have been preemptively banned from the Iron Hands Discord for We got two ahead of ourselves For breaking one of their rules Which is no head jokes. Oh, well, listen, guys, I'm sorry that we got a little headstrong. I guess we got a little in over our heads.

I guess we were a little in over our heads We were definitely in over our heads Yeah, sorry And maybe our jokes should just take a little off the top next time Just a little off the top, yeah Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm All right, I think we've got to be better quota for head jokes so far Yeah, we are banned for ever and all time, if that's a rule

We have been preemptively infinite banned From what is it, a Discord or a... Or like Tyler won back in league days Oh, damn, yeah. Anyway, ironically, though, I actually have better things to say about the Iron Hands chapter than I do about Ferris Manus. Oh. It's hilarious how the Iron Hands chapter have about maybe four to five times the information on their wiki page than Ferris Manus does. His is super short and theirs is enormously long.

Granted, it probably is because Ferris Manus's lore is probably a decent portion in it. Oh, yeah. Well, Ferris Manus' lore ends before the Horace heresy does. That is true. There's not a lot to go off of. But the Iron Hand's actual Space Marine chapter. Yeah, he got cut short. His lore got cut short, just like him.

God damn it. Shiregen says, well, Ferris Manx got a bit shorter during the horse. You know that part in the beginning of God of War, Ragnarok, where you pull Mimir's head out and, Thor really quite. It's just like, he's lost weight. Man, if they do that and they make Ferris Manus into like a Yamir character and he comes back, like, just attached to some random warriors like, you are weak, Corvaz. They did that in text to speech. Yeah, and he just starts like massively shit talking,

uh, whoever he's attached to. Listen, you got to have a punching bag sometimes. sometimes, okay? Sometimes it's just needed. Anyway, but yes, the Iron Hands chapter are actually far more interesting than Ferris Madison, in my opinion. They actually have a bit, not necessarily a bunch of like hyper interesting lore about them, but they themselves are a bit more interesting. They, like their personality and who they are. It's not much different than Ferris, but it's got enough of an intrigue to the point where I can kind of, appreciate them more than their primark. So,

Ferris Manus, you know, gets a haircut and that's there. Oh, actually, let me go ahead and use this quote first. It might be a little bit nicer. Okay, okay. Only when by the power of our hate, we have truly shed the prison of our own flesh. Shall we be judged worthy to stand at the side

of the returned primark? Every foe I slay, every stone I cast down, makes my hatred purer, and the day Ferris Manus is restored to us a day closer. Oh, that's an actual quote, huh? Yeah, so I think maybe it's a bit of a missed opportunity that GW can utilize a bit more in the future. But I would argue that a great way to describe the Iron Hands chapter is that each of them are in a various stage of grief

and that stage of grief has actually molded what they're like now Oh that's pretty so I'm assuming they're in stages of grief Because Ferris Manus is dead He was their father, he was their leader And they're still trying to like Cope with the grief of

Literally watching him get his head sliced off So well not many of them watched it per se because the rest of the iron hands around him were overrun and killed. Right. I was going to say any witnesses would be long dead because that was like a massacre or something. And I'd say that the iron hands, so some iron hands believe that their prime arc will return to them one day. This is the part of the story that I did. Because like as soon as you said that in the quote where they're like, oh, we're waiting for him to be restored, I was like, they're leaving the door open for it.

Like they're leaving the door open To figure out some kooky way To like bring him back as like He's all a machine from the neck down or something Or like we said the other episode Where he's the headless horseman The Doolahan or whatever Well not not quite

Not quite I mean Well I'm okay I'm assuming GW leaves the door open for everybody Because that's just GW You can do things with Yeah you can do weird things with a warp Like there's always an in universe reason, even if the reason is stupid, there is still always an inverse reason.

Fair enough. But some people, like the Iron Hands, some of them believe that their Primark will return to them. The Iron Hands are broken up into these like clans now. And also, they were also broken up into successor chapters. That was what happened with the great scouring or the second founding, Gilliman, Coeustardes, them up into various subchapters, all the usual jazz. Yeah, yeah. But with the death of Ferris Manus and, you know, then the wounding of the emperor,

the bitterness they experience and the hatred kind of only grew the next 10,000 years. Because when you think about it, the Iron Hands suffered the most out of any chapter or any other Space Marine Legion in the heresy, I'd say. I don't think, well, okay, besides maybe the, you know, the traitors like Death Guard getting turned into Nergal slaves and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, of the, of the Marines, they're still loyalist. Right, because the iron, because of the other primarks you have are the Blood Angels and Sanguinius dying. Yeah, I was going to say, maybe the Blangels kind of suffered, and they have that whole black rage that kind of afflicts them. And that's, that kind of sucks.

It makes it cool, but it does kind of suck. But Sanguinius died as a martyr. Sanguinius died as the golden hawk boy going purposely to his death knowing that he would save humanity. And now he's after wrecking a ton of fools. And one of them corn, shoot, what are they called, the big ones with the wings? Bloodthirster. Bloodthirst, God, why can I ever remember that? Yeah, and he dunked on a bloodthirster and, yeah, he.

And a warlord titan and Angron. That's right. I forgot about that. he dungs on so he does die a big hero and ferris manis is just like oh no i got ambushed where's my head exactly and also all the iron hands got the blood angels didn't get bodied on the dropside massacre the iron hands got reduced to like a poultry tiny little bit of units left of strength because so so pharist manis does not die a hero he is ambushed and murdered most of his honor guard are killed the iron hands are sustained enormous casualties

and are basically taken entirely out of the heresy. And that's it. The black rage and the Blood Angels thing is really bad, but they were not reduced to a nearly sub-zero number of units at the end. Singuineas died a hero. And then the Blood Angels went all black-ragy afterwards and proceeded to slaughter the heretics. I, okay, I guess that's fair.

When you put it like that, yeah, the Iron Hand suffered. And yeah, they're not, they're probably not in a good mental headspace, I suppose. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. No, and they didn't, they were like really struggling with how to cope with this. Because on one hand, Ferris ran towards Isvam in like a blind rage after waking up from his fight with Fulgram. And so a lot of them were like, God damn it. this is entirely the point of what Ferris was trying to teach

was not to let emotions get the better of us. Don't let emotions break, you down to make dumb decisions. But our father did that. Yeah, it's like he did that. And then they were angry with Ferris for doing something like that. And it showed to them even more so the weakness of like the human intellect and emotion. But on the other hand, they also had hatred for the salamanders and raven guard because they fell back after being ambushed. And they're like, if you had stayed and fought, maybe our Primark would still be alive or not missing, depending on who you ask.

So it actually sounds like there's some loathing towards Ferris Manus from the Iron Hands because they're like, dude, what are you doing? Like, this is exactly what he said you do. And you're doing it. Like, don't be stupid. and he just, he does it anyway. Yeah. It sounds like they aren't exactly thrilled with their primark either, which, I don't know, I guess I figured the Iron Hands were just like fully and completely devoted to him, right?

And to hear that they're kind of like, nah, you're done goofed. He's interesting, actually. It's, I think for them it's less, I mean, obviously it is their primark. They revere him as practically a demigod, right? Of course, because he's a primark. Because he's a primark, and most legions treat their prime marks quite well, except for certain individuals. Go Savitar, go Karn, let's go, giving shit to their prime mark, let's go. Yeah, big time.

But, yes, but at the same time, yeah, they see what he did. And in a sense, it more so reinforces this idea that human emotion is a weakness. And Ferris Manus especially had the whole process of purging weakness. Because he despised weakness. And so then it becomes obviously Ferris Manus had his own mental things. And near the end, we talked about how he would get rid of his metal arms because it's a weakness. It's a crutch. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a crutch. It's a mental crutch. And the body itself is very important. It needs to be honed. But because of that, the iron hands then with this experiencing of like grief and all that kind of start removing the parts of themselves that they consider to be weak which would be the body yeah so they they they kind of I don't want to say pervert but they kind of warp and twist his idea

of purging weakness into like oh well his humanity is what got him killed and that was bad. So let's just do what the ad mech do and just cut off all the weakness and make ourselves meddle and strunk. So I won't lie, after all the, after the heresy,

how they came to some of these conclusions is really creepy. And also, like, the sign of, like, a domestic terrorist you'd see on a forum online. I do kind of like that they're coming to these bad conclusions

and they're making these horrible decisions because they don't have a prime arc to like steer them in the right direction. It's, it's one of the, I remember what I mentioned before how dark angels felt like one of the chapters that were the most degraded from their original heresy counterparts? The iron hands are like a close second, if not roughly equivalent in my opinion. But so, right, so basically the returning iron fathers on Medusa after the head. heavily damaged chapter made a council. And they were called the Iron Council.

That is the new main leader of leaders of the faction. They do love their iron names, don't they? They really do. And so the idea is that no single body will govern the iron hands again. It's now will be a conclave, basically. The council. The council allows you to sit on it, but we do not grant you the rank of master. Okay.

Okay. No? Really? No? No. No idea. Star Wars? We do not grant to the rank of mass. It's unfair. Right, right, right, right, right. Okay. From the prequel trilogy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. I was terrified, terrified. But many other legions, particularly like Dorn and Sanguinei, well, the Imperial Fists and the Blood Angels went and immediately sought out vengeance. Go down and stop everybody. but the iron hands kind of tempered themselves. They were furious, but running out immediately is what got Ferris killed and what they believed to be a weakness.

So they held back and used their rage to aid in these cold calculations. Hate would not be the driving force of their counterattack. And so for 86 days, they did something called the tempering, which was holding up in their little zone on Medusa and calculating the most logical, the most powerful, and the most ruthless course of action to deal with the new traders. I got to tell you, the more and more we talk about the iron hands, they literally sound like ad mech light. So after 86 days, their tempering was complete and they put their new plan into effect.

Their decision was that the logic was that humanity itself is the problem. Oh. Yeah, I read that and I was like, oh boy. Oh, boy, that is, isn't that like a heretical way of thinking? Isn't that like not how you're supposed to think about, you know, humanity that you're serving and Emperor of Mankind and Tara and that seems just a, a little bit heretical to me. Remember what I said, it has the makings of like a domestic terrorist

that you'd see on a forum? Yeah, well, that's right, it does. The prophecy has been... Yeah, the prophecy has been foretold. A new hand touches the beacon. But the rebellion only happened because traitor primarks, and to the extent, even the emperor,

could not eliminate the inconsistency of humanity from their decisions. Jealousy, beer, hate, vanity, all of it needed to be cleansed from the human soul in the fires of war. Even trust could be considered a flaw.

Wow. And the traitors could not be allowed to spread their weakness to others and corrupt them. And humanity must be purged of its flaws or else weakness will take root again. Oh, wow.

Are we entirely sure that the iron hands are loyalist? Because this all sounds like some chaos bullspit. Like, woofah. It's a little iron warrior Z, isn't it? It sure is. Again, it also sounds, like, I just can't help, but, like, keep thinking, like, it's like, they sound so much, like, admech. Like, this all sounds like it would be, like,

If you told me an admec was just spewing this stuff on repeat, I'd be like, yeah, makes perfect sense. Humans are weak, emotions are weak, the flesh is weak, remove the flesh, put on the metal, boop-de-boop, boop, boop. So it depends on how you're seeing each faction, because now the iron hands after this would go seek out and destroy all weakness and replace it with machine-like strength and calculation. Now, this also gave them very close military ties to the ADMEC and would often offer an alliance for protection for the ADDES Mechanicus in exchange for extensive knowledge from the ADMEC themselves. In fact, the Iron Council would have a special position on it called the Voice of Mars, where three senior tech ad apps would represent Mars itself. Okay. But yes, the overarching thing of the admec is, well, they work heavily with the iron hands. An important thing to note, though, is that when you think of the admec, what is the admec's number one pursuit?

What is their most important thing? What is their most important? I mean, they just want to become like perfect machines, don't they? No, no, not necessarily. There's one thing Admec are always trying to do, and that's the preservation of knowledge. Oh, yeah. It's always knowledge. It's always about knowledge and keeping their knowledge intact.

It's always about, hey, preserving and also going on seeking old knowledge. Because they believe that all knowledge has already been discovered. And it's a simple case of finding it, which is why ADMEC affect themselves the way they do, not just because they believe in the purity of the blessed machine and the machine god, but also to preserve knowledge, keep themselves alive to preserve knowledge, data banks, cogitators, being able to record everything they ever see and do. It's probably why they hate the idea of creating something new, much because like, well, everything's already been, the knowledge, everything's already been done.

We just have to find it. What do you mean you're creating something new? Everything's already done, been created. You're crazy. Creating something new would be to go against the knowledge of the machine god, which would be tech heresy. Yeah. And so, but however, the iron hands, I think more so see flesh as a massive weak point. whereas the iron hands have flesh is weakness.

It creates weakness. The ad mech believe that flesh is weak because they want to like preserve knowledge and and keep themselves going and also, you know, weapons to defend themselves, get themselves alive for longer, which preserves knowledge for longer. Don't get me wrong, there is overlap between the two. Yeah. But the iron hands are obvious, are very much like, like my, the flesh is, weakness and weakness must be purged.

Yeah, yeah. And, oh, Shai had an interesting thing up here that she said, she said for the iron hands, their metal augments actually do very little to improve their bodies because they're already space marines and their bodies are almost perfect right off the bat. So they legit seem to suffer from some kind of body dysmorphia or dysphoria, sorry. I think this morphia also works just in a different way. Yeah, I think they both work, yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's actually, like, I hadn't thought about that because they are.

space Marines are perfect. Like they're built that way. So trying to like remove a leg and replace it with like an entirely metal leg is like, what are you doing? That leg was perfect. Now you've got a wonky ass metal one like that's stupid. So that actually goes to show how the iron hands have been operating as of late where this, this like weird like cognitive dissonance they've been having were on one hand,

you know, missing of their primark. And then, you know, they hate, or not hate, but they, like, are upset with Salamanders and Ravengar because they believe that they were weak and they fled instead of saving their primark. They hate themselves because they think they were too weak to have saved their primark. But then they also are mad at their primark because he let emotion take over and he wouldn't have died if that was the case. And the heresy happened because human emotions like jealousy, hatred, vanity,

all of it led to the hell. heresy, so that's a weakness. Man, the iron hands need to take a mental health day. That's what they need to do. They need to just take a day just like decompress, man. Therapy is okay and it is for everyone.

Bro, bros will literally remove parts of their body or place of bionics instead of going to therapy. Yeah. Therapy helps. You don't even need to be suffering to take benefit from therapy. You can just Go.

I like that. Bros will do X instead of just going to therapy. Bro. Bro will make an entire doomed two mod about his buddy's house instead of going to therapy. Bros. Will get their heads cut off instead of going to therapy. I mean, have you seen those therapy prices?

They're head and shoulders crazy. Oh, yeah. But so this is why I think that the iron hands kind of, of like their clans all sort of represents an aspect of grief in its own way. You know, there are, there are some clans that don't believe that Ferris is dead and he'll return to them when they have stricken enough weakness from their bodies. And you can argue that's denial.

Oh, that's super denial. There's depression, which is just possibly the complete removal of all of their human emotions, this cold calculating machine that's just completely uncaring. Yep. I mean, I think the entire Iron Hands probably feel some degree of depression that their father died. Right. Different kind of depression, though, than like the blood angels. Oh, yeah, much different. There's anger. Oh, yeah, there's tons of anger. Plenty. Oh, yeah, plenty of anger there.

They're all, like, completely upset with how he handled himself and how he didn't handle his emotion. So, yeah, that tracks. And then you got-fairist for it, yeah. And then you got bargaining. And bargaining is just, is, just trying to like, you know, if I, the more weakness I strip from my body, the more flesh I remove from my body to become pure and machine-like, the better we will be and the stronger we will become and our father will be returned to us. I like that.

I like that, too. I like that too. Are basically, as you look through the chapter, it's just the different stages of grief. No, it's not, it's not utilized enough, I don't think. Like, this is kind of a conclusion that I, and a few people have come to. But it's not, I don't think it's used enough. Like it needs to be put into place narratively a bit more.

Yeah, like they need to lean into it a little harder and make it really obvious. Yeah, or, like a subtle thing. Or just like some more, like more books that just kind of go into it a bit more. I mean, in that sense, I kind of like that Ferris Manist died then. Because that sets up this whole chapter that's based on grief. And that's kind of cool, actually. I think that the best thing that happened to the Iron Hands is Ferris Manus' death. It just sucks that Ferris Manus had no goddamn development or anything to make him interesting at all.

But it made the chapter more interesting. Oh, yeah. infinitely more interesting. Like, they have a couple, like, there's an old proverb in the Medusin clans, which is, as iron sharpens iron, so truth cuts and war makes. and war makes right. And there's this other one from post heresy, which is, the iron hands are not saviors,

nor should we be. A man who could not save himself is weak, and the weak do not deserve to be saved. For such a man, only death is fitting. This we can provide. Oh, that's a, wow, that's a great quote. It shows them off. Yeah, that encompasses, that's like,

that is the most iron hands quote you can get. Like that's their anger at their prime mark and just how they feel in general now. And that's great. That's a great iron hands quote. So for a while, like their new main beliefs is that their flesh is a weakness. And not only that, but it becomes like disgusting to them. As shy put, it's almost like flesh is this, I read this thing. I think somewhere in the wiki was like a

a soiled jacket or like a disgusting garment that is draped over them and they the longer they spend in the chapter the more there's like the fleshy feeling of their body just it bugs them

it makes them feel wildly uncomfortable oh wow that I didn't realize it was that level of uncomfortable like I need to get this removed and replaced by something strong It's so crazy because again, Ferris Manus would hate that.

He would hate it. He wouldn't. It is so far away from what he liked as a doctrine. Yeah, he would have wanted you to embrace and strengthen your flesh, not rip it away and augment it. He hated his own iron hands, right? So, oh, man, he would be disgusted if he came back. His iron hands were useful to him, but he did, I mean, no, getting rid of weakness is one thing, but purging weakness from your body by replacing it is not the same as like hardening yourself.

Yeah. So for example, like the iron hands, when they are initiated into the chapter, they sever their left arm. Like immediately and then replace it with iron hands or like a bionic hands. Oh, why just the left one? Why not both? I don't know, because I just chose the left one. I was going to say, then shouldn't they just be the iron hand? Because they've only got one? Maybe because bionics don't always take.

It might be a smart idea just to be safe to keep your other hand. Well, I mean, well, that's what you've one at a time, right? Like, you're like, oh, yeah, when you get initiated, you slice off one, you put the iron arm on, you are an iron hand now. And then maybe when you rise up to, like, captain, and it's like, oh, yeah. See, they take. You slice off the other one. You get the other one. and you're only a true iron hands once you've become a, you know, soiled in battle.

Prove yourself worthy of iron hands or something. I don't know. Well, it seems weird that they only do one. Well, trust me, it doesn't stop with just one. The first one is also, it's kind of like a ritual. Are they pringles? Are they pringles once you pop? It's true, though.

But, like, the one hand they do, sometimes it's surgically removed and something. Sometimes they even stick the hand in the Medusin lava and just to burn it away and kind of and just feel the pain to give this overwhelming feeling of hatred. That's also the same. That's symbolism because that's what Ferris did to get his silver hands, right? Yep. That's the whole point behind it is the drowning of your father. But as time goes on, the iron hands and they get older and older and more veterancy in the chat. chapter, they become more coldly resolute, not really caring about the loss of their various

chapter mates because death is, you know, weakness, failing is weakness. And emotional ties are considered weak to them. So why would they grieve? Right. And Iron Hands often will scour their flesh, like inflict pain and scarring themselves as a reminder of the weakness of an organic body. Oh, lovely. Oh, yeah. But through his lifetime, they become even more resentful and hating of their flesh. So the point where a longstanding veteran Iron Hand Battle Brother that's like multiple centuries old, like four or five hundred years old, might just genuinely be a brain and hearts.

Oh, wow. And that is all they are. Oh, man. They've replaced everything else. Full stop. Wow. Some of the captains and the higher levels might just be a brain. And that is it.

That's a... So I'm wondering how, how, what, only because Shai posted this picture. What do Termis look like? Is that a Terminator that she posted? Yep. The Terminators are actually a rather revered part of the iron hands because the tactical dreadnought armor is so kind of rare. I was about to ask about the dreadnots too

because they must love that shit because they are just fully and completely embedded with a machine and they must love that. Oh yeah, being a dreadnought is a huge honor. For the Iron Hands, yeah, I bet. I bet they love that. I mean, there's actually a picture of Iron Hands

Terminator here. Whoa! You know, he's big and scary. He's got all kinds of boobs and bobbles. Oh, my God. God, that is a horrifying picture of a dreadnought. Oh, it's these dreadnoughts. Terminator.

Sorry, yeah. It's these Terminators. We talked about these with, I think, Keriath. They, those are so dope looking. Oh, I love those. They are just super heavy mechanical bionics, like, full of all kinds of bips and bobbles. I forget the name of their actual Terminators. They have a very wacky and weird name.

Maybe Shai can remind me, but it's. Gorgon Terminers? Oh, wait. I thought they were called something else in the heresy. I mean, Gorgon Terminators makes sense because, you know. The Morlocks.

That's what they were called. The Morlocks. That was back in the heresy, the Morlock Terminators. Yeah. Now they're called Gorgon Terminators, yeah. Yeah, because the Gorgon. But, yeah, so a lot of the more veteran people

are just barely have any organic stuff at all. And being interred into a sarcophagi of a dreadnought is a huge honor of the chapter. And in fact, a lot of the higher up, the higher ranking people in the iron hands are dreads. In fact, in game, you can actually turn a dreadnought into a character and have it lead your army. Oh, nice. And I mean, obviously that tracks because, you know, of course they would follow a dreadnought. because that is just cold steel, cold, unemotional steel that just wants to push forward and slaughter.

Yep, I believe they call it March of the Ancients. Nice. Which is, it gains the character keyword, add one to attacks and leadership. That's the ability. So, yeah, the Iron Hands, Dreadnots are often characters or main important groups of the chapter. Yeah. And the iron hands themselves make use of tons of vehicles as well.

They consider it to be quite an honor to put their bionics into a machine and like interface with it. That makes sense. That tracks, sure. Yeah, that's a pretty classic case for the iron hands. And so often in game, you will see iron hand players run either a good amount of vehicles, a good amount of dreadnots, or just lots of big heavy weapons. Yeah, I mean, that, that may be. Makes sense. Sure.

Oh, man, even their dreadnots look really cool. Yeah, I mean, those are the old boxy dreadnots, but they do look fun. And of course, iron hands are black and silver, which is a perfectly fine color combo. Oh, yeah, especially for big, chunky machines. You're just going black and silver. That's classic. That's going to make everything look good. Yeah.

It's actually a really interesting thing they do called the forge chain, which allows, and you know how in the Space Marine trailer you had those little service studs on. Captain Titus's forehead. Oh yeah, to show how many years they've been in the service, right? Yep. They do something somewhat similar where they actually remove parts

of their spine vertebrae and replace it with a new metal versions of it. And the metal comes... It comes from different clans. So, like, I think for every 100 years they replace one of the vertebrae. Oh, wow. And they could have different kinds

of, like, steel and... other metals to be used for, depending on where the clan comes from. It's like all a cultural thing. Does it stick out of the skin so that like everybody can see it? Or is it just something that's like, oh, I know that I've had four vertebrae removed. And that's my honor. And nobody else can see it. Because like with the space frame thing, you can see the studs.

And it's like on display for everyone to be like, oh, wow. Look at how, look at how much services dude has had. Is it the same thing or is that kind of just for them? I don't really know. I'm assuming there won't be any skin there left anyway because iron hands. They've already ripped the skin off their back. So it's like, yeah, look, here's my whole spine. You can see it.

Look at the metal. That's fair. That could be too. Yeah, sure. And so, as you see, Dan, there's some pretty good artwork there, Shai's Poston. Oh, yeah, that's really, really good. Yeah. So the iron hands, obviously, with their repeated use of all these kinds.

of vehicles, tanks, you know, dreadnots and so on, are all really neat. But it's interesting when it's combined with the way they do war. They do it like in near silence because chatter is not important. You know, if you go into battle with the iron hands and they are extremely cold, machine-like, and methodical. they should be yeah they they they don't shout uh like battle cries or inspiring words or anything the only thing you really hear on the vox is is mouthfuls of grit just like grunts from you know maybe like not like they're grunting on purpose but like they get hit or something yeah yeah like

somebody just hit him in the chest with a thunderhammer and they go yeah so like that um but they They train and prepare in combat for combat in total silence. They disembark from their transports in silence with their comms open for essential battle comms only. Oh yeah, just battle tactics about where they need to go or yeah. They basically move like automata. They don't speed up. They don't slow down. They move in exactly precise angles with bursts of bolter fire.

The only sound coming from them is really the. sound of their guns and the hum of the power armor. Wow. So they've sort of got that creepy vibe to them like, well, we said that about the necrons, right, where it'd be really creepy to go up against an army that just made no sounds.

They're just moving in cold, calculating formations, and just there is no emotion. Because that's, they want to be like robots. They want to be cold and unfeeling. So, yeah, that tracks. Yeah. And I mean,

it's an interesting thing because, you know, as they fight, they'll still do really powerful, you know, maneuvers. They'll be able to they have to. They'll, you know, attack in various methodical ways and break through defenses in that way. But it will all be mostly in Vox silence. That's creepy.

It is really weird. I mean, they're meant to be kind of automata, right? Yeah, yeah. And so it kind of gives you the thought process of them versus other chapters where there's like a, what is it, there's an old, like there's the thing where burning building and you have like firefighters and stuff.

Firefighters don't run into burning buildings to save people because it's a really good way to get themselves killed. That is true, yeah. And like sometimes people might do it. People might do it or firefighters might do it. Like they'll run into like certain buildings

and like things that have been prepped and proper. But if it's sure. If your captain says don't do it, you're not supposed to do it. Though there have been times where they disobey the captain's orders, they run in and save like children or people. Yeah, because it's like, well, I can't just let the child burn in the building. I got to at least make an attempt at it, sure.

Right, but often they make an attempt at it and then they die because you're not supposed to do that. But sometimes they succeed. And then it's crazy. And I kind of assume that other chapters fight in that way where like the salamanders are going to make a heroic. charge at the enemy. You know, it's a gamble,

but it's a gamble alone that might pay off, and they'll make the run, and they'll break through a formation, and then by doing so, it allows reinforcements to get in there, or they disable an AA gun, or, you know, that kind of thing. Or they die horribly. The salamanders totally feel like that. The salamanders feel like the firefighter that's like, the captain said don't rush in because it's too dangerous,

but the salamanders are like, oh, there's a child or an innocent in need of saving. They would definitely be the first ones into that building. 100%. Right. But an iron hand person will never, ever do that. Oh, never. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So their cold calculations make them really effective, but they lose out on any of the reward that comes with risk. Oh, okay. Because there is, because risk is, has reward. So the iron hands saw a battle and let's say they do the calculations, they're like, oh, yeah, that's unwinnable. They just straight up won't deploy. They will literally not deploy.

They will just leave. They will have like militarum down there, like being murdered by Tyrann. It's like, we need reinforcements. And they run their calculations. And they're like, nah. And they'll just leave. That's a burning building. Sorry, we're not running into that.

There have been battles that have been lost because the iron hands flat out refused to deploy stuff. Because they're like, if we deploy stuff here, we'll lose X, Y, and Z. And by losing X, Y, and Z, that means we can't fight. This battle over here that we kind of want to fight, so it sucks to suck by. Wow. That's, to me, that just seems crazy for a space marine chapter to do.

But again, it fits the iron hands, right? That's their whole thing. Yeah, iron hands are not much liked. I mean, there's still the emperor's angels, but they are the rough ones. Oh, yeah. Shai said iron hands are one of the few chapters genuinely hated by human populations.

Oh, I don't doubt that for a second, because the iron hands, not only will they not help in dire situations like that, but they also kind of just hate humanity in general, too, because they think humans are weak, fleshy, way too emotional creatures. So... Human weakness got their dad killed. Yeah, so, yeah, that also tracks very hard. Damn, the iron hands are actually super interesting. I don't think I'd want to be an Iron Hands.

I don't think I would play. Well, I don't know. The Iron Hands minis are pretty cool. But they are super interesting. They are made more interesting by the death of their very uninteresting dad. Yeah, I got to say, at this point, I was like, oh, yeah, headless Ferris Manus. Wouldn't that be cool? Bring back Ferris Manis.

Now I'm like, no, don't bring him back. That would ruin the chapter because he'd probably try and fix them. You meme about bringing back the blood angels all the time, though. Sure. He just too because he thinks it's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll do the Ferris Manus thing because it's funny and I can make head jokes. But, like, legitimately, I don't want him back.

He would ruin the Iron Hands. He would make them boring. So do you want to read the thing that Shai posted? Oh, yeah, yeah. She said, your Primark is dead. Your Legion got decimated at the start of the heresy and you got no glory. Your entire philosophy goes against what your... your dad ever wanted.

You blame him for his weakness and load your own body. And the only thing that makes you feel better is replacing pieces of yourself with machine. But making yourself more a machine makes you more cold and uncaring. General human population hates you because you are an emotionless, uncaring robot. You feel horrible and cut more parts of yourself to feel better. Repeat, being an iron hand sucks. I mean, that basically seems to be the case. Yeah.

They also, they always felt to me like the Um, actually chapter. And there's, there's a great meme I saw a while ago that I thought was really funny, which is this one. There's a bit of it. There's a spelling error in it where you can't, it doesn't say, Oh yeah, I saw this one. Yeah. Did she post this when we were doing the Ferris Manus one or something?

I remember seeing this. She might have. I may have missed it. As I don't worry, the scar will heal. You just know it won't. Scars will eventually fade, but they do not heal. There are treatments that scars can improve for appearance. but it will not be healed fully.

He's like, brother, shut up. Brother, please shut up. Yeah, salamanders and iron hands must not get along at all. Well, the iron hands hate the salamanders. Oh, right, because the dropside thing. Because the dropside thing. It's the massacre. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Them and the raven guard, right? Iron hands and salamanders are polar opposites, pure opposites. They are magnetic poles. They, oh, yeah, you're not getting those two together. Nope. No, they would hate each other. The salamanders, the salamanders probably do hate the iron hands full stop.

I would be surprised if they didn't. And the iron hands, well, like you said, the iron hands do hate the salamanders. Mm-hmm. They, the, uh, or at least disdain them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, the iron hands also, like, well, they can be angry and stuff, they are, they're also incredibly blunt in their anger. but they're like the boring blunt. We're unlike Dorn,

which Dorn is just kind of uncaring and stuff, Iron Hands will be mean and rude and awful, but in like a machine way. Just be like, citizen, your family is dead because you're weak. Be stronger and they leave. It's like, okay. That guy's an absolute asshole.

Yeah, he's an iron hand. What do you expect? It's just like if you were stronger, your family wouldn't be dead, leaves. And you're like, okay, awesome. Thanks, dude. Maybe if you had actually showed up. It's a whole thing. Yeah, the iron hands are something else.

Yeah, I said they're totally that I'm sorry you were offended, guys. Oh, man, that's a good one. Yeah. I'm sorry you were offended, guys. That is, that is a good one. But yeah, now I'm fully behind. Like, don't bring Ferris Manus back. Well, I mean, it might be kind of interesting to see, like, his reaction to what the iron hands have become.

And then him trying to be like, guys, you're, don't stop doing this. But they're so machine. They're like, nope, you're weak. You're not our father anymore. Purd. I would be happier if the goddamn, if we got a little bit of narrative consistency and they just stayed goddamn dead. I would too. But you know GW.

I know. Money, money, money, money. Money. I know. Yep. But despite all of that, yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, that kind of is the gist of the iron hands.

If you read their abilities in game, it's exactly what you think it is. It's, oh, here's this warlord trait called merciless logic. and all flesh is weakness. And then we've also, and then here's your psychic powers, which are re-forge,

blessing of the machine god, objuration Mechanicum, fury of Medusa. That's all the stuff you expect. I don't suppose they have a rule where if they're facing an opponent that has more numbers and stronger than them, you have to forfeit the game, is there?

No, that's the Iron Hands rule. Oh, damn, I screwed up. That's what I'm saying. That's the Night Lord's rule. rule. Oh, that night lords would fit that too. We can't win this. We're out of here. The difference though of being that the iron hands are like, oh, this will cause too many casualties. That is not logical. Where the night lords are like, man, I don't want to die. I want to go kill another child. Let's get out of here, guys. I need to go. If I die in this battle, how will I be a proper terrorist?

Exactly. Yep. You got soul of iron. Optimal repulsion doctrines. Wow. And of course, their mainstay stratagem is called mercy as weakness. Of course. Of course. Of course. And how are they in the tabletop right now? Because I know previous episode, you said they had broken the meta multiple times.

But like right now, wait, 10th edition is coming, right? Have they been changed at all? Or good, bad, mid? 10th is coming, I think, late June. Not out yet. But at the moment, we're still on 9th. and they are probably a top three army of the game. Because...

They're still very good. Yeah, Space Marines got a huge buff, and they got the ability to use fancy iron hand things a lot easier now. And so now Iron Hands are incredibly powerful and way too good. Ah. Well, who are the top three, if I may ask? If Iron Hands are like top three, who are the other two? Dark Angels are pretty up there.

They cut a nerve recently. I think... I think Gene Steeler cults are actually... really good right now. I would not have assumed Gene Steeler cults being up there. Yeah, they got all kinds of weirdness going for them and that made them really strong.

Okay. Yeah, I think Chaos Demons are pretty good. I haven't played a lot of ninth recently because I'm just so burnt on it and 10th is, it's right around the corner, you know? Yeah, it's a month away or something, right? Yeah. There are some really interesting

things the Iron Hands carry as well, like, like, relics and stuff too. I was just about to ask, they got to have some wacky relics, right? Yeah, I mean, there's a, what I was called the Ironstone? Which is a, it is gathered,

it is a powered, like, device on their armor, which is a cluster of potent machine spirits that lurk in its coldly glowing shell. And whenever a nearby vehicle suffers damage, it'll connect to the machine, possessing its spirit and guiding

its damage repairs. Just weird. stuff like that. So it's like a self-repair thing for nearby vehicles? Pretty much, yep. Okay, I mean, hey, that's helpful. Sure, that's cool. It's weird. Something like that. There's like betrayers,

Bain, which is a gun. This is, what's this? The tempered helm, the savant processor within this helm filters incoming information and presents it in a compartmentalized strategic sermons granting a near-omni-posted level of instant battlefield cognition and then another big word and another big word and another big word.

Damn those big words. That sounds like a very useful helmet. Like even if you're not iron hands, just the ability to process that much battlefield information is like, that's invaluable. It's good stuff. All of their relics are just kind of like, make me big brain and that's, or kill enemy stronger. Make me smart like robot.

Make me smart like robot. like robot. Make me heal like robot. Yeah. Their main army rule is called the flesh is weak. So, you know. Naturally.

Yeah. Yep. So, you know, overall, that's basically the concept of the iron hands. That is basically the iron hands. They are a methodical cold,

uh, grief stricken, uh, seeth and cope faction that have become horrible, horrible people, uh, by through their grief. And,

by being a horrible people, people hate them more, which makes them more horrible. And it's like this never ending cycle. This never ending cycle going down, down, down. Yep. And until someone can break them out of it, which I'm assuming is probably what GW's planning for like a Ferris Manus return. But again, I don't know, this episode, I really, really like the Iron Hands. Like, I like the idea of them. I like that they're just all the stages of grief that just keep twirling out of control.

They don't realize how out of control they are and it just keeps spiraling and spiraling. I don't think I'd ever want to play them. I don't think I'd call them my favorite, but God damn, are they interesting. They are certainly fascinating, and they are way better than Ferris. Oh, absolutely. They are made better by Ferris's death. I was going to say that you need Ferris to die. for the iron hands to be as interesting as they are.

Not only that, but like, I would hope that if they ever did a book or something to go more into Ferris Manus's lore during the heresy, they end up doing, making it more on the line of, man, I really hope my sons don't turn into awful machine people. Yeah, about that. Yeah, it would be nice to have that kind of, like, Oh, like that tragic fall that's a bit more tragic.

Yeah, where he kind of sees it coming and he kind of sees that they're like, it's like, oh, man, my boys are a little weak-minded. I hope nothing happens that would make them spiral into that weakness. Or make them go robotic. Any other. Anything else to add shy? Or are we feeling good? I'm feeling pretty good.

I think I got the vibe across. Yeah, I think lore-wise, this is probably up there for like one of my favorites so far. Actually, shocked by that, but I don't think anything will beat out the Raven Wing. You like immediately got sold on those. Well, okay. Aesthetics-wise, you, I mean, I can't help but go for the edgy boys, right? Like, that's, that's my thing. That's me.

That's my thing. That's my thing. That's my thing. It's his thing. It's his thing. Jesus. Shy is typing. The cursed words.

Wow. D.K. Stop, or Bricky's head's going to get too big? Have you seen his forehead? It can't. I mean, there's no worry about Ferris's head getting any bigger. Ooh. Ooh.