Horus Heresy 2e Review: Iron Hands Legion Rules

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. (The rules are strong). 

Background.

I am deliberately choosing to start the reviews of the second edition of Horus Heresy by looking at the Iron Hands. The reason for this is both personal and simple: I regarded them are one of the best and toughest legions in first edition - simple as that. 

The Iron Tenth in second edition are presented in the same manner as the first edition of course. Smashed at the dropsite massacre, and then forced into guerrilla warfare against the traitors later on in the heresy. This facet appears more integrated with the new rules to my mind, but there's plenty of options to talk through here. 

Legion Rules Review.

The Medusa's Scales.  With candor, this is the rule that makes the entire legion shine. The ability to take incoming fire with a -1S modifier is simply amazing. The boost of It Will Not Die is similarly attractive for the Iron Hands' vehicles. Sure, it won't work in close combat, but who cares. Players will want to shoot their enemies off the board before that ever happens, and exploiting the new reactions for your own advancing units will make this even more attractive. The Iron Hands therefore remain one of the toughest armies.

The other rules provide access to war gear (The Keys of Hel) which we will review later. The Iron-Fathers is an upgrade for certain characters. And the Sons of Medusa provide access to the legion's warlord traits (of course). 

Advanced Reaction.

The Gorgon's Spite is powerful. In brief, a unit that is about to be charged gets to shoot back not once, but twice at the charging unit, but with the negative of gets hot added to their weapons. This will categorically be super powerful and potentially game changing in the right circumstances. My thought is to play it against a death star unit, or to simply use it early and get it out of the way and done (i.e., don't be precious about it since you will find yourself never using it). 

Difference to First Edition:
Improved. (The rules are stronger than first edition).

The removal of the need to have more infantry is good for the Iron Hands (i.e., rigid tactics is gone). Stand and fight is similarly gone. The Iron Hands were ever a shooting legion, and the rules in second edition tilt toward this style very strongly still, but they don't have some of the previous drawbacks and have the addition of a very strong advanced reaction. This makes the legion a contender for the strongest out of them all, and it retains the place in Warpstone Flux for the benchmark against which others will be judged!