A smart move given the attention 40K is given over it for both better and worse. Well, unless you played an elf army this edition. No argument there, they were certainly unique enough to warrant a proper look not receive a decade or so of being ignored, followed up by this. The truly sad thing is this means Wrath of Iron is probably the only halfway decent thing the chapter will ever see beyond the Horus Heresy novels.
As it turns out GW has fallen on weird times. I don't know what the C.O.'s are thinking, but they are rectoning some of the Fluff that was just fine as it was. Ollanius Pius is just one example, I fear we haven't seen the last of crazy moves by GW. If the current pace keeps up, in the end out of the original Fluff it ain't gonna be left squat...
Can't argue there unfortunately. A lot of the current space marine stuff in codicies feels extremely watered down, even when it is focusing upon multiple chapters. Others like the Tau and Eldar who had decent books suffered from major letdowns in terms of lore when it came to their supplements. Anyway, as this thread has been brought up again something to correct: The Iron Hands do still have connections with the Mechanicus, it's just they opted to omit any mention of it in the sections shown in the preview even when it needed to be brought up. The problem is the book went to the other extreme, and turned the Iron Hands into lackeys of the Mechanicus. This has been done to the point where a major position in the Great Clan Council (now almost exclusively referred to as the "Iron Council") consists of several tech priests. The vast majority of the time they are effectively serving as armed muscle for the Mechanicus and will go out of their way to save them or protect their interests. This unfortunately turns them into raging hypocrites thanks to their unwillingness to do the same for anyone else. Oh, and they opted to turn every surviving element of Ferrus Manus into a daemon specifically made from his emotions. Probably because they couldn't get away with outright turning him into a daemon prince.
That's one of the many problems here, it is effectively a crime against Imperial law and we've seen examples of this before. Besides the "Ferrus is now a daemon" part, this whole thing was done previously with a chapter known as the Steel Confessors and done much better. The Mechanicus tried to create a chapter as a private army, the High Lords found out about this and promptly forced them to relinquish control over the space marines and have them swear fealty to Terra. Barring the exceptions of the Deathwatch and Grey Knights, no individual organisation is supposed to have direct control over a chapter to use for their own ends. Even those examples at least don't have Inquisitors as an integrated part of their organisational structure, with them at the same rank as a Chapter Master.
A little digression from a regular subject here. This is me ( DreadForce83 in the flesh ) next to the fully sized Steel Confessors Astartes in Nottingham - GW HQ Shot back in 2o11 , oh boy ... it was so much fun being there .
Heh, I forgot they had that there. Were you at the Gamesday where the had their massive battle, the whole chapter versus waves of tyranids across a huge board?
Nah, I was in August, if I recall the Gamesday takes place in July, still it was amaizing. Here's a short vid I took when I got inside the GRAND HALL: And again, my Grey Knights bias is present .
