How Does it Work?
Before we can really deep dive into the question of "how do I beat this army," we must first understand how it functions. There are several list build archetypes you will see with Iron Hands but the parameters fall under two categories; Repulsor Executioner spam or Shooting Dreadnought spam.
The core of most of the Iron Hands lists that you will see will include the new unique Iron Hands character, Feirros. Feirros is a great buff character as he grants several amazing abilities including a 5++ Invulnerable save to any Iron Hands unit within 6". This is huge as it gives units that otherwise would be very vulnerable to dying quickly, such as Repulsor Executioners, some amazing survivability. Additionally, at the start of the Shooting Phase he can pick an Iron Hands unit and give it BS 2+. Again, quite good on units with great long range firepower that degrade. To top it off he has the ability to heal any Vehicle within 3" a whopping 3 wounds per turn. Not to mention, he can use a stratagem to do it twice...to the same vehicle.
The core components of the primary build centers around 3 Repulsor Executioners or 2 Repulsor Executioners and a Leviathan Dread with dual Storm Cannons. Follow that up with Feirros, a Chapter Master upgrade Captain with the Ironstone relic, a Lieutenant and a Librarian and now we have a giant bubble of death.
The Leviathan in this build is particularly deadly here because of the Space Marines Duty Eternal stratagem that allows you to halve all damage inflicted on a dreadnought backed up by a character carrying the Ironstone relic to further reduce that damage by 1. You have a Toughness 8 gun platform with a 2+/4++/6+++ that is halving damage and reducing it furthermore by 1. This Leviathan is hard as hell to bring down.
Another build archetype you might see are various Dreadnought platforms with twin lascannon/missile launcher combinations that are all made Characters using the Iron Hands pre-game stratagem. Now you have several dreads firing powerful shots, with less than 10 wounds that are characters and thus cannot be targeted by enemy shooting unless they are the closest enemy unit.
Both of these build archetypes will also feature units like Infiltrators and Scouts to make it very difficult to deep strike close to the death bubble units.
Sounds pretty scary yes? Indeed, it is, but not unbeatable. In fact, I believe that in ITC Champions Missions, the Iron Hands army is more of a gatekeeper list. That is, one you must be prepared to fight and have a gameplan to beat if you plan to make it to the top table of an ITC Major event.
General Weaknesses
Going into the Iron Hands matchup, there are several weaknesses that the list has which can be exposed by generally any army.
1. The army is slow. This army does not want to move much. In either variation, the list will not move much if at all for the first few turns. This is to capitalize on shooting the Executioner's primary gun twice. In the dreadnought variation, the dreads don't want to get close usually as they want to maximize their ability to remain untargeted while putting out damaging firepower. This allows you to utilize terrain and mobility to your advantage. Iron Hands lists are designed to maximize the "kill more" portion of the mission and will focus on secondaries revolving around killing units such as Butcher's Bill, The Reaper, Titanslayers, etc.
2. Bunched up units. As Feirros's heal and increased BS ability has a short range of 3", coupled with the fact that Feirros himself isn't exactly very fast, the bubble of Repulsors/Leviathan/Characters will all be relatively close and bunched up together. While we noted above that it is slow moving, it also lacks speed. Against certain matchups, such as Eldar Flyers, this isn't that important as most of the time they'll be able to draw line of sight on the planes in their bubble. Against many armies, however this provides a problem unless there is just no good terrain on the tables at all. Most competitive events feature decent line of sight blocking terrain though, meaning you can position many of your units around to block out line of sight and reduce the shooting ability of the death bubble.
3. Mortal Wounds. While the Ironstone can reduce damage by 1 from attacks, Mortal Wounds are dealt individually 1 at a time. Meaning that if you can crank out some mortal wounds (looking at you Ad Mech, Ork Shock Attack Guns, and Imperial Fists Cohort) you can chew through the death bubble. Iron Hands have a stratagem that allows them to shut down any psychic power on a 4+ AFTER a deny the witch attempt as well, however, meaning they can negate super Smite casts. Generally speaking however, the army will struggle to deal with some builds that can dish out lots of mortal wounds while being protected by chaff units. Example being the Jim Vesal style Chaos list.
4. Combat. While Feirros is no slouch in combat by any stretch, Iron Hands have no access to anything which allows them to Fall Back and shoot. This means that if you can get within 1" of a Leviathan or other dreads you can shut their shooting down for a turn. This is important for moving and positioning. This will be difficult to do for many armies because of Infiltrators and the Leviathan being protected by Heroic Intervening characters and Repulsors which reduce charge distances by 2". That said, if you can get into and touch the Leviathan you can limit it's efficiency. Repulsors of course have Fly so simply touching them will not work.
General Strategies
When facing off against Iron Hands in ITC Champions Missions, you're best suited going for board control secondaries. The Iron Hands lists are incredibly elite but have units that seemingly just will not die. In a game of attrition, very few armies can deal with them in a shooting match. That makes other ITC Secondaries such as Engineers, Recon, and Ground Control more appealing. It might be tempting to take Big Game Hunter, but this is a trap. The likelihood of you killing 4 Iron Hands vehicles over the course of a game is very low for most builds.
In turn, the Iron Hands army wants to kill your units. Most of the time they will pick Secondaries centered around killing things. If they pick Marked for Death, for example, on one of your nasty units, then just hide the unit from them. Sure you may miss out on the killing power, but as we are noting here, you're going to struggle killing them anyway. You're better off playing the deny game in many cases.
Understand that most likely you will not win the Kill/Kill More battle. Basically anything that is exposed to the Repulsors will die. And in retaliation most of the time you won't be able to put enough damage on them fast enough to get Kill More. Instead, focus on Hold/Hold More on the primary. As noted above, Iron Hands are slow and want to kill you. They certainly have the capacity to hold a couple of objectives a turn, but in the larger scheme you want to be earning Hold/Hold More as often as possible to beat them.
If you do decide to expose a unit to shoot at one of their units, ensure that you can kill it. You will not win by simply chipping away wounds off of Repulsors or the Leviathan. You can calculate the risk you might take but understand that when you send a unit in to do the job, they need to do it completely. That might be GSC units with Rocksaws, Assault Centurions, Ad Mech Robots firing mortal wounds, etc. But have either some way to protect these units or ensure that whatever they target will die. Keep in mind that assaulting this death bubble is hard because they can Overwatch on 4s, re-rolling all hits, and can also reduce charge distances, as we noted above.
Have a Plan and Implement It
When you get to the table against the Iron Hands player, analyze the terrain relative to where the objectives will be placed for the match. If possible try to put them into deployment zones where the terrain is favorable and provides your army with as many hiding spots as possible while still being able to score the objectives.
Understand how you plan to deploy relative to the Secondaries they select. If they Mark For Death your units have a plan to protect some of them, if not all of them. You want to reduce their ability to get points and outscore them.
If the terrain is not very favorable then try and saturate them with as many threats as possible so your troops units can move into position to hide and score points. That might be pressing a unit forward that you know will die sacrificing it to ensure your units can get into more favorable areas of the board without getting shot.
These are just some general guidelines and tips on how to deal with Iron Hands. Many factions have very specific answers to Iron Hands. If you have questions on faction specific tips, comment below for some advice on how your faction can handle Iron Hands.
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