Credit: TheChirurgeonThe Relics are a mix of fairly generic weapons that you probably won’t build around, a couple useful items, and The Ironstone, which is one of the single best relics in the game and you will take in every list.The Iron Hands share the same four generic Special-Issue relics that as the other supplements, and have an additional four unique relics. The main guns put out some solid firepower with 14 shots at Strength 8, AP-2, Damage 3, which ignore any to-hit penalties against anything with fly, and an array of secondary weapons add a hull mounted pair of lascannons or heavy bolters and sponson plasma eradicators or las-rippers (short ranged lower power lascannons with fixed damage). His special buff is now “no more than 1 model can flee” rather than “+1 Ld”, but how relevant either of those is in a codex with small, tough, high-Leadership units with a free re-roll is questionable. That said, while not all disciplines have three good powers, some certainly do – White Scars are going to love this, even before considering Imperial Fists Primaris Apothecary.

This is all great, and then on top of that he has a decent gun, a damage 2 power sword, and the Master of Ambush rule (Like all the other supplements, Raven Guard characters are fleshed out with a full set of warlord traits to pick from, supplementing the trait they got in the main Marine codex (which is reprinted here). Scout Sergeant: Boltgun, Chainsword++ Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Imperium – Space Marines) [35 PL, 628pts] ++Techmarine [4 PL, 45pts]: Boltgun, Servo-arm, WarlordThunderfire Cannon [4 PL, 92pts] When a charge roll is made, you may re-roll the dice. The first, Relics, are only available to Iron Hands normally, but successors can use the Bequeath by Iron Council stratagem to take a single one. The demolisher cannon is now d6 shots all the time instead of being weirdly worse against small units, which is nice, and they’re pretty cheap and Toughness 8 which makes them a little bit more survivable than their equivalents. This is a hugely powerful ability which makes them worth including basically on their own.

These guys are priced to move, and some of this stuff is hilarious – a Chapter Champion with the Space Marines have altogether too many datasheets. He swings a power sword with 4 base attacks, Like the Apothecary and Company Champion, Company Champions are refugees from the old Command Squad that Space Marine characters could take. Use this when a RAVEN GUARD unit from your army falls back. The other set, Special-Issue Wargear, are available to successors freely and some can be given to squad Sergeants via the Honoured Sergeant Stratagem.The Relics of Macragge are solid, if unexciting. Homebrew chapters could choose a trait, but wouldn’t get stratagem, trait or relic access (meaning that in tournaments people just used the main keywords).That’s changed, and you can now get access to 95% of what’s in the supplement if you are an Ultramarines successor chapter.This might seem to be needlessly complicating things, but there are actually some subtleties of who gets what in various soup scenarios.

With such flexibility it’s hard to pick out any one thing – instead you should look at the plan for your list (or check out one of the ones in the relevant Chapter section) and work around that.Techmarines are cheap and cheerful, at 45pts for the basic version (for some reason the default one per the datasheet is 50pts, since it comes with a power axe, but you can swap the axe for a chainsword to keep it cheap). Use after your opponent generates tactical objectives. Of particular note is using Psysteel Armor to boost the save, bringing it to a 1+ (or 0+ in cover) armor save and a 3+ void shield save This is already a long breakdown, and it’s going to be even longer with the Chapter supplements. While you could put your entire army into deep strike with pods, this is just asking to get zoned out and potentially tabled immediately. They can also have lascannons if you’re a freak.

Such a list was very successful at LVO, with Brad Chester finishing 2nd.

This is a helpful ability for keeping your units around a little longer. Combining this with either a Khan on Bike or Bike Captain with a storm shield, and maybe adding the “Wrath of the Heavens” relic bike gives you a very dangerous missile – you can advance 22″ (effectively with FLY) and slam into your opponent’s most powerful shooting unit.