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

The 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.

[vancodling]

Fun fact: Konrad kept Ferrus' head, and kept trying to get improsoned Vulcan to have dinner with it - before stabbing Vulcan to death with table cutlery.. for the third time

[BgChsy]

There's already a short story about Ferrus finding some 40k Iron Hands lost in the warp due to timey wimey fuckery and he was thoroughly disgusted at the state of their augmentations.

[thedivinekahuna]

One thing I saw was that summarized Legions differently; the Salamanders would save women and children first because it’s the right thing to do. The Iron Hands would save women and children first because they could fit more of them in a Thunder hawk at a time.

[ladeandix]

One piece of Iron Hands art I love is a marine dual wielding fully automatic bolters. And a huge terminator slicing a daemonette in half with a big power sword while shooting it with a storm bolter.

[markgresch]

55:55 - I thought there was some part near the end of their lore, where Slannesh notices their spirally depression and is like "Excess sadness is still excess, and basically the more they tried to suppress their emotions, the further they fell and that one of their leaders basically said "Enough, we're human we need to feel, we need our anger and our souls." and saved their chapter.

[TheOnlyRealIRONicMAN]

"The Iron Hands are human, lord general. Perhaps they do not like to think of themselves in quite that way any more, but they are, and they share in the full range of blessings and curses of that exalted state. One condition in particular is theirs: an ancient condition which even now, with all the techno-chirurgical advances available in our glorious Imperium, resists any attempts at a cure. [...] We take ordinary bodies and make them better, ’ she admitted. ‘We do so because we desire to improve on what we were born with. The Iron Hands cannot make their bodies better, since they are already perfect. Nevertheless, still they amputate their limbs in favour of metal parts and aspire to the state of machine-hood. Why? Because they fear their flesh, lord general. They look at it in the mirror of their minds and they see something loathsome."

Techpriest Ys regarding the Iron Hands, Wrath of Iron

[khylerbane]

I can’t believe that they didn’t go into or even mention the current chapter master, Kardan Stronos. He’s the one Iron Hand that not only represents the best of the the Iron Hands, but is actively trying to get the chapter to be more in line with what Ferrus wanted and believed( *“Activity Trying”* being the key words).

[bricewisener]

Imagine a face off between the night lords and the iron hands in which both sides are convinced they cannot win, so they both just leave

[blurbles]

The tragic irony of the Iron Hands is how they sorta forgot the point of their Primarch’s doctrine.

“The flesh is weak, but deeds last forever.”

In purging their human weakness, they gave up their human potential to achieve greatness in the face of overwhelming despair.

[thok]

Imperium: Spends millions on creating biologically perfect human warriors
Iron hands: Thanks for the surgery, now turn me into a robot

[thefloridaman]

Iron Hands and Blood Angels talking about depression. Raven Guard: Hold my cigarette and black coffee. I’m gonna write a poem

[YoBen]

"Tis but a scratch and just a flesh wound." proceed to replace all his lost limbs with mechanical body parts and return to battle few hours later.

[IdioticSynergy]

Tonite on Ridiculous Gear: Bricky replaces his fleshy forehead with an augmented forehead so that it can provide central heating to his brain and to the Ridiculous Gear crew, DK gets all flustered when Iron Daddy Feirros begins his Femboy arc and Shy removes her vocal cords and replaces it with the Iron Hand themed soundboard so she can talk exclusively in dank memes

[Bluecho]

Disappointed there was no mention of the Keys of Hel. The Iron Hands's use of techno-necromancy is kind of relevant.

Anyway, I find the Iron Hands compelling for the degree to which they've responded to their trauma in very unhealthy ways. They were unequipped to handle grief they, as living weapons, were never meant to deal with. They cut away their humanity, because they couldn't stand the pain of being human. They embrace the idea of stoicism - of being purely logical - to deny they feel anything. They refuse to enter battles that aren't overwhelmingly in their favor, under the pretense of it being logical, but in actuality because they're terrified of being hurt again. They reject trust, so they can never again be betrayed.

Beneath the veneer of cold steel, the Iron Hands are frail, sobbing children.

[fallentitan]

Little sad that the Man of Iron pretending to be a Iron Hands Dreadnaught wasn’t brought up. I think that’s a so hilarious.

[ethanr]

The iron hands actually fought in the heresy to some effect, such as destroying world eater recruitment drives and I think wounding a primarch, they did this in attack cells of just iron hands such as the red talon or in multi legion groups called the shattered legions which included raven guard and salamanders led by figures like Shadrak Meduson, one cell included ebon kheshig of the white scars. Their cybernetics do have benefits such as a third heart just in case the two are destroyed. The morlocks were Ferrus Manus’ terminator body guard, they all died out or got absorbed at the end of the heresy, and the gorgon terminators were the prototype armor that manus was working on that required the implantation of the marine into the armor, there is a special terminator in 40k called the helfather who are the iron councils bodyguards which might just be space marines transferred into a machine body’s because they have had their heads disintegrated and continued fighting and a librarian remarked that they have no presence

[justinkyp]

it almost feels like the iron hands avoid weakness rather than face it, whereas ferrus would want them to overcome being weak by strengthening themselves mentally and physically, ferrus' death and the whole 'iron hands being represented by the stages of grief' led to the misinterpreting ferrus' lessons and remove what they see as weak instead of making it stronger

[eduardodiaz]

The Iron Hands: For those times when being an 3 and a half meters tall superhuman with an extra lung, an extra heart, closed solid ribcage and covered head to toe in ceramite power armor is not enough.

[I_am_ENSanity]

Doctor told me I'll need a shoulder replacement in a few years and most likely have to have both my knees replaced by 45. I laughed, lowered my head, and mumbled "Iron within..." to which he said "Iron without".

I couldn't help but start laughing.

[Ofley_Adventures]

Yes! Yes! A million times yes! It is magnificent to see you guys checking the Iron Tenth. Many believe them simple, yet in my opinion are the most grim dark legion in 40k. Have a glorious day everyone! Thanks for the vid.