In our Detachment Focus series we look at key Detachments, their rules, how they work, and how you can play them and build around them. In this article we’re looking at the Hammer of Avernii Detachment for Iron Hands Space Marines.
When we first got wind that there would be a series of chapter-specific Detachments, we were filled with an immediate creeping dread – after all, we’d lived through the latter days of eighth and ninth editions and watched helplessly as Iron Hands rose to prominence at the end of each one, powered by some insane rules. It turns out giving vehicles and Dreadnoughts better shooting and durability can create issues! So our minds immediately drifted to “Improved Ironstorm” as the way this Detachment would fall out. Fortunately for everyone, we were wrong, and the result is much more fun and less of a meta terror. Read on.
We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for review purposes.
Detachment Overview
The Hammer of Avernii Detachment is essentially an improved, Iron Hands version of the First Company Strike Force Detachment, in a similar fashion to the Imperial Fists’ Detachment released a month prior. The big differences here are that many of the stratagems geared at buffing Terminators and Veterans also buff Dreadnoughts in the army – a fun change – and there’s a special rule for including Caanok Var in your army. Because this is a first company Detachment, it’s only okay. It’s on the more playable side of things as far as those Detachments go, but we suspect you’d rather be playing Ironstorm if you wanted to go heavy on Dreadnoughts.
The Video Version
If you’d rather watch than read this review, we’ve got you covered with a video version you can watch here:
Caanok Var
It’s worth putting Caanok Var in here at the moment, as his datasheet is entirely new and this Detachment more or less assumes you’ll bring him. Caanok is a Terminator Captain with a 5+ Feel No Pain who comes with a sick tetsubo called Axiom which acts as either a power fist in strike mode (5 attacks, WS2+, S8 AP-2 2 damage), or can be used for 10 attacks at 1 damage in a sweep. Var comes with two abilities:
- Cold and Calculating – When this models’ unit makes an attack that targets a MONSTER or VEHICLE unit, they gain [LETHAL HITS]. Against any other unit, that attack as [SUSTAINED HITS].
- Cerebrex Logic Engine – in the Declare Battle Formations step you can pick one Astartes INFANTRY unit in your army to gain Scouts 6”. After both players have deployed, you can redeploy one of your units, placing it back into Strategic Reserves if you want, regardless of how many units are in reserves.
Caanok can join Terminator units, which limits his usefulness a bit, but this is a solid pair of abilities. Lethal Hits on your terminators is great for punching up into heavier targets and Sustained Hits against softer threats is a great way to ensure your units can handle hordes. That Scouts 6” ability is also good for getting Caanok and his terminators moving ahead early if you start them on the table.
The problem is that Terminators just aren’t great, so if you run Caanok, it may very well be as a solo piece, relying on his good save and a 5+ feel no pain to stay upright as he tags second Oath targets for you in his Detachment. The ability to go back in Reserves also works well with him.
Detachment Rule: Calculated Annihilation
Each time a model from your army attacks your Oath of Moment target, you can re-roll a wound roll of 1.
Recalculating
Once per battle round, after your Oath target is destroyed, if Caanok Var is in your army and on the battlefield, you can pick a new Oath target – it has to be visible to Var.
That second ability makes Caanok Var a must-take here, since this is the closest you’ll get to replacing Guilliman. It helps you make the most of the Detachment ability, ensuring you can use it against two target units per round. It’s pretty straightforward – you pick a target and your units are supercharged when it comes to fighting it, with full re-rolls to hit, re-rolls to wound of 1, and +1 to wound from the dataslate bonus. If you can’t kill something with that slate of bonuses well, there are a few others you can add on top with Caanok Var and Cogitated Ferocity. The big downside here is needing a visible target for Var, and so you’ll need to plan a bit around how you order your targets.
Enhancements
Three of these are copy-pastes of the Enhancements in the First Company Task Force, only with new names attached to them. The fourth – Steel Font – is relatively interesting, but not stellar.
- Spiritus Ferrum: Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of the bearer’s melee weapons. Once per battle, at the start of any phase, you can use this Enhancement to give the whole unit +1 attack to its melee weapons for a phase. Fine on Assault Terminators where you need +1 attack on the hammers.
- Iron Laurel: Another reprint, this time of Rites of War. The model gets +1 OC and once per game the unit the character is attached to can get +1 OC as well. Solid on a unit of something like Terminators where getting them to OC 2 in a pinch – or 3 with an ancient – can flip an objective.
- Medusan Roar (Aura): A reprint of Fear Made Manifest. When an enemy unit (non-MONSTER, non-VEHICLE) within 6” of the bearer fails a Battle-shock test, one model in that unit is destroyed. Once per battle, when they fail a test, you can make it D3 models instead. This is really funny if you can have it go off on something like a character below half wounds but it’s too unreliable to ever see real use.
- Steel Font: Terminator Model only. While the bearer is leading a unit, in your Command phase, you can return 1 destroyed model to the unit. This is really neat, and encourages you to take a big, 10-model unit of Terminators. That’s a tall ask, but this one will pay for itself more or less the first time you bring back one Terminator.
Stratagems
Unlike in the First Company Task force, some of these Stratagems can be used on Dreadnoughts in addition to Terminators and Veterans. That gives them some interesting extra utility.
- Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): The classic. Always useful and always welcome. Especially good in melee, where you are typically only going to field attacks from a single unit.
- Ruthless Butchery (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Used in your Shooting phase or the Fight phase. Gives a Dreadnought, Terminator, or Veteran unit +1 to hit and if they’re below starting strength, +1 to wound. This is effectively a rewrite of the base Detachment’s Heroes of the Chapter but not having to be below half is a massive buff. Going on Dreadnoughts means that you can activate that wound bonus by taking a Hazardous wound from your Redemptor’s plasma gun, which is kind of neat.
- Cogitated Ferocity (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used in your fight phase to give a dreadnought, terminator, or veteran unit either [SUSTAINED HITS 1] or [LETHAL HITS] on its melee attacks until the end of the phase. Note the timing here – you won’t be able to use this on your opponent’s turn. Otherwise, it’s a solid upgrade on a terminator unit.
- Dominator Beacon (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used in your Movement phase to sticky an objective with a Dreadnought, Terminator, or Veteran unit. Great for your elite force to allow them to move around the table. This also works on Dreadnoughts, and that’s incredibly nifty, given their speed and durability compared to regular Infantry.
- Augmetic Fortitude (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Used in your opponent’s Charge phase, just after they end a charge move on one of your Terminator or Veteran units that’s within engagement range of the charging unit. Until the end of the turn, incoming attacks are -1 damage against your unit. This is a powerful ability – especially on terminators – but the timing makes it very difficult to work with. Keep that timing in mind so you don’t get caught out trying to use it when a unit fights.
- Dropship Extraction (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Terminator only, at the end of your Opponent’s Fight phase you can remove the unit from the table and put it back in reserves. This is a very handy ability to have and makes terminators super dangerous late in the game – it keeps them from being caught out and ensures they remain a threat.
Playing This Detachment
Some aspects of this Detachment are already laid out for you – you want Caanok Var in there, and because of that you’ll want a unit of Terminators with him. Regular Space Marine Terminators aren’t great, but Assault Terminators are okay, especially with the boost from Sustained/Lethal Hits. You’ll also want to include some Dreadnoughts to take advantage of the Stratagems that can be applied to them – Ballistus and Redemptors are solid includes here and can range wide and sticky objectives while still killing anything they can see.
Otherwise, this Detachment also pushes you into other elite units. Terminators aren’t great, but Vanguard Veterans, Sterngard, and Bladeguard Veterans are all very much playable. You’ll need Transports for the latter two, and Repulsor Executioners work just fine for that, and they benefit from your detachment rule just fine and enjoy Caanok Var’s ability to tag a second Oath target. Otherwise there isn’t a ton to recommend here and you’ll likely find the power you get out of this detachment to be less than what you’d get from Gladius or Ironstorm.
The key here is Var – you need to make use of Var’s ability to pick secondary Oath targets, which means having him within line of sight of your second target when the first goes down – and stacking re-rolls to hit, +1 to wound, and re-roll 1s to wound gives you a lot of extra punching power. Running Var solo is a solid option, and using Dropship Extraction to pick him back up and drop him in sight of your second target is a solid play as well. He won’t have Lone Operative, so you’ll need to be cagey and rely on his 2+/4++ save and 5+ feel no pain to keep him alive.
Strengths
- Dreadnought support. You don’t see many Detachments that support Dreadnoughts and having the ability to sticky objectives and improve their output is great.
- Terminators. If you want to run Terminators, this Detachment gives you some solid support for them and Caanok Var is a good leader option to have.
- Versatility. You get some solid options here for your elite units – you have sticky objectives, the ability to go back into reserves, damage output and defensive buffs.
Weaknesses
- Outclassed. Even with the broad buffs to damage output, this one’s still outclassed by Gladius, where it’s just really hard to beat the movement options you get there.
- Terminators aren’t that good. Basic marine Terminators just aren’t great, so a detachment forcing you to build around them suffers as a result.
- Weird timing. Some of these Stratagems – Cogitated Ferocity and Augmetic Fortitude in particular – are really specific on their timing, making them more difficult to play with than you’d like.
A Sample List
We’ll be holding off on putting up a sample list until after the release of the new Assault Terminators Games Workshop have shown off – it’s possible there may be some change to the datasheet when those release, depending on what their wargear loadout looks like, and you’ll likely want to bring a unit with Var to make the most of his abilities.
Final Thoughts
The Hammer of Avernii probably isn’t the Detachment Iron Hands players had in mind when they were looking forward to a new Detachment for their faction. But it is a flavorful option, calling back to the days when Iron Hands could be led by a Terminator and including additional buffs for Dreadnoughts that make them a bit better. It carries the added bonus of not being insanely overpowered and once again turning the chapter into meta bogeymen, and that’s pretty great.
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