Alongside the new White Scars character, today also marks the preorder of another brand new Space Marine character, only this time it’s for the Iron Hands chapter!

Caanok Var is an Iron Captain within the Iron Hands, and is suited up in Terminator Armour.

Caanok Var is up for preorder right now. Our thanks to Games Workshop for sending him over for us to unbox and paint. You can save some cash vs RRP by preordering through our affiliates over at Element Games. You’ll be helping us out at the same time!

Let’s get him unboxed!

Unboxing Video

Want to see the Iron Captain unboxed? Check out the video below!

The Sprues

Want to take a closer look at his sprue? Well, we have you covered!

Assembly and Painting

First and foremost, you’ll notice I have a Servo-Skull missing from my mini. I’m not sure if I’ve assembled his right arm slightly incorrectly, but I struggling to connect where the Servo-Skull should glue on his arm. After trying to position it for a fair while, I decided to leave him off. The second Servo-Skull with the hologram was much easier to glue on, and has a couple of connection points.

The rest of the model was really straightforward.

My plan was to paint him in the colours of the Iron Ravens, to go with my other Marines, however I got carried away when assembling and glued on the Iron Hands shoulder pad. Still, I pressed on and painted him as an Iron Raven, so he won’t look out of place if I decide to run them as Iron Hands.

Speaking of which, alongside the new mini, GW have released a new Detachment, perfect for representing the Iron Hands on the tabletop, which we’ll get to shortly.

Caanok Var | Datasheet

As mentioned at the top of the post, Caanok wears Terminator armour, and as such has a 2+ save, with 4+ invulnerable save and is movement 5″. He also comes with a 5+ Feel No Pain (representing the fact he’s barely human).

He has two cool abilities on his datasheet:

• Cold and Calculating: Gives himself and his unit Lethal Hits against Monsters and Vehicles, or if fighting anything other than Monsters or Vehicles then instead he gives them Sustained Hits (1).
• Cerebrex Logic Engine: He allows one of your Infantry units to gain Scout 6″ during deployment, and allows for a cheeky redeploy of one unit after both players have set up for the game.

He comes equipped with a humble Storm Bolter as well as Axiom, of which has a Strike and Sweep profile. The former grants him A5, WS 2+, S8, AP -2 and D2.

His sweep profile is A10, WS 2+, S5, AP -2 D1.

Being a Terminator, he can only lead either Terminators or Terminator Assault squads.

Detachment | Hammer of Avernii

As is the norm with these new Space Marine heroes, GW have released a detachment alongside the new minis to further help represent the Chapter of which the character is from.

Hammer of Avernii is the name of the Iron Hands detachment, and it’s one I 100% want to run.

Firstly, it comes with not one, but two detachment rules:

• Calculated Annihilation: When shooting your Oath of Moment target you gain reroll 1s to Wound
• Recalculating: This is very cool. So long as Caanok is on the battlefield, once you destroy your Oath target, you immediately get to choose a new one.

The Enhancements are pretty tasty too:

• Spiritus Ferrum: Gives the bearer +1 Attacks, and once per battle can also give all the models in the unit +1 Attacks too.
• Medusan Roar (Aura): If a unit within 6″ of the bearer fails a Battle-Shock test, then one model from said enemy unit is destroyed (importantly, said killed model is chosen by your opponent). This also comes with a once per game bonus of making D3 models die instead of just 1.
• Iron Laurel: +1 to OC on the bearer, or once per game you can give the bearer’s unit +1 OC
• Steel Font: In your Command Phase, bring back a Bodyguard model. Erm, yes please if said unit is Terminators!

The stratagems lean into the Iron Hands way of war. Ruthless Butchery, for example, is usable on Dreads, Terminators and Veterans, granting +1 to hit. Should the enemy unit be below Starting Strength, then you get +1 to Wound.

Dropship Extraction allows you to remove a unit of Terminators from the battlefield at the end of your opponent’s fight phase, and place said unit into Strategic Reserves (cannot be in engagement range of an enemy model though).

Dominator Beacon basically is a 1CP strat that gives Dreads, Veterans, Bladeguard and Terminators sticky objective.

A solid all rounder of a detachment if you like using Terminators, Veterans and Dreads.