When I play space marines, I usually play Iron Hands, and so I decided to read the Black Library book Ferrus Manus by David Guymer. I read this as an audiobook while mowing the lawn, so I'll likely misspell most proper nouns that I only heard and cannot find referenced online. This review contains spoilers, so skip this post if you've keen to read the book yourself.
The Iron Hands legion (and founding chapter, in 40k) is the faction of space marines that closely allied itself with the Cult Mechanicum. To their battle brothers, they're seen as apathetic and overly-calculated practitioners of logic. Like the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Iron Hands value and admire the permanence of iron augmetics over flesh and the consistency of machinery. Ferrus Manus isn't from Mars or any forge world, so this is something he's adopted later in life. In a way, I think this book strives to give insight into the development of that mindset, but it's not so ignoble that it shows us the exact moment the Iron Hands adopted the teachings of the Machine God. By the time this story starts, the Iron Hands already associate themselves with the literal machinations of war and the Adeptus Mechanicus. This story is more confirmation bias than origin story.
The Great Crusade is nearing its end, but Horus has not yet been appointed as Warmaster. There are rumours among the Primarchs that the Emperor intends to step back so he can focus on other plans, but nobody knows yet who's to be chosen. Possibly to boost his chances at being appointed, Ferrus Manus takes command of a disastrous campaign that the Ultramarines have been waging against the worlds of the Gardinaal.
This is the Great Crusade, designed to unite all humanity wherever it may have splintered across space. The Gardinaal are not xenos, but an advanced civilisation of humans who have thrived for, probably, several millennia. They've colonised 10 other worlds within their system, they utilise psykers, and they have advanced cybernetics that house the consciousnesses of fallen leaders and warriors.
In a parallel universe, the Gardinaal might have given rise to the Emperor of Man and united the galaxy. But as it stands, it's Terra that produced the Emperor and it's the Empire of Man that seeks to subsume the Gardinaal. They're resistant, to say the least. They're duly impressed by the Adeptus Astartes, and probably by Dreadnoughts and Terminator load-outs, but they have analogous technology. When the representatives of the Imperium tell the Gardinaal of the vastness of the Empire of Man, the Gardinaal don't believe it. After all, they have 11 worlds. They're an empire themselves. Ferrus Manus, as they say in the Horus Heresy books, decides to illuminate.
There's nothing beautiful in the universe of Warhammer, and Ferrus Manus is one of the most rugged of Primarchs. He's described as being harsh of feature, and harsh of disposition. There aren't many scenes with Ferrus Manus, but when we're in the same room as him, he comes across as constantly suppressing a ill-defined fury. I get the feeling that he knows something is wrong with literally everything, but can't put his finger on what. If that's not something we can all relate to, then I don't know what is.
Ferrus Manus's counterpart is Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children. Fulgrim, infamously, also knows that something-is-wrong-with-everything, and actively and loudly seeks "perfection." The definition of perfection, in the context of Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus, is as ill-defined as the problem they want it to solve. They just want things to be right.
Broadly, Fulgrim of course goes in the direction of passion, while Ferrus Manus goes in the direction of logic. It's a sort of blatantly obvious duality that's made way more interesting than it has the right to be once Fulgrim's version of "passion" is mingled with the dark powers of Chaos.
I'm getting ahead of the book now, though.
In this book, Ferrus Manus finds himself in command of a combined force of Iron Hands, Ultramarines, Thousand Sons, and Emperor’s Children. Good luck trying to remember which character belongs to which legion. There are so many characters, as there often are in Black Library books, and no differentiation in titles or honorifics, so it's basically impossible to keep track of anyone's affiliation. Keep good notes if you care.
For all the subtext about the pursuit of perfection and how to wage war, the book is mostly about conquering the surprisingly formidable Gardinaal. The Gardinaal are in it to win, obviously. They don't want to lose sovereignty, they don't want to lose their culture. They didn't ask to be incorporated into the Empire of Man, and so they fight against it, and boy do they fight dirty.
In the universe of Warhammer, Ferrus Manus plays the role of the inevitable logical conclusion of a "good war." The goal of war is to destroy. There's no safe way to know when to stop destroying until there's nothing left to destroy, so Ferrus Manus takes the mandate to conquer Gardinaal Prime to its logical end. Total destruction. "I do not claim worlds, I conquer them," says Ferrus Manus at one point.
The only good war, in the real world and the fictional world of Warhammer, is a wargame. A wargame has scope, rules, objectives, and arbitrary but clearly defined win and lose conditions. War isn't like that, and not coincidentally this book opens with wargames waged between the Iron Hands and a contingency of Emperor's Children. Ferrus Manus, having been bred for war, doesn't know this. What he learns during this book is that he's not a Warmaster, and that instead he is the Primarch who executes an directive by its strictest definition. There are no degrees of completion. A war is complete when it is no longer possible to wage war.
That logic is the foundation of the immortal incantation that the Iron Hands borrow from the Adeptus Mechanicus, "the flesh is weak."
I've read this book several times now, and I have to admit that the cast of characters and disjointed plots and subplots are a little disorienting. There are entire chapters where you forget what the book is even about, because it focuses so strongly on minor characters or subplots. But it works, and it's enjoyable, especially if you're an Iron Hands player.
There was a big war, with lots of different interpretations of how the war ought to be fought. In the end, absolutism was the victor, because that's the purest, and most horrific (if there can be degrees, which indeed is the big question this book poses) form of war.
If you want insight into the Iron Hands, or confirmation that the Primarchs were really bad ideas from the start, this is a good book to read.
Header image by Black Library and used as reference.