Abilities:

Armor:1

Negates some melee damage. Hard to kill and strike back with 4 dices!

Automaton:

For one lore you get a ( badly needed) second movement and the ability to chose them regardless of the area. A Special ability that may be really usefull in the right situation

My opinion:

Ironboud have the best attack of all Daqan Non-Legend-Units. They have also a defense boost against melee. Your enemy will try to kill them with range or he has to calculate hard losses killing them. Ironbounds have problems if you lack of lore, because they really need the second movement. The main problem of this nice unit was in my experience, that they compete in the defensiv spot with Golems and I didn't use them (mainly cause of the movement) for the offense. And Golem's are my unit of choice to guard hexes, thanks to immovable. So I didn't use them so often.

As discussed in another thread, with Daqan one of my main strategies is to attack with all my power an enemy VP. If I do, often I deploy not even one unit on one hole section of the battlefield, trying to get an advantage on the rest of the board. The enemy also deploys "lost" units on the abandonned part which won't have any board Impact. As more games I played with Daqan, I come to the conclusion that this is one of the most effective playstyle for Daqan (if you don't do it every time)! And here, Ironbound are the solution of the biggest weakness of this strategy: They can be activated also with comand-Cards of your empty side of the battlefield! Finally I found the spot I want them to play and they do good work as far!

That's a really good thought! I hadn't considered intentionally leaving one section empty.

Have you figured out when this might backfire? For example, there is the Uthuk scenario where they gain VP for every pair of hill and forest hex they occupy. If you leave one side unmolested, they are still getting quite a few victory points, even though you'll tear up their other sections.

One English quibble: "hardly needed" is the opposite of "sorely needed" or "badly needed." When you say "hardly needed," it means it isn't really needed at all. Saying "badly needed" or "sorely needed" indicates that the Ironbound really need that extra movement from spending a lore.

For a long time Ironbounds have been one of those troops that I almost never deployed for the same reason as yours: I didn't know exactly in what aspect of the game they could really shine and why I should choose them over something else. But lately I've been experimenting a little and I'm slowly growing fond of this unit. I think the main problem here is actually the comparison with the Rune Golems itself, even if I know that it's kinda hard not to compare them. They are both elite and they both seem to lean towards the defense. It appears that they would have the same purpose on the battlefield, but at the same time it seems also that Rune Golems might do a better job because of Immovable. This is especially true if you need to defend a building, which already grants you some decent protection against damages.

Lately though I realized that the Ironbounds are actually one of the most balanced troops in the whole game and that this comparison actually is not so fair. On one hand it's true that they have an ability that can easily spare them a few hits (and bear in mind that it also works against ranged units + Desperate Deploy or Fury of Y'llan), but at the same time they they roll 4 dice when they attack, which is a really good attack value, and they can turn a bad draw from the Command Deck into a good one. This means that they are good at attacking, at defending and also at giving support. I don't see any other non-legend unit being as good as them at everything.

They can be activated also with comand-Cards of your empty side of the battlefield!

I've never thought of doing that! It sounds though like a very interesting option, that can come really in handy in some scenarios. I would like to give it a try soon

@ Budger:

tnx for the quibble, I speak 5 languages but english is my worst one

> I wrote a bit concerning this strategy in this thread: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/225640-unbalanced-scenarios-on-purpose/

I think it does a very good job particularly when your scenario has only1 fix VP and your enemy has 1 fix VP on the same side. To capture and control one of his VP is equal to victory. You concentrate massive on one side and the middle section, and you will have a lot more power there. Also your enemy will lose a lot of points for useless units that may play cards or look for mushrooms the hole game. I won quite a lot of games playing one-sided, but my buddies now know that I might deploy like this and it has lost the surprise effect, but stays still effectiv. Our games meta changed when I started this strategy: before we were deploying quite adjusted over the hole battlefield. Nowadays, there is ever a main concentration for the VP-hotspots...

I don't think it's a big problem if the enemy has a scenario like the one with forests and hills. On one side there will not be so much of them and more important: we will need all effort and activations to prevent being stomped on the rest of the battlefield...

I also played one-sided with Uthuk, deploying an army with both legends and it's tough for your enemy to handle so much power on very few space. But with Uthuk, you have no chance to compensate bad command Cards... so with Ironbound (and with the Riverwatch that may even attack a bad protected enemy command tent on the abandonned side of the battlefield, movement 4 is just insane), Daqan seems to be the best fraction to do this.

@Alas

You're right that IB aren't an explicit defensiv unit, they are one of the best attackers at the same time. The offense issue is particularly the limitated movement (if no lore). But yes, they do a real good Job once they are in a melee battle