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I played against an interesting list at the local shop. Chimera spam.

2 CCS with 4 meltas in a Chimera, 2 Psyker Battle Squads in Chimeras, rest filled with Platoon Command Squad with 4 Flamer in Chimera and Infantry Squads with Auto cannon and Grenade launcher in Chimera. Ends up with like 15 Chimeras in 1750.

It was an objective game so I couldn't kill all those scoring units to win. I was playing my guard test list CCS with 4 melta, astropath, Psyker battle squad in chimera, inquisiter with 2 mystics 3 x 10 veterans w 3 melta gun, (1 in chimera 2 in valkyrie) 3 valkyrie vendetta, 2 leman russ executioner, 1 demolisher

Immolator spam seems to be a good list for Sisters so why not Chimera spam for Imperial Guard. The sheer number of scoring units in vehicles is tough to kill them all.

Chimera's can get a hull heavy flamer for close up and a turret multi laser for range. However they have av10 sides and can only move 6 and fire the heavy flamer.

Big issue here is you bleed kill points but immolator spam sisters bleeds kill points too.

What you think?

Yes, Chimera spam is powerful. Just make a wall of tanks and roll forward until your adversaries are gone. Your big problem is going to be anti-AV14. I'd recommend meltaguns on at least a few PCS-es, or allied Sisters.

Leman russ spam. Infantry spam. Outflanking fast-moving vendettas. Will outrange most of your chimera armements all-day.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/240776.page

This wasn't exactly CH spam as he had 3 LR too, but about as close to what you're talking about I've played recently.

I wasn't happy.

I have been talking to a friend about chimera spam since we saw the new IG book. To be honest, chimera spam is what I think will change 40k. 15 chimeras is alot to kill, very difficult to do it while taking their return fire. What scares me, is that if someone built a list around the idea of pure chimera spam, you could take about 30 in an 2000 game. Now 30 chimeras puts out disgusting amount of fire power and is almost impossible to kill in even a 7 turn game. You could fill your deployment zone solid with chimeras and really ruin your opponents day.

I have seriously considered chim spam, its one of those armies that will get hammered by some armies, but will be almost unstoppable to most standard lists.

Traffic jams will be a big problem though with that many models on the table.

bigtmac68 wrote:I have seriously considered chim spam, its one of those armies that will get hammered by some armies, but will be almost unstoppable to most standard lists.

Traffic jams will be a big problem though with that many models on the table.

That is the biggest problem I have run into while trying this. Granted, it helps protect your side armor but getting everything situated is a pain.

Indeed, Chimera spam could work. I played in a multi-battle at GW last weekend against such an army.
One third of the missions are kill point games. Last year, in the GT final, we played one of 5 games as kill point mission.

Chimera spam has the potential to really change the game. Many lists simply do not have enough anti tank to deal w/ all those tanks. However, since they have side AV10, it may make outflank/DS more important to counter.

Assault armies with outflanking genestealers or snikkrot or (Oh yeah, Nob bikers) will multicharge this list like crazy.

It should be fun to see the a shift in "solutions" to this "problem". This game needed a light tank horde.

I probably won't play it, but I'd like to see it.

The ammount of tankshocks this army could put out would own nob bikers.
Eventually your gonna fail that check

In an army like this that kind of multi charge is much less of a threat. So Snikrot charges two or three chimeras, hell even for, even if he kills them all... who cares. I got 12 more and ol' snikey is now staring down the barrells of 60 to 120 lasgun shots, flamers and more.

The key vulnerabilities will be to outflanking shooting, mobile shooting, massed railgun or hydra fire, things along those lines .

Nob Bikers should not be a problem due to the presence of two PBS in the army, but Mech Battlewagon Orks with Koptaz should do fine.

I would not run pure chim spam, but chim hull spam could be interesting.

Say,

2 Melta CCS in chim
4 Melta Vets in chim
2 banwolves
2 devil dogs
2 hydras
2 hydras
2 hydras

16 av 12 hulls, 20 meltaguns, 2 chem cannons, 4 multi meltas, 12 TL Hydra Autocannons at 1850

Thats one hell of an SAFH and all of it in an armor shell. And works out to 17 kill points total which is not good but not that bad for a Mech list.

<Insert obligatory whine about how every option seems better than my 400 painted guardsmen>

bigtmac68 wrote:In an army like this that kind of multi charge is much less of a threat. So Snikrot charges two or three chimeras, hell even for, even if he kills them all... who cares. I got 12 more and ol' snikey is now staring down the barrells of 60 to 120 lasgun shots, flamers and more.

The key vulnerabilities will be to outflanking shooting, mobile shooting, massed railgun or hydra fire, things along those lines .

Nob Bikers should not be a problem due to the presence of two PBS in the army, but Mech Battlewagon Orks with Koptaz should do fine.

I would not run pure chim spam, but chim hull spam could be interesting.

Say,

2 Melta CCS in chim
4 Melta Vets in chim
2 banwolves
2 devil dogs
2 hydras
2 hydras
2 hydras

16 av 12 hulls, 20 meltaguns, 2 chem cannons, 4 multi meltas, 12 TL Hydra Autocannons at 1850

Thats one hell of an SAFH and all of it in an armor shell. And works out to 17 kill points total which is not good but not that bad for a Mech list.

I played quiete some games with this kind of army since the codex leak. But instead of Banewolfs I used Vendettas. The problem for me were MEQ. So now I dropped a few AV 12 hulls for Plasma and Executioner and that works quiete well. Either win or close draw.The only time I got tabled was agaisnt another guard army with Greynight Termis in Valkyres and bad luck.

But pure Chimera spam im not so sure, since you will have youre whole army in assault range on turn 2 and due to destroyed chimeras worthwhile targets for all classes of enemy weapons. Or you leave some behind but they are a waste then. 3 S6 shots for 155 points. Thats 2 Hydras or a Leman Russ.

Alot of marine players simply forget that their squads come with crack grenades so assaulting that is very viable especially since they will need to get in close.

Gotta watch out for those "crack" grenades - silent butt deadly . . . .

Chimera spam will not win by itself, the list will need some sort of support from different vehicles or infantry. Chimeltas will have a hard time against a simple 10 man tactical squad. A tact squad is capable of taking down the chimera and the squad inside. They can meltagun the side av 10, then charge the cargo. Chimelta spam wont work because you have to get upclose, and when that happens it is easy to take advantage of the side av of 10 or charge. The next major problem is that the cargo inside dies quickly. Chimera spam may be scary to us guard players but marines will gladly fight us in the midrange game.

That's what makes PBS supporting units so scary -- they make Chimera spam ridiculously nasty.

"Oh, what's that? I only killed a few models in that squad? Well, that's no problem, 'cause ya see here I'm making them Ld2 for the rest of the turn. Bye now!"

Back up the Chimeras and PBS units with a couple Devildogs or Vendettas, and you're looking at a list that can react to enemy armor very easily, can shut down anything that has to close with their opponent to do damage (AKA every non-fearless assault army out there), and all the while maintain a resilient, uniform level of strength that simply cannot be overcome by any normal amount of firepower.

CK

That's what makes PBS supporting units so scary -- they make Chimera spam ridiculously nasty.

"Oh, what's that? I only killed a few models in that squad? Well, that's no problem, 'cause ya see here I'm making them Ld2 for the rest of the turn. Bye now!"

Back up the Chimeras and PBS units with a couple Devildogs or Vendettas, and you're looking at a list that can react to enemy armor very easily, can shut down anything that has to close with their opponent to do damage (AKA every non-fearless assault army out there), and all the while maintain a resilient, uniform level of strength that simply cannot be overcome by any normal amount of firepower.

CK

Its true...if its supported well, you cannot effectively advance on chimera spam. I've tried, and will continue to try in the future, but its not looking good.

Some armies will laugh at the spam if not done correctly. Nob Bikers, for example, can spread out enough to effective attach as many tanks as they have models in the squad, with a fair chance of doing damage. Seer councils, (on bikes too!) are another good candidate that could make a devastating mech-multi-charge.

Units like Fire Dragons that come with melta bombs standard will have something else to do besides shoot.

Space Marines of all flavors now have Krak Grenades, and if they are Chaos Cult troops, they will be fearless as well and laugh at your tank shock.

All of the above will be equally terrible in a KP mission.

The real question is what is the perfect number of tanks/apc's that put out enough fire power to neutralize the enemy without having you vulnerable to bleeding KP's.

Whitedragon, none of those things matter if you're fielding two full-size PBS units in Chimeras. Everything that isn't Fearless becomes Ld2, and everything that is gets tagged by an AP D6 Earthshaker cannon.

That's what makes Chimera spam so nasty when coupled with PBS units.

CK

It should also be born in mind that cracking 2-3 chimeras isn't super easy, even with Melta bombs. Assuming they moved 6" you will need a 4+ to hit, and then a 2/3+ to glance/pen, and then a 5 or 6 to kill. That adds up to a lot of melta bombs needed to kill more than one chimmy for certain.
Nob claws help a little more, having more attacks, but 4+, 2+ (on one die) to pen and then 5+ to kill still requires ~14.5 attacks to kill 2 chimeras with average certainty. My math might be a little off, but with ideal results distribution (ie. you don't get 10 destroyed results on one tank) and 2 x 10 Bikers+Warboss units using only power klaws, you are looking at 12.7 chimera kills on average. That is a fair amount at first glance, but considering that usually biker nobz have big choppas and the like mixed in and you are not likely to get exactly one wrecked/destroyed result on each chimera, that isn't too exciting.

Even then, you still have to deal with the sqad inside poping out to hose you down next turn with various weapons fire.
Personally, I am excited to see how the Chimera spam armies work out. A light vehicle horde will be really neat to see, even if the answer is "more lootas".

Edit: Forgot melee attacks hit rear armor.

It breaks the game at 1500 ; higher you have some choices to deal with it but against a good guard player you wont do much as he will just frogjump his chimeras w/ smoke if he goes second then he can actually w/ Astropaths have a 2+ to roll onto the field and pop smoke.

First 6 move up give cover to back six while they pop smoke. Now you have to kill six vehicles with a 4+ invulnerable.


Its just borkem.


Add in Vendettas Outranging your troops with Lascannons etc.. you have something that is horrible to face. Then you got Veterans w/ Demo Charges and melta guns ; if the demo charge doesnt cover have it wont break the tank on a Chimera as it will be STR5 vs 12.


Edit:

3 Psyker squads in Chimeras are 160 points apiece. Not only does it give you template it gives you leader ship.

A base unit of Troops with Chimera is 110

CCS is the Same.

In 1500 you could have

2 CCS in Chimera

3 Pskyer

8 Troops

Recklessfable wrote:<Insert obligatory whine about how every option seems better than my 400 painted guardsmen>

Haha. Not laughing at you... laughing with you. As I have 200 of that same problem. It's looking to me like planetstrike might be our savior. PCS and CCS set up in bastions behind 30 man stubborn infantry squads with 3+ cover saves would be a difficult wall of meat to get around.

Back to the topic.

I don't think 15 chimeras would be significantly better than 4-7 chimeras and points spent on longer range killers. Someone earlier in the thread touched on the deployment problem. Traffic jam central, and denied flank takes a LOT of your passenger shooting out of the mix. 22 strength 6 hits aren't going to do much to most resilient armies, and fast vehicle movement blocking from piranhas and speeders will log jam the army really quick. (I can elaborate on that if need be)

I think IG can and should use fast vehicles (either the 'V' series or the dogs) to get around either significantly wide deployments that get refused flank against, or stacked vehicle deployments that get move-blocked by shooty armies.

edit to add... think of 15 chimeras like 180 boys. It was an idea that a lot of people threw out as a spam overloader, but spamming relatively short ranged things (not multi-lasers, but the riders of chimeras) to an extreme will have you stepping all over yourself while you try to come to grips with an enemy that is only engaging you on a limited front.

Corpsman_of_Krieg wrote:Whitedragon, none of those things matter if you're fielding two full-size PBS units in Chimeras. Everything that isn't Fearless becomes Ld2, and everything that is gets tagged by an AP D6 Earthshaker cannon.

That's what makes Chimera spam so nasty when coupled with PBS units.

CK

Umm, you are wrong there.

First off, good luck getting much off with PBS against the Eldar that he mentioned. Testing on 3d6 is not fun for LD9...especially when the average role is 10.5, and you face perils (thus losing d3 psykers) everytime you role a 12 or higher.

Second, he did mention fearless units...again, PBS can't make them run.

Third, he mentioned SMs. Almost all good tourney builds now run a Libby, mostly because of the prevelance of Lash, but now to nerf PBS as well.

The only unit that White mentioned that PBS are actually good against is Nob bikers.

Alerian, thanks for posting, because I was wondering if anybody really understood what I posted.

I agree that it's a little iffy on the Nob Bikers, but with powerklaws and big choppas, a unit of Nob Bikers could easily multi-charge 7-11 chimeras and destroy a good number of them. Couple that with lootaz to neutralize the transports first, and you could be multi-charging their whole army.

As Shep pointed out, 15 Chimeras will have a really hard time downing even a single biker with just multi-lasers, so how are you even going to get them to take a morale check, Weaken Resolve not withstanding.

@Alerian
Let me clarify. My previous comment was specifically with regard to Nob Bikers only. Now, to your comments:

First, unless the Eldar Codex says something to change this, Perils of the Warp occurs only when you roll double 1s or double 6s, making 3D6 only useful for stopping powers from being used, in which case the rest of the army shoots the unit(s) that are preventing you from using the 110 point units of PBS. Either way, no significant loss to the Guard when fighting Eldar (who pay about 2-3 times as much for their Serpents/Falcons + upgrades and goodies as Guard do for their Chimeras), as the horde of Chimeras and abundance of mid-strength firepower plays well without the PBS units.

Second, any army with a proclivity of Fearless units is instead going to be hammered by Soulstorm blasts all game. Just as devastating as Weaken Resolve, especially when half the shots will simply ignore Power Armor.

Third, whitedragon mentioned Space Marine Krak Grenades, not Librarians. You really want to get close to half-a-dozen Heavy Flamers? Be my guest. With regard to Librarians, you're dealing with a single W2 model that only has a slightly better than 50% chance at stopping a PBS unit. With two squads, you're likely to get one through, at which point you weaken resolve the Librarian's unit and then pop enough Marines to back them off. If they're close enough, you can run a Hellhound variant or Chimera down the board alongside them to escort them off the board.

You're not thinking synergistically, Alerian. No single piece of the Guard Codex made of win on its own, but when you combine the parts (PBS + Chimera Spam + Devildogs/Vendettas) you have a truly nasty force that can deal with all of the threats you mentioned.

@whitedragon:
If the Guard player is smart, he'll be screening 2 other Chimeras with every 1 that's on the frontline. I fielded an 1850 test list last week that consisted of a conservative 10 Chimeras and 2 Leman Russes that was only 4 Chimeras wide. The Guard opponent would have to be slowed in order to let you multi-charge 7-11 Chimeras. Seriously? Sorry, not happening. And the assaulting multiple disembarked squads? Again, if the Guard player has any brains, he'll obscure the lighter armor with either AV14 Russes or will cycle Chimeras in order to keep 4+ smoke in the front, requiring you to double your concentration of fire to maintain the same level of effectiveness.

If the Nob opponent is willing to get close with his Bikers (likely situation, since they're supposed to be aggressive), they'll get burninated by an asston of Hull Heavy Flamers and embarked Melta weapons (The Multilasers will just make the job easier by putting on a couple distributed wounds, letting the HFs and Meltas do the rest). The list I field has the ability to bring to bear 6 Heavy Flamers and 16 Meltaguns (8 at BS4 with "Fire on my Target!") to any target within 16" of any of my tanks thanks to shotgun envelopment -- sorry, but those Nob Bikers will simply not withstand that kind of firepower.

That, and the redundancy of two PBS units allows one to Weaken Resolve and the other to shoot them with a Str9 Large Blast. Synergistic choices such as the Leman Russ Eradicator also shuts down Nob Bikers, ignoring Cover Saves they may have otherwise relied on.

If you want to get really nasty, the Guard player could drop in Sly with a Demo charge, or Weaken Resolve the unit and then hit them with a Neural Shredder from a Callidus. I forsee that being a possible combo simply because it is effective against everything with a Leadership value, since the Neural Shredder doesn't care if you're fearless or not. Ld2 Fearless is still Ld2, which is Instant Death for those Nob Bikers! That 5+ Invulnerable Save won't save you now!

Overall, Chimera Spam by itself is not that scary, aside from the fact that it can be annoyingly hard to kill. Coupled with PBS units (a required selection, IMHO) in Chimeras, Devildogs or Medusas (with Bastione Breacher Rounds) or Vendettas, and quad-melta CCS units in Chimeras, however, and suddenly the Mechanized tank-horde becomes a heck of a lot more menacing.

CK

@ Corpsman
The lists in this thread have talked about running two PBS units in chimeras, that would make it at least 330 points of the army that a farseer (150ish points) is taking out of the game. And shooting the farseer isnt going to be terribly easy, since most eldar lists already protect their farseer. Rendering 330 points ineffective goes a long way to countering the cost of the eldar armor (which tends to cost a bit less than the russes do per unit).

For the chimera spam army the most important part of the game is likely going to be determining who gets the first turn. Traffic jams are going to be a problem under good circumstances, with a few key chimera stunned/ immobilized/ destroyed movement is going to be a nightmare. Fifteen to twenty tanks sounds like an unstoppable wave, until one realizes that choke points and battle damage will channel this force into a few waves. 10 chimeras and 2 russes in a 4 wide deployment works fine if you have the first move so that you can smoke. That same pattern if you go second is going to have serious problems. Now if you can play on boards that are very low on terrain all the time you may be able to avoid this, but dont count on it.

Granted the fast attack and heavy support options mentioned would help relieve some problems.... but once Devildogs/ Vendettas/ Russes start getting added in large numbers the list really isnt about chimeras any longer.


Some armies will have a great deal of trouble dealing with a horde of light tanks and a couple PBS units, but other armies will only have to change their deployments a bit. Might make some shooty armies a bit more popular again.


Sliggoth

Corpsman_of_Krieg wrote:
First, unless the Eldar Codex says something to change this, Perils of the Warp occurs only when you roll double 1s or double 6s, making 3D6 only useful for stopping powers from being used

The Eldar codex entry for the wargear Runes of Warding states that any roll on 3D6 of 12 or higher will cause a perils of the warp check.

Your other comments aren't really useful unless we talk about what lists we are taking exactly. If you are taking 15 Chimeras, you have very little points for much else. Even if a squad wrecked 5 or 6 of your chimeras and then was torched by meltas and heavy flamers, you just traded 5-6 KP for 1. Also don't forget how many of those squads shooting back may be pinned or falling back from 25% casaulties, as I believe now in 5th edition a morale check can be made in any phase not just the shooting phase.

As for space marines, I forgot to mention 2x 10 Thundershield Termies and Shrike, who will gladly laugh at all the return fire after they multi-trash several chimeras. You made a blanket statement about tac marines with Krak Grenades and 2W Librarians. Uhm, ALL space marines (with the exception of Templars and Thousand Sons) have all the grenades they could want now, so it could be a Chaos Cult army, a Blood Angels army, an Ultramarines army, or anything else. If they have a Dark Angels Librarian, they get a super psychic hood at LD10, and if they are chaos cult, they don't care about PBS because they are fearless, which you seem to be forgetting. Also, I'd trade a tac squad with grenades and a sergeant powerfist any day for 3-6 Chimeras in a KP game. Vindicators could be bad news too because of the big template and Ordnance. You might be able to even hit 3 tightly packed Chimeras in the side or rear with a decent Vindi shot, and even if it's half strenght, it's S5 + 2D6 and pick the highest. That doesn't hurt either.

Now if you are talking 6-7 Chimeras (2 for PBS, 3 for troops, 1-2 for whatever else) and then some other guard firepower, then you may have found the magic combo in SOME circumstances. Taking 15 Chimeras though seems to be a recipe for disaster against the more hardcore lists, and even a spamming list isn't an autowin.

@ Sliggoth,
You have some good points.
About the farseer and the PBS. Yes, he could shut down their psychic powers, but those chimeras they are do not stop working. So you are right that the farseer can cancel them out, but its not quite 330 points. those 55 point chimeras can still fire all day long, even if the PBS inside have too much of a headache to do anything.

Also, while early wrecked or immobilized results could be a problem, dont forget that these wrecked tanks will also serve as a screen for the tanks behind and make them more resilient. Also, if you are planning to sit and shoot, what problems does a blob of tanks have? Their guns can see over each other and still lay down quite alot of fire at range.
You claim that some armies will only have to switch up deployment a bit to counter chimera spam lists. While I agree in a sense, that Chimera spam lists are not unbeatable, could you elaborate on this? I am not quite sure what you mean here.