Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So Tacobake brought this up on another topic, but I didn't want to high-jack his topic to ask my question, which is; Is taking Chimera's for your command squads so that you can have two extra heavy bolters a good tactic? It's seventy points for two HBs, which doesn't seem bad to me, considering it wouldn't take up a FO slot. What do you think, associates?

A team of Heavy Bolters is 80 points.

So if you want Heavy Bolters you can:

80 points gets 6 guys in cover.
160 for 6.

85 points gets 2 on a Chimera, which can also sit in cover.
170 for 4.

Or you can take three on a Russ for ~170.
170 for 3. Plus the Battle Cannon of course.

Redunancy gets you "more for your points" in 40k. So Chimeras are not that great but when you start taking 10 vehicles you are saving points so to speak. Same philosophy as a massive horde of Guardsmen, provided the guardsmen can actually kill anything.

Chimeras are AV12 on the front they could do a pretty good job of tank shock too if it comes to it.

Hmm, that's not so hot. I don't take HW platoons, so I thought it might be worth it there, but it's still not looking too good. Thanks..

i always found that with IG you need to take a ton of tanks or none. I was thinking of a list with 3 hellhounds, 3 ruses in a squad, if that rumor turns out to be true, a demolisher, a bassie and 2 to 4 chimeras. with that much armor 12 to 14 forming a line and getting a 4 up cover save, there are few armies that i can think of that can handle that. You team that up with some cheap squads for taking objectives and some heavy weapons and you have a pretty vicious shooting army.

specifically, yeah, chimeras are good for stand and shoot pillboxes as they are much more resiliant than the 6 man heavy weapon squads to small and medium weapons. The heavy weapons should be shooting your heavy tanks.

at 55 points for 6 shots they'll be wonderful. Not including whatever awesomeness "armored firebase" is...

Under the 4th edition rules, I made use of 3 Chimeras in my guard army, usually outfitted with turret ML, hull HB, and the pintle stubber.

The stubber is kind of a crap gun, but it gave me a unit capable of laying down 9 shots at 36" while moving.

With 5th edition, that set-up only gets 6 shots on the move, and with the new SM codex, the chimeras seem horribly over-costed. Now, I'm more likely to run a chimera with turret ML or HB, and a hull flamer. I use them to deliver troops to objectives, and the flamer can be very useful in getting entrenched enemies off of an objective.

Chimera get destroyed too easily, get a flank shot, easy to do with a weapon on the other end of your gunline and you have a cheap target for a medium strength gun.

The good news is that Armour 12 is fairly resilient and the opponent will have to use heavy guns on them to avoid wastage, so long as you secure the side facing the middle of the board. Cover for vehicles is also a big help.

However this of more use if you have plenty of other vehicles to draw attention.

Yes, I think Chimera pillboxes can work.

Chimera flanked by Hellhounds is good too.

Until V5 codex comes out, we're really looking at V3 chimera and tank rules here. Chimeras are moderately effective for their cost when everything is positioned hulldown (usually vehiles in terrain or their flanks covered by terrain). You can also position them in a staggered format, depending on terrain, where the ones in front can often get hull down from most shots. In that context they are good. They almost never move however except for an early/late game jump to get an objective or firing position, and offten a late game scoot as you fold away from CC'ers. They die like pancakes on my plate though, so you have to take a bucnh to be effective.

Ok, first it didn't sound good, now it does.

Ask not the dakkaites a question, for they will give you three answers...

Let's hear what H.B.M.C. thinks about this and I'll let it die.

unless i am mistaken, HBMC doesnt even play normal 40K, he plays his own version of the game called 40K revisted or something similar.