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I know its a free swap and has lower AP, but what's the point in 5th edition with all of those cover saves flying around?

Does anyone run chimeras with a turret heavy bolter?

No. Always keep the Multilaser, there's been various topics on this. The higher S of the Multilaser always saves the day. With the mass of transports these days, it's nice to have your own transports that can kill others.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/245939.page#802245
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246750.page#814032

Thanks.

Seems to be pointless entry in the guard book.

Yes it does. As does the Heavy Flamer turret (I mean really?!)
The big question is: what Hull Weapon do you want? In general, IG players who have the chimera sitting back in the gunline give it the HB, for everything else, a HF.

Gavo has this thread covered

to summarize:

everyone else: multilasers are great and blowing up hordes of transports!

me: a turret heavy bolter matches the function of the hull heavy bolter. Multilasers are for people who are bad at math.

that and the rare person who advocates the 2x heavy flamer setup.

Ailaros wrote:to summarize:

everyone else: multilasers are great and blowing up hordes of transports!

me: a turret heavy bolter matches the function of the hull heavy bolter. Multilasers are for people who are bad at math.

that and the rare person who advocates the 2x heavy flamer setup.

To summarize, don't listen to this guy.

Multilaster versus GEQ:
4 shots, 2 hits, 1.667 wounds, 1.11 dead GEQ

Heavy Bolter versus GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 1.25 dead GEQ

So for 0.14 dead GEQ you're giving up the ability to penetrate rhinos... Yeah, that makes sense.

Norade wrote:

Ailaros wrote:to summarize:

everyone else: multilasers are great and blowing up hordes of transports!

me: a turret heavy bolter matches the function of the hull heavy bolter. Multilasers are for people who are bad at math.

that and the rare person who advocates the 2x heavy flamer setup.

To summarize, don't listen to this guy.

Multilaster versus GEQ:
4 shots, 2 hits, 1.667 wounds, 1.11 dead GEQ

Heavy Bolter versus GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 1.25 dead GEQ

So for 0.14 dead GEQ you're giving up the ability to penetrate rhinos... Yeah, that makes sense.

Multilasers are Heavy 3.....

Mistress of minis wrote:Multilasers are Heavy 3.....

Damn either way my point still stands, I'll just need to prove it with more math.

Multilaser vs. GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 0.833 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 1.25 kills

Multilaser vs. MEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wound, 0.417 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. MEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wounds, 0.333 kills

Multilaser vs. TEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 0.208 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. TEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wound, 0.167 kills

Multilaser vs. Rhino:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances, 0.25 pens

Heavy Bolter vs. Rhino:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances

Multilaser vs. Chimera:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances

Heavy Bolter vs. Chimera:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, Nothing!

As we can see the Multilaser is better against anything other than GEQ out of cover.

Also you need to factor in that cover is ubiquitous in 5th, so the effect of AP4 is heavily mitigated

I always show worst case for my own side, in cover against GEQ they're the exact same making the swap even more of a joke.

I don't think the turret Heavy Flamer should be discarded out of hand.



I like a Platoon Command Squad armed with four Flamers in a Chimera to protect my baseline.

A cookie goes to whoever guesses why the turret-Heavy Flamer/hull-Heavy Bolter works well with this unit.

Steelmage99 wrote:I don't think the turret Heavy Flamer should be discarded out of hand.



I like a Platoon Command Squad armed with four Flamers in a Chimera to protect my baseline.

A cookie goes to whoever guesses why the turret-Heavy Flamer/hull-Heavy Bolter works well with this unit.

It's a valid option, better in my opinion that the HB turret. I'd personally hope to crack transports at range than burn them in close, but if you play with screens and burn them as they come out people really aren't going to like that unit.

Ailaros wrote:to summarize:

everyone else: multilasers are great and blowing up hordes of transports!

me: a turret heavy bolter matches the function of the hull heavy bolter. Multilasers are for people who are bad at math.

that and the rare person who advocates the 2x heavy flamer setup.

Man Ailaros, you sure know how to wind up Guard players on this forum....

If you're going to make wild accusation such as 'everyone who picks this weapon is bad at math' at least use some of your own math to back it up.

Another vote for multi-lasers here, the reasons are stated in previous posts.

L. Wrex

Ailaros you seem to show up on every thread about IG tactics and say the opossite of everyone else, if you're so good at them can we have some batreps or at least a list from your genious, as everyone whos dealt with me will tell you im not against learning from those better than me.

Also Multilazor all the way

The dual heavy flamers might not be that bad an idea. Statistically the Multilaser is probably better but the dice gods have abandoned me. If I"m given the option to miss, I do.

I usually run with 6 chimeras, and I think in my last three games I managed to kill two ork boys with my multilasers.

Supporting the multilaser argument here. S6 is just a lot more valuable than AP4 - aside from the cover issue, is killing guardsmen/termagants etc really that difficult? Surely most guard armies have plenty of templates/HFs/loads of lasguns to handle that type of opponent.

Ailaros, I get the impression from your posts that you're a thinking player, but you seem to have a sort of mania for not using multilasers or autocannons against vehicles. Whereas for many other people, it's the most points-efficient way to stop transports, and gives good value for money against infantry and some MC.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:The dual heavy flamers might not be that bad an idea. Statistically the Multilaser is probably better but the dice gods have abandoned me. If I"m given the option to miss, I do.

I usually run with 6 chimeras, and I think in my last three games I managed to kill two ork boys with my multilasers.

Depending on the type of orks I'd say you may be right. Against trukks, buggies, and Koptas I'd say keep the lazers. Kan wall I'd say charge in, fire melta out the top at some kans or a dread and burn the mob with the KFF. Pure horde, flamers would be the obvious choice, but it all depends on how often you play tournies and how much you enjoy tailoring a list. I the end I would likely stick to ML/HB on command tanks, and ML/HF on my advancing tanks, but the dual HF semi-hellhound makes good food for thought.

well, I think turet HF has the advantage of 360 fire arc. Chimera hatch (with fire points) is far away, and you can lose some extra HF hits, if it's flamers pcs transport.

You usually won't be able to use two flamer (I myself barely am able to use one and so take the HB instead,) but if your local metagame requires tons of flamers I can see taking dual flamers. You still usually won't be able to use both but if you get a weapon destroyed you'll still have a flamer

Kubik wrote:well, I think turret HF has the advantage of 360 fire arc. Chimera hatch (with fire points) is far away, and you can lose some extra HF hits, if it's flamers pcs transport.

BINGO!

Cookie for you.

Ludovic wrote:You usually won't be able to use two flamer (I myself barely am able to use one and so take the HB instead,) but if your local metagame requires tons of flamers I can see taking dual flamers. You still usually won't be able to use both but if you get a weapon destroyed you'll still have a flamer

You will never be able to use 2x heavy flamer. It requires your opponent to place himself in front of your hull-mounted weapon.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Kubik wrote:well, I think turret HF has the advantage of 360 fire arc. Chimera hatch (with fire points) is far away, and you can lose some extra HF hits, if it's flamers pcs transport.

BINGO!

Cookie for you.

Why not just convert your chimera to put the hull gun as coax on the turret? Does the chimera entry specify that the second weapon has to be hull mounted? (Forgive me, I don't have the IG codex)

/on-topic, multi-laser all the way. That thing causes my rhinos no end of headaches.

Haha, I can't believe there is now a 3rd thread on this discussion.

Turret heavy flamer does seem to make more sense due to its firing arc. Its something I never considered. My chimeras tend to hang back though so a ML and HB are probably in order.

Kolath wrote:Does the chimera entry specify that the second weapon has to be hull mounted?

Yes it does – "hull mounted heavy bolter".

Kubik wrote:well, I think turet HF has the advantage of 360 fire arc. Chimera hatch (with fire points) is far away, and you can lose some extra HF hits, if it's flamers pcs transport.

Especially fun for SoB

HoverBoy wrote:Ailaros you seem to show up on every thread about IG tactics and say the opossite of everyone else

Yeah, I think it's because of years of groupthink started by people who were around in 3rd ed. Nothing is less willing to change with the times than a committee.

So, the math argument:

Norade wrote:
Multilaser vs. GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 0.833 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. GEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 1.25 kills

Multilaser vs. MEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wound, 0.417 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. MEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wounds, 0.333 kills

Multilaser vs. TEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 0.208 kills

Heavy Bolter vs. TEQ:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 1 wound, 0.167 kills

With the exception of the heavy bolter against light infantry, none of these bouts of heavy weapons fire is reliable killing even a single model a turn. Ergo, these weapons are BAD at these roles. I don't care if multilasers are BETTER at killing marines than are heavy bolters because both of the weapons are BAD against space marines.

This is like making the argument that because cyanide is worse for your health than bleach, drinking a glass of bleach every day is somehow good for your health.

Oh, and Tau aren't T4.

Norade wrote:
Multilaser vs. Rhino:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances, 0.25 pens

Heavy Bolter vs. Rhino:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances

Multilaser vs. Chimera:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.25 glances

Heavy Bolter vs. Chimera:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, Nothing!

These numbers ignore cover. Wasn't the whole point of this conversation that cover is everywhere? While that may not always be true with infantry, the existence of SMF and smoke certainly makes it true for vehicles.

Of course, heavy bolters are bad against vehicles (I never said they were). The question is, are multilasers GOOD against vehicles? Put in cover, you get this:

Multilaser vs. Rhino:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.16 glances, 0.16 pens

This means that you have a .15 of STOPPING a transport in any way. Put it another way, you have got to shoot more than 6 multilasers at a rhino to stop it on any given turn (or you need to shoot a single multilaser for 7 turns, by which don't you think the rhino may have offloaded its cargo?)

Multilaser vs. Chimera:
3 shots, 1.5 hits, 0.16 glances

This causes chimeras to cease movement on a .02. That's right, you need to shoot at a chimera for FIFTY turns in order to reliably stop it from moving, even for a turn.

My position is that you have to be insane or bad at math to think that a multilaser is good against transports because in order to be good against transports, you need to be able to stop them BEFORE they drop their cargo off. Requiring 50 turns of shooting just to temporarily stop a chimera does not meet the roughly 2 turn criteria of stopping them in time.

Multilasers are not good against transports. If you believe this, you have a very curious definition of the word "good".

Norade wrote:As we can see the Multilaser is better against anything other than GEQ out of cover.

See, this is the huge fallacy that everyone seems to be buying into around here. Just because the multilaser is BETTER than the heavy bolter in a variety of roles does not make the multilaser GOOD in any of those roles. Talking about "better" and then ascribing "good" is just plain silly. I mean, a bolter is better against transports than a laspistol. Does this make bolters GOOD against transports? Of course not.

The reason we can judge what's good is by math, not by the relative term of "better". Of course, this argument seems to fall on deaf ears here. Groupthink is always more powerful than logic (cf. bay of pigs invasion).

Ailaros your deeply intellectual responce to my question would have automatically won you the argument if you would have only answered the other half of my post (you know the one that magically disappears in your quote) so i shall ask you again for gameplay related proof either in the form of batreps or army lists with tactical speculation included, also during 3rd ed i was 10 years away from knowing 40k even exists.

I do have a bunch of battle reports (see my sig), however...

Are you saying that you will only be convinced by a bunch of subjective anecdotes? Say I show you one game, is that a big enough sample size to be convincing? What about two? What about a hundred?

What if I told you I could produce an argument based on an INFINITE number of battles played? Something that was truly objective rather than a group of subjective anecdotes with a horribly small sample size.

This objectivity is math. Statistics assume an infinite number of trials, and thus will always be better than a small, finite number of trials. No matter how romantic it is to talk about play testing, it is by far a worse way of talking about dice rolls than is actual math.

Or is there something objective about individual die rolls in individual games that I'm missing here?

Yea its a hobby so i preffer to have fun rather than do statistics, well im off to read your reports and potentially have my mind changed

Edit: i click on you'r sig and the first thing i see is a chimera wit a multylaser