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The chimera has six lasguns arrayed on its hull. These six shots are taken from the turret hatch. Having read a few strange tactical discussions about drive by melta guns and things for Imperial guard command squads and platoon squads, do these people mean you don't have to shoot the lasguns but can shoot any weapons the squad is armed with from the hatch? I'd imagin that this is not the case or people would be loading them with lascannons too would they not?

I have not played this way myself but am intrigued as to the drive by term they've used!

You can shoot 5 guns from the chimera. Per the (I think) IG FAQ, they don't have to use the lasgun emplacements. You can most certainly fire melta or even lascannons from it. The lascannons only work if you're not moved of course. You can even buy a dedicated transport for your infantry, round one embark your heavy weapons squad full of lascannons, and then next round fire all three from the chimera.


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As an afterthought, I should mention that you measure range from the hatch between the lasguns, not the gun emplacements themselves, even when just firing lasguns.

Yes, Chimeras have 5 Fire Points now. The lasguns are just modeled. Wish they had done fireing slits on the new model. Oh well another opportunity lost by GW.

If I remember correctly, the models being transported used to fire the lasguns in 4th. However, in 5th the Chimera now has 5 fire points, allowing the models inside to fire the weapons they are equipped with.

If you want fire points better represented on your Chimera, try pulling the lasguns out. It's probably not ideal without some modification, but I think it looks better than the puny little guns that always seemed to be in a bit of dissarray.

Fire points are detailed on p66 of the BRB. The Chimera and it's number of fire points and rules are in the Guard Codex.

Anyone ever actually put those tiny breakable guns on their chimeras anyway? I never used them, as they just break off, even in sable case storage. Way too thin and flimsy.

If you mean the lasguns on the back, then yes; I have four of my five chimeras with them modelled on it. I've never had any problems with them breaking off. The fifth one had them on it, until I popped them out so that I could sit my manticore conversion on top of it.

Edit: Stupid phone got me spoiled on autocaptializing my "I"s

geordie09 wrote:The chimera has six lasguns arrayed on its hull. These six shots are taken from the turret hatch.

As a minor point, the fire point on the Chimera is the large rectangular top hatch, not the turret hatch.

Although how you're supposed to determine LOS from a horizontal surface is anyone's guess. In practice, most players would either draw LOS from just above the corner of the hatch, or from the lasguns.

I simply leave my Chimeras with the holes for the old lasguns as firing ports like the Bradley has that gives me a point to use to check Line of sight. The range is measured from the hull for firing points so that makes it easy range calculations and template determination. Makes it fun when you fire three flamers and a demo template out the back with the heavy flamer off the front and the defensive weapon on top.

Sorry John boy but the new codex specifically mentions the fire point location.

@insaniak: How did that even come up? From what I can think of the model that is a whole 1/2" differance, Do you really play against people where that would make a differance?

Sweet, thank guys... I definately intend to carry out melta drive bys!




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sorry, slow upload!

John Boy wrote: The range is measured from the hull for firing points

Not exactly.

Range for fire points is measured from the fire point. Range from passengers in an open-topped vehicle is measured from anywhere on the hull.

ComputerGeek01 wrote:@insaniak: How did that even come up? From what I can think of the model that is a whole 1/2" differance, Do you really play against people where that would make a differance?

The turret sits higher, which potentially makes a difference to seeing over obstacles. But more importantly drawing LOS from the hatch, the turret actually blocks LOS forwards, whereas drawing LOS from the turret gives you an unobstructed LOS all around.

So yes, it's an important difference, and I would expect an opponent to play it correctly.

John Boy wrote:I simply leave my Chimeras with the holes for the old lasguns as firing ports like the Bradley has that gives me a point to use to check Line of sight. The range is measured from the hull for firing points so that makes it easy range calculations and template determination. Makes it fun when you fire three flamers and a demo template out the back with the heavy flamer off the front and the defensive weapon on top.

Wrong. The Imperial Guard codex specifically states the models must fire from the top hatch (the rectangular door on the top of the chimera).

Is the term "Top Hatch" defined anywhere in any book? I see a hatch on the top of the Chimera's turret, which seems to be the highest, or "Top" hatch.

Sorry, but RAW you can measure from any hatch on "top" of the model. Not that I play that way, but its a legitimate argument.

The hatch on the turret would be the driver's cupola.

Yes, there are two hatches on the top of the chimera. One is over the passenger area and one is over the commander's seat.

I think GW felt it was not necessary to spell out the difference...

em_en_oh_pee wrote:Is the term "Top Hatch" defined anywhere in any book? I see a hatch on the top of the Chimera's turret, which seems to be the highest, or "Top" hatch.

Sorry, but RAW you can measure from any hatch on "top" of the model. Not that I play that way, but its a legitimate argument.

Its where ive always drawn for when firing the lasguns too!

Scott-S6 wrote:The hatch on the turret would be the driver's cupola.

Yes, there are two hatches on the top of the chimera. One is over the passenger area and one is over the commander's seat.

I think GW felt it was not necessary to spell out the difference...

This would be why we have RAW vs. RAI arguments in the first place.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Yes, Chimeras have 5 Fire Points now. The lasguns are just modeled. Wish they had done fireing slits on the new model. Oh well another opportunity lost by GW.

I pulled the lasguns out, so I do have firing slits..............

The turret blocking LOS is a problem I've run into in the past. How do you guys solve that problem? It seems difficult to get the Chimera in a position where the special/heavy weapons in side can see around that turret.

Turn the Chimera Sideways?

use the codex option to replace the multilaser with a heavy flamer and there ya go needs a bit of conversion tho

kill dem stunties wrote:use the codex option to replace the multilaser with a heavy flamer and there ya go needs a bit of conversion tho

...that still leaves a turret that gets in the way.

As Gwar! said, turn sideways.

You are also utterly insane to take anything BUT a Multilazor on the Turret.

And yes, turn them sideways. They call them Drive Bys for a reason!

Ruckdog wrote:The turret blocking LOS is a problem I've run into in the past. How do you guys solve that problem? It seems difficult to get the Chimera in a position where the special/heavy weapons in side can see around that turret.

I know this goes against RAW, but, in theory, a heavy weapon mounted on those nifty little tripods would be able to fire over the turret. I get alot of confused faces when I relate 40k to real life situations, but I can't help but think of some APC varients that allowed soldiers to do this.

With that being said, I think its a fair rule overall. IG players can fire ANY weapon from the hatch, and the lasgun ports have always pointed the the sides anyway.