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Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

They aren't that easy to destroy if you would just do the math.

S8 BS4 (marines, DE and similar) 66 percent to hit, of that 33 percent to pen, and 33 percent of that to destroy. Now destroy isn't the only goal and all that, but that is some pretty low margins you are looking at per shot. Sure they can get side shots then it looks a bit better. .66 x .66 x .33 Yeah, even AV 10 is not auto dead.

Chimeras are resilient for their points, give out a good volume of supplemental firepower, and provide a relatively safe mode of transport for squads to ride around in.

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.

Incorrect sir. STR 6 is actually quite reasonable vs AV 11. As you get 3 shots its nothing to sneeze at.

Joey wrote:I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy.

These are not flying sailboats of the DE. AV 12 is actually pretty tough to crack.

Here is the real key. The Chimera is a transport. A rhino would give its left tread to have AV 12 and decent weapons. A wave serpent is better sure, but it also costs over twice as much.
Ask any player in the game, and if they can swap their vehicles for a chimera, they would. Chimeras are just that good..

labmouse42 wrote:A wave serpent is better sure, but it also costs over twice as much.

Bare minimum is actually just under twice as much.

Continue

Chimeras have Front Armour 12, you can fire 5 weapons from the hatch(including Meltaguns, Plasma guns, Lascannons, etc.) and they have options for Hunter-Killer Missiles, Camo-Netting, a Heavy Stubber, and you can replace the Multi-Las with a second Heavy Bolter. A Chimera is a Chimera. That is why.

I have to echo everyone else, Chimeras are fantastic for their points. The trick is to always keep that AV12 facing the enemy, which you can do either with clever maneuvering or by having several riding abreast. The Multilaser is not that great against vehicles, it's true, but it's good at anti-infantry and CAN be used against AV10/11 in a pinch if you need it. The hull heavy flamer is where it really shines though. As a free replacement for a heavy bolter, it's incredibly valuable in dealing with hordes or forcing saves on marines and the like.

I will agree that it normally takes a toll on the guys inside when it explodes, but it's still a very useful investment.

notabot187 wrote:

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

They aren't that easy to destroy if you would just do the math.

S8 BS4 (marines, DE and similar) 66 percent to hit, of that 33 percent to pen, and 33 percent of that to destroy. Now destroy isn't the only goal and all that, but that is some pretty low margins you are looking at per shot. Sure they can get side shots then it looks a bit better. .66 x .66 x .33 Yeah, even AV 10 is not auto dead.

Chimeras are resilient for their points, give out a good volume of supplemental firepower, and provide a relatively safe mode of transport for squads to ride around in.

Twin-linked BS4 almost always hit, and there's two of them. So that's a 0.66 chance of a glance or penetrate.

Right, chimeras are tied for the best front armor of a spammable transport in the game (well, unless you want land raider spam...). AV12 isn't great, but it ignores anything weaker than a missile launcher or a melta gun, and given the VAST quantity of AV12 you can take, it's very possible to overwhelm your opponent's ability to handle that armor type.

As such, chimeras are good like the reason foot guard is good - it's not that you necessarily have problems taking out one of them, it's that you have problems taking out ALL OF THEM. That HS and FA choices also come on this chassis (or equivalent) only makes this spamming easier.

Otherwise, your complaints are about transports in general, which I'd more or less agree with. Transports add very little on their own, both in speed and in firepower, and even in durability of the guys inside. It's the reason transports are so friggin cheap. If they were actually worth taking on their own merits, they would be much more expensive. Look at the pricing of falcons and land raiders to see what I'm talking about.

Of course, transports can certainly be made to work. When a list is built properly, their minor drawbacks can be mitigated and their minor improvements capitalized on.

I love my Chimera's personally, I always have between four and six in my average list up to 1500pts. Above that, even more...even when they are burning wrecks they are still great for cover and blocking off access to large parts of your army when played well. I managed to trap a landraider between two buildings for the whole game with two dead chimeras!

Joey wrote:

notabot187 wrote:

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

They aren't that easy to destroy if you would just do the math.

S8 BS4 (marines, DE and similar) 66 percent to hit, of that 33 percent to pen, and 33 percent of that to destroy. Now destroy isn't the only goal and all that, but that is some pretty low margins you are looking at per shot. Sure they can get side shots then it looks a bit better. .66 x .66 x .33 Yeah, even AV 10 is not auto dead.

Chimeras are resilient for their points, give out a good volume of supplemental firepower, and provide a relatively safe mode of transport for squads to ride around in.

Twin-linked BS4 almost always hit, and there's two of them. So that's a 0.66 chance of a glance or penetrate.

What they heck are you talking about twin linked? Marines don't get TL S8, and neither do DE. Only GKs get that, and thats only because its their only long range anti tank platform. Then they get 4 shots each, and can take up to 6 of them. Yest they pay dearly both in slots and points to do this (so you never really see it).

Oh, and those guys inside you seem to be so worried about? 5 points or a bit more you go vets... Not a big deal if some guys die, its not like you are playing marines or eldar where every loss hurts.

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

What else are you going to take? It is the one thing that is durable and gets troops across the board and next to targets. Sure, you can take a valk but at twice the points ( i know, not exactly twice but close enough). Is there a wrong way to outift a chimera, not realy. No one realy wins with the multi laser, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer. The fact that you get a rather safe transport is what helps out. The best part of the deal is 5 weapons firing out of the hatch. In my normal army it looks like this:

1. Plama vets: Plasma gun x3/Plasma pistol/Plasma pistol (lord commissar)
2. 5 Ogryns shooting 5 ripper guns, 15 strength 5 shots
3. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)
4. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)

With that said, option one, gets you close to termies to take them out. True, they assault the chimera and it is gone. Option 2, removes troops holding objectives. Option 3/4, takes out those pesky dreadnaughts (or similar things), vehicles, and other problems.

The chimera is not the race horse of the IG, however, it is the work horse.

You ever play chess? You know how pawns--which are individually not long-ranged--work together to make a "pawn structure" that controls and interdicts your opponent's movement? Then the longer-range pieces do the killing from behind and around the pawn lines?

That's how a chimera wall works with its fire support. The chimeras make a wall, and the overlapping fire fields of of heavy flamers and meltaguns creates a kill zone near the chimeras where nobody wants to go. The chimera hulls provide cover and screening for the more efficient firepower tanks behind them that fire over and between.

The multilaser is incidental--good for gunning down speeders and laying mass fire onto weakened units of enemy infantry. The loss of one chimera in a wall of 6-8 is minor. The destruction of that chimera saved a more important tank behind it.

Flavius Infernus wrote:You ever play chess? You know how pawns--which are individually not long-ranged--work together to make a "pawn structure" that controls and interdicts your opponent's movement? Then the longer-range pieces do the killing from behind and around the pawn lines?

+1 for chess analogy.

I think he was talking about typhoons on the TL S8.

My chimeras have turned out to be so so on the durability, but i usually buy some for my static squads and run them empty in support of the filled ones, if one gets busted they have a new ride right there.

They are pretty bad if you only take one. Or two. But like others have said its the av 12 spam. Oh and its amphibious. Which may not matter to you, but my flgs has a few boards with rivers and ponds.

Ailaros wrote:Right, chimeras are tied for the best front armor of a spammable transport in the game (well, unless you want land raider spam...). AV12 isn't great, but it ignores anything weaker than a missile launcher or a melta gun, and given the VAST quantity of AV12 you can take, it's very possible to overwhelm your opponent's ability to handle that armor type.

As such, chimeras are good like the reason foot guard is good - it's not that you necessarily have problems taking out one of them, it's that you have problems taking out ALL OF THEM. That HS and FA choices also come on this chassis (or equivalent) only makes this spamming easier.

Otherwise, your complaints are about transports in general, which I'd more or less agree with. Transports add very little on their own, both in speed and in firepower, and even in durability of the guys inside. It's the reason transports are so friggin cheap. If they were actually worth taking on their own merits, they would be much more expensive. Look at the pricing of falcons and land raiders to see what I'm talking about.

Of course, transports can certainly be made to work. When a list is built properly, their minor drawbacks can be mitigated and their minor improvements capitalized on.

I may just be bad at 40k but I usually just use plasma vets to hold objectives and blast at untransported MEQ, or rapid fire any AV11/12s that get too close. Putting some in a transport and going full pelt towards an enemy objective would just get it wiped out and the troops inside sitting ducks for an assault.
Putting them in a transport defensively I'm not so sure about either. You can get a 2+ cover save with orders for your objective guards, that's better than sitting in a deathtrap transport.

notabot187 wrote:

Joey wrote:

notabot187 wrote:

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

They aren't that easy to destroy if you would just do the math.

S8 BS4 (marines, DE and similar) 66 percent to hit, of that 33 percent to pen, and 33 percent of that to destroy. Now destroy isn't the only goal and all that, but that is some pretty low margins you are looking at per shot. Sure they can get side shots then it looks a bit better. .66 x .66 x .33 Yeah, even AV 10 is not auto dead.

Chimeras are resilient for their points, give out a good volume of supplemental firepower, and provide a relatively safe mode of transport for squads to ride around in.

Twin-linked BS4 almost always hit, and there's two of them. So that's a 0.66 chance of a glance or penetrate.

What they heck are you talking about twin linked? Marines don't get TL S8, and neither do DE. Only GKs get that, and thats only because its their only long range anti tank platform. Then they get 4 shots each, and can take up to 6 of them. Yest they pay dearly both in slots and points to do this (so you never really see it).

Oh, and those guys inside you seem to be so worried about? 5 points or a bit more you go vets... Not a big deal if some guys die, its not like you are playing marines or eldar where every loss hurts.

Predators, land raidersm storm ravens and dreadnaughts all have plenty of twin-linked weapons. Tbh I get used to my opponent re-rolling everything.

martin74 wrote:

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

What else are you going to take? It is the one thing that is durable and gets troops across the board and next to targets. Sure, you can take a valk but at twice the points ( i know, not exactly twice but close enough). Is there a wrong way to outift a chimera, not realy. No one realy wins with the multi laser, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer. The fact that you get a rather safe transport is what helps out. The best part of the deal is 5 weapons firing out of the hatch. In my normal army it looks like this:

1. Plama vets: Plasma gun x3/Plasma pistol/Plasma pistol (lord commissar)
2. 5 Ogryns shooting 5 ripper guns, 15 strength 5 shots
3. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)
4. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)

With that said, option one, gets you close to termies to take them out. True, they assault the chimera and it is gone. Option 2, removes troops holding objectives. Option 3/4, takes out those pesky dreadnaughts (or similar things), vehicles, and other problems.

The chimera is not the race horse of the IG, however, it is the work horse.

155 points for a vehicle that spits out BS4 melta shots is tempting.

martin74 wrote:

Joey wrote:Overwealming opinion says chimeras are a good thing in the guard. I can't say I see why, Multilaser and HB/HF are useless against vehicles and MEQ, especially with BS3.
I know they're supposed to shelter melta/plasma vets but they're still relatively easy to destroy, and on an explosion the troops inside will be taking about 4 wounds on average.

What else are you going to take? It is the one thing that is durable and gets troops across the board and next to targets. Sure, you can take a valk but at twice the points ( i know, not exactly twice but close enough). Is there a wrong way to outift a chimera, not realy. No one realy wins with the multi laser, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer. The fact that you get a rather safe transport is what helps out. The best part of the deal is 5 weapons firing out of the hatch. In my normal army it looks like this:

1. Plama vets: Plasma gun x3/Plasma pistol/Plasma pistol (lord commissar)
2. 5 Ogryns shooting 5 ripper guns, 15 strength 5 shots
3. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)
4. Melta guns x3 (sometimes a demo charge)

With that said, option one, gets you close to termies to take them out. True, they assault the chimera and it is gone. Option 2, removes troops holding objectives. Option 3/4, takes out those pesky dreadnaughts (or similar things), vehicles, and other problems.

The chimera is not the race horse of the IG, however, it is the work horse.

Chimera number 1 with the plasma guns is really good. My friend killed my Tyrgon in 1 turn with that set up .

Joey wrote:Putting some in a transport and going full pelt towards an enemy objective would just get it wiped out and the troops inside sitting ducks for an assault.
Putting them in a transport defensively I'm not so sure about either.

Yes, both of these are true. But...

On the offense (assuming you're doing it properly, and not just sending one or two forward), chimeras give you the one thing that transports are actually good at - giving the units inside temporary immunity to small arms fire anywhere on the board. For an army like marines, that's not much of a benefit, given their power armor, but for vets, this is huge. Without a chimera, you're only getting into meltagun and doubletap plasma range in such a way where you must, necessarily, be in double-tap range of small arms. If you're charging at marines on foot, the first volley of boltgun fire picks off several vets, and the double tap finishes them off, and that's before they get a shot off.

Infantry platoons can absorb murderous amounts of small arms (and crappier other weapons like heavy bolter and frag missile fire) because they have just so many bodies before you start taking down their real killing power. With vets, you only need to kill 7 guardsmen. Being able to accomplish that feet with nothing more than the small arms your opponent likely already brings in force makes his job a lot easier.

Seriously, make a list with just foot vets and see how long it lasts. Long enough to really do damage? Probably not. Put another way, practically the only way you can make vets a viable troops choice is if you can give them enough protection to make it into 18" of what you want dead.

As for defense, yes, there is somewhat less of a benefit (after all, why should transports be worth taking if you're just sitting still?) Even on the defense, though, it does give you some options. For one, you're not REQUIRED to put your vets in cover. Not only because they're immune from attack until the chimera dies, but they also get to chill out in the cover of the wrecked vehicle. As such, you can really think of the chimera as a mobile cover save. This means that you stand a chance, for example, if there is an objective not placed within 3" of cover, and can even be useful when you also have another unit chilling out in real cover. I mean, this is what an invul save is. Think of a chimera as providing you with a much cheaper, vastly more ghetto version of storm shields.

So, chimeras aren't literally useless, as they do give you a few options - options which are frankly required to be exploitable if you want to run certain armies. If you don't have certain needs that a chimera can fill, then yeah, don't bother taking them, as they're going to wind up as KP fodder that blows up your own guys.

Is the Chimera perfect? No, but, what other choice do you realy have. They are good protection for your vets/squads to get where they need to go. Move them twelve, pop smoke, and hope you roll alot of 4+. It is the quickest way to get your troops to where they need to be, with the exception of the Valk/Vendetta.

martin74 wrote:Is the Chimera perfect? No, but, what other choice do you realy have. They are good protection for your vets/squads to get where they need to go. Move them twelve, pop smoke, and hope you roll alot of 4+. It is the quickest way to get your troops to where they need to be, with the exception of the Valk/Vendetta.

Hmm I'm seeing the appeal of 3/4 chimeras all moving 12 inches and popping smoke.
Though it'd be difficult to do that without them being horribly multicharged by some bastard assault marines.

Joey wrote:

martin74 wrote:Is the Chimera perfect? No, but, what other choice do you realy have. They are good protection for your vets/squads to get where they need to go. Move them twelve, pop smoke, and hope you roll alot of 4+. It is the quickest way to get your troops to where they need to be, with the exception of the Valk/Vendetta.

Hmm I'm seeing the appeal of 3/4 chimeras all moving 12 inches and popping smoke.
Though it'd be difficult to do that without them being horribly multicharged by some bastard assault marines.

Hell, go nuts. Try 6-8. That, with 3 Vendettas and as many Hydras/Manticores as you have points for. Av 12 overkill.

Joey wrote:

martin74 wrote:Is the Chimera perfect? No, but, what other choice do you realy have. They are good protection for your vets/squads to get where they need to go. Move them twelve, pop smoke, and hope you roll alot of 4+. It is the quickest way to get your troops to where they need to be, with the exception of the Valk/Vendetta.

Hmm I'm seeing the appeal of 3/4 chimeras all moving 12 inches and popping smoke.
Though it'd be difficult to do that without them being horribly multicharged by some bastard assault marines.

I agree. what a fantastic Idea, although I would say 4+ minimum.

And now that terribly potent assault unit multicharges all your chimeras.

And is hitting on 6's.

And will only be able to target the vehicles.

Not the special-weapon wielding infantry inside (a good majority of the punch of a chimera transport)

Or any other elements of your ranged army, behind this wall of steel.

The embarked infantry, who are now well within range due to aforementioned cruising speed & multicharges.

Joey wrote:Though it'd be difficult to do that without them being horribly multicharged by some bastard assault marines.

I'd actually be more concerned with shooting.

You move forward 12" and pop smoke, your opponent focuses fire and kills 2 or 3 of them. You then move forward 12", but no longer have smoke, and shoot with the guys inside. In return, your opponent blows away the rest of your now non-smoked chimeras and then multi-assaults both the recently evicted and last turn's vets, causing them all to instantly flee off the table (and perhaps get caught in a sweep).

More importantly, though, not waging an offensive action isn't a problem with the chimera, it's a factor of what the Prussian called the primacy of defense. Launching a successful attack requires skill and finesse. Chimeras don't change this fact one bit (nor I would say does any transport, including land raiders). Chimeras are unable to turn a bad assault into a good one by their mere presence, they merely allow for adequate ones in a different kind of army list.

I mean, you could make the same comment about running forward on foot only to be multi-charged by an opponent's assault unit.

I'll copy from a recent post I made on the subject:

It has been a slow and steady decline for the chimera. When the 5th ed IG codex came out, the chimera was awesome. It could be spammed like no other and the AV12 wall was a game-winner. It reached its peak with the infamous "leafblower" lists, where it's main role was to add more AV12 to the wall. The chimera was one of the reasons IG was the most feared army for a long time.

The first major decline was with the SW codex. Suddenly, we got to know ranged S8+ spam with the ability to reach out and mess with many targets each turn. The SW codex also brought another threat to the AV12 walls.. thundercav. In your face on turn 2, madly survivable and each one able to smash a chimera to pieces. The chimera phalanx sure didn't like being multi-charged by one of those units.

The release of blood angels added another (lighter) hit to the chimera. BA's bring the ability to pin-point deepstrike melta, meaning that it suddenly became more interesting to have squads on foot to protect valuable vehicles from DS meltaguns. BA's also continued the trend of S8+ weapon spam, but brought it up a bit with fast preds, cheap razorbacks and outflanking assault cannons. Las/plas vs multilaser/heavy flamer is a bad matchup, and suddenly, marines can bring almost as many as we can, but the content of theirs don't die when the transport explodes. BA's also add to the trend of survivable deathstars capable of launching early-game multi-assaults. My own BA dual-raider army has smashed apart countless chimera hulls.

The next hit was a huge one. Necrons were the nightmare match-up for IG back in 4th, and it is looking like necrons once again can become a hated enemy of IG. Let's start with the worst of the worst for the poor chimera and it's artillery cousins: Imotekh the stormlord. This guy can win the game against mech IG by himself with a few lucky roles. Add some solar pulses, and you don't even have to be very lucky anymore. D6 S8 hits against side armour 10? Ouch!
Add scarabs and wraiths to the mix, and those once safe metal boxes are looking more and more like coffins, with each new army hammering another nail in it.

The latest army, GK's continue the trend of both S8+ spam and madly survivable deathstars. They also add the vindicare and tons of psycannons to the mix and pretty much every unit can boost their strength to 5, meaning they can easily rip through the soft AV10 rear of the chimera. Fortitude makes S6 shooting less useful, as glancing just won't do anything to their vehicles.

As the amount of stuff that very reliably kills chimeras keep increasing, the chimera is looking more and more obsolete. I once felt the chimera was the best light/medium transport, but that title has been lost to the (GK or BA) razorback for a long time now.

The chimera is just getting fewer and fewer roles. It is not a good way to keep infantry alive, as exploding chimeras tend to be cause of death number 2 for the humble guardsmen. (after close combat - before enemy shooting)
AV12 is not very durable anymore. It is durable for something like marines, but when your passengers generally die if it is destroyed, AV12 is not enough.

The AV10 sides mean that the chimera is more of a bunker than a transport. You won't get chimeras over the table against most opponents, as any chimera exposing it's side armour to the enemy is generally dead. The chimera phalanx worked against this for a while, but pretty much every army includes a deathstar or some other assault unit which makes the phalanx a death-sentence to your entire formation. (beasts, thundercav, assault termies in raider, wraiths, scarabs etc)

So, the chimera is not a transport, and when used as a bunker, it generally gets it's occupants killed faster than if they had been on foot, so it doesn't really work as a bunker anymore either.



Granted, it is still possible to use the chimera effectively. One example of such a use is the PCS with 4 flamers in a chimera. However, the chimera seems to have lost much of it's use in many cases.

The extra pts gained from this can go directly into whatever I feel my list is lacking. It can be pure firepower (executioner with plasmasponsons? 3xHydra?), it can be increased survivability (30ish guardsmen with gear? 20-man powerblob?) or it can be mobility through outflank and DS (2x meltastormies? Al'Rahem?)

Some might say that you need more chimeras for them to be effective, you need eight! or ten!!! Well, technically, they are right, it does become slightly more effective if you really spam them, but then you're spending immense amounts of pts on those bunkers, and loosing out in real killing power. In the end, you are weakening your list. I've played against armies with ten chimeras and totally stomped them. Chimeras are not hard to kill if you come equipped (manticores f.ex.) and as your opponent has spent so much on the chimeras, he isn't able to silence your guns quickly enough.



TLDR. Spending pts on a unit that generally does not increase survivability by much and that does not give a significant mobility increase when weighted against the risk and that drastically increases the chance to loose KP's = bad. Spend the pts on more firepower, more men, different kind of mobility/whatever your list needs.

Illumini wrote:
A bunch of well thought out and presented food for thought.

Thank you sir. +1

Chimeras also give your IG army a smaller foot print, and you can run away faster when people try to assault....

Oy, chimeras aren't good because they are individually powerful or durable, guys. In addition to what Ailaros said about the numbers of chimeras (because they're so cheap) it's about combined arms.

What does the killing in a guard army? The fire support units in the heavy and fast slots: manticores, vendettas, russes, artillery. What is the major vulunerability of these units? Meltaguns or high-str assaults getting on top of them.

The chimeras--like the troops in any combined arms force--are there not to kill things, but rather to hold ground and keep the meltaguns and assaults off the fire support units.

Picture it from the opponent's point of view. He really wants to get his meltaguns in close to those three vendettas that are ripping up his rhinos from the opposite table edge. But there's a line of chimeras in the way--advancing 6" a turn--that prevent his transports from getting into meltagun range. Every rhino that tries to run the gauntlet up to the vendettas gets blown up by massed meltagun fire out of the chimera hatches. So the only thing he can shoot at the vendis is his long-range antitank, which is pretty ineffective on the whole for everybody except Tau. Yes, a few chimeras will get killed, but who cares? Because the vendettas get to keep firing.

If it was just a screen of infantry trying to protect the vendettas, the marine player could just tank-shock and flame them on his way to the vendetta-killing spree. It's the rule that you can't drive a vehicle through another vehicle that makes chimeras an effective screen.

So chimeras don't need long range or powerful weapons--that's what the fire support units are for. They don't need to drive forward and get close to the enemy (except Tau). They just need cheap, numerous vehicle hulls, and massed meltaguns.

Joey wrote:I may just be bad at 40k but I usually just use plasma vets to hold objectives and blast at untransported MEQ, or rapid fire any AV11/12s that get too close. Putting some in a transport and going full pelt towards an enemy objective would just get it wiped out and the troops inside sitting ducks for an assault.

PG vet squads are something most people don't really appreciate. I'm building a IG army right now, and I'm bringing 20 PG in the army. I was able to get them dirt cheap on ebay.

A lot of this depends on your local meta. I don't see a lot of draigowing in my area, but I do see a lot of GK purifier spam. As such, 20 PG is an excellent solution to the problem. If your facing a ton of draigowing, then maybe 20 MG is the better solution.

The trick with the Chimera wall is that its saturation. Its hard to destroy all of them, and there are so many that it dilutes the enemy fire.

Now, you do need to move your Chimera wall up to claim objectives, but you don't rush them forward 12". You bring your entire line up 6" at a time, blasting away. (Unless there is a BA army barreling down at you, or other similar situation). The point is that you don't just rush forward, or you will expose those fragile AV 10 sides.


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Ailaros wrote:[Infantry platoons can absorb murderous amounts of small arms (and crappier other weapons like heavy bolter and frag missile fire) because they have just so many bodies before you start taking down their real killing power. With vets, you only need to kill 7 guardsmen. Being able to accomplish that feet with nothing more than the small arms your opponent likely already brings in force makes his job a lot easier.

And the vet squad needs make morale tests after losing 3 models, and does not have the benifit of stubborn or summary execution without a heavy investment of an IC.


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Illumini wrote:The next hit was a huge one. Necrons were the nightmare match-up for IG back in 4th, and it is looking like necrons once again can become a hated enemy of IG. Let's start with the worst of the worst for the poor chimera and it's artillery cousins: Imotekh the stormlord. This guy can win the game against mech IG by himself with a few lucky roles. Add some solar pulses, and you don't even have to be very lucky anymore. D6 S8 hits against side armour 10? Ouch!
Add scarabs and wraiths to the mix, and those once safe metal boxes are looking more and more like coffins, with each new army hammering another nail in it.

The latest army, GK's continue the trend of both S8+ spam and madly survivable deathstars. They also add the vindicare and tons of psycannons to the mix and pretty much every unit can boost their strength to 5, meaning they can easily rip through the soft AV10 rear of the chimera. Fortitude makes S6 shooting less useful, as glancing just won't do anything to their vehicles.

Oddly enough, this is why I think that the Russ' is going to be more common as the meta continues. AV 14 is tough for GK, where the AV 12 wall can be cracked.
AV 13 is much more resilient to the STR 8 hits than the AV 10 fragile sides from the stormlords STR 8 wrath.

for low, low points, I get 2 medium sized guns with 3 shots each, transprt capacity, 5 firepoints, a smoke launcher, a search light, and no FOC congestion.

Also, they are bubble wrap for your bubble wrap.

I have had mixed results with chimeras. Some games my plasma/melta vets roast termies and in others they are rolling coffins. My question is, if chimeras are so awesome, why don't we see more chimera spam from GK henchmen lists?