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I've been playing 40k for a few months, and have decided to get into WHFB as well. I played my first game this past weekend (using a lot of lizardmen as proxies!), and we only got to play 2 1/2 turns because of time. I was really looking forward to trying out the Hellcannon, but it failed leadership on both of my turns and I never got to fire it.

So question 1: What are people's opinions on the Hellcannon? Is it a good unit to have, and should I be fielding more than one of them?

Also, what about chimeras? My FLGS has one in stock and I like the look of it. Looking at the stats, it seems pretty good, but how does it really play out on the battlefield?

Hellcannon: Awesome, your only shooting. Take 1-2. 2 better.

Chimeras: Monsters in 8th are bad most of the time. Expensive model, not worth it.

Chimeras are really good. They are super killy. With buffs they can be very hard to hurt as well. They have low LD but you shouldn't be losing combat much.

Hellcannons are super expensive stone throwers with good strength that are also monsters that go crazy. I'm of the opinion if you have war machines you kind of want them to war machine. What you saw is they failed their test and basically became sucky Chimeras. So why not just get a Chimera? They won't fail much but as the general and banner go out of range it's more likely. And they can't shoot and move.

I think Chimeras are cool because they have a lot of options.

Chimera opinions seem to be split down the middle, they are either great or terrible. As a vampire player my opinion is biased towards terrible as I have scream attacks that will drop them on a single average roll and characters who will tear them apart if they get in combat.

Depending on who you fight, you need to tailor your army to suit fighting them. I wouldn't take a Chimera to fight Vampire Counts, as it's likely to get screamed to death right quick.

I would take a bucketload of warriors with halberds though, chariots, skullcrushers, knights, and warhounds to intercept annoyance units like spirit hosts and their own dire wolves.

You need to pick to fight what you think you'll be going up against. Thankfully, Chaos has a wide variety to select from. If you think your opponent is likely to show up with heavy amounts of firepower and multiple Lore of Metal casting mages to do a number on heavy armoured troops, take lightly armoured ones instead. Throgg has only a regen save, same as the trolls he can make a core choice. Marauders of Khorne with Flails have no armour as standard. Daemon Princes of Tzeentch can get a Dragonbane Gem and the Third Eye of Tzeentch for a re-rollable 2+ ward save vs fire. Take a hero as BSB on a Daemonic Mount and do the same with the Dragonhelm.

Basically, figure what your opponent is likely to do and compensate for it. Would be rather fun to see a Dwarf cannon with a rune of flaming be near to completely ineffective in shooting vs a rampaging Daemon Prince.

I don't know about VC just rolling a Chimera. Take regeneration and you won't die in in even a few rounds of shrieks. As for vampires pwning them, they still only have 3 wounds. Chimera does a lot of dmg and has a thunderstomp.

I'm not saying they're great against them. Chimera wants to fight 7pt-15pt infantry blocks I think and lay waste to them. So that's not really VC.

Chimeras can get Regeneration, that alone makes them a viable monster.

I have to agree that Chimrae are split opinion. But yeah Regen and you will always find a use for them. Hellcannons are always good and will come in good use. Also it is the only shooting.

 Fenriswulf wrote:
Depending on who you fight, you need to tailor your army to suit fighting them. I wouldn't take a Chimera to fight Vampire Counts, as it's likely to get screamed to death right quick.

I would take a bucketload of warriors with halberds though, chariots, skullcrushers, knights, and warhounds to intercept annoyance units like spirit hosts and their own dire wolves.

This is rather terrible advice, as all it really doing is encouraging list tailoring, and in fact is most likely the opposite of the kind of advice a new player is looking for.

All Comers lists are preferable to all kinds of players.
1) More experienced players generally use all comers lists because that is what they would need to bring to a tournament. They need a list that can preform reasonably against other competitive lists before knowing what they will be up against!

2) New players are going to want an all comers list because it helps keep the cost of the hobby down. They just need to work towards getting one army list online, and they will be able to play that one list against whatever opponents they may find at their local community. When the average fantasy game is 2000-2500 points, the last thing somebody wants to hear is that they should have a different side bar of units for every enemy they come across.

3) Then you get the fact that a huge proportion of the player base firmly believes that list tailoring is the refuge of people who are bad at the game. In fact you can look around these boards and see outright skorne about people who build an army list to defeat a specific opponent. There is actually an expectation in the community at large that you will not build a list specifically tailored to defeat an enemy. Most players you will come across will prefer to play their all comers list against yours, as they view it as being more fair.

What I will tell you is this. Build one list, and kit it towards your communities metagame at large. As you gain more experience, start branching out and trying different strategies and tactics, figuring out where they work and don't work. But take it slow.