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companion thread to http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/520285.page

Uhm, yes. 55 points for AV 12/10/10 with heavy bolter and multi-las alone is worth it.

The level of protection/mobility is what makes mechvets one of (if not the) best troop choices in the game. Chimeras are amazing.

Not to mention the look on everyone's face when 3 plasma or 3 melta guns come flying out

Park them in the water feature!

Head and shoulders above most other transports for the reasons posted. The only things which come close are (bear with me):

Ork Trukks (and I think the DA have open topped transports).
Becasue they are cheap as chips and are effectively assault vehicles. Everything that helps assaulting is well-worth-it in the 6th.

short answer:
yes

long answer:
HELL YES

LOL, thanks Blackskull!

the 6th changes hurt assaulting out of vehicles and the durability of mid-armored vehicles. Generally, Chimeras are considered light vehicles and rarely survived incoming fire for more than a turn in 5th. Now, with explosions harder to generate, chimeras are about as useful as they used to be.

6th hurt assaulting from vehicles. Since when were guard doing that?

While chimeras are still useful, i find Salamander Command vehicles are just as good, if not better as fire platforms. Fast BS4 chimeras with HB/HB or HF/HB (too bad you cant do 2x HF). Auspex is just icing on the cake. Lack of transport capacity does make them a bit less useful, i just wish they could transport 5 with that large open area in the rear.

Gk henchmen don't get those, only chimeras.


Are explosions really harder to generate? I guess they are, I never really thought about it or did the math. That's the one thing I worry about with little toughness 3 guys, the explosions...

You only get explosions on 6, so yeah, it is harder. Things like missile spam and autcannons used to explode chimeras all the time. AP1 and 2 is just as effective as it used to be, but AP3- is 1/2 as effective at blowing things up. Stripping HP is sometimes even a bonus, as just having the vehicle wreck can often give you a safe bit of cover for a turn.

Yeah, salamanders are only guard. Most of the time GK henchmen are throw-away units or kitted to a squad that cant fit in chimeras. Also, the lack of AV12 saturation means they arent as good for GK. However, they are still effective, just less so than guard.

I've found that in my local metagame that Chimeras are getting more and more useful. Things have swung pretty hard towards largely foot type armies and so people are taking a lot more anti-infantry firepower than they used to. I had a game against a Ravenwing army using the Banner of Tons of Bolter Shots a week or two ago with my infantry army and I got hosed right off of the table.

It would be one thing if I could just sit in cover and blast away all day but I've got to head for objectives sooner rather than later and in my local metagame I just cannot do that without Chimeras.

yes, they are still very good and very useful. They are no longer the best unit in the game. Vendettas are the best unit in 6th.

I agree with the general sentiment. Chimeras are awesome.

I have never lost a chimera due to being HP-stripped to death before the transport made it to where I want the troops to be anyways (or the vehicle was already immobilized). In fact, I've scarcely lost chimeras to being glanced to death at all. Usually, they get blown up, or immobilized and then ignored. The addition of HP and the slightly angrier vehicle explosions is a small price to pay for everything they gained.

It's now much more difficult to get a vehicle stunned result against them, so they're moving most turns you want them to, and their ability to move 18" in a single turn now is great for their ability to shuffle troops around.

They also get free searchlights, making night fighting good for you, rather than bad. And two heavy weapons on that durable of a chassis is a steal. And the dudes inside overwatch when the transport is assaulted now (which, let me tell you, when what's inside is a plasma pistol, three meltaguns, and a lascannon/second plasma pistol, overwatch DOES cause casualties).

More importantly, ignoring the vendetta for a moment, it's your only particularly serious way of running troops in 6th ed, I've found. Loss of by-unit cover, new wound allocation, and many other rules changes made foot guard substantially more fragile than mech guard lists in 6th edition. Non-chimerad troops can chill out behind an aegis and plink with heavy weapons, but that's about the limit to their contribution. Not so with dudes in transports.

So yes, chimeras are still useful. They are even moreso, relative to their main competitor.

They are cheap, high capacity, high firepower relatively well armoured (12 is ok) transports with 5 fire points and can carry terminators. Yeah i think they're still useful.

Never thought about carrying GK terminators. Shame I don't play GK. Why don't we just keep this idea to ourselves; (better still edit it out!)

A chimera Isn't as much an APC as it is a dedicated IFV ( infantry Fighting vehicle ). It's cheap , Rugged , Amphibious and brings a lot of firepower to the table for the low cost of 55 points , with the reductions to cover these are becoming more essential on the battlefield to provide an armored transport to move your troops from objective to objective . And let's not forget fireports which allow us to make fortified strongpoints and incredible manuverbility to rival that of DE and Eldar. Hull points hurt but is rather be glanced then take a constant " shake. " problem

I'd actually even do it the other way around. They're a BS4 melta/other weapons box of doom that's much harder to kill than regular infantry (whereas before, it was about the same), that also gives them incredible mobility (which is good for scoring units in a world of by-model cover). Oh, and by the way, you also get some guns thrown on there for free.

Overall the only negative of chimera's is they are very wide so hard to hide. This can be a pretty big negative depending on what you face in your meta.

They are fairly good though and can be used as med dakka vehicles and trooper transports. The grey knights can run them extremely cheap and nasty with 3 man henchmen squads but lack the artillery /tank/vendetta support that make the guard chimera so awesome.

IMO, Chimeras are much less useful. You have to disembark to claim objectives, stunned/shaken results cripple the passengers even if you disembark, etc. This alone wouldn't be a fatal problem, but the dominance of Necrons combined with the need to kill flyers means that there are a lot of armies with so many anti-Chimera weapons that keeping them alive long enough to be worth it becomes almost impossible. Meanwhile Vendettas are even better than they were in 5th. So while a Chimera is better than nothing a Vendetta is the default choice.

 Ailaros wrote:
More importantly, ignoring the vendetta for a moment, it's your only particularly serious way of running troops in 6th ed, I've found.

The question here is WHY would you want to ignore the Vendetta? It's like saying that penal legions are the best troops in the codex as long as you ignore veterans and platoons.

Troops that arrive late, are subject to interceptor fire, and the fieriest of crashes, while not being able to contribute anything to the game until the very end (while in the middle they're just points sinks) has its serious drawbacks. So does the fact that they're more expensive, take up non-troops slots, don't take field position, or really synergize in any way with anything on the ground (apart from a bit of supporting lascannon fire).

Now, if you want, you can break down every word I just said and ignore the main point in its entirety in a pointless wall of quotes, but it doesn't change the fact that vendettas are an FA choice that you can, with comprehensive drawbacks, make scoring. Really, the vendetta vets option is the penal legionnaires analogue. Mobile, but very expensive and don't play well with the rest of your list.

 Ailaros wrote:
Troops that arrive late

Since when is turn 2-3 "late"? Chimeras might in theory be on the table before then, but you aren't going to be shooting effectively with them until turn 2-3 anyway. And it's even later if you want to protect the troops inside until they're needed for late-game scoring. So if my troops won't be effectively engaging anything until turn 3-4 I'd much rather have flying lascannons than a few random multilaser snap shots.

are subject to interceptor fire

Meanwhile Chimeras are subject to turn 1 normal fire, which is a lot more effective against Chimeras than the interceptor shots are against Vendettas. Each unit has to face one round of shooting before it can do anything, the only difference is that the Vendettas only have to face it from a small number of units while the Chimeras have to take it from potentially everything in the army.

and the fieriest of crashes

Technically a drawback, but it's not like regular explosions are harmless anyway. Having half a shaken vet squad sitting in a crater and about to die isn't all that much better than having no vet squad at all, all you're really getting is forcing your opponent to spend a bit of bolter fire to finish them off. Meanwhile the Vendetta's far superior durability means that it's a lot less likely to explode in the first place, while Chimeras are pretty much a death sentence for the troops inside.

Now, if you want, you can break down every word I just said and ignore the main point in its entirety in a pointless wall of quotes, but it doesn't change the fact that vendettas are an FA choice that you can, with comprehensive drawbacks, make scoring. Really, the vendetta vets option is the penal legionnaires analogue. Mobile, but very expensive and don't play well with the rest of your list.

You have no "main point", just a lot of excuses for why your "I'm not playing with that overpowered unit" policy has turned into "Vendettas aren't even good". For anyone who doesn't have a self-imposed "no flyers" limit Vendettas are the default choice for delivering mobile troops.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Peregrine and Ailaros were married!

OT:
Yes, I find them useful.

 alarmingrick wrote:
If I didn't know better, I'd swear Peregrine and Ailaros were married!

OT:
Yes, I find them useful.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
every time
I swear, they must brood even in their free time.
Clearly they should settle their differences like adults.
WITH A GAME OF WARHAMMER 40 000 !

OT:
Do you like the models?
& Chimera side armor is paper thin. Bolters can glance.

I love Chimeras. They don't do anything flashy but they always get the job done. Plus, you can fire a Lascannon and 3 Plasma guns out of them. And 6 st6/st5 shots. What's not to love about that? If units could score while in transports that would make them uber awesome. Plus, they have amphibious which is useful from time to time.

I love the models. They are kind of like a retro version of modern IFVs.

 ansacs wrote:
The grey knights can run them extremely cheap and nasty with 3 man henchmen squads but lack the artillery /tank/vendetta support that make the guard chimera so awesome.

What's a good way for GK players to make up for their lack of artillery, tanks and vendettas? Just have other nasty stuff that the enemy would shoot at first before they shoot at the chimeras?

I'd say that Chimeras are too good. If your playing IG, you wanna take them.

I wouldn't say "too" good. They're great, but considering how fragile they are from the side and rear, and how fragile their contents are, they're pretty well balanced.

Oh btw, love the profile picture.

Chimeras are *the* main component of IG target saturation. Your enemy can either shoot at them, in which case he may pop it and spill the vets out...but that means my Heavy Support is safe and sound, and will proceed to annialate him in my shooting phase, and the chimera's AV 12 means that even lascannons will only explode it 1/8 times that it hits.

Or your opponent could go for your Russes instead, in all liklihood bouncing off their AV 14 and results in his deathstar getting 9 meltaguns, 9 HB shots and 9 ML shots in the face.

Griddlelol wrote:I wouldn't say "too" good. They're great, but considering how fragile they are from the side and rear, and how fragile their contents are, they're pretty well balanced.

Right, and that's what makes this different than the thread about rhinos.

Space marines are uber-soldiers, and they just need to go faster so they can be uber quicker. That's not that big of a bonus, which is why rhinos are ridiculously cheap compared to the price of their infantry. I mean, if guard could take rhinos, they would cost about 10 points by comparison.

Guard, though... not so much. We have cheap, crappy infantry that likes to die to vehicle explosions. You can't compete with the rhino on price, which means you can only compete on quality. As such, the guard transport is great, because it fixes a lot of issues of guard infantry like durability and force concentration. Issues that space marines frankly don't have problems with.

One of the most effective ways to run Guard is with combine arms , and as was stated earlier , your enemy isn't shooting at your heavy support and other goodies if he's shooting chimeras. As was said again earlier , the Chimera is ment to represent the shortcomings of a guard infantry squad ( saying infantry as generic not the specific unit ) Chimeras are indeed IVF's ( Infantry Fighting Vehicles ) were as the Rhinos are APCs ( Armored Personal Carrier ) 55 Points for decent frontal armor , powerful firepower and indeed an armored road trip for your guardsmen riding around - I would banter that it still is one of the mos effective guard units Point -to-Point

"Troops that arrive late, are subject to interceptor fire, and the fieriest of crashes, while not being able to contribute anything to the game until the very end (while in the middle they're just points sinks) has its serious drawbacks. So does the fact that they're more expensive, take up non-troops slots, don't take field position, or really synergize in any way with anything on the ground (apart from a bit of supporting lascannon fire). "

Now imagine paying Stormraven prices for the privilege.