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Hello everyone, just wanted everyones take on this. A good friend of mine (and a very competitive and good player, won Ard Boyz once when it was still around) was giving me some tips on building an Armored Company as I plan on building one after my Elysian Drop Troops/Storm Trooper army is finished. When I mentioned taking my Infantry in Chimeras however he stopped me and told me how they are "moving metal coffins" due to the fact they are pretty easy to take out, when they get destroyed they take out a good chunk of the squad that they are carrying due to a Guardsmen's low toughness and poor armor save and the points would be better spent purchasing another Infantry squad to bubble wrap your tanks, ect. Now I wanted to hear what your guys thoughts on this are as I know several people here swear by Mech Vets and what tactical implications there are taking Chimeras over not taking them. Let the discussion begin!

Depends what your against. Chimeras under Void Shield Relay can be good but for the most part I drool when i see Chimeras bc I can 1st blood fairly easy.

If you use them sensibly they're not that easy to kill.

The best strategy for protecting them that pretty much always works is using Leman Russ tanks as AV14 shields directly in front, and placing these Chimera-Russ pairs together in twos in a 4 vehicle formation to provide a massive wall of AV14 and LOS blockage for the Chimeras.Fire away with 6'' movement max in the first turn or two, then break formation and have the Chimeras burst up the board either to counter attack or seize objectives.

Yeah, if they explode you'll lose about 4-5 men most of the time, but if you're using Vets the only guys that even matter are the ones with SW's and the Sergeant for morale. Maybe also consider a mechanized CCS with Regimental Standard so pinning checks are less likely to screw your plans.

One of the biggest killers of Rhino, chimera and the like in 6th edition is that you no longer can score with units inside. (Which I completely agree with).

My question for OP:

Why do you want to use them? Movement, protect your guys, they're fun, too lazy to move models (my personal favorite as an Ork player)?

Chimeras are great so long as you play carefully with them. Side 10 can usually be negated by running them in close formation with Russes and other Chimera-hulled vehicles.

They are great defensive weapons, as the squad inside will get 2 rounds of shooting (1 embarked and one on foot) and 2 rounds of overwatch (as before) before they are charged, They also have the speed to quickly redeploy, should you need to attack or defend a certain area.

Even when disembarked you can get a lot of use out of them, simply by using them as mobile cover. Disembark, fire a salvo and then flat out the Chimera to block LOS to the squad. Even when destroyed, they're still giving you a 5+ cover minimum, 4+ if you GTG.

I'm starting a list with 8 chimeras + HB + ML loaded with troops + lascannon + sgt w/axe + mb along with three valks loaded with PCS + HF + flamer. Will chimeras bite it early? Yep! But I'm thinking about mobility not sitting around bubble wrapping tanks. Can tanks hold objectives? Nope (most of the time). So using your precious objective holders as a meat shield for something that cost you 1/7 of your points and not have them move ever is crazy talk if you ask me

Other posters brought up good points, but here's some more to consider:
Compared to wave serpents every troop transport is a "metal coffin".
However, in this edition armor 12 is actually pretty good! Plasma weapons only pen on a 6 and even a direct hit with a lascannon will only destroy a chimera 1 out of 6 times. 1/12 times if you are behind the aegis line.
Plus, unlike other transports, a chimera can't be touched by fire warriors.
Also it has 5 fire points! It's the epitome of "I can shoot you but you can't shoot me" for your vets.
That said, you do have to look at the chims as a means, not an end, and you can't judge them on whether they survived the battle.
Finally, for best results take 6 or more.

The problem (as usual) is tau. Against eldar they are actually quite resilient. The problem is when S9 AP2 ord blasts start being fired your way you lose almost every advantage chimeras give you. Normally you capitalize on the ability to put chimeras end to end and negate the 10 side armor. The problem is that those blasts make it detrimental to use this tactic. Spreading out isnt a good solution either, as S5 basic troop weapons mean your vehicles die to generic fire if they can find side armor on even one.

Against most other armies chimeras are worth it. Either be aggressive and push up a wall of chimeras or sit them behind an ADL and form a AV12 4+ wall (or AV10 3+ if they try to shoot side armor). AT large blasts have fallen out of favor with the majority of armies so you can reliably castle up with them.

Even better is if you can take the FW variant with the autocannon turret or the inquisitorial chimera with psybolts and 2x heavy bolters.

They are far from metal coffins. If anything, it's the reverse - it's the only way to reliably keep infantry on the table after turn 2 (unless you're bringing a foot guard list). Out in the open, guardsmen are just flat screwed in this edition, and that's before you consider meta changes like ignores-cover tau.

On the other hand, mechvets are still a superb defensive weapon. They can quickly reposition themselves 18" in a single turn which means they can undo your opponent's mobility reasonably well. They also come with BS4 special weapons (and cheap heavy weapons and/or plasma pistols), which does damage, and with safety and mobility. And they still score to boot. And that's before you consider all the other benefits of vehicles, and the other benefits of transports (like being able to do overwatch of doom with 8 plasma shots and a lascannon, for example). Mechvets, at least until we get a new codex, are one of the best troops choices in the game.

Plus, they're still AV12 with 4+ cover, when used correctly, which means that they are in wave serpent league of durability, not in raider or rhino league. And they have their own firepower to boot.

Chimeras are a very potent weapon, and a strong way to build a guard list. Bubble wrap is just wasting points in 6th ed.

Mine rarely dies on the first turn, as the other posters said, play wisely and they survive, for example i would put a normal squad in, drive up and jump onto a objective. Then use it to cover that squad or assist another. My enemy ignores it because my Valkyries are a bigger problem by turn two most of the time.

 Ailaros wrote:
Plus, they're still AV12 with 4+ cover, when used correctly, which means that they are in wave serpent league of durability, not in raider or rhino league. And they have their own firepower to boot.

Brilliance!

I find rhinos to be very useful in helping my troops survive and then act as mobile cover.

Chimeras are even better.

I use one for CCS - happy with what it does. Both in offence and defence. Chimeras behind aegis are really tough. The problem is that it doesn't possess enough long-range offence. The guyz inside generally have 24' threat range and so chimera in defence stops being effective the moment you're meeting someone who prefers to keep distance. You sure can put an autocannon/lazcannon inside but from this perspective, it might cost too much for a bunch of s5-6-7 shots without orders and fancy ignore-everything stuff your main enemies possess. So, you either got to ride forward to get into 24' and loose durability or stay back and loose firepower.

I prefer going forward cause i use ig as allies to orkses and we really don't have any other option rather than to rush at the opponent and drown him in bodies. So a chimera or two are usually ignored. In the case of ig-main it's more tricky and dangerous cause the opponent doesn't have a ton of other threats coming to the face.

My Chimeras explode less than 50% of the time. At av12 it's usually a combo of glance/pen that wreck it without exploding it which makes them far more safe than they were in 5th.

Wrecks are great for blocking los to the troops that just got out. Same goes for the Chimera hiding a unit that gets out to hold an objective.

Hah, no.

Only the Eldar and Necrons have hardier ground pounding transports out of the box (not counting Raiders and Wagons).

You could make a case for disruption pod devilfish or Iron hands Rhinos, but for it's low points the Chimera offers decent firepower and protection. I'd say it's essentially the gold standard of transports that all others are compared to.

 Ailaros wrote:
They are far from metal coffins. If anything, it's the reverse - it's the only way to reliably keep infantry on the table after turn 2 (unless you're bringing a foot guard list). Out in the open, guardsmen are just flat screwed in this edition, and that's before you consider meta changes like ignores-cover tau.

On the other hand, mechvets are still a superb defensive weapon. They can quickly reposition themselves 18" in a single turn which means they can undo your opponent's mobility reasonably well. They also come with BS4 special weapons (and cheap heavy weapons and/or plasma pistols), which does damage, and with safety and mobility. And they still score to boot. And that's before you consider all the other benefits of vehicles, and the other benefits of transports (like being able to do overwatch of doom with 8 plasma shots and a lascannon, for example). Mechvets, at least until we get a new codex, are one of the best troops choices in the game.

Plus, they're still AV12 with 4+ cover, when used correctly, which means that they are in wave serpent league of durability, not in raider or rhino league. And they have their own firepower to boot.

Chimeras are a very potent weapon, and a strong way to build a guard list. Bubble wrap is just wasting points in 6th ed.

With the main difference being that the serpent gets rather silly amounts of mid-strength firepower and can; if it wants to, decide that the only way you're killing it is via hull point stripping.

Luckily my Necrons give precisely zero feths anyway.

But yeah, the main guard builds these days are mechvets, mechvets+vendetta vets, or ridiculously big blob, with your choice of tanks or artillery in heavy support and whatever allies you feel like throwing in for all of them. The last one takes forever to play.

Mechvets, arty/tanks, and Vendettas simply play much faster than dealing with 200+ models.