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How do you run them? 2 or 3 Special Weapons? do you take krak grenades? what upgrades do you give the chimera?

This is what i was thinking for the load outs for my veterans and looking to see if i could improve them

Veterans - 185
- 3 Meltaguns
- Krak Grenades
- Carapace Armour
- Chimera
- Dozerblade

Veterans - 190
- 2 Plasma Guns
- Grenade Launcher
- Krak Grenades
- Carapace Armour
-Chimera
- Dozerblade

Chimeras are too fragile and rather expensive to give them dozerblades, yes getting immobilized can suck but the upgrade is simply not worth its points. Guard is not one of those armies that have points left over, you build your list from the ground up to maximize firepower over all else.

Carapace armor is a luxury, take it when you have the points for it. That being said, taking 2 or 3 plasma is up to personal preference and heavily dependent on the points total for the game. Many times the carapace armor will do you no good when coming under fire from a hail of AP4.

 ultimentra wrote:
Chimeras are too fragile and rather expensive to give them dozerblades, yes getting immobilized can suck but the upgrade is simply not worth its points.

Do you mean to say extra armor? Dozer blades are for rerolling failed dangerous terrain tests iirc.

Not a fan of Grenadiers on melta gun vets. I see it for plasma guns, as that 4+ get hot save is needed. Dozer blade, not bad, now that it is cheap I don't care.

Grenadiers is a pretty decent upgrade now that it is only 15 points. It may save you from the occasional bolter volley or give you a slightly better chance in melee, but when you are that up close and personal with the power level of stuff in this game this edition, you probably won't survive anyway. You're almost better off giving them Forward Sentries so they can go to ground for a 5++ in the open, or have a chance of surviving the occasional charge by denying bonus attacks. Hell, you may even occasionally blind something important.

Taking both of these upgrades is expensive at 25 points, but still 5 points cheaper than Grenadiers used to cost alone, and actually make the squad pretty damn survivable for guard infantry. 150 points could get you a Vet squad with Grenadiers, Forward Sentries, 3 plasma guns and a lascannon. Use the Chimera to drive them up to an objective near cover, and you got up to 7 AP2 shots that are hiding behind 4+/3++. In this case, I'd give the chimera the standard load-out and a stubber instead of dozer blade, park it somewhere nearby too, and you got another super scoring source of firepower. When something gets uncomfortably close, you can throw the Chimera at them to buy the Veterans time.

I haven't had too much luck with a Chimera as a transport for aggressive melta squads, since it dies pretty quickly once you stick it out there (sides 10). It's a shame veterans can't take Tauros Primes, as that would be a decent fast option. You could go for allied transports or grab a Valkyrie (but Valkyries are kind of bad). My preferred method of delivering melta to the enemy now is actually either Platoon Command Squads with 4 meltas dropping out of Vendettas (which are still good, although on the expensive side), 21-man Commissar-led infantry squads with meltas/bombs/krak grenades, or Hades Drills as poor-man's drop pods (in which case they just deliver a naked elite veteran squad with 2 melta guns).

Still, if you want melta vets, I would probably give them 2 meltaguns, a heavy flamer, shotguns and either krak/forward sentries or grenadiers. This unit can threaten armor and infantry (and with the demo charge, elite infantry) for 110-120 points before transport.

Always 3x melta or 3x plasma. Taking two guns or any other special weapon is just wasting the unit.

They only problem i see with three melta or three plasma is that you can only shot two out of the top hatch

 Vespid wrote:
They only problem i see with three melta or three plasma is that you can only shot two out of the top hatch

If you're driving up to shoot meltas and plasma, your chimera should be getting destroyed. Then they get out and can shoot all 3.

You can go for 2 plasma/melta and 1 flamer/heavy flamer. Helpful on overwatch + useful vs infantry.

HandofMars wrote:
You're almost better off giving them Forward Sentries so they can go to ground for a 5++ in the open, or have a chance of surviving the occasional charge by denying bonus attacks. Hell, you may even occasionally blind something important.

Quibble: Forward Sentries no longer gives Defensive Grenades.

We now return to your normal programing.

My common builds are:

Veterans
- 3x meltagun (or 2 meltas and a heavy flamer)
- Demolitions (if I have the points)
Chimera
- Multilaser, Heavy Flamer, Dozer Blade

Veterans
- 3x Plasmagun
- Grenadiers
Chimera
- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter

The melta vers get close-range stuff and dozer blades (since they want to go forward ASAP and often over terrain). Demolitions is amusing, but probably not worth it.

The Plasma Vets generally hang back at first, and get stuff to make them more durable.

Mallich wrote:

HandofMars wrote:
You're almost better off giving them Forward Sentries so they can go to ground for a 5++ in the open, or have a chance of surviving the occasional charge by denying bonus attacks. Hell, you may even occasionally blind something important.

Quibble: Forward Sentries no longer gives Defensive Grenades.

We now return to your normal programing.

Forward Sentries grants snare mines.

“Enemy units that charge a unit with snare mines count as having made a disordered charge.”

Excerpt From: Games Workshop Ltd. “Codex - Astra Militarum.” Games Workshop Ltd, 2014-03-31. iBooks.

 koooaei wrote:
You can go for 2 plasma/melta and 1 flamer/heavy flamer. Helpful on overwatch + useful vs infantry.

You mean utterly useless against infantry or on overwatch, at the cost of making the unit suck in their primary role.

Yes, heavy flamers are utterly useless against infantry, especially if you tankshock them into clumps.

HandofMars wrote:
Yes, heavy flamers are utterly useless against infantry, especially if you tankshock them into clumps.

You're right, they are useless. Tank shocking requires multiple tanks, all of which have heavy flamers already and make the infantry flamer redundant. And then once you do get them grouped up without blocking the vets with your own tanks the best you can realistically hope for against MEQs/TEQs (the primary target of melta/plasma vets) is to equal the damage done by the plasma gun you could've had instead. And that plasma gun doesn't require any special conditions besides getting within 12". Oh, and insult to injury? If you have units in perfect template formation your Medusas/LR Executioners/etc should wipe them off the table without screwing around with heavy flamer vets. So by the time you make your desperation shot with the vets you might have 1-2 models left in that tank shocked unit and your flamer sucks.

I've found vet Heavy Flamers very, very useful. Situational at times but they often make their points back. Adds flexibility to a rather one dimensional unit when armed with just Melta/Plasma.

 UnadoptedPuppy wrote:
I've found vet Heavy Flamers very, very useful. Situational at times but they often make their points back. Adds flexibility to a rather one dimensional unit when armed with just Melta/Plasma.

But you know what always makes its points back and isn't situational? Another melta/plasma gun. And making a unit mediocre at another role isn't really flexibility. It's much better to have a unit that is great in its intended role and bring a second unit to take care of the other role.

 Peregrine wrote:

But you know what always makes its points back and isn't situational? Another melta/plasma gun. And making a unit mediocre at another role isn't really flexibility. It's much better to have a unit that is great in its intended role and bring a second unit to take care of the other role.

The only situation another melta/plasma is useful is when they aren't in their Chimera, making it...situational. The HF proves useful during overwatch, embarked or not. That extra melta/plasma weapon proves useful, while embarked, never.

So, what about disembarked? For myself this only occurs when the Chimera has been destroyed, meaning my Vets are likely toast that same turn or the following. If it's the same turn due to shooting.. uh-oh, we've both wasted points on a 3rd special weapon (unless I've overwatched with the HF from within the Chimera...hardly worth the points but at least its done something). If it's in the same turn due to assault I would take the D3 HF hits over 33% more BS1 melta/plasma anyway of the week. If they don't die that turn, it entirely depends on what enemy units are in range in conjunction to where the Vets have been stranded. Near some termies, by chance? Sure, an extra plasma/melta would be great. Near a mob of boys in the next game? HF please.

I do understand your thinking, but on the board in the middle of the game you can't always ensure your Vets will be near their intended target. Often my opponents will try to prevent this, making a little flexibility go a long way.

 UnadoptedPuppy wrote:
The HF proves useful during overwatch, embarked or not.

No it doesn't. You get an average of two hits, maybe 1-2 dead against light infantry, less than one dead against MEQs or tougher. That isn't enough casualties against a horde to matter, and against tougher targets you're better off firing a plasma gun at BS 1 and hoping for some luck.

So, what about disembarked? For myself this only occurs when the Chimera has been destroyed, meaning my Vets are likely toast that same turn or the following.

This is a really bad approximation to make, for two reasons:

1) Never disembarking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You only take two special weapons, so you never have any reason to disembark, therefore you never take a third special weapon. If you have that third weapon available you'll realize that there are situations where it's worth the risk to get the extra 33% more firepower, especially if you assume that losing the Chimera means losing the squad immediately (remember that a Chimera at close range is fairly easy to kill, so it doesn't add much protection).

2) Losing the Chimera does not mean losing the squad. Remember that a Chimera is taller than a guardsman, so you can use the wreck to block LOS or at least get a cover save. You'll probably lose some meatshields, but who cares, their whole purpose is dying to protect the melta/plasma gunners. It's actually fairly easy to protect the three melta/plasma guns out of LOS for a turn, unless you drove the Chimera up to suicidally close range.

Near a mob of boys in the next game?

Correction: near a mob of boyz owned by an opponent who doesn't know how to spread out their units and avoid casualties from blast/template weapons. At maximum 2" coherency you aren't hitting many models with a single template, so the advantage over a plasma gun is small.

I do understand your thinking, but on the board in the middle of the game you can't always ensure your Vets will be near their intended target. Often my opponents will try to prevent this, making a little flexibility go a long way.

Being terrible at multiple roles is not flexibility. You might have a point if the HF was a huge improvement against hordes and the loss of a single melta/plasma gun turned the squad into a serious anti-horde threat. But the HF is mediocre at best, and there's only one of them in the squad. That isn't a legitimate horde killer, it's a waste of a unit.

Being terrible at multiple roles is not flexibility. You might have a point if the HF was a huge improvement against hordes and the loss of a single melta/plasma gun turned the squad into a serious anti-horde threat. But the HF is mediocre at best, and there's only one of them in the squad. That isn't a legitimate horde killer, it's a waste of a unit.

I don't understand how going from 3 Plasmas to 2 Plasmas suddenly makes this unit terrible. I can see the argument for melta, but rather 'less reliable' than 'terrible' in that situation. No HF does make Vets terrible vs hordes. A HF makes them mediocre vs hordes and any 4+ save hiding in cover. Against armies consisting of hordes and such the HF is more valuable to me than the plasma.

Correction: near a mob of boyz owned by an opponent who doesn't know how to spread out their units and avoid casualties from blast/template weapons. At maximum 2" coherency you aren't hitting many models with a single template, so the advantage over a plasma gun is small.

Spread Boyz will still take more hits from a HF than a Plasma, let alone a melta, followed by a nice overwatch. If you truly prefer a melta/plasma over a HF to combat a green tide than lets not continue to disagree on this otherwise informative thread.

This is a really bad approximation to make, for two reasons:

1) Never disembarking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You only take two special weapons, so you never have any reason to disembark, therefore you never take a third special weapon. If you have that third weapon available you'll realize that there are situations where it's worth the risk to get the extra 33% more firepower, especially if you assume that losing the Chimera means losing the squad immediately (remember that a Chimera at close range is fairly easy to kill, so it doesn't add much protection).

2) Losing the Chimera does not mean losing the squad. Remember that a Chimera is taller than a guardsman, so you can use the wreck to block LOS or at least get a cover save. You'll probably lose some meatshields, but who cares, their whole purpose is dying to protect the melta/plasma gunners. It's actually fairly easy to protect the three melta/plasma guns out of LOS for a turn, unless you drove the Chimera up to suicidally close range.

1. This I find interesting. I'm always torn whether to disembark to fire for full effect (I do run full plasma sometimes). Times that I do disembark either have the desired effect, or result in my Vets getting pasted before they should have. I imagine disembarking for meltas to be very beneficial, providing a few more inches. I'm not convinced on Plasma though, as the mobile bunker has always kept them shooting longer than if disembarked. I suppose if I need that 33% increase I would disembark... but this is situational and results in dead Vets. In other words, how often is that 33% increase game changing?

2. The only time my plasmas aren't dead post Chimera explosion is when they are out of range. Nobody I've played has happily trotted plasma prone targets within their range when they don't have to, barring a must have objective. Special weapons don't really matter in terms of objective holding.

So I have two questions for you:
1. Do you view Plasma/Melta Vets as suicide units and play them as such?
2. Do you hate the HF in general, or just on Vets (i.e. would you take one as a hull weapon over a heavy bolter)?

 UnadoptedPuppy wrote:

So I have two questions for you:
1. Do you view Plasma/Melta Vets as suicide units and play them as such?
2. Do you hate the HF in general, or just on Vets (i.e. would you take one as a hull weapon over a heavy bolter)?

I think all guardsmen are suicide units to a certain extent.

I would mostly agree with peregrine that it is usually better to have 3 melta or 3 plasma (BTW in some of the forgeworld armies plasma pistols are 10 pts a pop and can be a reasonable option for a gunslinger sarge). The HF is only really useful in 2 situations.
1) Overwatch to cause a failed charge. This is the real reason that this ever matters as overwatch rarely causes enough casualties to swing a combat. It can however very easily remove the front model causing a charge to fail. This is however only really useful if you see a lot of melee orks, etc. type lists.
2) Score as you go missions to help remove MSU units from objectives. Again though this becomes very meta and mission dependent. It is not an easy decision and you should really think whether an extra melta or plasma would have been better.
Often times the mixing of weapons is a self fulfilling prophecy as you have made your units to be mediocre at a lot of tasks. Thus when you target them at the "primary" task they under perform and you think "Why bother sinking more effort into it?" whereas when they perform mediocre at the "secondary" task they perform better than expected and thus you are impressed. It also changes how you play your list as you no longer have the ability to use the right tool for the right job as you replaced all your tool box with a utility tool.

This conversation of whether the 3rd weapon is useful, the unit surviving vs the transport surviving, etc. is somewhat centered around an interesting phenomenon I have noticed. The phenomenon is that people automatically sacrifice the transports to protect the units inside rather than the reverse. If you really think about what traits are useful in the end game they are; 1) mobility, 2) ObjSec/Scoring, 3) durability, and 4) ignore cover templates, tank shocks, and/or melee to help remove a unit from objectives. The easy example to understand is a unit about to charge a waveserpent versus jumping the dire avengers out to let them take the charge. Should be obvious to sacrifice the dire avengers to keep the serpent but 90% of players do the reverse. In the case of a chimera it is a harder decision that would probably come down to what the opponent currently has left in play (lots of anti tank to kill chimera or an imperial knight you need to kill, etc.). Note that the chimera is as good or better in 3 of the 4 important metric as the squad inside. So if you can trade your vets for something worthwhile and keep the chimera to score later it is usually more worthwhile that lowering the kill rate of the vets and sacrificing the chimera. There is also the fact that the chimera can usually block LoS for a good chunk of the opponent's army after the vets jump out and the vets being outside means they take less damage from an explosion.

BTW for my vets I usually do some combination of 3 melta or 3 plasma. I usually take grenadiers as I find the unit more useful that way (also I have an entire army of DKoK engineers). I have also been taking demolitions as there are currently a lot of imperial knights and super heavies. I cannot say I have had enough games using mechvet lists to really perfect them though. Also I have more games using vet squads in drop pods, vet squads in different assault or open topped vehicles, and elysian drop troops vet squads. In all of these types of lists the demo and grenadier options start really shining as I am not likely to have a chimera to block LoS for the unit and am much more likely to get to charge various vehicles and MC/GMC.

 ansacs wrote:

BTW for my vets I usually do some combination of 3 melta or 3 plasma. I usually take grenadiers as I find the unit more useful that way (also I have an entire army of DKoK engineers). I have also been taking demolitions as there are currently a lot of imperial knights and super heavies. I cannot say I have had enough games using mechvet lists to really perfect them though. Also I have more games using vet squads in drop pods, vet squads in different assault or open topped vehicles, and elysian drop troops vet squads. In all of these types of lists the demo and grenadier options start really shining as I am not likely to have a chimera to block LoS for the unit and am much more likely to get to charge various vehicles and MC/GMC.

How have the demolitions been working for you? Is it a case of throwing the bomb first chance you get, and then if you have a few dudes left, charging an appropriate target? Do you take it on plasma and melta squads, or just the melta squads?

 UnadoptedPuppy wrote:
I don't understand how going from 3 Plasmas to 2 Plasmas suddenly makes this unit terrible.

Because you just lost 33% of your firepower. Vets are worth taking because you get tons of BS 4 special weapons, take that away and you have a weak unit.

Spread Boyz will still take more hits from a HF than a Plasma, let alone a melta, followed by a nice overwatch. If you truly prefer a melta/plasma over a HF to combat a green tide than lets not continue to disagree on this otherwise informative thread.

You're missing the point here. It's not that the melta/plasma is better against the horde of boyz, it's that the HF isn't better against those targets by a large enough margin to justify throwing away 33% of your firepower against the targets you actually want to use melta/plasma vets against. I'd rather have the HF if I could guarantee that my opponent will have nothing but boyz in their army, but in any other situation I'd rather have an effective melta/plasma vet squad and a Manticore/Wyvern squadron/etc to deal with the horde.

1. This I find interesting. I'm always torn whether to disembark to fire for full effect (I do run full plasma sometimes). Times that I do disembark either have the desired effect, or result in my Vets getting pasted before they should have. I imagine disembarking for meltas to be very beneficial, providing a few more inches. I'm not convinced on Plasma though, as the mobile bunker has always kept them shooting longer than if disembarked. I suppose if I need that 33% increase I would disembark... but this is situational and results in dead Vets. In other words, how often is that 33% increase game changing?

Your analysis here is overlooking the fact that a Chimera in melta/plasma delivery range is a very easy target to kill. If you're assuming that your vets die as soon as they leave the Chimera then the most likely outcome of delivering two plasma guns without disembarking is the Chimera dying, followed immediately by the passengers. So if the Chimera doesn't add all that much durability once it has delivered the vets you might as well disembark them and maximize their firepower in the one turn they get before they die.

2. The only time my plasmas aren't dead post Chimera explosion is when they are out of range. Nobody I've played has happily trotted plasma prone targets within their range when they don't have to, barring a must have objective. Special weapons don't really matter in terms of objective holding.

Then honestly I have to wonder about your skill with vets. Yes, sometimes they will get shot out of their transport and immediately die, but you'll frequently be able to save the plasma guns for another turn of shooting. Are you just driving the Chimeras straight into the middle of your opponent's army without any support?

1. Do you view Plasma/Melta Vets as suicide units and play them as such?

Yes, because that's what they are. They're a small squad of guardsmen that has to get up close to do anything, and their only transport options either require them to disembark (Valkyrie) or are very fragile at close range (Chimera). Obviously I will try to get multiple turns of shooting out of them when I can, but when you take vets you have to accept the fact that they very often die after their first round of shooting.

2. Do you hate the HF in general, or just on Vets (i.e. would you take one as a hull weapon over a heavy bolter)?

Just on vets (and other units that pay a similar price to get one). In other situations they aren't bad because the cost is much lower. For example, since a Chimera isn't a fast vehicle you are usually snap firing the hull HB, and some BS 1 heavy bolter shots are a small price to pay for a HF that might be very useful occasionally. The problem with the HF isn't that it's a worthless weapon, it's that it replaces a much more effective weapon.

 Peregrine wrote:

Just on vets (and other units that pay a similar price to get one). In other situations they aren't bad because the cost is much lower. For example, since a Chimera isn't a fast vehicle you are usually snap firing the hull HB, and some BS 1 heavy bolter shots are a small price to pay for a HF that might be very useful occasionally. The problem with the HF isn't that it's a worthless weapon, it's that it replaces a much more effective weapon.

Are flamer platoon command squads among that number? 3x flamers, 1x heavy flamer seems fun.

1-2 dead orkses on overwatch is a big deal. Considering charge ranges and the need to go spread out, it's an extra pressure for mellee units. And with an extra HF you can go more offensive vs infantry that doesn't care about an extra plasma/melta gun - be it ork boyz or someone in cover.

And you have to go offensive sometimes. Can't just go gunlining the whole game with maelstorm.

HandofMars wrote:
How have the demolitions been working for you? Is it a case of throwing the bomb first chance you get, and then if you have a few dudes left, charging an appropriate target? Do you take it on plasma and melta squads, or just the melta squads?

The doctrine works very well. The demo charge is decent. It occasionally does a whole lot of damage to the right targets but most of the time it just does okay. IMO what makes demolitions doctrine worthwhile is the meltabombs on all of the vets. This makes them absolute death to things like imperial knights, khorne scorpions, etc. It is also surprisingly common for this to become useful against superheavies, MC, and waveserpents as it isn't that rare for them to end up in charge range of a remnant of a unit or need to shift into position due to LoS blocking terrain. It is hilarious to watch an imperial knight run away from your vet squad rather than charge them.

Any assault/opentopped transports for IG?

 koooaei wrote:
Any assault/opentopped transports for IG?

Centaur is open topped. Though most of the time I borrow a ride from an ally; Stormravens, Caestus Assault Rams, etc.