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How are people are finding the old Mech Vets lists in 7th edition? The deal back in 5th/6th used to be to load them up with three matching specials and then drive them around in their Chimeras shooting. So..

- Is three specials still the way to go (even though you can only shoot two out of the hatch)? Or is two enough if they never get out?
- Or are people taking heavies and then sitting at the back engaging at long range? Any change since 7th?
- Do you ever get out of the chimera? Is there any reason for Krak, Meltabombs etc etc?
- Any cool combinations with the permissive 7th edition allies rules?

I ask because I'm thinking of building some more Arbites and I'm wondering how to use the basic troops well - roaming special weapons, long range objective campers, etc etc. Obviously, my guys are going to have Carapace and Shotguns - I wonder if that skews things and makes it more viable for me to get out of the tank?

Anyway, interested to see what people are fielding / what tactics are in use...

If you've moved 12" with your chimera, you'll be snapshotting. Snapshotting with plasma guns is pretty dangerous.

Assuming you have 2 plasma guns a melta gun or a flamer may come handy, when you need to shoot at AV14, or there are some really dense infantry around.

Since you can't really shoot the same targets with your lasgun array as you are shooting with your turret/passengers, if you are in rapid fire range, it may worth getting out, so you can rapid fire with a couple of more lasguns. It won't cause much damage, and you are more vulnerable in the open, but it's an option.

Btw what are the exact arc of fire for the lasgun arrays?

Don't forget, the chimera comes with a multi laser and a HB, that's 3-3 S5-6 shots, pretty nice firepower.

Now they arrive in drop pods, thanks to BA being able to take 6 fast attack choices, and being able to take pods as a fast attack.

Drop in, rapid fire, then go to ground. Make the opponent deal with your infantry at point blank instead of dealing with the wyverns and other heavy support.

-Matt

Zsolt wrote:If you've moved 12" with your chimera, you'll be snapshotting. Snapshotting with plasma guns is pretty dangerous.

Assuming you have 2 plasma guns a melta gun or a flamer may come handy, when you need to shoot at AV14, or there are some really dense infantry around.

Since you can't really shoot the same targets with your lasgun array as you are shooting with your turret/passengers, if you are in rapid fire range, it may worth getting out, so you can rapid fire with a couple of more lasguns. It won't cause much damage, and you are more vulnerable in the open, but it's an option.

Btw what are the exact arc of fire for the lasgun arrays?

Don't forget, the chimera comes with a multi laser and a HB, that's 3-3 S5-6 shots, pretty nice firepower.

Yup, the Chimeras themselves already give you a fair amount of anti-horder firepower however they're equipped.

The Lasgun arrays can fire at anything they can see, are always BS3 regardless how far the chimera moves, and each array can fire at a different target from the Chimera and from the squad inside. So, getting out would allow you to combine fire on a unit to one side and use your BS4, but wouldn't give you any more shots in total. Staying in the Chimera means that you still get all the shots (at BS3), but you can fire your specials at a different target.

Of course, since my guys will have A2 Shotguns and Carapace, maybe there's an argument for getting out and charging things?? Er...maybe not...

HawaiiMatt wrote:Now they arrive in drop pods, thanks to BA being able to take 6 fast attack choices, and being able to take pods as a fast attack.

Drop in, rapid fire, then go to ground. Make the opponent deal with your infantry at point blank instead of dealing with the wyverns and other heavy support.

Nice idea actually, so you don't use Chimeras at all ay more? Do you ever have any troops left for holding objectives using these tactics??

Unfortunately Drop Pods aren't an option for me...

Call me old fashion but I still use the melta vets in chimera's. I run 1 or 2 squads with 3 melta's and try to get close enough to my target that I can jump them out and fire. This tactic has been successful more often then not.

I like mech vets with 2 meltas and 1 Heavy flamer, intended to be anti armor.

Then I use my vehicles (wyverns, LRs) for anti infantry

I still run melta/plasma vets- in fact in my opinion they're the only way to make Guard work in Maelstrom. The 6'' move+run of blobs is imo too slow to consistently zip around the map scoring points, especially with difficult terrain abound.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:Now they arrive in drop pods, thanks to BA being able to take 6 fast attack choices, and being able to take pods as a fast attack.

Drop in, rapid fire, then go to ground. Make the opponent deal with your infantry at point blank instead of dealing with the wyverns and other heavy support.

Nice idea actually, so you don't use Chimeras at all ay more? Do you ever have any troops left for holding objectives using these tactics??

Unfortunately Drop Pods aren't an option for me...

I'm not running them at all. I'm looking at that new BA formation and trying to find the best army to (ab)use it.
I'm really thinking that cheap guard as a throw away pod force might do it.
I haven't spec'ed out a list yet, but my gut is telling me that it's possibly the right path. With a comm relay, astropath and officer of the fleet, you can get a fair bit of reserves advantages.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
BA tech marine, 5 scouts and 6 pods is only 355 points.

My army is based of them and DSing storm troopers. 5 squads of vets in chimeras with 3 plasma squads and two melta squads. Storm troopers are 5 man with 2 melta squads and a plasma squad. Typically I keep my squads safe in their vehicles and spend a turn just shooting. Second turn my DSers start coming in and I start moving out of my deployment area and the guys will get out when they are close enough to do something.

They are backed up by a command LR squadron a normal LR squadron, a Wyvern squadron and a hydra squadron. LRs are various types, executioner, demolisher, and standard.

I do not believe in ally shenanigans to defeat the spirit of the game, call me old I guess, but I always play pure armies.

Drop pod guard can be very fluffy.
How about Elysian Drop troop themed army?

Company command squad, 5x vets, 3x storm troopers, outflanking sentinels, flyers and allied BA, all in pods.

Elysians are the Black Hawk down army, they come flying in in choppers/Valks and fast rope down or they parachute in. I cant see the Blood Angels allowing now BA forces to borrow their equipment. I think this was a major flaw in the new rules allowing stuff like this to shore up intentional "weaknesses" in armies. They can already Deep strike or fast rope, why do they need drop pods?

Sure it starts in little steps, "Hey let us borrow your drop pod, its for the good of the mission." then moves onto, "Can we take your Baal predator for a spin?" To ten missions later its all camouflaged with Elysian symbology () to "Hey we have a mission coming up in another sector, can we borrow your battle barge for a few?"

Col. Dash wrote:
Elysians are the Black Hawk down army, they come flying in in choppers/Valks and fast rope down or they parachute in. I cant see the Blood Angels allowing now BA forces to borrow their equipment. I think this was a major flaw in the new rules allowing stuff like this to shore up intentional "weaknesses" in armies. They can already Deep strike or fast rope, why do they need drop pods?

Sure it starts in little steps, "Hey let us borrow your drop pod, its for the good of the mission." then moves onto, "Can we take your Baal predator for a spin?" To ten missions later its all camouflaged with Elysian symbology () to "Hey we have a mission coming up in another sector, can we borrow your battle barge for a few?"

Because drop pods won't scatter and can come in first turn, if I'm correct. Fluff is nice, but they aren't rules.

The catch is that the FW Elysian list has a rule that's basically "Drop Pod Assault, Valkyrie Edition".

It lets you bring in Valkyries/Sky Talons Turn 1 automatically, in the same way that Drop Pods can drop Turn 1.

Whiskey144 wrote:
The catch is that the FW Elysian list has a rule that's basically "Drop Pod Assault, Valkyrie Edition".

It lets you bring in Valkyries/Sky Talons Turn 1 automatically, in the same way that Drop Pods can drop Turn 1.

Out of curiosity, what book / FAQ has this rule? I don't see it in my IA:8 book, nor have I spotted it in the IA:8 FAQ update.

Am I just a blind loon? Or am I missing something here.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:
The catch is that the FW Elysian list has a rule that's basically "Drop Pod Assault, Valkyrie Edition".

It lets you bring in Valkyries/Sky Talons Turn 1 automatically, in the same way that Drop Pods can drop Turn 1.

Out of curiosity, what book / FAQ has this rule? I don't see it in my IA:8 book, nor have I spotted it in the IA:8 FAQ update.

Am I just a blind loon? Or am I missing something here.

IA:3.2. I have no idea how similar or dissimilar it is to IA:8.

Ahhh alright. That was more or less what I figured it was in, but I just wanted to make sure.

I would personally use one chimera and one Valkyrie, load up one up with stormies and the other with a normal vet squads. The last vet team I deploy on foot to defend my hq.

Col. Dash wrote:
Elysians are the Black Hawk down army, they come flying in in choppers/Valks and fast rope down or they parachute in. I cant see the Blood Angels allowing now BA forces to borrow their equipment. I think this was a major flaw in the new rules allowing stuff like this to shore up intentional "weaknesses" in armies. They can already Deep strike or fast rope, why do they need drop pods?

Sure it starts in little steps, "Hey let us borrow your drop pod, its for the good of the mission." then moves onto, "Can we take your Baal predator for a spin?" To ten missions later its all camouflaged with Elysian symbology () to "Hey we have a mission coming up in another sector, can we borrow your battle barge for a few?"

So the pod is the crashed black hawk, and the storm bolter it's armed with is the delta guy who dropped in to help out.

Seriously though, deep striking IG was doable back with the doctrines, and it's not that much of a reach to think that some IG forces are going to planet fall without everyone riding in a valk.
-Matt

Last game I had two vet squads in chimeras (2plasma, 1 melta, 4+). I advanced with both of them a devastator squad (8-10 men, 4 lascannons) sitting in 4+ cover. first turn I flat outed, so the guys only snap shotted from it (1 melta, 1 lasgun, because it's not fun to die from gets hot while you hit on 6+, anyway, no hit). Next turn 6" move, so HB only snap shoted, but multi laser fired normally, also it was rapid fire range for plasma guns. Out of 4 shots 2 hit, and I rolled 2 ones for gets hot, one guy blew up, the other wound was saved. The other two plasma gun guys in the other chimera shot too but whatever wounded were saved by cover. All this shooting from 2 plasma vet squad netted a total of 2 dead space marine.

What lesson can we learn from this?

Zsolt wrote:
Last game I had two vet squads in chimeras (2plasma, 1 melta, 4+). I advanced with both of them a devastator squad (8-10 men, 4 lascannons) sitting in 4+ cover. first turn I flat outed, so the guys only snap shotted from it (1 melta, 1 lasgun, because it's not fun to die from gets hot while you hit on 6+, anyway, no hit). Next turn 6" move, so HB only snap shoted, but multi laser fired normally, also it was rapid fire range for plasma guns. Out of 4 shots 2 hit, and I rolled 2 ones for gets hot, one guy blew up, the other wound was saved. The other two plasma gun guys in the other chimera shot too but whatever wounded were saved by cover. All this shooting from 2 plasma vet squad netted a total of 2 dead space marine.

What lesson can we learn from this?

I'm thinking 2x melta and heavy flamer for the vets.
I don't think plasma is worth the extra cost or extra risk.

I enjoy 2 meltaguns and 1 heavy flamer in my vet squads. I also put them in a chimera with a multi laser and hull mounted heavy flamer. I drive them into enemy lines so this load out gives me up close tank popping ability and/or infantry burning ability. I have run 3 plasmas before but they usually kill themselves even with 4+ armor. I was thinking about running a company command squad with 3 plasmas and a medic for a 4+/5+ in a chimera as they might live longer (not vets but thought I'd mention it).

HawaiiMatt wrote:
I'm thinking 2x melta and heavy flamer for the vets.
I don't think plasma is worth the extra cost or extra risk.

Marshal86 wrote:I enjoy 2 meltaguns and 1 heavy flamer in my vet squads. I also put them in a chimera with a multi laser and hull mounted heavy flamer. I drive them into enemy lines so this load out gives me up close tank popping ability and/or infantry burning ability. I have run 3 plasmas before but they usually kill themselves even with 4+ armor. I was thinking about running a company command squad with 3 plasmas and a medic for a 4+/5+ in a chimera as they might live longer (not vets but thought I'd mention it).

Yeah, seems like a few pdolls are doing this, do you find much use for the hull heavy flamer over additional HB snap shots?

Speaking of which, and on a related note, does anyone ever use the hull multi melta on Hellhounds? On one hand, it gives additional utility, but on the other you're never going to fire both weapons at the same target anyways...

In 5th Edition I ran 2x Plasma 1x Melta in Chimeras. Everyone said that this was suboptimal and that I should specialize the units...meh. With the new codex's reduced number of firing points, this loadout tends to make even more sense.

Driveby heavy infantry at 12" or shoot them at 24", and if something comes close that warrants an extra pop, jump everybody out and blast them with both Plasma Guns and the Melta Gun, and a Krak Grenade. If you really want to burninate something, you've got a Hull Heavy Flamer on the Chimera anyway.

I was thinking about using an Inquisition henchman squad in Rhino instead of mech vets. For 77 pts you get a rhino, 2 plasma guns and 3 bodies. If you really want you can add carapace armor to them, so they they bit less often from gets hot. Same thing costs 190 pts in a chimera with dozer, so you can take 2.4 of this unit for the price of a mech vet, which compensates for BS4 and the loss of the almighty multilaser.

I run two types of veterans; 3x Plasma with carapace and 3 melta with krak grenades. My chimera loadout is always Multilaser/ heavy flamer. My current list is built around running Steel Host as a "wave" where I throw 4-5 tanks at my opponent and I use the veterans to mop up. I think that, if you are running "mech vets" you will need 4-6. Also, I find it best to specialize squads. Mixing weapons means that something will always be unable to shoot an effective target.

Zsolt wrote:I was thinking about using an Inquisition henchman squad in Rhino instead of mech vets. For 77 pts you get a rhino, 2 plasma guns and 3 bodies. If you really want you can add carapace armor to them, so they they bit less often from gets hot. Same thing costs 190 pts in a chimera with dozer, so you can take 2.4 of this unit for the price of a mech vet, which compensates for BS4 and the loss of the almighty multilaser.

That's 190 if you swap over to IG vets, right? For 107 you could stick them in an Inquisitorial Chimera and get back all the chimera weapons without having to up the squad size to 10, and you're still getting roughly two for every squad of IG vets.

Happygrunt wrote:I run two types of veterans; 3x Plasma with carapace and 3 melta with krak grenades. My chimera loadout is always Multilaser/ heavy flamer. My current list is built around running Steel Host as a "wave" where I throw 4-5 tanks at my opponent and I use the veterans to mop up. I think that, if you are running "mech vets" you will need 4-6. Also, I find it best to specialize squads. Mixing weapons means that something will always be unable to shoot an effective target.

Do you find that the plasmas ever survive, or do they just plasma themselves to death?

 ArbitorIan wrote:

Happygrunt wrote:I run two types of veterans; 3x Plasma with carapace and 3 melta with krak grenades. My chimera loadout is always Multilaser/ heavy flamer. My current list is built around running Steel Host as a "wave" where I throw 4-5 tanks at my opponent and I use the veterans to mop up. I think that, if you are running "mech vets" you will need 4-6. Also, I find it best to specialize squads. Mixing weapons means that something will always be unable to shoot an effective target.

Do you find that the plasmas ever survive, or do they just plasma themselves to death?

Oh, usually plasma themselves to death. However, I run them in carapace armor, so they ignore that wound half the time, an the firepower they bring is more than worth the risk. That is also why I take 3 guns. If I lose a gunner while embarked, the firepower of the unit only drops once they leave the vehicle.

That initial volley should hurt whoever you are hitting bad enough to at least pay for themselves, despite losing a guy. If you have the spare points give a plasma pistol to the sergeant. A plasma squad is expendable anyway, if he hits, its likely one less terminator.

ArbitorIan wrote:
Speaking of which, and on a related note, does anyone ever use the hull multi melta on Hellhounds? On one hand, it gives additional utility, but on the other you're never going to fire both weapons at the same target anyways...

I load my Hellhound with it; sure it's a torrent flamer that can cook any Xeno troop without too much hassle, but it's also a fast tank that can move 12'' and still fire at full BS that gun that got a 12 inch melta range.

Sure it's BS 3, but it's not like you'll have that sponson equipped Leman Russ in his face until he advances on it.

Experience-talk only, I kill as much with that multi-melta as I do with the flamer, as I usually get a weapon destroyed result, loose the inferno canon, and switch to vehicle/monster/any 2+ unit hunter.