[Aftercresent]

[size=16pt]::Tactica: Chimera::[/size]

By AfterCresent, god of all things Imperial Guard

Overview:
The Chimera is the workhorse of almost every Imperial Guard regiment. Sure, certain regiments will have different vehicles as their main transport, but the Chimera is the most common in the known universe. Splendidly reliable and robust, and able to take a lot of punishment, from falling branches to weapon fire, the Chimera is favoured by every soldier.

Fluff Potential:
The Chimera is incredibly adaptable, from attaching a dozer blade to plow through barricades, to throwing down a cot inside so soldiers can get some rest, there are so many uses for the Chimera.
The Chimera chassis is sued in many different Imperial vehicles, including the Hellhound flamer tank, the Basilisk and it's Earthshaker cannon, and the Griffin Mortar.
Striped down of it's heavy weapons, (such as the Multilaser turret) the Chimera chassis can be used to haul tanks of promethium or water, to carry supplies to the front lines, or even towing damaged vehicles, or wrecks.
The standard Chimera variant, newly built from a ForgeWorld, is equipped with a Turret mounted Multilaser, a Hull mounted Heavy Bolter and 6 fire points, equipped with lasguns. The fire points can give the infantrymen inside a chance to fight back, while in combat.
Many soldiers, in times of trouble, have even open the top passenger hatch, which allowed a trooper to fire a weapon out of the hatch. The disadvantage with this is that grenades are easily thrown into the Chimera.
Different variants of the Chimera can have Heavy Bolters, or even Heavy flamers, mounted in the turret. Hull mounts can include heavy Bolter's and heavy flamers, while many aspiring tank commanders add a Hunter Killer Missile or a Pintle mounted Heavy Stubber to the tank.

Gaming Potential:
The Chimera is able to throw out plentry of heavy fire.
Here's some quick math for you
Turret Multilaser/ Heavy Bolter- 3 shots
Hull Heavy Bolter- 3 shots
Pintle Heavy Stubber- 3 shots
Rapid Firing passenger lasguns- 12 shots
Hunter Killer Missile- 1 shot
Heavy Bolter from the passenger hatch- 3 shots
Total: 25 shots

That's an incrediable amount of firepower for a vehicles with a very low base points cost.

Not to mention how fast the Chimera is in comparison to the average troopers speed. This means you can easily get your troops right up the enemy or objective quickly, near the end of the game, to steal the win from the jaws of defeat.

A wall of cheap Chimeras can provide heavy firepower, and give valuable cover for many troops behind them.

Conversion Potential:

The Chimera chassis, as a model, is extremely versatile, being flat enough that extra bitz can be glued on; and simple enough that the kit itself can be easily converted into different varients/weapon mounts. Several members of Tau Online have display some pretty amazing Chimera conversions, see below:

Credit to Wanax:

Between the World War style tanks
Scratch Built Chimera's

Credit To Kasrkin Rhodes:

German Based Chimeras

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Thanks for looking, happy gaming!

[GeekyGator]

Awesome. Though I don't think you can have a heavy bolter from the top hatch- a stormbolter, yes, but thats slightly different. Only 24" range.

I agree, Chimeras are awesome! nice tacticia.

[Mrgame]

Yeah,they can only take a hull heavy bolter and/or a heavy bolter for the turret I believe.
Then you can have a storm bolter or heavy stubber as a pintle weapon.

I like the tactica too.Love to put them with my vet squads...

[Aftercresent]

You can fire a heavy bolter from the passenger hatch though. That's what I mean.

[GeekyGator]

A heavy bolter? Maybe a normal bolter, but I don't think so for a heavy.

[Earlydawn]

Heavy weapons, including mortars, can be fired from the top hatch.

[usmarox]

You can have both a turret and a hull heavy bolter. You can also fire any weapon, be it heavy or not, form the rear hatch. The same rules on movement and fire apply to the passengers as if they were on foot, but if the Chimera sits still, you can indeed fire a heavy bolter from it.

[Mrgame]

yeah ok now I understand,forgot about that,then yes if you had a squad with a heavy bolter you could fire it from the top hatch,my bad,remember reading a topic somewhere if he could fire his mortar from the top hatch.

[Guitardian]

Originally Posted by Mrgame

yeah ok now I understand,forgot about that,then yes if you had a squad with a heavy bolter you could fire it from the top hatch,my bad,remember reading a topic somewhere if he could fire his mortar from the top hatch.

firing a mortar from a tophatch is stupid... either make your chim a troop transport or make it an independant fighter tank.
best combos:
obviously the multilas/heavy bolter for dice is a favorite. but a nice alternative is a turret hvy flam and a hull hvy flam, plus smoke... charge in... burn stuff nearby... drop off.. let troops mop up with their extra squad flamer.. kind of a ghetto hellhound that you can mount up and reposition every other turn. squads in chims NEVER get their 6 lasgun shots because of the dumb targetting rules that insist that we all fire at the same target. if you want to use a chim as a tankbuster leave a squad with a lascannon in the back and consider that as your primary weapon. the 6 lasgun mounts are just plain gay and useless. chims shine with a dedicated weapon in their back... a lascan, a meltgun, something usefull like that... or by transporting a squad to a useful spot on the board. they do not add up to mathammer assessments of the number of shots they get off because the fire arcs are lame and hard to work around.

chims rock i agree
but half their guns are useless.

[bun drone]

x2 on the Hvy Flamer/Hvy Flamer Chimera, especially with highly mobile tactics.

The role of the Hvy Flamer/Hvy Flamer Chimera is different, but that's why you're packing all the other goodies in your army like Autocannons & Lascannons & such...

You've probably got tons of other ranged firebases with plenty of little Flashlights, so an in-your-face Flaming Chimera o Doom fills a role that your org chart probably doesn't have a lot of.