Chimeras, overpowered or a metal box protector for the men?

Thought I'd do something a bit different, and since it’s a dedicated transport it couldn't be a blob guard unit review... or could it be.

The chimera is the only dedicated transport for the imperial guard, and comes with a respectable AV12 frontage, which as people will tell you, if you aren’t firing mass S8 it can be a pain. Although this is countered by the AV 10 sides (And rear, but that’s the norm) which makes the vehicle really need to rely on terrain and facings if it wishes to advance.

The weapon options also cater to the sit back gun bunker role with the turret coming as a multi-laser which gives you 3x S6 shots at 36inch range, although it is AP6 so only a few enemies will not be getting their save... but with the high str it can ID T3 models nicely as the majority seem to have a 4+ or 5+ save. His can be upgraded to either a heavy bolter, which is not worth it imo as you sacrifice 1 Str for ap4, but it drops your anti vehicle capability, as with S6 you can pen razorbacks on 6’s or glance no 5’s... 1/3 chance which is not bad at all. The other option is a heavy flamer which is not worth it; you can cover this with the hull mounted weapon options.

It also comes with a hull mounted heavy bolter, which if combined with the multi laser can put out some decent firepower... if the BS3 gets you hits... which it sometimes does but mostly it likes to fail at least 2 shots out of the three. This can be swapped over to a hull heavy flamer which in my opinion is the better of the two options. It allows you to keep the anti light armour multi-laser and add some anti horde meaning you can move 6 and pick which suits its purpose best at the time.

Although there are some people I’ve seen running dual heavy bolter chimeras for sit back and suppress infantry roles, add in infantry squads with an autocannon or a vet squad with Harker and heavy bolter and you can put out some amount of firepower... and costs points.

The main selling point which people complain about (The non guard players) is the fire points which allows 5 people to shoot from the top hatch, which is huge when you consider you can have 3-4 Meltaguns or plasma guns from veteran or company command squads respectively... and adding in a plasma pistol means all 5 spots have plasma raining out can lead to opponents sighing as the men inside sit safe (We hope) until they get debunked.

And when you have about 5-8 in your army you can see the anti light vehicle and anti horde really begin to stack up eve before you add specialised units, or consider he units inside them!

So... do they work in blob lists? Well possibly in hybrid lists like my Deathstrike one, they add some safety for your PCS’s to ride around in and the CCS, they add some long range light vehicle which the blob could use, and they add some heavy flamers, but they again only have AV12 which can be broken and with its weak sides will be in trouble if it wants to move up.

The other problem is it takes points which could be spent on men and turns the army from pure blob into a hybrid which as mentioned leads to the lascannons etc having a viable target to shoot at now. But it’s worth the risk in some army builds still.

So does it work in a mech list... silly question it is what makes a mech list! So yes it does work.

Definitely worth its points, sadly though dozer blades are 5 points too much in this codex and that ruins its use ever so slightly for me as I love using terrain to run through with my marines.

Extras such as Extra armour, camo netting and hunter killers are points you will be hard pressed to find, and increasing the cost ruins the vehicles cheap but stable role I feel. Keep it cheap and run more.

Its final upgrades are a pintle mounted   storm bolter or stubber, but again for 10 points you really are making these units into bigger targets and when they pop you’ll be down even more firepower.    

The special rule is nice though that it treats water as clear terrain, but I’ve only ever got to use this once in all my games as water doesn’t appear much on tourney tables.  Its other special rule is just gravy... allowing command orders from inside the vehicle; sadly it does not allow the same command squad to issue to themselves to BID on big nasties.

Don’t think any of this is new to people, the chimera appears across plenty of tables and in a variety of roles with a number of unit types inside all unleashing their own brand of pain or run away magic.