IG heavy weapons in chimeras?

[walrusman999]

I'm having some issues justifying putting heavy weapons in veteran squads with chimeras. You disembark the squad, they count as having moved, you cant shoot the heavy weapons.

Is it worth taking them if you are going to be highly mobile?

Additionally, the listing says they have lasguns on top of having the heavy weapons. So you could potentially disembark from a Chimera, fire with lasguns with the rest of the squad, then (assuming you don't get totally destroyed in assault or something and make it to the next turn) fire with an auto cannon the next turn.

[Wolfshade]

They can still snap fire.

They probably won't fit in if you are being a mobile army, so instead maybe look towards having your heavy weapons mounted on vehicles either walkers or tanks.

[walrusman999]

I was just curious because I was moving some points around and could potentially field some heavy weapon teams with an extra 50 point i have. I really didn't need the master of the fleet as i only have 2 vendettas in reserves which already come in on a 3+ so do i take an astropath to be annoying or pick up extra models somewhere...

Hell i already was able to move points around and take better units to accomplish the respective job, I saved enough points to go from having 3 vet squads to 4 and equipping each with a chimera on top of already having 3 vendettas.

[jgebi]

well the astropath is a troll sometimes so I would go with the troll

[walrusman999]

I shuffled around some more points, this time by dropping my additional crewman for the rapier, i can field both an astropath and an officer of the fleet. Worth it? or would having two crewman for my artillery piece be better instead of 1 per piece.

[walrusman999]

So I gotta ask, I can choose to have my heavy weapon teams use lasguns instead of the heavy weapon if the team moved. It is listed with their war gear. They wouldn't need to snap fire with them as they would with the heavy weapon because they can move and shoot rapid fire weapons.

[DarkLink]

If it's in the wargear list, you can use it.

[Wildcard]

Note that you still only get to fire one lasgun from the heavy weapon team, since effectively its only one model with two wounds. Anything else (like gunner and ammo dude separate) is illegal in GWs eyes.

Also, the role you want for them, and what special weapons they are getting affects much how you should consider equipping them (and by that what i mean is what do you mean by mobile forces).

Just a few examples to show my point:

Example 1
Offensive:
Veteran squad with 3x meltaguns, Role would be to open enemy tanks / multi wound T4 enemies (or ofcourse high T enemies). This means that you are easily forcing yourself out of the cover, so carapace is a lot better option than camo cloak. With short range and possibly offensive playstyle it would mean that you will get only a few accurate shots if any at all during the game with the heavy weapon. And as melta has short range, you will have to be on the enemys charge range to do some damage. Only highly situational, when this would be good. One thing that i can think of however (depends on your list and local meta ofc by alot), is the use of autocannons against aircrafts. Then it wouldn't matter if you have to move, since you would be hitting on 6'es anyway.. This is if the enemy has lots of airpower, or if you just cannot / dont want to fit any AA-capable units, like hydras or vendettas. Plus some Forge-world units..

Defensive
Veteran squad with 3x meltaguns, Role of this unit would be to guard against deepstriking or outflanking enemy walkers / tanks planes that are getting deliberately on your backfield. These enemy units most likely have ap4 or better weaponry so taking carapace isn't worth it. However, you will most likely sit the vets in some ruins or other cover if its their job to be the rearguard, thus giving them camo cloaks is a good idea. Also, as a more or less static / counter role of theirs (depends on you scenario / battlefield / game points etc) you could use a weapon suitable for their anti tank role, thus lascannon would be good (if expensive) option.

Example 2
Offensive
Veteran Squad with 3x Plasma guns, Gets Hot more than any other gun in the game (for some weird reason) so carapace for the marginally improved defence against those. with 3x plasma guns the role is to hunt enemy 2+Sv (and 3+Sv) units, and light armor. Both of these roles plasma vets do well and the points with 3x plasma gun and carapace is so high, it's probably unwise to spend even more points to the heavy weapon. However, like with the previous offensive example, there are few cases where you can include the heavy weapon in the unit with acceptable reason.

Defensive
Veteran Squad with 3x Plasma guns, Rapid fire salvos against deepstriking terminators and light armor, its up to you if you want to put lascannon for improved armor penetration. Yet with 3x plasmagun, and the mandatory carapace (unless you can field multiple veteran squads with overlapping roles) the price is again very high.

With the new Gunslinger USR, one could consider boosting the effectiveness of the unit by adding double plasma pistol to the sergeant to add 33% increase in the possible damage on the 12" mark. Plasma Pistol being 10 points per pistol would mean its equally priced when swapped with lascannon, or only 10 points more / squad if swapped from autocannon