I ask because it's going to interfere with the moevement of the turret if somebody's head and upper torso are in the way.

BTW, for the person in the hatch, does the vehicle become Open-Topped as far as he is concerned, or does he just get cover for his legs and body?

And -- this particular Chimera has an autocannon in the turret. Shouldn't this do serious hearing damage to the poor guy?

The rear 2/3rds of the vehicle carry the troops in it. If you're looking at the model, there are small lasgun firing points on the sides (these are the pointy bits facing outward if you see the model). Directly above these is the hatch, and it represents something of a good portion of the rear part of the veicle.

I doubt the hatch being open prevents full rotation of the turret, but it may have to alter the angle of the gun to ensure it can fully spin. As far as hearing issues/friendly fire, I'll be honest, that feels a tad bit too simulationist for me. It would make sense that the gunners are well enough trained to avoid it. That said, yes, the gunner firing from the open position should be targetable like someone in an open talked vehicle. I would say that the passengers remaining inside should still be difficult to target, but an enemy grenade would be bad.

OK, so the hatch is on the rear half of the vehicle, behind the turret. So that gives the guy in it a firing arc to the right, left, and rear.

Pretty much. You could probably clamber up and fire over the turret if needs be but that's pretty much lying on top the Chimer rather than in it.

The top hatch firepoint is indeed situation behind the turret. However the hatch when fully opened should sit flush with the top of the hull, allowing the turret full rotation (unless the hatch was flung open while the turret was already facing the rear!). The only issue would be what sort of weapons the occupants were firing out.

Also the whole "autocannons are noisy" doesn't stick - the guard are constantly surrounded by booming artillery and an incessant hail of heavy bolter rounds being fired - yet nowhere in the rules or fluff does it cover guardsmen being deafened. Sure you could impose situational modifiers on Hearing based Awareness tests, but there should not be any kind of ear injury to the players for simply being around big weapons.

Hmmm I pictured it as a small hatch, not a big think that opens up. I thought it was A firing point, meaning one person could fire from it.

I play as guard using the games workshop warhammer 40K game system, just going from memory i think the rukes state the aonly one person can fire from the rear hatch and the chimera counts as open topped but the person firing can fire any weapon from the rear hatch so if your PC is carrying a missile launcher then fire away

hope this helps

Chewylee1981 said:

That what I'm going for. Models be damned, my groups' Chimera has a rear access point that is a hatch. One guy can fire from it, who can be targeted.