Cars; better than Chimeras?

By Plushy, in Dark Heresy Second Edition Beta

The Chimera has long served as the proud default APC of the Imperial Guard.

Apparently, the "common Desoleum groundcar" is a much safer bet. The infantry would love to get their hands on some of these!

Armour is better by double on every single facing, it's easier to repair (due to the Rugged trait), they're easier to buy (-30 instead of -80), and it controls better! The only drawbacks are a smaller passenger capacity, a slightly slower speed, and a lack of mounted weaponry.

I'm sure the Guardsmen would make the switch, and cut their own weapon ports.

This is just silly, folks.

Yeah, that's odd, especially considering that the Chimera's rear armour is the same as a bike's... Chimera and Hectin have the same cruising speed but whereas the Chimera has generally higher movement vectors, the Hectin has higher manouverability. I'm having a hard time picturing what this car is supposed to look like...

Looks to me like a oversight (or some attempt to establish the ground car as some kind of default option for Acolytes to use).

I'm really begin to wonder at the supposed extensiveness of the internal playtests.

I'm really begin to wonder at the supposed extensiveness of the internal playtests.

I kid, I kid.

Edited by Plushy

I'm really loathe to criticize before giving it an honest test, but at the same time I'm loathe to spend time actually testing it, because the rules seem like a jumbled mess that not only invalidates all the rules advances made since original DH, but actually takes the game way more backwards than that. The idea of stats going so high gives me flashbacks to a nightmarish experience that was my high-powered WFRP 2e campaign.

Or, at least, that's how it looks to me on a cursory read.

I'm really loathe to criticize before giving it an honest test, but at the same time I'm loathe to spend time actually testing it, because the rules seem like a jumbled mess that not only invalidates all the rules advances made since original DH, but actually takes the game way more backwards than that. The idea of stats going so high gives me flashbacks to a nightmarish experience that was my high-powered WFRP 2e campaign.

Or, at least, that's how it looks to me on a cursory read.

A Rank 10 character can theoretically have boosted his base characteristic as high as by 50 points. The highest a stat can be at CharGen is 45. A character who specializes could have 95 in a characteristic by endgame. Stronger, tougher, smarter, or more charismatic than any daemon. Wonderful.

And this is before any bonuses from gear.

I'm really loathe to criticize before giving it an honest test, but at the same time I'm loathe to spend time actually testing it, because the rules seem like a jumbled mess that not only invalidates all the rules advances made since original DH, but actually takes the game way more backwards than that. The idea of stats going so high gives me flashbacks to a nightmarish experience that was my high-powered WFRP 2e campaign.

Or, at least, that's how it looks to me on a cursory read.

A Rank 10 character can theoretically have boosted his base characteristic as high as by 50 points. The highest a stat can be at CharGen is 45. A character who specializes could have 95 in a characteristic by endgame. Stronger, tougher, smarter, or more charismatic than any daemon. Wonderful.

And this is before any bonuses from gear.

To be fair, it's not the same 95 in characteristic that it is in the previous systems, and I've seen the Plaguebearer has eighty-something Toughness. I'm just... skeptical about that working at all. Can't help but wonder, how much Strength and Toughness will a Space Marine have? Or a Daemon Prince?

I suspect this massively armoured car issue at least is just going to turn out to be a typo of some type.

I suspect this massively armoured car issue at least is just going to turn out to be a typo of some type.

Yeah, hope so. I mean, OW was much easier to make, seeing as it was just compiling already existing elements and giving them some polish, yet it still managed to give us the all but indestructible Leman Russ.

I suspect that there is a typo and that the car stats should be the Chimera and vice versa. Still, an armour of 15 for a car is way higher than the armour value for light power armour.

I suspect that there is a typo and that the car stats should be the Chimera and vice versa. Still, an armour of 15 for a car is way higher than the armour value for light power armour.

More importantly, that car, even with 15 armour, is still impervious to bullets. Melta guns have trouble scratching it on average rolls, and those are made to slag tanks. Armor 30 makes them straight up impervious to melta weaponry.

Also, interestingly enough, the autocannons in the vehicle section are 1d10+12, while those in the weapons section are 1d10+8, both with the same RoF of 3.

Edited by MorioMortis

Hi all, quick reply on this bit. There is indeed a layout error in the movement/armour blocks for those two vehicles. As many guessed, they should be swapped so the chimera has the higher values and the hectin the lower ones. The weapon stats should be as per their regular armoury entries as well.

We'll add this into the first errata update as well for those that might miss it here. Thanks again for the feedback everyone!

The weapon stats should be as per their regular armoury entries as well.

Is there a reason why the autocannon was changed to a fast RoF, lower damage weapon, rather than the medium RoF, high damage it was before? It made it fit nicely in between the heavy bolter and the lascannon, on the RoF-Damage scale.