looking for clarification…the mission specific gear for the adventure includes a chimera to provide transport to the refinery.  If the players are playing a mechanised infantry regiment (or any regiment that gives a chimera) are they in effect using 2 for the mission? Same goes for players with a leman russ/hellhound/etc

I gave my Armoured Regiment the Chimera and things went fine.

You can't fit a party of more than 3 players characters inside a Leman Russ anyway (unless the GM is nice enough to give them Sponsons), so having a Chimera means that you don't have players running around unprotected while an Ork Battlewagon goes on a rampage.

As for the Mechanized Infantry getting a second Chimera, i think it makes sense, provided you have a large number of Player Characters. Only having one would severely limit the options of a larger squad when attacking or defending the refinery.

We're talking about the Departmento Munitorum here. To simulate their tried and true diligent processes of assessing the requirements of your mission, I suggest the following approximation:

Flip a coin - heads, they give you a second chimera; tails, they don't; edge, they decide you should drive to the objective on bicycles.

Remember that the mission Chim is packed to the gills with communications gear, which the PC's default Chim probably doesn't have.

It would make sense to send the second one along then even if they are mech inf.

Danayel said:

I like the idea of giving them the second one even if they get one by default, especially since there's always the chance a bad mission start roll results in the loss of the second Chimera.

It also makes the encounter with the Stormtroopers more interesting: do the PCs retain the firepower and protection a second Chimera offers, or do they give it the downed Stormtroopers so they can safely return home?

Random thought from the other side of the equation…

If the PC's don't include an Operator or someone with Operate (Surface), do they get an NPC driver assigned for the Chimera?

LuciusT said:

I'm not sure - it doesn't say so, and knowing the Munitorium, they might well have just ordered for the squad to be given the Chimera, and not given a second thought to whether they'd be able to drive it.

 LoL. I guess it depends on the tone you want for your game. Do you want to play up the mindless, souless bureaucracy of the Imperial or play the Guard as a more or less competent, if quirky, fighting force.

There's nothing to stop both being true - the Imperial Guard are well trained and competent, for the most part, but let down by the bureaucracy of the Imperium.

They might also be a more or less competent, if quirky, fighting force in the war of bureaucracy…

MILLANDSON said:

I just think the point can be overdone. I mean, the case full of Ogryn sized dress uniforms is funny and characterful (and, as I understand it, not altogether inaccurate as military bureaucracy goes sometimes) but at the same time, the Imperial Guard has successfully conquered and held thousands of worlds over ten thousand years. The bureaucracy that supports that can't be completely incompentent.

I didn't realise forgetting a single armoured personnel carrier crew would count as 'completely incompetent' - I was under the impression it was an innocent mistake, believing that the unit already had a member capable of operating the vehicle.

MILLANDSON said:

Does not only giving not giving them a chimera, or any of their mission specific gear, but then demanding they return a piece of standard kit sound for complete incompentence?

which is what 4+ Degrees of failure on the mission specific logistics test does. Assume it is their first mission players will run, to roll for the mission specific gear, the players are probably going to be rolling with a logistics rating of around 20.  (Base 10. +10 mission specific. -10 violent impasse.  +10 important mission)

making 4+ degrees of failure at 40% chance.

 It happened to the 273rd Malfian Mechanized Infantry: We got no comms equiped Chimera; no Demo Charges; and my medic had to return his lamp because the new fish getting brought in needed reading lights.  

Granted, we still had our Chimera, 'Pandora', but I like the way the IG's "Profit Factor" works for just that reason ^_^