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Personally at-least, I love the Space Marine Predator. Or the Chaos Predator for that matter.

Particularly when equipped with 2 Lascannon Sponsons and an Autocannon, the Predator can provide an impressive amount of firepower for relatively few points. Combine this with the likes of heavy weapon tacticals or Razorbacks and it's happy days. What's to say you have to run either Predators OR a Landraider, if you have both then that's an impressive amount of targets and a helluva lot of firepower.

Vindicators are very good, I don't doubt that, however their comparative range and only 1 weapon is a weakness and really, whichever fits best can depend on the composition of the rest of your army. If you're more focussed for close-range/quarters, with lots of meltas and multimeltas and/or close combat troops, then Vindicators will fit the bit, working together well with their similar optimum ranges.
However, if you are most focussed on firepower, rather than closing with the enemy, then Predators are the way to, possessing a helluva lot of firepower for few points

Finally, Predators also help with Armour Saturation, an all important thing in 40K these days, providing even more firepower and potential targets for your opponents to deal with.

Predators aren't necessarily the best choice, that will depend on the rest of your army (which I'd advise posting), however they are still a good unit and I at least love 'em!

Thaylen wrote:Some one asked what is in my army. At around 1500pts I run the following;

Libby w/ Terminator Armor and Stormshield w/ Nullzone and Avenger.

2x Tactical Squads, Pwr Fist, Combi-Flamer, Flamer, Missile (2nd Squad has a lascannon)

2x Land speeder typhoon w/ HB

2x Vindicators

1x Hammernators (unit of 5)

1x Landraider w/ MM.

The list gives lots of High AV and has flanking elements to try to get around weak sided vehicles (battlewagons mainly)

The list tends to be rather mobile. I'll try to get control of the center of the board and make plays for objectives around turn 4. If I end up playing capture and control. I keep the lascannon squad at home point (I'll usually combat squad). Send most of the army forward. If my opponent has deepstrikers or flanking, I'll leave the smaller rhino squad to provide support for the las squad.

I'd argue either would work well here. The predators would coordinate well with the ranged weapons on the Land Speeders, Land Raider and Tac squad whilst the Hammernators counter-attack, whilst the Vindicators would be suitable for your aggressive play-style.
Either would work and I'd argue that in most cases they could perform as well as each other. My personal preference would lie in Predators due to covering fire, but looking at your situation, I'd argue Predator or Vindicator to be suitable, although a Vindicator may go someway to compensating your lack of Melta...

AbaddonFidelis wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:As I said, long range AT with mobility to move where needed. Mainly they pick off backline elements and have the mobility to quickly relocate if they need to get at something hiding behind terrain or to pull themselves away from a threat that pops up behind the lines. If the other elements of the army whiff in their shooting they can pick up the slack in poping transports and advancing armor or MCs. I'm not overly comfortable with blast markers to pop armor, and Baals don't really have the punch for anything higher than AV 11. Plus a weapons destroyed result on them doesn't immediately limit their offensive capability to tank shocking/ramming like vindis.

well I think you're better off killing vehicles up close for a couple of reasons.
....blood angels are an assault army so you want to be up close.
....meltaguns have a stronger stat line vs tanks, are cheap, and widely available throughout the army.
....spamming meltaguns throughout the army prevents your opponent from destroying your anti-tank capabilities just by killing a few key units.
....if you are assaulting you dont want some elements in the fight and others out - you want everything in so that you're hitting as hard as you possibly can.
....when you shoot at armored targets at range they are much more likely to take cover saves than if you shoot up close.

that being said if you've made up your mind to fight at range then the tri las pred is probably the way to go.

Meltaguns being common if anything should deter you from bringing your tanks (eg. Vindicators) up close. Those vindicators are at much greater risk than any back-line Predators.
Spamming meltagun can also restrict your options as against some armies (such as Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids, Daemons, Dark Eldar etc) the Meltagun can have relatively little effect due to a small number of high-armoured tanks or abilities that negate their effects. Similarly, many armies are the kind you want to stay away from (eg. Blood Angels) so trying to get up into their face with a meltagun can do more harm than good. Also, you could make a similar argument to your own about spamming ranged anti-tank throughout your army.
The problem with a Vindicator - for example - being up close whilst your main force is in assault is that you could either commit friendly fire (scatter) of suffer from a lack of available or unengaged targets. A Predator could sit back and destroy any transports to prevent the enemy getting out of reach of your assault troops, the Vindicator however will have a smaller range of available targets.

I'm not completely disputing your argument, for yes, Meltaguns are cheaper and more regularly available and yes, they are generally superior against tanks. However, they are not the be all and end all and the range of the Predator for example is a significant advantage, particularly for Codex Space Marines, which the OP plays.
Finally, Vindicators are not meltaguns and a tri-las Predator is typically less cost-effective than an autocannon/lascannon sponson predator.

Ultimately, I'd say that a mix of ranged and melta anti-tank is best. The ranged can prevent the enemy from having too much freedom and manoeuvrability and allows you to stay out of reach of many armies which you won't want to close with. However, the meltagun can provide a significant threat and is typically superior for popping heavier armoured tanks. Hence a mix is best, not all meltaguns.
Basically, I'd say meltaguns are better for Landraiders and Main Battle Tanks, whereas Lascannons and the like are better for Transports.

I agree, Land Speeders are a very good choice and melta guns usually have the strength to take on most targets, ranged weapons (eg. Lascannons) can have a better strength and range, making them superior against lightly armoured transports such as raiders or rhinos.
Land Speeders definitely have the speed needed to make meltaguns all the more deadly.
Ultimately I'd argue Preds and Vindicators to be as good as one another unless you are seeking anti-infantry.

However, a lot of the arguments you are raising you put in the context of Blood Angels which simply doesn't apply to the OP...