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Point for point ability, what fairs better, lasts longer, and causes more damage? I as intend to pick some up at the weekend, but not sure which to go for.

Apples to oranges, depends entirely on what you're fighting against.

Laspred for tank-heavy armies, Vindi for hordes.

Agree with Fafnir. It all depends on the context of what else is in your list and what you expect to face.

That said, a weak spot of Chaos is the lack of long-range antitank firepower in most Force Org slots. The only slot in which you regularly and easily get that is HS. Which means that the predator, for my money, usually wins out over the vindicator. Now, the vindi can also pop tanks, but is functionally less accurate, needs to get within 24" to do it (and thus exposes its side armor more), and has the bad vulnerability of losing all firepower with a single Weapon Destroyed.

Of course the vindi is about the only place in the list to get S10, and it does bring that sweet AP2, which is nice against Terminators. So it can have its uses as well. You just wind up with a shorter-ranged army which needs to be played even more aggressively than Chaos is normally by default.

+1 to Mannahnin.

Lacking functionally similar things to landspeeders in our fast attack and reliable dreadnaughts in our elites, heavy support is our only way to get dedicated and cost-efficient long-range anti-tank firepower. That means Obliterators, Predators and Havocs all get priority over Vindis and Defilers in any CSM army I bring.

And the problem with taking a only a single Vindi (say with two squads of Obliterators) is that if it IS a really dangerous counter to something in your opponent's force (thunderwolves, nobz, termies, etc), they will probably take it out before it gets into range.

Mannahnin wrote:Of course the vindi is about the only place in the list to get S10, and it does bring that sweet AP2...

I disagree. Dreadnoughts have S10 power weapons for cheap, with little slot competition to boot.

The answer is almost always Predator.

The CSM troop slots are universally effective against Hordes. CSM kill them at range and in CC, Zerks butcher them in CC, and Plagues shoot and bog them down to slowly win via combat rez.

Heavies are almost required to bring low AP and/or anti armor stopping power at range. The Vindicator fills the first bill, but not the second. Predator is almost always going to do you better.

Another I was wondering, are obliterators vital? And what size roughly should the squads be? Some say 2, others say 3, but feel like I would be more comfortable taking another obliterator to provide another long range weapon

winnertakesall wrote:Another I was wondering, are obliterators vital? And what size roughly should the squads be? Some say 2, others say 3, but feel like I would be more comfortable taking another obliterator to provide another long range weapon

3 squads of 3 beacause 9 plasma cannon templates is all the anti horde you need.

I personally would rather have 2 Oblits over 1 Predator in just about all of the lists that I've made and played with. I rarely start my Oblits on the table, however, preferring to have 3 Oblit and 3 Termicide squads showing up T2-3 when I'm already halfway up the table or up the table and in my opponent's lines.

at £22 each that brings us to nearly £200. Looks like it's time to fire up a box of chaos terminators and GS

sourclams wrote:The CSM troop slots are universally effective against Hordes. CSM kill them at range and in CC, Zerks butcher them in CC, and Plagues shoot and bog them down to slowly win via combat rez.

Heavies are almost required to bring low AP and/or anti armor stopping power at range. The Vindicator fills the first bill, but not the second. Predator is almost always going to do you better.

That's about as concise as it gets.


I would also add----I've always found Vindicators lacking in any codex. With the abundance of cover saves, its short range and frail side armor----I've never been happy when running one (or three).