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Which do you prefer and why? Need help choosing which would be more effective for my 2000 mech list. (Razorback las plas spam with baals fyi)

Preds. They are more synergistic than the vindicators with that list.

vins but take two or three to down there fire-magnet status.

I had a friend that runs RB list. It was awesome. He could kill hordes and he already had plenty of anti tank. When you popped transports he dropped large blast templates on them. Gamre over man GAME OVER.

Vindi's all the way. S10 Pieplates combined with TL lascannons? Doom for your opponent. It's just rotten.

Preds, I always take Daka Preds, they fill an anti horde niche I needed them to. Also can take out MC's, etc. not to mention a WD on a Vindi ...

Predators.

See I feel vindicators have more of an impact on an opponent.

Yes I'm sure someone will come out and math hammer what I say but one tactic i have had alot of success with a mech gunline is a refused flank with 2 vindicators, either sealing off the edge or playing on the point. This pair forces the opponent to react to your placement. The more questions asked of your opponent, the more presure placed upon his decisions, the more mistakes he makes.

By using Dakka preds as a ranged anti horde, we know that you get a good bang for your buck, but for me - in your list you have your anti tank and your baals are pretty hot against the middle of the range horde types. Dropping 2 pie plates which are str 10 ap 'ermmm what armour are you wearing again?' can do a fair bit of damage

Yes vindicators are fire magnets - and for good reason. Every shot thrown at them, which in my opinion should be cover saved with decent deployment, and with a similar armour stats to a pred - is one less shot at your other items.

Like they say in war - its not what you see that kills you, its what you don't. If my opponent wants to focus on using the majority of his army to kill 2 models which - while very effective at up to the sum of 200 points, while giving me time to;

a)pop his lovely transports with TWLS Rzrs etc etc
b)start chewing up his troop choices to reduce his effectiveness at claiming objectives

Maybe it wouldn't work in a WAAC list - or against a very able general but against 90% of people I've played, they've made more mistakes based upon my vindicators than my preds, some of which have been key to my victory.

I've always wondered if a pair of vindicators would work with a single LR. Since your most likely has terminators, it'll be a fire magnet. Adding two vindicators that's also rushing n the face of the opponent divides the target priority a bit.

Predators all the live long day. Give me a vindicator, and I will shoot it down with a predator from a range that the vindicator can not hit me.

....that's like saying a Whirlwind is better than TH/SS Termies because you can shoot and kill them with the Whirlwind before they get to you.

You don't argue with which unit is a better fit by making them fight it out, you know.

Vindicators provide nothing worthwhile to this list. They will need to be in front to get their shooting range, which will likely either block los or give cover to the enemy that you are aiming your long range weapons at.

Baals already provide some anti-infantry support by their volume of shots. Predators increase the strength of your long range shooting game. If you have a bunch of razorbacks you can likely finish infantry/hordes off with just the assault marines if you need to.

Cover really makes vindicator's main benefit much less potent. While it retains some instagib potential against some units, it is overall less synergistic and less flexible than predators would be.

Vindicators fit better into aggressive lists. They could be used cunningly to great effect with this list the OP hinted at, but it will be much easier to play with preds. I'd go preds.

Soo that's 5 votes for vindicators and 5 votes for preds. Personally I run 2 vindicators. I've considered taking preds but I've found no need to get rid of the vindicators. The worst they have ever done for me was to scatter off their target every time they shot. Which ended up not being too bad cause they just hit a different unit.

I asked this question awhile back!

I finally settled on 3 vindicators. Personally, I found them to be great. I've often wondered what 3 Preds would of been like instead, but frankly dude, I can't complain about Fast Vindicators. They start 12" in, move 12" turn one and lob shots across the board. Plus there's nothing better than when they land direct hits against units that need to die.

Vindicators. If predators survive longer it's a sign that lower target priority=a less destructive unit.

Fast vindies have a 36" threat radius, so the short range of the gun is not that short. There is also a good synergy with assbacks and ac baal. They can stay in formation with a vindi to protect the side arc from being shot at.

After a transport is blown up the 24" gun range is plenty of range to stay out of the 6" double dice melta range of footslogging infantry.

Vindies are faster than preds. Preds can only go 6" and shoot. Vindies can go 12" and shoot, when a pred goes that fast they can only shoot 1 gun.

Mech ba has plenty of lascannon and asscannon shots. Regular preds bring nothing nnew to the table. Vindie insta kill twc, paladins, and score a glance/pen against av14 3/4 of the time, a pen 5/9 times.

new BA list I'm making packs 2 baals, 2 vindicators, and a dakka pred.

Looks scary

Horst wrote:new BA list I'm making packs 2 baals, 2 vindicators, and a dakka pred.

Looks scary

):

I hate how Blood Angels can out-tank the Imperial Guard.

Joey wrote:

Horst wrote:new BA list I'm making packs 2 baals, 2 vindicators, and a dakka pred.

Looks scary

):

I hate how Blood Angels can out-tank the Imperial Guard.

I'll trade you fast Baals for Vendettas!

So to me its boiling down to this:

Predators seem to be a more reliable source of damage- no scatter and multiple weapons will force more cover saves. Also having sponsons will negate a 3 rendering them totally weapon-less. They can be tailored to the role they need to fulfill- anti tank, anti horde, or a mix of both.

Vindicators are a bit more of a gamble. With the scatter involved they won't hit there target a portion of the time. Having one weapon means a roll of 3 renders it an AV 13 145 point battering ram, and a successful cover save will negate any decent rolling to hit, etc.

Although the damage of a vindicator is in every way superior I feel the predator would be a safer option that would garuntee results in almost any situation.

In terms of a mech list (at 2000 points) I'm looking at running 5 las/plas razors, 3 baals, and 3 predators with AC/LC sponsons. I like the idea of mixing the heavy slots by subbing 2 preds for 2 vindis and making the predator a pure dakka variant. The issue is, in my experience, (and I've been playing since 2nd edition, I'm just new to building a pure mech competitive list) that things are best taken in redundancy. So if one was to go the vindi route, the best results would be produced by taking 3 vindis, same with predators. When I played IG I ran 4 vendettas and it was demoralizing for opponents. I loved it. But it proved to me that vast redundancy was highly effective.

And in my meta community, which as much as I hate to analyze it, (I always find myself doing it) I play mostly CSM, and my roommate just got the necron codex. In that case, the predator loadout I listed above would be more effective. (He LOVES demon princes, rhinos and defilers)

Vindicators tend to scare people to, which helps. They really pee their pants when they think about STR 10 demolisher cannon.

Here's part of the problem with "gamble" items like vindicators.

When you are playing in a tournament, you tend to play against opponents who at least know what they are doing. This means that most games should be relatively well contested, and you can't count on weak strategies to bully them - they have probably faced it before and have an idea of how they can best handle your threat.

Now lets take a 4 game tourny. Lets say vindicators are great 1/4 games, good 2/4 games but blow hard 1/4. That might be the difference between walking away as winner or as the runner up.

Then take a predator. Their firepower won't make any game changing swings of power as you won't see any stellar performances from them. However, they will more reliably put out damage because they don't have to roll the scatter die and can be shooting more turns with better target selection. They might only do good, but they do good 4/4 games. The trick here is that you have to be able to win with them only doing good, you know what they can do.

They have less, what I call, Performance Variance. They are both less likely to perform super well, and super poorly. Across multiple games, this is a boon since you know what you army can reliably do, and plan accordingly.

Friendly games there is nothing wrong with taking vindicators. They have a couple drawbacks but some major positives. But if you want long term reliability in a unit and one that synergizes best with a razorspam/baal list, the predator is absolutely the way to go.

edit: Part of what I'm getting at here is probability theory, the Law of Large Numbers. The predators get to roll more dice, and will therefore have more average results.

iirc vanilla codex vindis come with a storm bolter, no idea about BA ones. So they aren't JUST battering rams, they are battering rams with 2 bolter shots!

I'm not a big fan of the ac/las preds. They at most average 1.333 lascannon hits per turn and 1.3333 ac hits per turn. Half the shots are AP4, and half the shots are AP2. At 4 shots per turn (2.666 hits) the volume of fire is underwhelming for the cost of the unit. The low volume of shots makes it a poor choice for shooting infantry of any type. It is a good unit for hunting light armor (AV10-12), but the army probably already has 6 razorbacks with asscannons, lascannons, or lasplas.

I also don't see the synergy with baal preds and razorbacks. It competes with razorbacks and baal preds for the same tasks in the army, and it's too slow to keep up with the razorbacks/baal preds. Furthermore their low firepower/high AV means opponents tend to ignore them and aim all their anti tank weapons at the vulnerable razorbacks which on a point for point basis pack a lot more firepower than ac/las preds. AV13 doesn't do much good if the tank is never shot at until after all the AV11 razorbacks are destroyed. Vindicators pull firepower off the AV11 razorbacks, and can keep up with the razorbacks and baal preds.

Dakka preds are another story. They perform 1 coherent job. All of their shots are AP4. They dump out a large volume of shots. Last but not least they are cheap. I can see the reasons people like dakka preds, but they just don't do much against MEQ. Average rolls=4 hits from HB 1.333 from AC comes to 3.83 wounds per turn against MEQ which comes to 1.25 dead MEQ per turn. 1.25 dead MEQ or 3.83 dead orks.