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Hi guys, I've 120 points to spare in my list. (1300 points) Currently in the list is 3 tactical squads with laz/plaz razorbacks (or might go TL-Laz) a land raider achilles (for fun) dreadnought in D pod and Vulkan purely to get the melta re roll on that drop podding dread.
We have 200 points to play with tpo take us up to 1500, and i was going to run THSS termies.

but i am still 120 points short in the 1300 list, the question is thus, i was going to take a predator with autocannon and laz sponsons, however its going to have to sit still to get any use out of most of its weapons, so i am thinking of running a Vindicator instead and going aggressive with it.
What would you take?

2 basic Predators. -> Higher mech saturation for very little points and 4extra autocannon shots to pop your opponent's transports.

I'd go Vindicator cause you already got Lascannons on your Razorbacks. They can take out basically any vehicle they want so you could use the blast shot on infantry.

Vindicator if only for scare value. Mine generally don't do much because they are big targets. Your opponents have a hard time ignoring them. But in the time it takes them to destroy the vindicator I can generally pull somthing off that makes up for the points lost. On the other hand if they don't kill the vindicator it is sure to do somthing good. Pop a land raider, desimate a squad of infantry, kill that pesky deadnought.

Pred pairs nicely with your razorbacks. I'd go that route. Vulkan lists usually excel in close quarters, but don't always have enough long-range support. Finally, one pred is better than one vindi, but two or more vindis are pretty good. Do you see yourself getting more than 1 vindi? If not, go with the pred.

-Myst

I love vindicators; they can kill everything.

Tank? Hit that sucka, and you get 2d6 (pick the highest) Armor penetration rolls.

Infantry? IDing almost every type of infantry unit out there.

MCs? Still wounding most MCs on a 2+

And since it's AP2, forcing Invuln saves is always great. Terminators die (especially the turn they deepstrike )

KingDeath wrote:2 basic Predators. -> Higher mech saturation for very little points and 4extra autocannon shots to pop your opponent's transports.

^ THIS! Also, naked preds have no fear of moving and wasting shooting.

While I love vindicators I think a pred would be better in your list.

I've found the vindi in my army to be an utter disappointment. It always gets destroyed, often before it can even move!

People tend to put the pred at a lower priority. That being said the vindi is definitely cooler looking!

I'm a fan of the Vindicator and use it myself, but something that hasn't been mentioned is how the two stack up in terms of getting hit. The Vindi gets a plus here because for only ten points you can get the siege shield so it auto passes difficult terrain tests. The Pred gets a plus because its weapons are turret or sponson mounted and stay pretty useful if it gets immobilized. If a Vindicator gets immobilized you just have to hope someone stops dead in front of the model to get a shot off.

A vindicator is great for learning your army. First it's a huge threat so it will get shot at a lot and blown up in your first few games. Stick it in a corner where your opponent really has to position his army to deal with it.

Now you're controlling your opponent by simply positioning that vindicator. This gives you a tactical advantage you can use.

Now start building lists that force your opponent to deal with other threats at the same time. If you have regular opponents, their tactics are going to change depending on what in your army does the most damage. The more threatening the rest of your army can be, the less often that vindicator will be destroyed first.

If you can make your opponent choose - death by vindicator or death by X then you're doing the right thing and you'll see your opponent start making the difficult choice of letting that vindicator shoot all game while they deal with something they consider more threatening.

Nemesor Dave wrote:A vindicator is great for learning your army. First it's a huge threat so it will get shot at a lot and blown up in your first few games. Stick it in a corner where your opponent really has to position his army to deal with it.

Now you're controlling your opponent by simply positioning that vindicator. This gives you a tactical advantage you can use.

Now start building lists that force your opponent to deal with other threats at the same time. If you have regular opponents, their tactics are going to change depending on what in your army does the most damage. The more threatening the rest of your army can be, the less often that vindicator will be destroyed first.

If you can make your opponent choose - death by vindicator or death by X then you're doing the right thing and you'll see your opponent start making the difficult choice of letting that vindicator shoot all game while they deal with something they consider more threatening.

The Vindicator suffers from it's extremely short range and extremely high vulnerability, thanks to the low side armour and because it is badly affected by every single damage result.
If you get it into position then it has the potential to do some serious damage. But that is a big if. To assume that your opponent, especialy one with lots of diverse firepower ( IG, Space Wolfes, Space marines to a degree, Tau ) will ignore it just because you have some other threats at the table is highly optimistic.
Predators on the other hand can be useful from turn one. They are cheap, they help you to pop your opponent's transports and instead of buying a single, highly vulnerable Vindicator which has to get close to do any damage at all you can buy two Predators ( -> higher armour saturation ) which can stay at range and almost imidiately affect your opponent's army.

Vindicator. Deploy it behind cover. Move at cruisng speed and pop smoke. Then trundle around dropping S10 AP2 Large Blasts all over your enemy. Siege Shield is also a nice upgrade.
People keep bitiching about it being a high value target and, as previously stated, this can work in your favour even if it is destroyed T1 or T2 before you can use it but i think the Dreadnought Drop Podding ontop of your opponent's forces is gonna be a bit of a distration. Either way you will be forcing your opponent to either choose one or the other for the first 2 turns or split his fire making for (likely) less effective results unless there is some crazy Lascannon spam going on or similar.

Just my thoughts. Good luck!

Peace Out!
Jonny!

Vindicators all the way. If you take Vindicators though take at least two preferably three.

I agree with dragon--two vindis with an autocannon/las sponson pred is a good group.

Neither, because...

RandomSelect wrote:Hi guys, I've [got] Vulkan

If you're spending points on vulkan, the best thing to do is to take lots of things with multimeltas to make the most out of vulkan's force multiplier. Taking him JUST to help a single unit (that costs less than he does), is a horrendous waste.

If you're willing to drop vulkan, that's one thing, but if you're not, the best thing you could spend those points on are things that come with melta, or multimelta. Talking about autocannons in a vulkan list is actually a little silly.

Ailaros wrote:Neither, because...

RandomSelect wrote:Hi guys, I've [got] Vulkan

If you're spending points on vulkan, the best thing to do is to take lots of things with multimeltas to make the most out of vulkan's force multiplier. Taking him JUST to help a single unit (that costs less than he does), is a horrendous waste.

If you're willing to drop vulkan, that's one thing, but if you're not, the best thing you could spend those points on are things that come with melta, or multimelta. Talking about autocannons in a vulkan list is actually a little silly.

I didn't think of that....