Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I want to incorporate a Vindicator in my 1,750 list. The problem is, the heavy support for my gunline is full already with 2 Predators & 1 Devastator Squad. Can I remove one of these to put in the Vindicator? Is it even a good idea?

I have this urban warfare plan where the Vindicator can keep on moving forward, blasting his 24" S10 AP2 Cannon!

Whaddayathink??

What are the other elements in your army like? A Vindicator is a scary target for the enemy who is sure to try taking it out immediately, but there's also some risk to the rest of your army if the large blast scatters.

Never take just one vindicator.

My optimized 1,750 list goes a little something like this.

Belial + 10 D/W (all TH/SS + 2 Cyclones)

Ven. Dread (Multi Melta + Power Fist, S/B) in a Drop Pod

2 Predators (Autocannon, Lascannon Side Sponsons)

1 Devastator Squad (2 Lascannons, 2 Plasma Cannons)

2 Landspeeders w/Typhoons

1 Combat Squad w/Missile Launcher + Razorback w/ TL Lascannons

1 Nephilim Jetfighter


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As it is, my general plan is to SMASH - with long range support from my gunline.

I'm thinking of replacing the Dev / Predator with the Vindicator. The Demolisher Cannon could be useful in my opinion....

Vindicators do best when spammed, so spam them!

yeah at least two maybe 3 if you have more good shooting to back them up. A vindicator will almost always be targeted first.

 dominiquekee wrote:
As it is, my general plan is to SMASH - with long range support from my gunline.

I'm thinking of replacing the Dev / Predator with the Vindicator. The Demolisher Cannon could be useful in my opinion....

Well, in that case (and after seeing your ideal list) I too will join others in saying spam. You don't take one Vindicator, you take two or three. They can destroy anything once in range.

Unless of course that anything is in cover. A world where everyone and their mom take an ADL is a world where vindicators have lost a hell of a lot of their usefulness.

I'd personally ignore them and consider a whirlwind. You have plenty of ap2 and heavy hitters, but you seem to be lacking in anything to deal with blobs of weak troops hiding in cover. A vindicator or 2 won't help fill that weakness.

I generally consider auto/las preds and vindicators interchangeable.

As for spamming, I don't think it is necessary. Yes, it is going to draw fire. But it's not like your opponent's anti tank teams weren't going to be shooting at something. By taking one vindi, you will know what that target is, and be able to take advantage of that.

It might die first turn every game, but the rest of your vehicles should make it an extra turn due to it's heroic sacrifice. And if it lives, pie plate time!

Redundancy is not just spamming the same unit, it's making sure you have multiple things that can do the same job. The pred and the vindi do more or less the same thing, just in different ways. By having both in your list you don't double up their strengths like spamming would, but you also don't double down on their weaknesses.

 Griddlelol wrote:
Unless of course that anything is in cover. A world where everyone and their mom take an ADL is a world where vindicators have lost a hell of a lot of their usefulness.

I'd personally ignore them and consider a whirlwind. You have plenty of ap2 and heavy hitters, but you seem to be lacking in anything to deal with blobs of weak troops hiding in cover. A vindicator or 2 won't help fill that weakness.

I will agree that whirlwinds are pretty amazing. I try to take one always because of weak cultist blobs or guard blobs hiding in cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Griddlelol wrote:
Unless of course that anything is in cover. A world where everyone and their mom take an ADL is a world where vindicators have lost a hell of a lot of their usefulness.

I'd personally ignore them and consider a whirlwind. You have plenty of ap2 and heavy hitters, but you seem to be lacking in anything to deal with blobs of weak troops hiding in cover. A vindicator or 2 won't help fill that weakness.

I will agree that whirlwinds are pretty amazing. They are amazing for guard blobs in cover and cultists hiding on objectives. perhaps 2 vindis and a whirlwind?

I generally consider auto/las preds and vindicators interchangeable.

Considering that the auto/las pred can fill two different roles and has much better range but weaker armor then the vindi, I'm not sure how you can do that?

As for spamming, I don't think it is necessary. Yes, it is going to draw fire. But it's not like your opponent's anti tank teams weren't going to be shooting at something. By taking one vindi, you will know what that target is, and be able to take advantage of that.

It might die first turn every game, but the rest of your vehicles should make it an extra turn due to it's heroic sacrifice. And if it lives, pie plate time!

Redundancy is not just spamming the same unit, it's making sure you have multiple things that can do the same job. The pred and the vindi do more or less the same thing, just in different ways. By having both in your list you don't double up their strengths like spamming would, but you also don't double down on their weaknesses.

As far as the vindi goes, I absolutely would spam them. Taking something the cost of a vindicator knowing it's going to die quickly because "Hey at least I know what will get killed first" just seems like a huge waste of points. It's not like you're sacrificing a 50 point cultist squad or something. IF you're going to take a vindicator and want it to actually shoot at least once, you almost have to have at least two of them in most metas. Chances are, one of them will still get taken out, but then you should have the second one in position to fire.

That being said, I would agree with the person who said that the OP probably doesn't need a vindicator in that list.

In my twc deathstar army I put one for bait

Er double FOC?

You'll be needing two Vindies as well.

Tycho wrote:

Considering that the auto/las pred can fill two different roles and has much better range but weaker armor then the vindi, I'm not sure how you can do that?

...

As far as the vindi goes, I absolutely would spam them. Taking something the cost of a vindicator knowing it's going to die quickly because "Hey at least I know what will get killed first" just seems like a huge waste of points. It's not like you're sacrificing a 50 point cultist squad or something. IF you're going to take a vindicator and want it to actually shoot at least once, you almost have to have at least two of them in most metas. Chances are, one of them will still get taken out, but then you should have the second one in position to fire.

That being said, I would agree with the person who said that the OP probably doesn't need a vindicator in that list.

Preds and Vindis have the same 13/11/10 armor. If anything, the pred has better armor, because it gets to sit back and take more hits on the AV13 front plate. The vindi has to move up, closer to melta range, and exposing its sides. Unless I'm missing something, I see no basis in claiming the pred has weaker armor.

As for roles they fill on the battlefield, they are similar, but not identical. Pros and cons to each, but I consider it a wash. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

Anti-tank: Vindi is S10 ordiance, but only one hit. Pred is 2xS9, 2xS7. Multiple hits, lower strength. As I prefer melta for dealing with AV14, I find the pred has a better range, both in distance and target selection, but both tanks can crack open armor. Call it even

Monsters: Multiple hits from the pred mean multiple wounds, point pred.

Infantry: Auto/las can pop a few terminators/crisis suits/etc, so is OK vs. small elite squads, but not hordes. Pie plate wins, hand down.

Flyers: Pred gets to toss 4 dice hoping for 6's. If one hits, particularly a LC, you have a reasonable chance of shooting it down or forcing it to jink. Vindis might be able to fire a stormbolter at the rear armor and pray to strip a HP. Point pred.

I could go on, but that's some of my though process on comparing them.

As for dying first turn, no mater how much armor you spam, something is going to die. Fielding one of each will let your opponent dictate which he thinks is more of a threat and take it out (or try to). Which concerns him more? The pred popping his transports before they can deliver their cargo, or the vindicator slapping a pie plate on the guys once they get close? First turn the preds are a much larger threat then the vindis, due to their greater range. Late game the vindis are just going to be blowing chunks out of your lines. You don't want to have either one of them killed, but it's going to happen. If you go 2xVindi, you never get the chance to LC things across the table. I think a mix of units in a TAC list, I feel it makes the army more flexible and better able to deal with different issues. Opinions, obviously, vary.

Preds and Vindis have the same 13/11/10 armor. If anything, the pred has better armor, because it gets to sit back and take more hits on the AV13 front plate. The vindi has to move up, closer to melta range, and exposing its sides. Unless I'm missing something, I see no basis in claiming the pred has weaker armor.

As for roles they fill on the battlefield, they are similar, but not identical. Pros and cons to each, but I consider it a wash. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

Anti-tank: Vindi is S10 ordiance, but only one hit. Pred is 2xS9, 2xS7. Multiple hits, lower strength. As I prefer melta for dealing with AV14, I find the pred has a better range, both in distance and target selection, but both tanks can crack open armor. Call it even

Monsters: Multiple hits from the pred mean multiple wounds, point pred.

Infantry: Auto/las can pop a few terminators/crisis suits/etc, so is OK vs. small elite squads, but not hordes. Pie plate wins, hand down.

Flyers: Pred gets to toss 4 dice hoping for 6's. If one hits, particularly a LC, you have a reasonable chance of shooting it down or forcing it to jink. Vindis might be able to fire a stormbolter at the rear armor and pray to strip a HP. Point pred.

I could go on, but that's some of my though process on comparing them.

As for dying first turn, no mater how much armor you spam, something is going to die. Fielding one of each will let your opponent dictate which he thinks is more of a threat and take it out (or try to). Which concerns him more? The pred popping his transports before they can deliver their cargo, or the vindicator slapping a pie plate on the guys once they get close? First turn the preds are a much larger threat then the vindis, due to their greater range. Late game the vindis are just going to be blowing chunks out of your lines. You don't want to have either one of them killed, but it's going to happen. If you go 2xVindi, you never get the chance to LC things across the table. I think a mix of units in a TAC list, I feel it makes the army more flexible and better able to deal with different issues. Opinions, obviously, vary.

For some reason I was thinking the dozer blade on the Vindi gave it a higher AV. Fair enough if I was wrong on that though.

For the most part you're not wrong in what you've said their (IMO), but I feel like you're really over-looking the range issue. The fact that a Vindicator cannot fire at longer ranges means you have to advance it much closer to the enemy. This means that unless you're using it as some kind of suicidal heavy weapons magnet, you need to advance it with troops (to help protect it from enemy infantry slapping Melta-bombs on it or something similar), and/or have proper saturation in order for it to do it's job. It's lack of range basically means you have to commit more resources to it in order to get it to a position where it can do it's job.

The Pred on the other hand can sit back at range and blast away with a turret mounted lascannon and use HB sponsons as a way to help fend off would be assault infantry. Or you can reverse it and use the AC turret for anti-infantry and the twin las-sponsons for your ranged anti tank, etc etc.

In the case of the Vindicator, you're basically almost forced to use your infantry to support your tank until it does it's job (which, in many cases in 6th ed ends up almost being a one-shot weapon), whereas in the case of the Predator, you're using your tank to support the rest of your army. It can pick and choose its targets AND it can help defend itself from infantry. While it's true that there can be some over-lap, I just don't see the two filling the same role at all. Plus, just speaking from personal experience, I haven't really had many games where one Vindicator was sufficient, but I have had many games where one Predator did a bang up job ...


EDIT:

I meant to add that while I agree that something is going to die first, deliberately setting it up so that a unit like a Vindicator dies first just seems like a really strange choice.

Exalbaru wrote:


I will agree that whirlwinds are pretty amazing. They are amazing for guard blobs in cover and cultists hiding on objectives. perhaps 2 vindis and a whirlwind?

I'd stick with two predators and a single whirlwind. With such a close range army, the vindicator may back fire. Preds can also take on MCs better than vindicators. They're pretty common in my meta at least.

This is a great thread here!

I'm playing a D/W focused army with a gunline for support.

If i decide to throw in more termies, I'd really like the Vindi to stroll in while the enemy is getting distracted by 11 D/W in TH/SS, in their faces. Meanwhile, I've got 2 Preds supporting from behind anyways.

You think this could work?

I still can't imagine how a demolisher shell can scatter behind the Vindi. Does the shell do a one eighty?

Lol backfire wasn't meant literally.

Pass.

A single splatcannon isn't that difficult to circumvent. Assuming they don't wreck it before it gets into range, it still has to hit (which it does worse than usual, by space marine standards), and it still has to wound (you do roll 1's), and your opponent can still displace (meaning even with a hit you're still just hitting 3 models, unless they're in a ruins, in which case it could be fewer), and you still have to deal with cover.

And you can only ever do one wound at a time to monstrous creatures. And you can't even target fliers with it...

Multi-shot high strength support options like predators and devastators are going to be better than a vindicator.

That's why you spam them. Also, wing armies dread demolisher cannons. Target a death star, shoot the splatcannon or two or three, remove the death star, drink your foe's tears.

I'm all for 2. Our local meta has seen Draigo and his jerks come back full force after Adepticon. Vindicators love terminators.

Vindicators also have the down side that they frequently expose their side armor of 11 when moving into position to fire.

I'm opposite of Kain; 1 is the most I would ever put in a TAC list. Because it has a lot of weaknesses and spamming them is bad for a TAC list.

 Kain wrote:
Never take just one vindicator.

This, the nice thing about vindi's is they can make all their points back in a single shot plus some. That is a rare ability, but at the same time if you only have one good chance your opponent kills it before it does anything because it is a very high value target.

Martel732 wrote:
Vindicators also have the down side that they frequently expose their side armor of 11 when moving into position to fire.

I'm opposite of Kain; 1 is the most I would ever put in a TAC list. Because it has a lot of weaknesses and spamming them is bad for a TAC list.

In all but the smallest games all one Vindi can do is die like a chump unless your opponent for some reason has absolutely no anti vehicle options at all. You need multiples to get off that shot, and multiple ones scare people, especially wing army users. When people are scared, they make mistakes, they get stressed over which vindicator to take down. I am a strong proponent of maximum threat overload. Throw so many things that will ruin his day at your opponent at once that they cannot possibly mount any real defense without leaving themselves open to some of the threats. While necrons are the kings of MTO I can think of a way to draw up a chaos or marine list to present a similar dilemma.

When there are too many threats that your opponent cannot ignore being rammed down his throat simultaneously for him to prioritize effectively, victory is easy. He can take out some vindis, but then the contemptors will wreck him, he could deal with that, but then the helldrakes will BBQ him, he could deal with that, but then there's the melta plagues and noise marines who will drive up and gun him down or a bunch of zerkers in boxes who will chop up his gunline. Or maybe Abaddon's terrible crew about to jump out a land raider and cut him down. Or the Typhus zombie party denying him an objective. Good for the high points double FOC games I usually play.

Any one of these are manageable on their own, but all at once? Most people can't cope.

The single Vindicator could be played like a wild card. It's effective against most anything so it will have targets and hiding it in reserves will help protect it.

Not saying redundancy is bsd, just that a single tank has some value.

How much more utility do vindicators gain when being fielded in a BA army? Is it enough to mitigate the negatives? Is it better or worse than a BA predator with LC sponsons?

If I see a vindicator on the board I tend to prioritise killing it because it can take out your best unit in the blink of an eye, and even the threat of a prize squad being annihilated (especially cc ones like Lychguard or Termis) can pull some serious fire away from other units.
If I were writing it I'd always take it just for the fear factor of a pie plate S10 AP2, and they're hardly the priciest unit in the book. Only 1 until the FOC doubles so as I have space for other units in HS (preds, devastators, thunderfire cannons in the case of SM) then probably a 2nd for double the trouble.

If it's just one Vindi, I tend to ignore it until I have to deal with it. It's range is bad and it has to come closer to me in order to be effective. So I usually have something waiting for it when it gets there. One just isn't that scary. Not to mention the likely scatter. I just feel like there are better things to take if you're only looking at taking one.

As said before, Demolisher cannons are priceless for eradicating death stars. Termiwings crap their pants at the merest thought of a LRD or Vindicator, because one shot is going to make all those points you paid for survivability utterly meaningless. The ridiculous premium paid for that unit is going to mean that even if you can mitigate losses by spacing, you are going to be hurting, and due to the concentration of killing power in each unit, the unit becomes significantly less effective even if it only loses two or three men.

I can still remember tabling a draigowing list with triple vindicators, just let draigo's shiny gits get up, then drive up the Vindicators and turn Draigo's group inside out, then break away to blow up the other paladins while my Plague marines shot Draigo to death like a chump.

Mortarion has been avenged.