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I'v recently purchased a Predator Tank for my Chaos army and was wondering how effective it is really going to be compared to its loyalist counterparts.

As it is I have it equipped with
Twin-Linked Lascannon
Heavy-Bolter Side Sponsons
Combi-Melta
Dozer Blade

I want it to be a general purpose good all around tank! Able to kill infantry, HI, Vehicles light and medium. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated

 jackflashultra wrote:
I'v recently purchased a Predator Tank for my Chaos army and was wondering how effective it is really going to be compared to its loyalist counterparts.

As it is I have it equipped with
Twin-Linked Lascannon
Heavy-Bolter Side Sponsons
Combi-Melta
Dozer Blade

I want it to be a general purpose good all around tank! Able to kill infantry, HI, Vehicles light and medium. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated

I think the general consensus is that 3x Lascannon or Autocannon / Lascannon is ideal. The reason is that you're paying a ton of points for a Twin-Linked Lascannon turret and if you fire it at its intended targets (i.e., tanks), then the Heavy Bolters are doing pretty much nothing.

IMHO, Combi-Melta and Dozer Blade are inefficient. Personally I'm not a fan of 1-shot weapons, and you don't want to move the tank around too much anyway to shoot at full BS.

There are 3 weapon load-outs I'd consider:
1. Autocannon + HB sponsons (may add Havoc Launcher and/or Combi-Bolter)
2. Autocannon + Las sponsons
3. TL Lascannon + Las sponsons

#1 is Anti-Infantry. 2 S7 AP4 shots, 6 S5 AP4 shots, and optional TL S5 AP5 Blast and TL S4 AP5 shot. Lots of dakka.
#2 is a popular, fairly versatile Anti-Vehicle set-up.
#3 is a true heavy-hitter. Better at damaging things like MCs and AV 13/14 than #2.

I run #4. TL Lascannon + HB sponsons. I tend to use the tank as nothing but a sniper and leave it parked as far away as possible, and it's really hard to get a target for both the sponsons anyway, so I just them as antiinfantry when/if needed. It's pretty much the same idea as #2, just more focused on antiarmor, and less of an MC killer.

I tend to play with a lot of terrain so my tanks often have to move a lot. That being said I've had fun/found uses for all 3 builds SarisKhan mentioned. I highly recommend magnetizing and trying different ones out. Besides turret/sponsons I've found all the other vehicle upgrades to be not really worth it on the pred. Although, A havoc luncher on the dakka pred (AC+HB) is fun if you can set it up some place it doesn't have to move and can shoot infantry.

My pred has been forced to be dedicated anti-armour due to the high amount of tanks that players bring in my local meta. I've had great matches running 3 lascannons, it's not terribly expensive and does the job. And after you kill all their vehicles use it as a character hunter.

I understand tank hunter is not the role you want for your pred so the only other build I would do is the turret autocannon and side sponson lascannons. Gives you 2 shots to try and pop vehicles and the autocannon is a good all-around gun.

I think if you want a good anti-armour/infantry tank you may be better served by the more expensive forgefiend, those dual hades autocannons or ectoplasma cannons will rip up both quite nicely. Not to mention it has some special rules like daemonforge and it will not die. Oh and if a nasty melee squad tries to assault, it's a walker so it can stand toe to toe until help arrives to finish off the offending squad.

As for vehicle upgrades I really only ever take havoc launchers and only on my rhinos. I find most of the other upgrades quite underwhelming and would rather spend my points elsewhere.

You can try a tri-las with warp flame gargoyles and havoc launcher... Covers all bases but getting a bit pricey?

Thanks all! I found all of your comments helpful one way or another.

If your'e open to forgeworld units, chaos got access to some pretty nice relic predator variants in IA apocalypse (2013). Executioner and conversion beamer are the pick of the litter, and turrets can be converted pretty easily.