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Hello
Im relative new to 40k. And one of my freinds plays space marines, and i have a hard time to counter his Deimos Predator. It fires 3 plasma cannon shot each round, and it does not get hot. So in essence it whipes one squad each round. And now he is talking about field 3 Deimos Preadators in a 1850pt game. And that will just be extreamly had to counter. Im asking, is this a real unit in regular games, becuse it seems extreamly hard to defend ageinst.

Yes, it's a real unit. It's also fairly expensive game and money wise, so i see no reason to not let him use it.

As for counters, we need to know what army you play for anything specific. Generally though, there are a few things you can do.

1) Spread your units out. You have 2'' coherency rules, use them. He is firing 3 small blats, yet if properly spaced out a small blast should only touch 2 models on a direct hit. No excuse not to spread out unless you are...

2) Use Cover. Seems easy, but it's worth mentioning. You only need to be 25% obscured to gain cover, try get every cover save you can get.

3) Mech up. 3 Str 7 hits? Meh, certain armies don't find this scary. Throw your units in a Chimera, watch those Str 7 hits need 6's to pen your front armour, and even if you only have Rhinos, those 35pts is a layer the Pred has to blast through before he gets to the squishy troops. Some Xenos armies can't do this, so instead they...

4) Take to the sky. Either with FMC or Flyers, blasts cannot target fliers, watch as his expensive Forgeworld models can't even touch your units.

We can help more if you provide more details about yourself.

I'm almost certain that the Plasma Executioner overheats in the most recent rules, even on the Deimos. Your best friend in this case is cover, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of his Ap2. Until we know what actual armies you play, there's not much else we can help you with.

Thank you for reply. I play chaos Marines. it seemed so insane i thought it was only apocalypse games or something where it could be fielded.

What should do well here is a Maulerfiend. They are very fast, more then fast enough to catch up with the Pred. They are resilient, the Plasma Cannons have a hard time with AV 12, the 5+ invulnerable save and IWND is just dandy. And they have more then enough Str 10 attacks to wreck a Pred in a heart beat. Take two, throw one down each flank. Profit?

Yeah mech up on him for sure.

Or take nurgle bikers. He won't hit as many models shooting at bikes, will do ~1/6 less wounds and you can jink for a 4+. He won't really have enough time to whittle you down to ineffeciency especially if you're using them to escort a Nurgle Lord.

Bring Be'Lakor and laugh as he flies or skims and jinks for a 2+ cover save. Use Be'Lakor to cast invis on another unit. He wouldn't even be able to target that unit with the Deimos.

Heldrake with Hades Autocannon should be able to get side armor pretty easily which will make the Pred have a bad day.

Here's a tactic for you (won't work against a lot of things but could help against trip Executioner Preds):

-Mech up a bunch of Power Armored, melta toting dudes of your choice. Bring Be'lakor
-First turn move 12" forward and pop smoke
-Stay within 6" of Be'Lakor and cast shrouding. All your metuhl bawkses now have 3+ cover
-Move 6" disembark 6" and melta his precious tanks


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Also you might look to daemon allies (which is not a bad idea in general for CSM). Nothing in the codex really gives 2 poops about his expensive AP2 weaponry. Scouting flesh hounds will damn near guarantee that you're going to wreck 2 of them on turn 2.

A suitcase full of Heldrakes should do it for sure.

Close second would be a mauler fiend running through cover.

and hard to go wrong with nurgle bikes.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I'm almost certain that the Plasma Executioner overheats in the most recent rules, even on the Deimos. Your best friend in this case is cover, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of his Ap2. Until we know what actual armies you play, there's not much else we can help you with.

Nope just checked IA2 2nd ed and the FAQs. That is just nasty.

However is it is a Relic of the Armour with Plasma or Conversion beamer. So you can only have one of those nasty buggers in the list.

I'd honestly be grateful that he's running this tank. He could be getting even more firepower for fewer points if he was just running PC devastators. And with some extra buddies, the devastators could be even harder to remove than just the three HP tank.

If I were shelling out for a Deimos, I'd pay the points and definitely stick a conversion beamer on it.

Belac Ynnead wrote:I'd honestly be grateful that he's running this tank. He could be getting even more firepower for fewer points if he was just running PC devastators. And with some extra buddies, the devastators could be even harder to remove than just the three HP tank.

If I were shelling out for a Deimos, I'd pay the points and definitely stick a conversion beamer on it.

In what world is killing 5 power armored marines harder than killing an AV13 tank? The reason devastators don't see play....EVER...is because they are so fragile.

Personally, my Deimos is Plasma Executioner and lascannon sponsons, and I occasionally put the Legacy of War on it that lets it ignore cover saves with it's blast weapons, runs me 180 points I think? This gives it SUPERIOR anti-medium/heavy infantry abilities, solid anti-tank (3 shots S7 AP2 ignoring cover and 2 more S9 AP2) and solid survivability on an AV13 platform.

barnowl wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I'm almost certain that the Plasma Executioner overheats in the most recent rules, even on the Deimos. Your best friend in this case is cover, which will greatly reduce the effectiveness of his Ap2. Until we know what actual armies you play, there's not much else we can help you with.

Nope just checked IA2 2nd ed and the FAQs. That is just nasty.

However is it is a Relic of the Armour with Plasma or Conversion beamer. So you can only have one of those nasty buggers in the list.

I believe you can have more relics of the armory if you take a master of the forge. You are just limited to 1 if you don't take him.

Just don't tell him he can buy ignores cover for one of the tanks for 35pts.
Couple of forgefiends using their tank hunting shots should take it down to 1 hp or destroy it in one round of shooting (if not in cover).
You can try getting some melta near it with DS oblits or infiltrating havocs/chosen courtesy of huron/cypher.
Rhino rush would cut down its turns of fire too.

Just be glad he's not taking a sicaran.

It's got a major weakness: squishy AV11 side armour. Position your anti-armor units so that they can get into it's side arc, and they can easily take it down. Avoid shooting at it's front armor unless you think you have a good chance of killing or shaking it, otherwise you're playing into it's strengths. Don't use Deep Striking Terminators or Obliterators for this, as the plasma destroyer will murder bunched up deep striking units. Fast melta or plasma units are the best bet - Nurgle Bikers are perfect, Raptors are decent. Forgefiends and Havocs (hiding in ruins) can out-shoot it. Heldrakes can harass it with impunity. And it's main weapons are quite ineffective against your own tanks. In a pinch, you can just put a chaos tac squad in a rhino, drive up to it, and hatch shoot at it with a couple of melta guns.

If you manage to penetrate and shake/stun/WeaponDestory it, then immediately move on to shoot another target. Getting a crew shaken result is all you really need, as it won't be able to shoot the next turn (and you can use the rest of your shooting to take down something that will threaten you on the next turn).

I don't really fault your friend for wanting to buy three. They're very fun tanks to use, since they can scoot and shoot, and have so many weapon options (though the Plasma Destroyer really shines).