Sunday 11 November 2012

Chaos Marine Analysis - Predator and Vindicator

The pre-rambling shall be quick today. I went out food shopping this morning and came back with this.


What it is is a limited edition GW dice shaker. Ok, it sounds tacky, but it was only £4 and when you have as many dice as I do accumulated through 5th edition, the board becomes so covered in them that you need to spread a big space to roll dice in, so I'm going to be using this to keep all of my dice in during games. Plus it's pretty good for keeping my pens, etc in. It's veneered leather on the outside and fabric on the inside, although it's mainly block is plastic. Still, it looks quite nice.

Anyway, I need to get some more Heavy Support done, so here come 2 in one post. I'm putting these two together because they're very similar to the Predator and Vindicator that we already know. So I'm going to run through the Chaos upgrades that they can take and judge how useful they are on the units rather than the units as a whole.

Combi-Bolter. I really think that this is an insignificant upgrade. If you have 5pts spare, fine, why not? But really I don't think that it'll have a great effect. I can see this more on the Vindicator than the Predator, simply because it matches the range of the Demolisher Cannon, and might mop up a 1 that you rolled when wounding with the main gun. Actually, I think that this weapon is worth taking, especially on the Vindicator, just as some defence against weapon destroyed results. The reason you take a Vindicator is for that cannon, if you lose it you've lost the primary use of your Vindicator, so for 5pts I'd say that it's worth it.

The same can't be said for the Dirge Caster. Both of these vehicles are probably going to be sitting back and shooting, especially the Predator, and you don't want to get your Vindicator too close either, so you aren't going to be close enough to enemy units a lot of the time to get the effects of Dirge Casters of.

The Dozer Blade might be useful on the Vindicator due to it's tendency to move around a lot, but then for 5pts more you can get a Siege Shield. That said, I think that the Dozer Blade is probably the better option as what are the odds that you'll fail more than one Dangerous Terrain check?

Warpflame Gargoyles, no on the Vindicator, you'll be causing enough damage anyway. No on the Predator too, a lot of the time you'll be shooting light armour with that, so these aren't great, and when shooting at infantry, anything that is particularly effected by the Autocannon is likely to be horde-like in nature (4+ save or worse), and so Warpflame Gargoyles won't do much. Although for 5pts it isn't bad.

Combi-weapons are a no too, they're ok I suppose, but I wouldn't take them, more points to spend elsewhere. The flamer is too short ranged for these, I'm only likely to get 1 shot off the plasma at non rapid-fire and I wouldn't say that's worth 10pts and the Melta suffers from the same problem as the flamer.

Extra armour isn't that great anymore on any vehicles because you're more fussed about the loss of the hull points and if you've suffered that result your vehicle is likely to be in trouble anyway whether you get that more or not.

The Havoc Launcher might be ok, I think that it's a good upgrade on most vehicles. I think that it depends on what you want your vehicle for. The Predator is for light armour, the Havoc Launcher is not useful here. The Vindicator smashes heavy infantry, the Havoc Launcher won't really help here. Leave this upgrade for the Rhinos.

Destroyer Blades. Yes I love this upgrade, but I'm not going to be running over infantry very often with either of these vehicles, so why bother? Especially at that points cost.

I'd also say that Daemonic possession isn't worth it. I don't think that you want to be taking anything that will be decreasing your shooting effectiveness here. They're both durable anyway with that AV13 and at the same points cost as the Destroyer Blades but with the addition of making your shooting less effective.

So in short, I'd give your Predators and Vindicators the Combi-Bolter as some insurance against losing your main gun, but that is all.

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