Long Fangs vs. Predators

[Vassakov]

Well, in my standard 1500pts list, I use 3 heavy support units: 5 Long Fangs with 4 Missiles, plus a Cyclone Terminator; a Dakka Predator and a Vindicator.

 

The Fangs are the go-to guys. If it's not a Terminator/Land Raider/Monolith chances are these guys will nuke it. They've blown squads of Marines apart, nailed Eldar fancy-pants skimmers, shredding hordes of Orks/Nids/Lesser Daemons with Frags and have never, ever let me down. The addition of a Terminator also makes CQC less viable against them. That, and the Blood Claw funbus hanging with them in objectives games.

 

The Predator, with an Autocannon and sponson Heavy Bolters is actually often hidiously effective. S5 and S7 are very serviceable against any infantry and most monsterous creatures (and what is too tough, the Long Fangs can deal with.) Most significantly, it forces a lot of saves - against Terminators, the Dakka Pred is actually a better bet than 6 Krak Missiles often.

 

The Vindicator is Psychological warfare. It's S10 AP2 Ordnance. Usually dies, rarely makes its points back - though in one game, it pulled a fantastic 1-2 punch with the Fangs against some Ork Nobz in a Battlewagon. Fangs blew the Wagon up, Vindicator landed a perfect hit on the Nobz squad. 5 failed 4 ups later, only one Nob and the Warboss were left. But yeah, enemies tend to give it plenty of attention, meaning other squads can do their jobs.

 

However, Simo429 had it about right - the Heavy Support slot isn't necessarily where we excel. They should be scary, but mostly to allow you to dominate fire lanes and let the Grey Hunters do what they do best. Namely, melta tanks and carve the survivors into bitty pieces.

[commander alexander]

I bought a predator, played a half-dozen games with it, and it did not impress. Las, or dakka. Right now it is a rhino, and its turrets and sponsons have been converted. Plus they cant take plasma cannons!! :P I love me some plasma cannons!!!! :D I wish we could still take Leman Russ tanks and the new executioner type :D .

[Grimtooth]

I will go with the post that mentioned whichever works best for your build.

 

Just to note, I get my additional dakka from my Long Fangs Razorback turret selection. Las/plas is great but twin-linked heavy bolters are damn nice as well. Also fairly easy to get obscured with a Razorback profile while still having LOS with the turret.

[Quillen]

The problem with a Vindi is it's short range. And 1 main gun. So if they hit and pin the chances are good it's done for the turn or the game. Where a Pred will still have some guns left.

 

As to the 5-6 troop choices, if that is true you win. As he will not have enough tank killing goodness to kill them before they gun down his troop choices to the point they are easily handled by your troop choices.

 

Think about it. 2-3 transports will die right off. Next turn you kill some troops or finish off the transports and then kill some troops. either way, he will not have the firepower to deal with you as he just spent 1400-1500 of his points on troops leaving your tanks to be lean mean killing machines.