Vindicator Tactics

[UltraTacSgt]

I am going to run two Vindicators as part of a mech element in my C:SM list. I am wondering if there are any tips, tricks, or tactics that people can suggest for how to make the most of your Vindicators.

 

 Right now I know the basics like, be mindful of mitigating the exposure of the weak side armor to the enemy, rolling my rhinos/razors ahead to give cover saves, bubble wrap them to guard against deep strikers/pods (not 100% sure how to accomplish this) or put them in reserves to avoid first turn drop pod assault, or hiding them out of LOS to deter an enemy from charging my gunline.

 

 Those are all the things I could think of, otherwise it seems that Vindicator tactics boil down to simply rolling them forward and dropping plates on the foe.

 

 So are there any good tactics/tricks to making the most of Vindicators?

[Interrogator Stobz]

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS reserve them, and when you think it might be good to start them on the field.....RESERVE THEM!!!

 

Seriously; the fear they produce is better than their actual pew pew-ness. Control your battlefield with fear.

 

They will own half the table without even showing up, place objectives accordingly.

 

That is all.

 

s

[MordentHex]

I use mine as a threat minimizer for my other forces.  That it does damage to the other team is not as important as the damage that they think it can do to there army.  Lets say I run 2 predator Destructor's and 1 Vindicator.  I put the Predators in front and to the side of the Vindicator to give it cover.  My opponent now has a much harder time to get a heavy hit in on it but not impossible.  It is the temptation I like to offer.  If my opponent goes for the Vindicator and ignores the predators  I know he will continue to do so within probability until he takes out the cannon or destroys it, all the while those heavy weapons are not going into my to predators that are doing the real damage to his forces.  This also has the added effect of protecting my predators from a close assault by melta and stuff.  If you wish to include Rhino's in your force you could theoretically do the same thing although they are a lot less durable and even stack this as another layer of protection.  Load up the rhino's with Tac squads, as they get knocked out they can become a rear guard and keap moving up mowing down whatever is there. Example below.

 

P  P  or  P  R  P

  V         R  V R

 

With 2 V's     R P R

                     V V

[Giga]

Nah, don't reserve them all the time. Especially don't do it if you have first turn night fighting, as then you can drive them forward fast for 2nd turn pieplate spam, while retaining a 3+ or 4+ cover save against enemy shooting. This is especially awesome if you have an aegis defense line, as it means your vindicators have a 2+ cover save on turn 1 if your opponent goes first. 

 

Depending on the type of army you run, you can use cheap troops (like IG allies) to bubblewrap your vindicators. Move them in front of your vindis with 3-5" distance, so nothing can deepstrike nearby and your vindis get cover saves. During deployment you can likewise spread your cheap troops and transports around the vindicator so that droppods and the like can't be placed within 6" of the vindis, making it impossible for the opponent to melta them on turn 1 (if you want pictures of how this looks in practice, check the link in my signature, I do it in quite a few of my battle reports).

 

Get dozer blades. Siege shields are too expensive. Dozer blades will allow you to move through cover and your own aegis defense line with impunity (so far I've never had a vindicator immobilize itself). 

 

Finally, you need to accept your vindicators are probably going to be dead by turn 3-4 against a competent opponent, or even turn 2-3 if there's no first turn night fighting. This is perfectly fine as long as you get 2-3 good shots off per vindicator, and you use the threat they pose to safely inflict damage with the rest of your army. 

[WarriorFish]

Seriously; the fear they produce is better than their actual pew pew-ness. Control your battlefield with fear.

Agreed, and when you consider that their primary weapon is a Demolisher Cannon..! Don't advance them too much, there's no benefit to being closer than you have to be. If I'm running elements that close with the enemy (which is almost all the time) then I tend to direct them elsewhere. For example I might advance on the left flank and have the Vindicators on the right to pound them into submission with other shooty elements.

You don't want to risk scattering on to your own units and two pressing on the enemy together will really drive the point home. Expect your opponent to react accordingly though which is another use they have in forcing your opponent's hand. He almost certainly has to deal with them so you should be able to identify how his army will do so fairly easily and plan accordingly.

I'm normally a bit disappointed in the kill count my Vindicators score but almost always pleased with the way they help me dictate the game (even if they usually don't survive)

[tvih]

Unnecessarily putting it in reserve isn't such a good idea. Of course if you're playing against a long-range gunline and there's absolutely no place to put it where they can't shoot at it then it might make sense, but it's not fun to have it enter the table on turn 4 when your army is blown to bits because you didn't have the Vindi backing your other forces.

[MagicMan]

Q: When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not within range any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e. half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half are not)? (p15)
A: No.

 

This from the latest FAQ. Doesn't this now mean that if a Vindi fires, and the shot scatters beyond its 24 inch range, it can't cause any wounds? 

[Giga]

Nah, scattering blasts can hit stuff that's out of range or out of sight. Ofc, unless it's a barrage, you'll still be allocating wounds to the models that are closest to the firer. 

[MagicMan]

Ah sweet. I was thinking that the Vindi might have suddenly become terrible. :P

[Giga]

Nah. That would've made a whole lot of ordnance weapons terrible. 

[tvih]

Well. It doesn't really make an amendment for blasts per se. It does mention rolling to hit, but therein lies the question - does it only affect weapons that don't roll to it?

 

Assuming that it does affect scatter weapons, while the Demolisher cannon can HIT outside 24" just fine (I mean almost half the blast marker can kind of be "out of range" anyway when you place the center hole at exactly 24"). So even if it scatters farther out, the hits count, and can cause wounds. But the wounds technically can't be allocated to models farther than 24" out, or well, if you want to be mroe sensible, farther than 24" plus the part of the blast template that can go beyond that.

 

If it DOESN'T affect weapons that don't roll to hit, it means flamers can still wipe out entire units even if they're beyond template ranges, while normal shooting weapons can't, which seems a bit wrong. And of course scatter weapons can kill stuff beyond their range as well.

 

Mind you, a "hard-limit" on range is a but dubious for blasts given the mechanics, but if flamer templates get the same thing it's a bit strange. We'll still have 20" torrent flamers while shooty weapons still have the absolute hard limit beyond which they can't kill.

[Azash]

I like to run vindicators and I have always found the that half of the tactics involved in vindicators is objective placement (obviously only in objective based scenarios).

 

Two Schools of thought.

 

1. Place a grouping of objectives in the middle to pull your opponents into the range of the vindicators and pound them. Worked ok in 5th but it's kinda outmoded since in 6th.

 

2. Place your objectives behind your vindicators. Your opponent has to go for at least 1 and this is going to expose a chunk of his army or make them waist allot of effort eliminating your vindicators. As your opponent moves up this gives you the initiative to close and fire first.

 

I prefer the latter in this edition simply because being able to choose your deployments before you place objective really helps vindies out.

[DarkGuard]

I like mine setting up alongside my Rhinos, hopefully drawing enemy firepower because they're scared of them. And they're quite goo at that.

 

Setting objectives out of cover is also nice.

 

Against aggressive armies, that's when you reserve them, and use them to counterattack.

[tvih]

Against aggresive armies when you reserve them the enemy will often be already assaulting your units by the time the Vindi comes into play, so actually shooting at enemies at that point is tricky because either they're locked in combat or so close to your units that you easily scatter into friendlies. Or with some crap luck they come into play too late to make any difference.

[DarkGuard]

Depends how you play the game. I doubt they'll be assaulting full on by Turn 2, and you'll have a Vindy on then unless your luck is awful.

[Giga]

What sort of aggressive armies are we talking about here?

 

Drop pod/deep strike armies - you should deploy your vindicators, imho. Spread your aegis defense line and then spread your big killers + rhinos/combat squads inside it to prevent the droppodders from being able to 6" melta your vindicators/landraiders/dreads. Nullify their alpha strike by making them kill cheap stuff or shoot at 2+ cover save combat squads. With 4+ aegis cover save and AV13 you really shouldn't be loosing any vindicators unless you're unlucky. In your turn, you want those vindicators to wipe out as many of the deepstriking units as you can, so they can't overwhelm you when more of their pals arrive. 

 

Assault armies - these armies are either a bunch of assault specialists in transports (raiders, rhinos, land raiders, etc.) or a bunch of fast stuff like bikers, beasts, jumppackers, cavalry etc. If you refused-flank deploy, you'll basically make them all come at you from the same angle, so they have to keep their units close, making vindicator shooting much more accurate (even if it scatters the full 8" you still probably get to hit something). They'll also rush towards you, so there's not much need to move your vindicators and you can safely drop pieplates from the safety of your aegis defense line. 

 

Overall, I can't see many situations where I'd reserve them rather than deploy them with the rest of my army. If anything, vindicators are cheap fire magnets. You want them on the table from turn 1 so they can draw fire from the rest of your army. 

[DarkGuard]

I was talking in general. Against Pod armies I tend to prefer to reserve them, as they're prime targets for melta etc.

 

Assault armies though you should be fine starting them, but some can be fast enough through the use of open topped transports or being naturally fast that you'd want to reserve them.

 

9 times out of 10 though, I deploy them both.

[Guest Drunk Guardian]

Does anyone find they get good use out of Vindicators when going against Eldar?

[Giga]

I don't play against eldar often, really, but vindicators are good against anything except fliers, so I'm thinking they'd do just fine vs eldar as well. 

[Axagoras]

Good for getting easy wounds on wraithguard and for IDing their entire army

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

Since this thread was already started. Is the vindicator any good against Nids monsterous creatures? Or is it better to have more melta/lascannons to use against Mawloc/Tervigon creatures?

[Axagoras]

no, not at all, there t6 so it does nothing

[maturin]

Against Nid MC's, vindicators can still be good since a blast will wound on a 2+.  But it's only a single wound and the range is short, so you'll need to back it up with other weapons.  I wouldn't rely on melta due to its short range - you want to degrade those beasts from a distance.  If your choice is vindicator vs lascannons and ML's, then go for the latter.  Of course, it's better to have them all, if you can.

[Giga]

Chances are, nid MCs wont be walking around all alone. They'll have smaller nids around them, so you still got a pretty good chance to not only wound the MC, but also hit a bunch of other stuff, too. 

[UltraTacSgt]

I used my Vindicators against a MC heavy Nids list just this weekend. As Giga mentioned, the MC's I shot them at had smaller nids either in the same unit, or nearby. When I hit dead on, I would get 2-3 wounds at least to put on the MC unit, and when I missed, I still splattered a chunk of smaller nids. My Vindi blasts actually forced my opponent to LoSir his warlord MC and put an ID kill on a tyranid prime (i think that's what it was) and some other bodyguard unit, I then used the LC's, ML's, and AC's (which any shooty C:SM force should have) to kill the, now bodyguard-less warlord. This threw two gaunt units out of synapse, which caused a 10+ model gaunt unit to fall back off the board after a few bolter kills. All of that in the second round of shooting.

 

 Could have gone differently for me I'm sure, but the Vindi's put big hits on units for the whole game, and if you focus down the anti armor threats right away with better weapons like LC/ML/AC, they are pretty survivable against smaller horde bugs.