Are vindicators worth taking?

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

Throwing on a Combi-Plasma and a Havoc Launcher can get it somewhere close in price and effectiveness to an Autocannon/HB Pred that doesn't have those options (you'll kill around 3 MEQ while moving), and the Stratagem can be great for cracking difficult builds that rely on characters (Killshot on Preds is better against big stuff that you have freedom to target). However, it requires MUCH more work to use effectively unless you have an army build that's going to be marching forward and fighting at around 24 inches or closer. Bonus points if you have assault units advancing behind the Vindis to countercharge whatever tries to stop them up (i.e. use them as bait to tempt an enemy to close to where they are easy prey for....say....Khorne Berserkers or Possessed).

 

Dear God, don't ever field just one on its own. Three will smooth out much of the randomness of the cannons. Otherwise, reliability will be a problem.

 

So World Eaters, certain Black Legion builds, Thousand Sons, and certain variants of the Iron Warriors cultist wave can all work with it. Alpha Legion might too. Allying some Nurgle Vindis to Death Guard might help, because it can lure the enemy into range of things like debuff auras or Blight Bombardment. Of course, DG have the Plagueburst Crawler to take care of the whole "big cannon" role.

 

World Eaters deserve special note because they like having LOS-blocking charge bait in front of them and they also have a stratagem that can be triggered by any WE unit within 24 of an enemy Psyker, which is the Vindi's preferred range.

 

That said, take a long, hard look at what the Defiler can do before you reach for Vindis for the "creeping death" marching assault role. If you've got some other way to handle big stuff behind screens, targets with Invulns, or Chraracter spam, then the Defiler with a Havoc and a Reaper will work better because it can just charge in and rip things apart after it plows forward shooting for a bit.

 

So, in short, they're not as consistent as they need to be, and don't belong in every list, but if you have a very specific gimmick that you're ALREADY planning on using and you want to blow up stuff that's difficult to target, they might be worth it.

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

How about the FW Vindicator with the quad-barrelled lascannon (the name of which escapes me right now)?

I proxied 2 of them in a list and they were excellent- a very viable alternative to the laspred, imo. Tradeoff is less range for being harder to kill (T7 @ 48 vs. T8 @ 36), but you get a lower profile chassis (easier to take advantage of cover) and take the swinginess out of your damage- 4 3 damage shots or 2 6 damage shots vs. 4 D6 damage shots on the laspred. With the number of times I've rolled 1s and 2s for my lascannon damage (or seen my opponents to the same), it does bring a nice bit of peace of mind.

 

The flat 6 damage shot is particularly brutal (I had Khârn babysit them for rerolls to hit), and most things won't be taking armor saves against that shot. I had two of them shoot 2 of those Mechanicus crab tanks off the board on turn 1 (with a little help from a poorly rolling Spartan- again, the D6 damage will definitely bite you in the ass, as many of us well know), and they ate pretty much all of the enemy's return fire, which in turn let the rest of my army do its thing. 

[Ishagu]

How about the FW Vindicator with the quad-barrelled lascannon (the name of which escapes me right now)?

It's good. A viable alternative to a Predator as it's t8