Horus Heresy: The Care and Feeding of Your Deimos Pattern: Predator Support Tank
Games Workshop has released the plastic Deimos Pattern Predator Support Tank kit for Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness. But how exactly should you use yours?
The tried and true Heresy era Deimos Pattern Predator Support Tank will be hitting shelves in November, begging the question, can one ever truly have enough tanks? Canonically, the Deimos Predator was one of the most common and iconic vehicles in every Legion arsenal and made several notable appearances throughout the Horus Heresy novels.
Players should expect to see parking lots of the Deimos Predator and its variants across the table as the plastic release resolves some of the scarcity and cost issues that plagued it prior in its resin form. With the Armored Speartip Rite of War (RoW) being both potent and eye-rollingly good, this release should increase the potency of your armored speartip by adding a variety of fun weapons to an already bloated index of good options. Lets take a look!
Loadouts & Combos
The Deimos Predator Support Tank builds on the already released Deimos Predator by offering a variety of other main weapon loadouts. The standard issue Predator Cannon can be swapped for any of the following: Executioner Plasma Destroyer, Magna-melta Cannon, Flamestorm Cannon, Heavy Conversion Beam Cannon or Neutron Blaster. While more vehicle focused legions can better utilize the predator it shouldn’t be ruled out of any army list as a cheap, mobile fire platform that can bring a gun for any occasion. Weighing in at a base cost of 120pts they come in squadrons of up to 4 models.
Magn-melta Cannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Searchlights
I think this option keeps the platform relatively cheap and focuses the weapons to ranges out to 36″ for the Melta and 48″ for the lascannon. The best part about this is that the Melta has 3 shots, giving you plenty of opportunities to double out those hard to kill terminator squads or dunking on opposition armor. Many of the missions have night fighting, and some Legions can modify or extend it multiple turns so it’s essential that your Predators ignore it to be effective all game with searchlights.
Heavy Conversion Beamer, Lascannon Sponsons, Searchlights
For all those in the nose bleeds at your monthly Apoc game the Conversion Beam cannon is the jam. Bigger tables and more play space make this variant incredibly effective. Take aim at units out to 72″ with the conversion beamer and lose yourself some friends. There’s not much in Horus Heresy that is going to standup to Str12 AP1 5″ blast templates with blind outside of Super Heavies and Titans. Your ideal targets are going to be 42″-48″ out so you can utilize the lascannons as well. This is arguably one of the more expensive versions of the Predator so keep it well outside of enemy fire and protected and you’ll see it easily get its points back throughout game.
Consider Taking Squadrons
The price per tank goes from 120 base to 105 for each additional tank after the initial.
Armoured Speartip (Rite of War)
The Armoured Speartip is an excellent Rite of War (RoW) to work from if you’re interested in playing tank-heavy lists. The predator tank becomes the heart of this RoW as it moves from a Heavy slot to a Troops choice, while the Sicaran becomes an Elite option. Finally, you must take a single Predator or Sicaran as an HQ.
Your HQ tank gains a special warlord trait, Master of Armor, which grants +1 BS and 5++ invulnerable save. The big limitation to this RoW is that all infantry models must be embarked upon some kind of transport creating further constraints on squad sizes and units that accompany the core of your tanks. Legions that might make the best use of a Predator Tank squadron and Armoured Speartip RoW could be:
WARNING: Armoured Speartip isn’t going to win you many friends. This RoW allows you to take an obscene amount of tanks. With so much armor rolling around, it has the potential to skew the game in such a way that most armies do not have enough anti-armor to deal with it. Much of your opponent’s army will be relegated to running around the table trying to capture points while being mostly ineffective against your tanks. If you’re bringing an Armoured Speartip list to casual play, a friendly heads-up is advised.
Final Thoughts
Here’s the thing. The Predator tank regardless of what legion you play is going to be good. Is it Contemptor Dread great? No. However it is an impressive weapon platform that has incredible flexibility in terms of what you can load onto it. Do you need to kill hordes? How about 3 flamers or heavy bolters and autocannons! How about armor? There’s lascannons, neutron lasers and melta aplenty. Blobs of elite infantry, well we have plasma cannons and conversion beamers that will make short work of them. Like Space Marines in general it an a tank that can be tooled for any situation and done cheaply. Look at predators to fill any role that your specialist units and static loaded units can’t handle.
Here we stand roughly 3 months after the release of the Age of Darkness boxset and the HH 2.0 ruleset. Color me shocked that GW has surpassed even my lofty expectations for the new release schedule. The pace thus far has been blistering and there is no indication that it is letting up. While GW still has hundreds of models to yet release into plastic I’m delighted to see that they have supported the game to the extent they have. They are making a consorted effort to please Horus Heresy fans by giving them access to the most needed models in the game. In the near future watch out for Liber Imperium and the arrival of Heresy rules for Adeptus Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Assassins and the Solar Auxilia.
How are you going to equip your Deimos Predator Support Tank?
