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Hey I'm just wondering are Defilers worth it?
To me they seem Like a rubbish Stat Line,Leman Russ and a Dreadnought stuck together rather shabbily.

I find the armor 12 lacking. So tired of getting one-shotted. Haven't even used one in a list for a while.

They're competing for highly competitive HS slots. Meh...I ran two of them for a while and learned to accept that they simply aren't effective against anything except MEQs out of cover.

I guess they have a place in the Monster Mash CSM lists, with 3 Defilers, 3 Dreads, double Princes and a Greater Daemon.

I take two with two lash princes and laugh a laughy laugh as a blow my opponents to bits

....that is untll one of them gets poped but thats what two's for

AV12 is pretty resilient, especially if it is immune to stun and shaken. It will take a while to kill 1, let alone 2. Im not bothered about defilers being BS3 since its the battlecanon is the only weapon that counts anyway.

Think of the defiler as a support unit. It can pound units like an artillery and provide excellent countercharge. -It never fails at both because it is immune to stun and shaken.

I highly recommend them there are quite a few articles on here about proper loadouts. I usually run 2 with RAC/HF but the HB/HF does also sound appealing.

The CSM player in our group loves them. Hes only using 1 at the moment, but Im sure he will buy at least 1 more. And hes scary accurate with the damn thing. So far, my luck has only be good enough to immobolize it, which doesnt help me much when he either rolls hits or scatters 3 inches

Nice to have a versatile walker that can deal firepower and CC beatdown, but personally I dont much like the thing, Its big (easy to get LOS to), and it's too easily killed.

But it can work as a bullet magnet or as an intimidation
tactic - an inexperienced player can overestimate it's actual power due to it's size and appearence.

I think they are still a viable option for pie plates, since it's the only long range one...

Pie plates are great, but BS 3 sucks and I never seem to roll a bloody hit!

my friend uses one and always rolls on target so he doesnt care about the BS 3... and i can never kill the darn thing! i just shaken or stun it and it just doesnt care because of stupid demonic possession! i hate that rule...but yes, totally worth it, eats alot of fire, is decently resilient and lays out pie plates...

geordie09 wrote:Pie plates are great, but BS 3 sucks and I never seem to roll a bloody hit!

Unless you are firing at single models by itself or vehicles with nothing near the 1 inch difference isn't going to kill you. At BS 3 and the hit result, you should still have the template cover the point you placed it on about 44 percent of the time (.33 for hit result, .11 for scatter of 2 inches or less). With large squads, or spreading out, your chances of hitting at least one model should be pretty high, and the difference between BS 3 and 4 for this is like just under 3 percent.

If you are complaining about the auto cannon, well, guard does fine with its auto cannons, a defiler has a twin linked one as its secondary weapon.

I fail to see anything worth complaining about BS3 once you look at the numbers.

As for the usefulness of defilers in chaos, well, honestly havocs are even oblits (as long as you don't overboard on them) are generally seen as better choices. I would run a pair of them though just to toss out some nasty blasts, and act as a counter assault unit. They don't work with every army, so the already limited CSM book has few lists where they can fit in (one that uses multiple dreads and rhinos most likely, with little to no dedicated assault units).

Im wierded out as to why many people in dakka thinks AV12 is easy to pop.

They are good, but have to be used correctly. I would take 3, they support each other rather well.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:They're competing for highly competitive HS slots. Meh...I ran two of them for a while and learned to accept that they simply aren't effective against anything except MEQs out of cover.

I guess they have a place in the Monster Mash CSM lists, with 3 Defilers, 3 Dreads, double Princes and a Greater Daemon.

Right, they are good in an MC-based list. Otherwise, don't bother - as said above, the battle cannon is only good vs. MEQ out of cover.

Yuber wrote:Im wierded out as to why many people in dakka thinks AV12 is easy to pop.

thats because half of the people on dakka are tau and think that their S10 AP 1 72" range shot is normal lol. But i think its just because there are ALOT of tanks with AV 13, so 12 seems weak.

AV12 should take 14 (13.913) BS4 S8 shots to score a penetrating hit and a wreck or explosion. Most Space Wolves players pack close to double that many missiles so on average they should wreck two Defilers on turn 1 if they are in range. Of course there is the opportunity to underperform but even then they are likely to at least frag one Defiler on turn 1. This is why AV12 is seen as somewhat weak. It really isn't because it is so hard for the autocannon/psycannon to defeat but the staggering amount of S8 that Space Wolves can spam, coupled with Space Wolves being disproportionally prevalent in many local metas, means that AV12 is relatively fragile.

uhh.... you sure you play Chaos? How can you say no to a spikey-crab-o-death?

SonicPara wrote:AV12 should take 14 (13.913) BS4 S8 shots to score a penetrating hit and a wreck or explosion. Most Space Wolves players pack close to double that many missiles so on average they should wreck two Defilers on turn 1 if they are in range. Of course there is the opportunity to underperform but even then they are likely to at least frag one Defiler on turn 1. This is why AV12 is seen as somewhat weak. It really isn't because it is so hard for the autocannon/psycannon to defeat but the staggering amount of S8 that Space Wolves can spam, coupled with Space Wolves being disproportionally prevalent in many local metas, means that AV12 is relatively fragile.

Question is, are there really alot of players playing SW? Let alone spam ML's? Sounds like a pretty lame reason to avoid getting the defiler which is a very versatile and reliable unit. I dont see IG players drop their vendettas and valkyries from their list due to this phenomenon.

Yuber wrote:Question is, are there really alot of players playing SW? Let alone spam ML's? Sounds like a pretty lame reason to avoid getting the defiler which is a very versatile and reliable unit. I dont see IG players drop their vendettas and valkyries from their list due to this phenomenon.

The frequency of SW is entirely dependent on your local meta but generally speaking yes, there are a lot of SW players. Even when there aren't you have to worry about Vendetta/Meltavet spam, Psycannon/Psybolt Autocannon spam, and Descent of Angels Meltaguns with what are undoubtedly the other three most frequent codices. The only codices AV12 is really solid against are Vanilla Marines with their lack of specialization (which makes BA, SW, GK all so dangerous), Eldar with their general low model count/high points cost, and Dark Eldar as AV12 is the worst thing to face with Darklight weapons.

Ultimately you would have to tailor your list building to your local meta which could be 50/50 Tau and Necrons for all we know. Generally speaking, in the majority of reported meta, AV12 is paper.

I take two and usually swear by them. They had a bad run of luck at this year's 'ard boyz, managing to get immobilized early on in both games, but then they just start firing.

Honestly, I use mine for assaults. It's like a dreadnought that gets given a higher priority and is more reliable since it doesn't go crazy and is possessed. It also has more DCCW, so it keeps its S10 longer. Oh, and even better, it's fleet. I usually move them the full 6" plus running towards my opponent alongside my rhinos, or right behind. If my troops get hung up in cc, I throw the defilers in to help. Or double-lash dangerous targets into assault range and charge them.

They're generally much safer in hth. Rarely do things in hth get the +1 on the damage table and there's much fewer S8 weaponry.

Spellbound wrote:I take two and usually swear by them. They had a bad run of luck at this year's 'ard boyz, managing to get immobilized early on in both games, but then they just start firing.

Honestly, I use mine for assaults. It's like a dreadnought that gets given a higher priority and is more reliable since it doesn't go crazy and is possessed. It also has more DCCW, so it keeps its S10 longer. Oh, and even better, it's fleet. I usually move them the full 6" plus running towards my opponent alongside my rhinos, or right behind. If my troops get hung up in cc, I throw the defilers in to help. Or double-lash dangerous targets into assault range and charge them.

They're generally much safer in hth. Rarely do things in hth get the +1 on the damage table and there's much fewer S8 weaponry.

I am pretty sure that i am about to get pwned, but i thought that when walkers and skimmers are immobilized, they count as destroyed. Am i just completely wrong? if so

i dunno, there are plenty of S8 weapons out there. One of the reasons that i attach HK missiles to all of my vehicles is so that i can usually damage/kill at least 1 vehicle with all 9 that i put on the field! Statistically that means 4-5 will hit(assuming the vehicle moved) and then on a AV 12, 2-3 will Glance or penetrate. So that means im usually hurting something with em!

Here's the pwn.

Immobilizing a walker does not destroy it. It immobilizes it. Immobilizing a skimmer does not destroy it unless it moved flat out on it's turn - then it crashes.

What you have noticed is squadrons of skimmers (vypers, landspeeders) or walkers (killakanz, warwalkers) getting immobilized results - in that case, the vehicle member of the squadron that gets immobilized counts as wrecked. It also happens to things like buggies, which squadron but do not skim or walk.

And yes, there are many s8 guns. That's why I said I get my defiler into cc ASAP. Much fewer s8 weapons in assault.

ooooh, i get it... , well the more you know

Yuber wrote:Im wierded out as to why many people in dakka thinks AV12 is easy to pop.

The problem is spoiled people from the last codex where you could possess something and add +1 AV.
Add to the face the Soulgrinder (living torso instead of a box) having AV13 and it is no wonder CSM feel they are getting the shortend.

I have seen them work in a MC khorne rush army. (2x DP, 1 x greater Deamon, 3 x CC oriented Defilers) It is just too much size for an opponent to deal with.

Sadly the I3 WS3 does hurt but very few opponents are equipped to deal with a charge from two MC/Defilers at once.

Because it is AV12 though 1 is just not enough as it will get penned, so the question is are two of them worth it or would I rather field 4 obliterators? Obliterators usually win out due to flexibility.

A problem is that as soon as they arrive on the board the opponent thinks "Oh thats big and scary looking, Ill shoot everything at it" So it ends up getting a lot more fire than from say, a tank.

The fact it is being shot at is a good thing, that means they aren't shooting your rhinos.

The really great thing about the Defiler is that you're getting a Battle Cannon for 150pts. Park it out of range and blast the enemy into very small pieces, force them to divert forces to handle it, and generally distract them from your Rhinos, Daemon Princes, Bikers, and all sorts of other less shiny nastiness parked right under their noses.

I love my defiler, it's got range, which the rest of Chaos lacks, and it's evil in CC with rank and file troops, or people who think they are sneaky and get within assault range thinking it's just a tank. I wish I had two, but my one has actually won me alot of games by itself in 500-1000 point lists.

Think of it like this:

Its a Daemon possessed dreadnought
With fleet
and more attacks
and a reaper auto-cannon
and a battle cannon.

if you need a CC walker, these are the answer, and they have guns too. If you break down their equipment and compare it to other types of walkers, the Defiler comes out on top. It can stay at range and shoot if it needs to, or just run across the board.