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In defense of it's poor BS, it can take a Combi-Flamer and Twin Heavy Flamer, which ignores its awful to hit.

On top of that, it seems like an absolute behemoth in melee, with 16 strength, -3 AP and d6 damage, on 4-3-2 attacks. With the smoke launchers you can largely ignore a turn of volleys coming at it, and if you take Alpha Legion (which I am seriously considering ditching World Eaters for at this point, with how many gunline armies I see), they'll be taking a 4+ or 5+ to even dent you, before it's too late.

The Gav Thorpe codex was a double-blow to the Defiler, removing the option for it to use its Battle Cannon as a Barrage Weapon, while giving Obliterators Plasma Cannons (and moving them to Heavy Support) and giving CSM Vindicators. Thus, the Defiler lost a lot of its purpose as a "general purpose" walker.

Then 6th jacked the cost of the Defiler from 150 to 195 points, because despite this, apparently GW thought 4 HP and a 5++ was uber-awesome. And come 8th, large blasts were replaced with "d6 rolls to hit", and Defilers no longer can fire without penalty.

So the Defiler has continually gotten worse from edition to edition.

 vaklor4 wrote:
In defense of it's poor BS, it can take a Combi-Flamer and Twin Heavy Flamer, which ignores its awful to hit.

The handful of games that I've played were I used the Defiler (oh how I remember the early community articles saying that Defilers would be BOSS in this edition lol) I had better success equipping them with Defiler Scourge & Reaper Cannon. Basically focusing on closing the gap as quickly as possible to take advantage of 4-7 Strength 12+ attacks can really pump out the damage. Reaper Cannon / Battle Cannon would only be fired if the opportunity presented itself, otherwise they would rarely see use.

Defiler has a much higher potential in combat than it does shooting. Twin heavy flamer is a good alternative instead of the Scourge if you wanted some variety.

The removal of Ordinance from the Battlecannon was a boon, since the defiler's cannon is no longer an "this or that" case. Even if it's firing at BS 5+ on the move, it can at least move and fire now (which is suppose to be a perk of walkers to begin with).

However it's still overcosted for what it's suppose to do since if you wanna go for a melee build, you'll have to sacrifice the paltry BS 4+ to a BS5+ while on the move (and the Scourge replaces the heavy flamer, so avoiding the BS problem isn't as simple as, say, the baleflamer on the heldrake). If you decide to sit and shoot you'll be wasting the two claws and it's melee profile. Eithe way you're gonna end up paying for something you'll only get some tangential use out of.

Simple solution is to break the defiler down into two variants like the Forgefiend / Maulerfiend.

Kit it out for pure shooting and sit back (+1 BS if remains stationary) or kit out for combat extra set of claws and replace battle canon with some sort of saw blade or something similar to Bloat Drone

Job done.

That's sort of the legacy problem of the Defiler. It was the first Daemon Engine and that really shows. The Forge Fiend and Maulerfiend is what the Defiler would be if it was made today, while the Soulgrinder is the more "refined" version.

Honestly I use to just use them as Soulgrinders since that's basicalyl what they are now.

 vaklor4 wrote:
In defense of it's poor BS, it can take a Combi-Flamer and Twin Heavy Flamer, which ignores its awful to hit.

On top of that, it seems like an absolute behemoth in melee, with 16 strength, -3 AP and d6 damage, on 4-3-2 attacks. With the smoke launchers you can largely ignore a turn of volleys coming at it, and if you take Alpha Legion (which I am seriously considering ditching World Eaters for at this point, with how many gunline armies I see), they'll be taking a 4+ or 5+ to even dent you, before it's too late.

Alpha Legion's trait only applies to infantry, bikers, daemon princes, and helbrutes. The Defiler is not one of these things.

For a 152 model, the Defiler seems like a good enough unit. But he is ugly as heck.

oh yeah, forgot to mention that it got a rather big point buff in the codex. I agree though, model is very unappealing.

I've been using the OOP FW Plague Hulk as my Defiler for years and fits the DG theme quite well! Too bad the rules are trash lol

I know the model itself is older, but I kind of love how outrageous it looks. I don't mind if a model isn't slick and pretty, a giant crab walker covered with spikes and daemonically possessed just tickles my funny bone.

That being said, would anyone agree it may just be better to play as a Soul Grinder? They're essentially the same model, this just has less fleshy bits.

I've been planning an alternate Defiler for a long time now, but the model I was going to use is out of print now, and the newer version is too expensive to justify --- always keeping an eye on eBay (going to use one of the four-legged Dust Tactics walkers).

I....actually like the model >.>

It looks like the result of a rational mind trying to build an irrational machine, which sums up a Daemon Engine better than the dinobots or Metal charizard.

Actually amending my previous statement...why on earth would you take Soul Grinder over Defiler? Exact samr stats, no smoke or regeneration, less weapon optione and more expensive!

The defiler would be serviceable if it didn't have any penalty to move and shoot. Part of the problem with the defiler is how it was carried through the additions as other posters have brought up. But one of the frustrations I have since I had it back in the 3.5 codex, is that the demonic possession trait was supposed to give it but immunity (shaken and stunned) for reduced ballistic and weapon skill but for some reason they dropped that and kept the poor ballistic and weapons skill for some reason.

Let me ask this, if the defiler stayed as is but was say 30-40 points lower. Would it be 'good' then?

 chimeara wrote:
Let me ask this, if the defiler stayed as is but was say 30-40 points lower. Would it be 'good' then?

At the moment, the defiler hovers around 200ish points. Bringing it down to 40 would make it in like with a Vindicator tank, or a high end Helbrute. I dont think this is very fluffy.

Personally, I think just upping their BS and WS to 3-4-4 instead of 4-5-5 would make them entirely viable.

Wouldn't that make it just over 100 points? That would make it good but it might dip into the "underscosted for what it has" territory.

A better fix would be if they just started trimming some of the unnecessary things and made it more focused. like allowing it to take away the battle cannon for a mega-assault cannon that actually has the Assault profile, or just remove the move-and-fire penalty from it. if the range weapons are more assault-oriented then it could be much better, since it would essentially be an assault beast where it's guns provide some secondary support while it runs towards the enemy, where it can then rip and tear.

Also more attacks would help. a mere 4 attacks base for something that costs so much that's ostensibly a melee machine is just criminal.

If I were to design it, I would probably do the following:

Allow the battle cannon to be swapped out for a Baleflamer or Hades Autocannon. All Heavy Weapons would be treated as Assault while on the defiler.

Either gun slot could be swapped out for a scourge, heavy flamer, twin lascannon or reaper autocannon at the current price.

bump attacks up to 6, while reducing the bonus Scourge attacks to D3 (two scourges grant D6 instead).This means that Scourge-based Defilers will still remain more or less at the amount of attacks they would have had, with the potential for more, while gun-based defilers will actually have enough to rip and tear anything short of 30+ horde blobs.

Change the damage chart; gains movement and attacks while suffering damage while losing toughness and armor in addition to wounds. This is less for balance and more for fluff reasons; the Defiler has a daemon bound within it that wants to get out, so the more the chassis gets damaged the more the daemon starts getting loose, weakening the hull making it easier for the daemon to lash out at the world. BS still drops as normal.

These changes would make it ideal for being the first to charge into combat and start rip and tearing, while it just gets more pissed off as it gets damaged. Since the armor and toughness drops as it gets damaged, there's an incentive to get it in close before it loses too many wounds.

Dang, I like it!