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Hey all. Still getting used to the forums, and honestly, 40k in general. I'm not sure where this would go, so if this is in the wrong place, I do apologize and if you move/close it, no hard feelings, lol.

My question is this: Are Defilers worth it in a Khorne Daemonkin army? I've read that Soul Grinders are what Defilers SHOULD be, but I do like the aesthetics of the Defiler a bit more. I plan on at least one Soul Grinder, but I was curious as to everyone's thoughts on the Defiler.

Thanks!

Defilers have no place anywhere because of one rule. Ordnance. If you fire an Ordnance weapon, all other shots are snapshots even in Vehicles. So you're paying 200pts for a Dreadnaught with one Cannon. The rest either can't fire or isn't worth firing. Considering a Leman Russ is more durable, less expensive and can be taken in multiples and people don't even use THOSE, skip it.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Defilers have no place anywhere because of one rule. Ordnance. If you fire an Ordnance weapon, all other shots are snapshots even in Vehicles. So you're paying 200pts for a Dreadnaught with one Cannon. The rest either can't fire or isn't worth firing. Considering a Leman Russ is more durable, less expensive and can be taken in multiples and people don't even use THOSE, skip it.

When was the last time you fought a guard army with no Russes?

But yeah skip the poor Defiler. It was the only unique CSM vehicle when GW added 3 more they really wanted to sell, so the Defiler got destroyed.

Well, shoot. Okay. Maybe it will be something to pick up once my army is complete just to build and paint.

Thanks!

The defiler also has the misfortune of being incredibly huge, having one of the largest models and bases of any non-superheavy unit, while simultaneously also being one of the most fragile units on a per point basis. In addition, the Defiler doesn't really know what it wants to do. The battle cannon is a shooty weapon but it pays a lot for being a mediocre and overpriced Leman Russ wannabe if you're trying to use it like that, it can't really get all that many guns to be used as a dakkaboat, and if you use it as an assault weapon, you'll find that its too slow and fragile to reliably make it to assault and even in assault because of its WS3 it's going to struggle against most dedicated assault units while it flails around with power fist attacks.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Defilers have no place anywhere because of one rule. Ordnance. If you fire an Ordnance weapon, all other shots are snapshots even in Vehicles. So you're paying 200pts for a Dreadnaught with one Cannon. The rest either can't fire or isn't worth firing. Considering a Leman Russ is more durable, less expensive and can be taken in multiples and people don't even use THOSE, skip it.

SharkoutofWata kinda hit the nail on the head on that one. Ordinance really cripples it. Along with the fact that its a jack of all trades, but master of none.

The big problem with the defiler is its default loadout is really schizophrenic. It comes loaded out with a battle cannon, heavy flamer, reaper autocannon, and 2 powerfists by default at 195 pts. Making it have a lot of target options, but not really giving it a specialist role.

Fring the battle cannon doesn't let you use the heavy flamer since its a template and templates can't snapshot. The reaper autocannon isn't anything to write home about being only two shots. Even if they are TL. You can attach a havoc launcher to it to, but it suffers the same issue with the battle cannon.

You can always load it out fully for CC. Replacing the heavy flamer for a power scourge and the reaper autocannon for another powerfist. Giving it 5 attacks base in addition to the power scourge reducing enemy units WS in base combat by D3, making the WS3 of the defiler not as big of an issue. Load it up with a dozer blade to let use cover effectively and a dirge caster to keep it from being overwatched. That comes to about 230 pts and the ONLY way i could see a defiler being use effectively.

That being said, your still paying landraider prices for FA12 SA12 RA10 with a 5++, IWND, 4HP, fleet, and fear (for what's that's worth). It also only has a 6" movement, so it'll be several turns before it gets into assault range, and the battle cannon can only do so much.

With the current overall meta being D-Weapons, Strength 6-7 shooting, and fast units. It just won't ever make it's points back.

It's a cool model and worth getting just to paint. But it'll stay on the shelf for 90% of your games. Maybe it'll get some love in the next CSM update, but don't get your hopes up.

I really think instead of chaos knights, GW should just revamp the whole model and give it knight strength weapons. Defilers have always been one of trademark units of CSM, It'd be nice to see them worth a damn again.

In agreement there. Just seems too expensive points wise for what it brings to the table. Might as well just get a chaos predator if you're looking at some heavy support for significantly less. Still think it looks awesome though so why not just buy it for a nice dust gathering diorama?

I am hoping with the push of Damonkin we may see defilers just phased out and the soul grinder replacing it. The grinder is a significantly better unit.

Unfortunately, I can't just buy it to gather dust right now, lol. Between recovering from buying into Dark Eldar (not that I don't eventually want to play them, I just starting buying into them before Khorne Daemonkin came out, and I loved it as soon as I read a store copy of the book), and working on finishing up my wife's Space Wolves, I need to be selective with my Khorne purchases.

If I wanted to see what people think about my starting Daemonkin, where would I put that and would people respond? Lol

Defiler for Super Heavy Walker. 2017

But honestly, it's horrible. There is just no use for the poor thing these days. The "mighty Battle Cannon" is over rated at best, and feared by almost no one these days simply because of what it's mounted on. A 200 point machine that isn't durable, is over costed with weapons it wont ever get to use and simply put, there is no REAL customization to it. Why cant we at least start with a base of 150? If I wanted my Walker to carry flamers wouldnt you think Id pay for them? But no, we get shafted as Chaos players because we are the "Bad guys" lol

the_scotsman wrote:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Defilers have no place anywhere because of one rule. Ordnance. If you fire an Ordnance weapon, all other shots are snapshots even in Vehicles. So you're paying 200pts for a Dreadnaught with one Cannon. The rest either can't fire or isn't worth firing. Considering a Leman Russ is more durable, less expensive and can be taken in multiples and people don't even use THOSE, skip it.

When was the last time you fought a guard army with no Russes?

Regular mbts? They are more rare, especially the classic loadout.

In 5th you would see them still due to lumbering behemoth, but once they just became heavy with no ordnance sr mine went on my shelf other than fully fluffy lists.

You may see an mbt or demolisher with no extra guns(or just hull las) but you are not likely to see them with sponsons.

Defiler with ccw and heavy flamer arms wouldn't be that bad(dont remember if they already come with 2 ccws, but if the flails have a good effect as well); cannon until template range, tl hf on the way into combat then wreck some stuff.

Although even with all that they still are over costed

I have fielded mine in many games that are friendly but also competitive, and I found that sometimes the thing does very poorly, sometimes it does a lot of the heavy lifting for my army.

The times it did do well was sitting in the back trying to not draw much attention, while also being a monster in close combat it is great for protecting other units.

Keep a group of cultists around it to avoid it getting charged and you might see some decent results from it.

SharkoutofWata kinda hit the nail on the head on that one. Ordinance really cripples it. Along with the fact that its a jack of all trades, but master of none. -Piddlez

Do you mean SharkoutofWata hit it out of the water>

In all seriousness its about the cost of the deffy, things do it's job better for cheap ex. forgefiend

You could just get the model and use it as a Soul Grinder. It's not like the Soul Grinder is particularly WYSIWYG-friendly, anyway, and the only real difference between the models is the torso.

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:


In all seriousness its about the cost of the deffy, things do it's job better for cheap ex. forgefiend

No. If the Defiler is bad then the Forgefiend is terrible. It's 20 points less for significantly less firepower and no CC ability.

I sawed my Defiler in half to turn it into a Soul Grinder if that tells you anything.

MarsNZ wrote:

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:


In all seriousness its about the cost of the deffy, things do it's job better for cheap ex. forgefiend

No. If the Defiler is bad then the Forgefiend is terrible. It's 20 points less for significantly less firepower and no CC ability.

In what universe is 8 S8 AP4 shots or triple plasma cannons worse than a single battle cannon (because anyone who thinks they're getting more out of the defiler is kidding themselves)? And the Defiler is a joke at close quarters with its mediocre WS.

The battle cannon is only really better against densely packed MEQs out of cover. Against other targets, the Forgefiend pulls ahead.

MarsNZ wrote:

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:


In all seriousness its about the cost of the deffy, things do it's job better for cheap ex. forgefiend

No. If the Defiler is bad then the Forgefiend is terrible. It's 20 points less for significantly less firepower and no CC ability.

To be fair, the fiend can also glance things to death with relative reliability. Defi can get one HP with the battle cannon.

I don't know about reliable. You're statistically getting 2HP off an AV12 vehicle in the open.

Which is still more than a Battle Cannon will.

 Kain wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:


In all seriousness its about the cost of the deffy, things do it's job better for cheap ex. forgefiend

No. If the Defiler is bad then the Forgefiend is terrible. It's 20 points less for significantly less firepower and no CC ability.

In what universe is 8 S8 AP4 shots or triple plasma cannons worse than a single battle cannon (because anyone who thinks they're getting more out of the defiler is kidding themselves)? And the Defiler is a joke at close quarters with its mediocre WS.

The battle cannon is only really better against densely packed MEQs out of cover. Against other targets, the Forgefiend pulls ahead.

Idk its pretty much the same. Its 8 S8 shots but only at bs3 so only gets like 4 hits which is close to the samething a Battle Cannon gets except its ap4 instead of ap3 so is a bit worse. But blasts scale off of units so the hades would be better against vehicles and MCs