Warhammer 40k's newly revealed Defiler miniature is a work of chaotic art, a massive hulk of meat, machinery, and madness that's a worthy replacement for the original kit from 2003. Contrary to popular belief, the 2003 Defiler was not the original daemon engine, just the first one to get rules in a Warhammer 40k Codex. In the 1990s Games Workshop released a whole range of daemon engines for its small-scale wargame Epic - and we've picked out five that we think would be absolutely amazing in Warhammer 40k.
Epic was published before the lore for the Chaos Space Marine Legions was properly established, before the Iron Warriors and their Warpsmiths were the top daemon engine creators. These older engines were all dedicated to one specific 40k Chaos God.
Cauldron of Blood
Khorne had the most Epic scale daemon engines, and three of them have been directly adapted into mainstream Warhammer 40k models - the massive Brass Scorpion was originally a tracked vehicle with a very big skull for a face, while the Lord of Skulls is a modernisation of the chunky little Death Dealer. And then there's the Cauldron of Blood, which was actually one of the very first daemon engines converted over to 28mm scale - but it wasn't made by Games Workshop.
From June of 1995 until October of 1998, the US miniature maker Armorcast had a license to make Warhammer 40k scaled versions of various Epic vehicles. The most impressive minis to emerge from this were huge, gangly titans, but there were some very interesting tanks as well. The Cauldron of Blood was one of those - a wheeled vehicle covered in a ludicrous number of skulls. It's armed with a vicious bladed ram, and the titular Cauldron of Blood - a vat of boiling blood that it can spray in great arcs from the nozzle between its teeth.
It's so derpy, and the blood vat concept has been adopted into the Lord of Skulls chassis-mounted blood reservoirs. But then the original Brass Scorpion was very derpy, and look how cool the Forge World miniature is now! A modernised Cauldron of Blood - something on claw legs, with robo tentacles dragging corpses to throw into its cauldron back - would be awesome.
Nurgle Plague Tower
The Plague Tower of Nurgle is a medieval siege tower bristling with putrid guns, and - despite seemingly being made from rotten wood - it's incredibly resilient. Several intrepid fans have built Warhammer 40k scale versions of the Plague Tower, because it had rules. In 2008, Games Workshop released a datasheet as part of the Apocalypse expansion that gave it rules in 40k - though as it cost a hefty 700 points, that was pretty much the only play mode you would use it in.
Plague Towers are still part of the lore, and fought in the Plague War for the Ultramar sector. In the Guy Haley novel Dark Imperium: Plague War, teams of Plague Towers smash through the Imperial lines, and it takes the concerted effort of Titan maniples and Knight Lances to bring them down.
Slaaneshi Subjugator
Slaanesh had to be extra, and so it didn't just have daemon engines, it had unique daemon Knights and even daemon Titans. These were all long of leg and large of gun, and the Subjugator was the largest of the bunch. It's a scout titan, comparable in size to a Warhound, but built on a totally different chassis, one seemingly inspired by the Fiends of Slaanesh - it's armed with two massive claws, as well as a pair of Tormentor Cannons mounted into a scorpion-like tail. Naturally, it has an array of eardrum bursting sonic weaponry.
Like the plague tower, some 40k fans have made their own Subjugator models. It also received Apocalypse rules, at the comparatively cheap price of 500 points. With front armor of just 12 (about equivalent to Toughness 10), it was an incredibly flimsy Titan - but very fast and very snippy.
Tzeentch Silver Tower
All of the original epic Daemon engines for Tzeentch could fly, as befits the flighty Lord of Change. Two of them - the bird-like Doomwing fighter and Firelord bomber - have been subsumed into the Heldrake's design. But then there's the Silver Towers. These are giant Discs of Tzeentch with a mystical, extradimensional castle built on top. They were always heavily armed, and in some versions of the Epic rules, they would project forcefields between one another, protecting other units on the far side.
Nurgle Contagions
The Contagion is armed with a massive trebuchet. Technically that weapon is called a Plague Catapult, but you can clearly see the counterweight, and no self-respecting son of the VIIth Legion would get mixed up about his siege engines. Anyway. It's another medieval weapon designed to yeet supernatural poxes into the enemy lines.
Modern 40k Death Guard armies field the Plagueburst Crawler, which has a rather more conventional mortar. The model is a mutation of the Horus Heresy era Arquitor Bombard (which still doesn't have a plastic kit - hurry up GW!). But it's possible that the Contagion still exists in the lore. In the Siege of Terra books that wrap up the Horus Heresy saga, the traitor forces use warped constructions that resemble medieval siege weapons in concert with their conventional ordnance.
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