Honestly, Warhammer 40k's Chaos fans would probably have been fine with just the snazzy new model for the Defiler. Few units, across all the Warhammer 40k factions, had such a combo of widespread popularity, competitive playability, and abject model ugliness. The aesthetic glow-up alone would've made this flesh-wrought daemonic monstrosity an easy sell. But no, Games Workshop has just revealed its new rules too, and it is going to wreck.
Unveiled via GW's Warhammer Community site on Monday, the new Defiler datasheet could easily have got lost in the shadow of this week's almost guaranteed Warhammer 40k 11th edition announcement. But the sheer strength of the daemon engine's glow-up means it's not so: Chaos Space Marines, Death Guard, and in particular Emperor's Children players are popping champagne corks about this thing.
We'll start with the fundamental stats, which have some marked upgrades baked in.
- Movement up from 8″ to 12″.
- Toughness up from 10 to 11.
- Wounds up from 14 to 18.
Previously, Defilers were nifty gun platforms with enough melee punch in their massive metal spider legs to cause problems when trying to charge them off key objectives or choke points. Now, they're still that, but way more so. Which brings us to those guns.
The Defiler's Battle Cannon (now a Hades Battle Cannon) remains the same, decent elite-killer it was. But it can now be swapped for an Ectoplasma Destructor: a pretty versatile D6 shots, S12, AP-3, Damage 3 Blast gun that'll do double duty, able to take chunks out of most tanks, but also rip apart Terminator squads - getting that extra 1-2 shots for Blast and wounding (most) Termies on twos.
More important, in the shootiness stakes, are your improved options for the Defiler's arsenal of secondary weapons. There's still a whole range of combos you can build to balance out close and long range damage output (and, let's be honest, we're going to want to magnetize this bad boy, because it's going to cost heaps). Swapping your anti-marine Excruciator Cannons for the Melta 2 Magma Cutters looks hilarious if you want to play Defilers as aggressive tank hunters, for starters.
But the doozy is: both side weapons can now be swapped out for Hades Lascannons - which unlike the old Twin Lascannons are two shots apiece, not one shot with Twinlinked. Rocking the plasma main gun and four Lascannon shots, all at AP-3, lets your Defiler pour a maximum of 46 damage into one big, armored target if circumstances demand it. Them's knight-killing numbers. And if you're mobbed, you've still got top class melee weapons (Shearing Claws) to fall back on - with S6 anti-infantry and S16 (!) anti-tank profiles to choose from.
Speaking of Knights, we've saved the biggest surprise to last. The new Defiler's Scuttling Walker ability might look like the one we've seen on other spider-legged vehicles, but it's far better. Like Knights, this guy can move, advance, or fall back through all models and all terrain features, not just smaller ones.
Given the Defiler's vast new 160mm base size, that's arguably a requirement for it to operate in the game at all - and it won't be quite like a Knight, because without a Towering/Titanic keyword, it'll presumably need to be wholly within a ruin to shoot out the other side.
But a gun beast like this, that can walk through walls and enemies at will, can't be underestimated as a game changer for the many, many Chaos lists which will, no doubt, be bringing one or two Defilers come the Summer.
In a rather neat move, the Defiler's Daemonforge ability (by default, a fairly powerful wound re-roll) now swaps out for a different themed buff, depending on which chaos god's Space Marine legion you're subbed to.
- Death Guard: One unit hit with your shooting loses cover for the phase.
- Emperor's Children: +1 to hit when targeting a unit above half strength
- Thousand Sons: Overwatch shots from the Defiler hit on fives (or fours if you have a Psyker unit within 9″ of the target)
- World Eaters: A reactive shoot or charge when an enemy unit is set up within 12″ of the Defiler.
OK, so the poor Death Guard get done a little dirty there compared to the others - but Defilers already overperform for them thanks to Afflictions, so we'll let GW off that one. It's the Emperor's Children variant getting most folks excited, and it's easy to see why: +1 to hit against a fresh target? On all those lascannons? Phwoooooar.
Naturally, for competitive players, the big question is: if the Defiler moves (and kills) like a Knight now, will it cost as many points? WarCom's Monday article doesn't say, of course, so to find out, we'll have to wait for the Eye of Terror: Reign of Iron expansion to come out - but that won't be long.
And in the meantime, of course, we've all got bigger fish to fry. Games Workshop's Adepticon preview stream goes live on Wednesday night, and everybody (including us) is expecting it to be the big 'curtains up' moment for eleventh edition. We've predicted an Astra Militarum versus Orks Armageddon box set to drop first - but as ever with Papa Geedubs, it pays to keep an open mind, as things never turn out to be exactly as they seem.
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