Its the Dirtiest Defiler in all the Legions - the Death Guard Defiler!

*Image from warhammer.com

Hello everyone! Zak Ludick here from Cape Town, South Africa and this is a Warhammer 40k - The Great Unit Review Wheel! post!

Now known as the Unit Review Library!

What is it all about? It is not there to just give a stat. It is there to give MY review of the unit!

A New Season of Reviews - A Challenge accepted!

The nefarious trio of World Eaters, Death Guard and Thousand Sons are set to get their new Codexes next. Actually, the great FOUR are each getting their favourite Legion's new Codexes but Emperor's Children did not have an actual Index before.

Anyway. I was speaking to my friend @nicolaasmuller about how my Review posts might not make a lot of money for me, but that cumulatively and on average some of them do good and overall there is an average that at least means that there is good movement of income into the Hobby Fund and that it would grow from there.

We were throwing around some numbers and looking at the average of my last 10 Review Posts, 20 Review posts and 30 Review Posts and we could come up with a range of how much I should theoretically be making across a large sample size of completing the remainder of the reviews for the nefarious trio mentioned above.

So Nicolaas says to me something along the lines of: That would be pretty cool if you could do it in like, a month. Maybe do like 2 a day.

So I explained it would be a little bit more than that but sure... it would be cool... is that a challenge? And yeah... here I am... Challenge accepted. 😎

It is now Day 12 of the Challenge. This is the 18th post of that Challenge!

Totals so far: 17/70 Datasheets done, 3/3 Army Rules done, 0/6 Detachment Rules done. Total 20/79.

Time elapsed: 40%
Progress completed: 25.31%

Hobby Fund - Working myself into the clear

With my hobby posts, I generate a hobby fund. 50% of the income goes into the fund. At the moment I put all my HBD earned from Warhammer posts into my alt account @zakl.hobbyfund.

I am collecting funds in the following ways:

Blogging about Warhammer to earn HBD
Accepting donations - Can be sent directly to @zakl.hobbyfund in HBD
Selling some of the collection to friends.

At the current count I am paying off some hobby debts. I still have $304 to pay off!

Every bit counts!

Back to the review.

The whole project has become quite the Challenge! With so many units to review in the game the consensus in the hobby community is that I will not have enough time to review all of the Datasheets before the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 came out.

I should have started when 10th edition launched!
635 days since the start of 10th Edition.
This is Review #271, I am 364 reviews behind! (Lowest I have been is 314 behind)

Death Guard, Death Guard Defiler

10th Edition Index

I seriously like Defilers. I wish there was a loyalist version of them!

They are a great fusion between Leman Russ tanks and Dreadnoughts and you only see them in the Traitor Legions. Which is sad, because I am no Traitor but I love Dreadnoughts and walkers!

Oh well...

This one is for the Death Guard so at least some of its weapons with be Plague type which will be anti-infantry.

This guy is 190pts and costs a good $84

Let's check its stats!

Stats

Movement 8"
Toughness 10
Save 3+/5++ (armor/invul/Feel No Pain)
Wounds 14
Ld 6+
OC 5

Weapons

Standard Weaponry include: Defiler Cannon, Reaper Autocannon, Twin Heavy Flamer, Defiler Claws.

Weapon options:

Twin Heavy Flamer can be replaced by one of the following:

Defiler Scourge (more melee attacks)
Havoc Launcher

The Reaper Autocannon can be replaced by one of the following:

Twin Lascannon
Twin Plague Heavy Bolter

You can add one of the following:

Combi Weapon
Plague Combi-Bolter

Ranged Weapons

Defiler Cannon

48" Range, D6+3 Shots, Hitting on 3+, S10, AP-1 and 3 Damage each.
Blast (Add +1 Attack for every 5 models in target unit, rounding up)

Twin Heavy Flamer

12" Range, D6 Shots, Hitting on Auto, S5, AP-1 and 2 Damage each.
Torrent (These attacks hit automatically)
Ignores Cover (The enemy cannot get Benefit of Cover against this attack)
Twin Linked (You can re-roll to wound with this weapon)

Havoc Launcher

48" Range, D6 Shots, Hitting on 3+, S5, AP0 and 1 Damage each.
Blast (Add +1 Attack for every 5 models in target unit, rounding up)

Reaper Autocannon

36" Range, 4 Shots, Hitting on 3+, S7, AP-1 and 1 Damage each.
Sustained Hits 1 (Rolls of a 6 to Hit cause an additional hit)
Devastating Wounds (Rolls of a 6 to Wound cause Mortal Wounds)

Twin Lascannon

48" Range, 1 Shot, Hitting on 3+, S12, AP=3 and D6+1 Damage each.
Twin-Linked (Can re-roll to Wound)

Twin Plague Heavy Bolter

36" Range, 3 Shots, Hitting on 3+, S5, AP-1 and 2 Damage each.
Sustained Hits 1 (Rolls of 6 cause additional hits)
Lethal Hits (Tolls of a 6 cause auto wounds)
Twin-Linked (Can Re-roll to Wound)

Combi Weapon

24" Range, 1 Shot, Hitting on 3+, S4, AP0 and 1 Damage each.
Rapid Fire 1 (At half range of 12", get 1 additional Shot)
Anti-Infantry 4+ (Causes critical Wounds against Infantry on a 4+ regardless of toughness)
Devastating Wounds (On a roll of a 6, or when a Critical Wound is scored, causes Mortal Wounds)

Plague Combi-Bolter

24" Range, 2 Shots, Hitting on 3+, S4, AP0 and 1 Damage each.
Rapid Fire 1 (At half range of 12", get 2 additional Shots)
Lethal Hits (Tolls of a 6 cause auto wounds)

Melee Weapons

Defiler Claws

5 Attacks, Hitting on 3+, S16, AP-3 and D6+1 Damage each.

Defiler scourge

3 Attacks, Hitting on 3+, S12, AP-1 and 2 Damage each.
Extra Attacks (Can be used alongside another weapon in melee)

Abilities

Deadly Demise D3 - When this model is destroyed, roll a dice, on a 6 it blows up dealing D3 Mortal Wounds to each unit within 6"

Scuttling Walker

When moving, this model can move over friendly Monsters, Vehicles and terrain 4" and shorter as though they were not me.

Thoughts

Firstly... that unit ability seems a bit underwhelming.

On the other hand, this model's Melee and Ranged weapons and that alone makes this vehicle worth it!

That makes 12 Death Guard Datasheets Reviewed putting them on 37.50% Completed. The total Completed is 29.58% Complete! Can I review them all?!

Thank you for reading!

Warhammer Review Library

You can find all my previous links on this post: Warhammer 40k Links Container Post! 13/02/2025

I shall leave Army and Detachment rules here as well as World Eaters, Death Guard and Thousand Sons!

Army Rule and Detachment Rule Reviews

Faction	Detachment	Review Number
Agents of the Imperium		Army Rule #2
Aeldari		Army Rule #4
Astra Militarum		Army Rule #1
Astra Militarum	Combined Regiment	Detachment Rule #1
Astra Militarum	Bridgehead Strike	Detachment Rule #2
Death Guard		Army Rule Review #6
Space Marines		Army Rule #3
Thousand Sons		Army Rule #7
World Eaters		Army Rule #5

Datasheet Review list (Alphabetical)

Faction	Unit	Review Number
Death Guard	Biologus Putrifier	#5
Death Guard	Blightlord Terminators	#10
Death Guard	Chaos Lord	#36
Death Guard	Death Guard Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor	#256
Death Guard	Death Guard Chaos Spawn	#259
Death Guard	Death Guard Daemon Prince	#265
Death Guard	Death Guard Daemon Prince with Wings	#268
Death Guard	Lord of Contagion	#52
Death Guard	Tallyman	#39
Death Guard	Malignant Plaguecaster	#71
Thousand Sons	Ahriman	#108
Thousand Sons	Ahriman on Disc of Tzeentch	#109
Thousand Sons	Exalted Sorcerer	#59
Thousand Sons	Infernal Master	#260
Thousand Sons	Magnus the Red	#49
Thousand Sons	Mutalith Vortex Beast	#263
Thousand Sons	Rubric Marines	#266
Thousand Sons	Scarab Occult Terminators	#269
World Eaters	Angron	#255
World Eaters	Eightbound	#258
World Eaters	Exalted Eightbound	#261
World Eaters	Jakhals	#264
World Eaters	Kharn the Betrayer	#267
World Eaters	Khorne Berzerkers	#270
World Eaters	Lord Invocatus	#100
World Eaters	World Eaters Chaos Spawn	#18
World Eaters	World Eaters Daemon Prince	#85