For the other articles in this series, check the following links:
- Death Guard HQ's Pt 1
- Death Guard HQ's Pt 2
- Death Guard HQ's Pt 3
- Death Guard Elites
- Death Guard Troops
- Death Guard Fast Attack
- Death Guard Heavy Support Pt. 1
So, the final portion of our review should be a few units that are old hat to 40k gamers. We've got the always interesting, if never really viable Defiler, and then spiky versions of the Space Marine armoury. Lets get to it...
Defiler
A design personally requisitioned by Abbadon the Despoiler, the Defiler is one of the things that solidified my choice of CSM as my faction of choice (I was always a fan of the chaos gods, but mostly from a "Lost and the Damned" & "Slaves to Darkness" -which mostly dealt with fantasy- focused perspective). Seeing the behemoth in the CSM Battleforce (or whatever it was called) made me want to play 40k.
Unfortunately, Defilers are something of an abortion in the new book. They gained a 5+ save and it will not die, but their points cost ballooned to 190. How you justify that for a model with AV 12 is completely beyond me, but that's that. Simply put, the Defiler is a glass cannon the size of a mountain. You will get shot, you will take damage, and you will die if you field one. The only really good way to keep it safe is to have big targets in your opponents face, which of course is a liability when launching S8 pie plates at your opponents lines.
Problems with the model aside, the Defiler is a workable support choice for a Death Guard army. It is yet another daemon engine that your warband could easily justify earning from the Dark Mechanicus. The question is why?
One interesting thing I'd like to try (but haven't had the money to explore yet) is running the Defiler with either 2 Forgefiends or 2 Maulerfiends. Having either 2 major sources of dakka or two in your face walkers to distract from your templates may help with survivability, especially when all 3 targets are AV 12 with a 5++, what to shoot first?
Land Raider
Ah, the classic CSM Land Raider. How it has survived for so long without a single change in armament boggles the mind, maybe its just too awesome to work with, so any time a traitor tech-priest touches one, his hands melt and heavy metal music blares. Either way, basically we're stuck with a very limited unit, sporting 2 t/l lascannons and a heavy bolter. This isn't really ideal for your assault transport, as you will be driving up in your opponent's face, so you have to worry about either going too fast to effectively use your weapons, or too slow to use the assault aspect effectively. Power of the Machine Spirit would go a long way to making the unit better, I for one would pay 10 points for it. Regardless, if you want to drop Typhus and Plague Marines or Terminators in your opponent's lap, this is your only option.
Now, that's one approach, but there is another. 10 Cultists sitting in a Land Raider is a backfield unit that can wait to jump on an objective with a decent chance your opponent will not shoot at them, because a Land Raider in your backfield is going to take a lot of effort to bring down (either via movement to get melta across the table or weight of fire to do 4 HP to an AV 14 model that will be sitting in cover.
There is one other thing you can do, and its not something I'd necessarily recommend, but it is a fun random synergy element of the codex. Daemonic possession give your model BS3 (bad, but the lascannons are T/L so your damage output doesn't drop too much), ignores shaken and stunned on a 2+, and it adds the rule that if a unit embarks on the transport, on a roll of 1 a model is eaten and the vehicle gains back a hull point. That means you could, if you want to be cheeky, try to keep a unit of cultists behind the LR to hop in and out as it gains damage. This is massively unreliable, but it is cute.
Overall, the Land Raider isn't the best choice in the book, but if you need to transport bulky models or a Palanquin, you have options.Worth noting, you can put a Nurgle Lord on Palanquin in a unit of 3 Mutilators and add any of the non-TDA HQ's as a 5th model for a total of 13-14 T5 wounds in a Land Raider. However, taste in death stars may vary.
Predator
The trusty predator, mainstay of the Space Marines for 10,000 years, and reduced in points cost to boot. If you're looking for a dependable way to deploy lascannons or you have less than 100 points free and need some added flexible dakka, this is your tank. AV 13 makes it a nice addition to your vehicle saturation, but deployment is important because side armor 11 is dead easy to drop. The most popular ways to take a Predator are the pure dakka Pred; autocannon with heavy bolters or an auto/las Pred, where you buy lascannon sponsons but keep the autocannon. You will occasionally see the full 3 lascannon version, but I've never seen a lascannon turret with a heavy bolter before. Don't expect this choice to change the game, but for the points you get a good alternative to Havocs, filling a very similar role.
Vindicator
The Vindicator is one of those units that is very effective if your opponent is psychologically affected by it, but which has major downsides. First of all, not all armies sync well with a large blast marker weapon, since you will potentially be shooting near your own assault units. It also needs to advance, so you need units that keep pace with it to ensure you have target saturation. In the end, the Vindi is useful if you need to control how your opponent deploys and advances, but I would only take it as a bonus, not expecting it to net you mass casualties. If it absorbs a lot of mid-strength shooting that could be going into a more important unit, its doing its job.