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Point cost/power:
Defilers look nasty on paper, but in the way they must be taken in the BL list they simply can't be used to effect. Regardless of the theory-hammer, actual playtesting shows that no matter where they go there is a major conflict with the role of the formation. They're too slow or their range doesn't line up with the rest of the formation, or whatever. Something always doesn't fit.
The optimum use, imho, is to put them with a garrison retinue, but even then, other options are better. I like playing the BL as an area denial force. You'd think that Defilers would work well in that capacity (some long range fire and lots of "don't get close" factor), but they don't. I played lots of garrison Retinues with Havocs, garrison Retinues with Noise Marines, and garrison Retinues with Defilers and Defilers are undoubtedly the worst for the points.
I'm also big on looking at batreps and tournament results to find out what is overpowered. If a unit/formation is taken in large amounts in nearly any army it's good evidence that it's too powerful. As it is, I've seen no batreps or tournament lists where Defilers appeared beyond a token quantity.
The lists have essentially been set in current form for ~2 years (even though the official adoption wasn't until this past spring). If they were overpowered, someone would have figured out how to abuse them by now and we'd have seen at least one list with massed Defilers but no one has. In the absence of any evidence, I think we need to assume they are currently pretty close to balanced.
Stat changes:
I think that some minor stat tweaks are in order. The current stats were built based on the 40K stats at the time, rather than the background material about Defilers. It was then that we should have dropped the direct 40K parallel. Now that 40K has lined up with the fictional universe, we really should bring the Epic Defiler in line as well.
Dropping the IDF and adding a minor tweak to speed should be sufficient and should cause little change to the point cost. If necessary to balance, I'd say drop the FF ability. For comparison purposes, let's say...
No IDF Infiltrate FF4+
Units that make internal good comparisons for the Defiler are the Chaos Dread (infantry support walker AV) and the Khorne Daemon Engines (a slower, FF-oriented version of the Khorne Engines).
v Dread: marginally better durability (inv), a bit more than 2x ranged firepower and 2x FF (with a 4+FF mod), plus infiltrate. By my reckoning, that would put it at somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.6-1.7x the cost of the dread - 80-85 points.
v Khorne Engines: considerably less durable (4+Inv v 4+RA), a bit more ranged fire and about 3x FF (with 4+FF mod), much slower but with Infiltrate, slightly weaker CC (1+MW v 3 average). That looks to be within ~10% of the Khorne engine's abilities, or again in the 80-85 point range.
I'd say with the assumed changes:
85 points in BL 4 for 350 in L&D
Alternately, also remove the +1EA from the flamer and make them:
75 points in BL 4/300 in L&D
_________________ Neal
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