for me as a unit of four, they are just broken far too easily before they can be used very effectively.

I've found this aswell.

They are useful to keep in the back-line for teleporting terminators/air assault deterants and for putting the occasional BM on a target 75cm away. I guess the opponent can't ignore them if you do push them forward so maybe a screen for something more valuable?

I haven't really been happy with them and I don't really see them as fearsome as they are in the background material.

As for solutions...
Reinforced armour (I have no idea what their 40K stats would indicate)?
larger formation (6 Defilers)?
?

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6 defilers is my thought. Just being targeted sucks when you have 4 units. should you lose one as it is, you're only pot shots from useless. They should be being used as commander led assault support units but i always see them run away for a fat nothing. 275 for 4, +2 75 each.

I have to agree. The INV Save is no substitute for RA.

I know it is out of left field however I much prefer the World Eater Slaughterfiends. They can be taken with a formation (Chosen or as a Bloodpack) which gives them a little more survivability albeit in lower numbers.

A simple solution would be to add upgrades of more to the formation

The problem with making them cheaper is that you then start to impede on Dreadnoughts and other Daemon engine costing and stats - I have tackled this for over a year now.

So with any price decrease, you have to look at the overall impact and not just what is evident at the time.

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Aye, it is not like they are bad units- they are good units. Battle cannons, macro close combat attacks, nice up close shooty weapons too- so I don't think they need to go down in price and I think that RA makes them too good- it's just that the formation gets broken before they get to shine because of low numbers (and nothing cool like ATSKNF to make up for it). So they will just work better when you get the chance to use them up close in an assault, and the only way to do that seems to be to add to their numbers (but since they are actually good units if you get to use them before they become broken I don't think that also means they need a points cut).

I've always found them pretty useful, they are pretty vulnerable but having walker and a 40cm engage range means that usually you can use cover to portect them - and then 4 on 3s and 4 MW in CC is perfect for any number of targets but particularily small WEs.

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I either use defilers as a swamping force where by playing several formations you get to have one or two in position to engage in a following turn or I keep them as a late turn activation followed by an early following turn activation. In both cases I am using them offensively as they havn't worked well for me in a defensive role. Of course the loss of indirect fire and subsequent drop in points has helped a lot.

Red Corsairs has Defilers as a 4 unit formation but can take up to 3 additional Defilers. It seems to work well.

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I like them as a countering formation. They can't garrisson and they aren't fast enough to be the first formations in, however they are a great second wave or a countering formation for defence against formations hitting you first.

They are really always going to be doubling, double move engaging with inflitrate or sustaining. In all profiles they are good with high to hits on their weapons allowing easy doubling.

I used them as backfield guardians, basically nothing will come into range of my Blitz area until they've first smoked out my Defilers.

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That doesn't really strike me as what they do in a chaos army though. Wouldn't they be up the front and in your face kill everything machines? I dunno, to me binding a daemon into a machine doesn't really strike me as the kind of "sit back in the rear and wait" kinda unit.

That's what i was thinking... people using them currently as rearguards probably suits what you can best do with them as a small unit and expect them to be able to perform, as they currently stand in the list, but I am pretty sure that doesn't suit the background and what you'd expect so see of the unit within the list, that being a fast combat AV... that is possessed by an unhappy daemon

I'm usually against changing rules to reflect the fluff but something about it does not seem to feel right.

I've been pleasantly surprised for the most part... they don't have much staying power of course, but they have a lot of versatility.

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I did begin collecting my chaos to be used as World eaters, so when i get around to playing it as that list I will have the option of bigger defiler formations- but I think it will be worth looking at for the black legion list too.