Warhammer 40K: Ranking the Best Chaos Defiler Detachment Combos
Today let’s rank the Chaos Defilers (Crabs) from the best to the worst Detachment combos, and why I think they will wreck shop on the tabletop!
Man this week of Defiler (Crab) talk is making me hungry. It has been a minute since I’ve gone to a Crab/Shrimp/Crayfish boil. Today let’s rank the Chaos Defilers from the best to the worst and why I think they so good. I hope you found a few if you wanted to bring them for one of your Chaos armies. All of mine are painted Red because Red ones taste better.
1. Chaos Space Marines – Pactbound and all the other Detachments they are still good
This is probably the best one because the CSM combo can do the most damage. The ability to Dark Pact to gain more hits with their weapon load outs and get rerolls on top of make this the best one. They are also one of the few armies that can truly utilize the Reaper Autocannon option they can have to push out some Devastating wounds into the enemy. I also see this as one of the few options that can truly go all shooting and still be a threat with its meaty claws because a Dark Pact can help push their hits up as well as getting any kind of reroll from a friendly neighborhood Abbaddon that is standing nearby. This unit just combos with so many things and makes it the best option. It also makes it one of the choices that will probably go up by 15-25 points.
2. Emperor’s Children – All Detachments
The Emperor’s Children are hurting for new choices in their thin-codex army and luckily they got a nice new meaty crab to play with. Having the ability to move, advance, shoot, and charge is a powerful ability for a giant meaty crab. Then you can ignore terrain/most models as you move around plus get the ability to always fallback and pass your desperate escape tests means these guy are never getting locked down. The longer range from the Hades Lascannons give them some punch into vehicles and lets you leave your Daemon Princes to go kill the small things while the Crab gets to working.
3. Death Guard – Vectorium and all other Detachments
I put the Death Guard option at 3rd as a Defiler easily slots into the army. They already push for a heavy Daemon Engine component to their choices and this guy just does a lot of stuff better than the other ones. It is also very fast and can take some hits from the enemy while your other heavy hitters – like Mortarion – can float around and be a pain in the butt. I think 1 of these will show up in most armies just as another big threat you have to deal with. The ability to get the Sticky objective power in the Vectorium detachment one such a fat base is so good. You can call this Mortarions Personal Crab army.
4. Thousand Sons – Warpforged Cabal
This crab has great rules but the Thousand Sons army is mostly solved with very little room to add more things. They already have a powerful daemon engine monster in Mutalith Vortex Beast and Forgefiend so they don’t really need another one. I love their Overwatch ability but again they just don’t really need it as much. I think one would be useful most of the time but then it means losing some Daemon Princes or other options to try and fit it in. I just feel you have to lose so much stuff to fit a crab in.
5. World Eaters – Berzerker Warband
I plan on using them in my World Eaters army but I just don’t know what the Defilers will end up doing. The Forgefiend does a lot and is cheaper for the army. I do think they are useful in getting more Lascannons and damage potential but the army is full of things that kill stuff. I wonder if going all big with a ton of Crabs, Angron, and some MSU stuff might be the way to go. They just don’t benefit as much without rerolls for their guns. I wish I could put two Scourges on them to get a crazy assault monster but then GW would see me take over the world with my Crab friends and big Claw Energy.
All HAIL the Chaos Crab!
