Defilers now better than Imperial Knights?

[keening]

Defilers armed with Battle Cannon, Twin Lascannon & Defiler Scourge are 214 points.
This is half the price of an Imperial Knight with Battle Cannon and Reaper Chainsword. 

Against each other the two stationary Defilers out damage the Knight at range and in the Fight Phase. 
Even moving the Defilers are only .5 of a wound behind the Knights (3.64w vs Knights 4.15w)
Against Marines the Defilers equal Titanic Feet in output and surpass the RF Battle Cannon.

Obviously the Knight gets the advantage of the Knight Titan rules and moves 12" opposed to the Defilers' 8" but the Defilers can be in two places at once, can hide easier and regenerate a wound a turn. 

To my mind the Defilers are a better tactical choice - people's thoughts?

[gigasnail]

It still shoots with BS4+, needs the shoot twice strategem (which means slanesh) and prescience to work right. And they don't out damage anything when they get shot in the face and punched to death due to chargers fighting first.

Defiler definitely got buffed though. Real cheap. What, they 205ish now?

But the IK, even stock, aren't going to sit still and let you shoot them, they're going to barrel forward and put that D6 sword somewhere uncomfortable. Hope you got the fearless cultist bubble.

[keening]

Two Defilers still kill the solo knight combat due to its low attacks & no Fight phase invuln. And it will be injured by the time it gets there due to the Defilers' superior shooting, even at BS3.

It's not that much of a shock this edition but I just spent time wishing Chaos had a version of the Knights while simultaneously wishing Defilers were not terrible.

[gigasnail]

Lot of assumptions there. Defilers still die to the regular massed fires you're going to see, not that many wounds. Even if they go running g at each other you're not getting both defilers into combat at the same time as the knight, not without opponent derp.

I mean, if they let you do this, yes, work out, two defilers at the same time in combat is nastier than 2girls1cup, scourge is S12 and 5-7 attacks (wounds depending) for each crab and even at WS4+ that's going to put a dent in something.

They're just not going to both live to get there.

The good news here is that at 205 points you just don't care. Shoot two of them, I brought 3-5.

[keening]

I was trying to not make any assumptions because the Defilers out perform in both shooting and Fight phase. They can sit back and win or stay together and wait for the charge.

[gigasnail]

Yeah and how well you think that's going to work? They're not particularly durable, dedicated shooting will smoke them np. I am not saying they're fragile, but they are impossible to hide and are T7. 5++ or no, they will start blowing up the second dedicated shooting focuses on them.

Do exocrines live through focused fire? Defilers have similar profiles. Why do you think the outcome would be different?

This is why comparing two units in a vacuum is bad.

Tl;dr: yes they look good and cheap now, and running IK unsupported is bad.

[keening]

Maybe you're right but I've never had people focus on Defilers the way they do to Knights. Maybe I need to play more 8th Chaos.

[gigasnail]

The book has been out 24 hours or less...

If the unit is a threat, people will shoot at it. When they shoot at it is going to be determined by their target priority choices. Give them no good choices.

Anyway yes defilers look pretty good and are cheap enough not to be as all eggs in one basket as knights.

[endgame422]

Defilers are kind of in a strange place for me. They have some great CC weapons in the twin heavy flamer or the scourge but if you move them up to take advantage of that,they are hitting on 5 or 6+ which makes their shooting fairly weak.
I typically sit them towards the back and use the range on the BC and lascannons to "snipe" at heavy targets, and use it's massive size to defend objectives and block out enemy deep strikes. It also makes a pretty good counter charger if you really the scourge, although I prefer the twin heavy flamer for it's overwatch ability.
I had the twin heavy flamer just decimate a 10 man zerker squad by shooting then waiting for them to charge. Killed 9 with the flamer then crushed the last one with the claws.