Defiler
SWORD: what Defiler kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 300 pts kill ~192 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 48 per 100
Best against heavy vehicles and monsters, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Defiler is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 300 pts take ~681 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 305 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- Only real long-range firepower the army has 6 of 6
- Detachment buffs lift it a long way 4 of 6
- Fast enough to reach the middle early 3 of 6
- Costs more each update; the second hurts 4 of 6
- The army leans on it too heavily 2 of 6
- Its guns alone rarely finish big targets in cover 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defiler300 pts | S | Top 24% | Bottom 16% | 130of 146 |
| Maulerfiend120 pts | A | Top 1% | Top 15% | 88of 146 |
| Heldrake175 pts | D | Top 43% | Top 47% | 0of 146 |
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Defiler, 300 pts, with 1 Ectoplasma destructor, 2 Excruciator cannon, 2 Heavy reaper autocannon, 1 Shearing claws - strike, 1 Shearing claws - sweep, in Coterie of the Conceited (Pledges to the Dark Prince: 7+ points). On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
300 pts → kills ~192 pts → 64 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~681 pts → 227 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 939 units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 7 reviewers' newest Emperor's Children tier lists: Joy's 40k channel (datasheet tier list, its dataslate review and its detachment tier list) (28 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (dataslate review, Detachment Focus, Competitive Innovations: 5 winning lists and 22 summaries) (28 Oct), Auspex Tactics (army overview, top units, winning lists and the WTC's 36 lists) (6 Aug), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, partly updated for the dataslate) (30 Oct), Grand Slam-Gaming (three of his own lists) (28 Aug), Chaos Coterie (three list builds) (12 Jul), Vanguard Tactics (the 1-DP detachments, on preview rules before points) (10 Jun). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
146 public Emperor's Children tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.