An Ode to the Deffrolla

Fully loaded burnawagon with KFF and burna boyz

 
Woe is the Deffrolla. Once upon a time it was the premier heavy armor killer in the codex.  Feared, respected, and envied by all.  Now it sits as a shell of its former glory.

I don't recall any game in which I took a battlewagon without a Deffrolla.  I considered the BW a 110pt unit that came stock with the deffrolla.  I'm sure some people took a lot of gun options, but it rammed first, delivered the payload 2nd.  The burna wagon was a dream, but would never work out in practice.  It was just too big a threat, holding 15 templates from any point on the hull and no one was dumb enough to stay in range.

A few recollections on moments of glory.  Black Templar, 2011, the mighty wagon deffrollas a landraider, whose contents get out and unload melta into side armor but the KFF deflects it which them proceeds to roll a 2nd LR and a vindicator.  Victory proceeds with a tabling on turn 4. Memories...

Now, oh boy is the Deffrolla is junk, absolute junk.  Probably the biggest nerfing I've ever seen.  From D6 Str10 hits always and 2D6 if death or glory fails to D3 Str 10 ap4 only if death or glory fails.  Since death or glory attacks only occur on the front armor at AV14, this represents a very limited set of low armor value infantry that would even attempt it.  You should never line up a tank shock against melta anyways.  Anything sporting Str10 is very unlikely to try to DoG.

Deffrolla made from sprue, toothpicks, and cardboard roll

A beyond useless upgrade from what was previously a core Ork item that wasn't overpowered given BW durability.  My battlewagons rarely ever survived any game, but 1 or two rounds of rollin' were enough.  It was a standout upgrade in a codex full of useless upgrades (grabbin' klaws, wrecking balls).

The boarding plank was another must take item, for me.  Plow forward with the deffrolla.  If it didn't destroy with the rolla then the PK inside would take care of business in the ensuing assault phase.  The change to make it +2" to charge range is solid, but not for 15pts.  In Trukks, 5 points would have been fine, 10 points for battlewagons.  They seem to understand variable pricing for equipment in some cases like Nob bikers where the upgrade is 27pts, but 25pts for ICs.  This makes sense since a squad with bikes is more valuable than a single bike upgrade (now they should do the same for seer council on jetbikes).  Other times they completely fall down.  Why is a PK on a deffkopta priced the same as a Nob in a squad of warbikes?

The same goes for red paint job.  Although in this case, I think the culprit is that GW couldn't figure out how to write rules for it properly.  I still heard people getting the rules wrong for it a few weeks ago. Plus +1" to turbo boosting isn't worthless, but the utility you get from it is so low, you can always find a better spot to spend points (like a ram).

All the pictures are of my 2 battlewagons. I painted them all myself.  Priming the front black and the rear cab with army painter pure red.  Heavy drybrush all around.  One was line highlighted with silver, the other a metallic blue just to make it different.  They really could use a little touch up work.  Maybe adding some typhus corrosion, some texture paint on the tracks, and a nice rust wash on the rear compartment.

The deffrollas, luckily were not glued on.  One is scratch built and the other is a puppets war rolling slaughter (can you guess which is which?). The big shootas are all removable. I still have magnets on one where I could add the kannon compartment, but scrapped that to make my custom big gunz.