Defiler - The Rise of the Daemon Engine: The first Defilers were created as a result of a pact between the Dark Mechanicum and Abaddon the Despoiler before his 1st Black Crusade. It is said that as part of Abaddon's preparations, he quested to find an array of war engines to bring the Imperium to its knees. He desired constructs that had never before walked across a battlefield. Abaddon's need for new and horrific machines brought him to Xana II, which lay deep within the Eye of Terror.There, the magi of the Dark Mechanicum pledged their allegiance to Abaddon's cause in exchange for rare artefacts, blood offerings and menials. As the Despoiler dismissed his dark servants out into realspace to fulfill their requests, the Renegades of the Dark Mechanicum forged new creations within their citadels.Some of the oldest Defilers became legends within the slaughter-fields of Abaddon's 1st Black Crusade. Though the Black Legion marched to war alongside countless daemonic war machines, few inspired as much terror as the scuttling packs of Defilers.In 781.M31 the people of Urthwart were to experience the full force of this new horror. Interpreters of the Emperor's Tarot foretold of a new iron monster that would come from the heavens. Soon a Chaos fleet entered into orbit, blackening the skies with their baroque ships.Numerous Cadian Chimeras rolled out across the landscape, carrying troops to reinforce important positions and defend key cities. A contingent of the Imperial Fists' 4th and 5th Companies made planetfall shortly before the Chaos Warfleet's arrival to help prevent the planet's demise. The armies of Urthwart were at the mercy of an assault from a Black Legion warband that sought to bring nothing but mayhem to the world. Defilers churned up the waves of advancing infantry with withering gunfire, decimating bunkers and gun emplacements.Their far-reaching shells pulverised the reinforcements before they could get into the thick of the action. Whenever the forces of the Imperium fought back and a stalemate seemed to be reached on the battlefield, it was the uncanny speed and terrifying ferocity of the Defilers that broke the deadlock. The frenzied Daemon machines would surge forwards with an unnatural thunder, peeling open the metal hulls of tanks, and even dueling Dreadnoughts in jaw-dropping clashes.After four solar days of combat, it took the full force of the Imperial Fists 4th and 5th Companies to hold back the warband on Urthwart and force a retreat back to the orbiting ships. Eventually the Chaos fleet vanished back into the Eye of Terror, but the legend of the Defiler had been forged in battle.Abaddon the Despoiler was so impressed with the Daemon Engines' devastating desire for blood and slaughter, and the amount of carnage that they could cause with relatively little support, that he demanded more be constructed within the soul forges.As the various Traitor manufactoria hammered out even more Defilers, the Daemon Engines became aligned with different warbands and Legions -- not only Abaddon's Traitor force. New pacts were forged in the darkness. The arcane knowledge of the Daemon Engine soon spread throughout the soul forges, and Warpsmiths within thousands of Dark Citadels learnt of the debased arts of creating a Defiler.