Defiant

Defiant: Stats

Defiant: Weapons

• [2] Light Lance Turret
  ^{Perfect Accuracy – 270° Front – Range: 9,000
  Shots: 1 | Damage: 15 | Reload: 12s | Crit: 7.5%Armor Piercing (-25%)}
• [2] Launch Bays ^{*Special Weapon
  Fury Interceptor (2 Uses)
  Starhawk Bomber (2 Uses)
  Shark Assault Boat (2 Uses)}

The Defiant Light Cruiser is the smallest and cheapest ship in the Imperial armada with launch bays. While it used to be the most economical means of getting squadrons, this is no longer entirely the case, as changes to point costs and the number of charges each ship carries, has changed significantly since release.*

While there are still a lot of benefits for taking heavy and better-armed vessels with launch bays, one plus side to taking a number of Defiants comes in the form of more hull points overall (2 Defiants have 2,400 combined HP, one Exorcist has 2,000 HP for example), each ship can be in different places at a time, they can each launch different squadrons allowing for more variety of interceptor and assault/bomber combos and one ship losing some subsystems doesn’t cripple your ability to deploy squadrons nearly as much, though this comes at the cost of fewer squadron charges per ship.

As a little bonus, the Defiant happens to be the only Light Cruiser with lances on 270-degree turret mounts, which is typically rare in Imperium ships in general. Defiant cruisers would be good options against Eldar vessels.

Keep in mind, once the squadrons run dry, or your Defiants get separated or lack the ability to deploy in force to overcome enemy turrets, the majority of their usefulness is gone, as the lance turrets alone are out damaged by the weaponry of most smaller and cheaper ships.

_{*Once further work has been done updating the guides and making planned additions, I will be looking to provide better resources for comparing these values (such as squadrons per point cost) between vessels.}