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Okay, so I'm doing a bit of a theoretical deep dive and examination of several of the "worthless" or 'not usable' units in the Chaos Space Marine Codexes. So first I'm going to post my take and analysis of the unit in question, and then I'd like feed on the unit and my analysis. Not keep in mind I avoid tournaments like a combination of a clingy X-girl friend combined with the black plague I try to play friendly games. That being said tournaments in this area have an absolute stranglehold so I can't avoid the effect of tournaments (IE the highly competitive atmosphere and the min-maxing list building approach). So it's a bit like doing recreational boxing against Muhammad Ali. Even if he's got both legs and arm tied behind his back and his eye covered, he still knocks you all around the ring and then looks at you with this look that says "Why aren't you trying?"

You can see my other analysises of the following units:
Thousand Sons

This time I'm looking at Khorne Berzerkers.








okay okay, I'm kidding. Don't kill the brony.






So, Khorne Berzerkers. They've been a staple of the Chaos Space Marine codex for the last couple decades and weather you hated them or loved them tended to be determined by weather you were watching their backs as they killed things, or seeing their front as they killed you. They were once mindless killers that once you figured out the trick to beating them made them laughable. Now they seem to be trying to be a better assault marine minus the jump packs. but what do you actually get with them?

Well Let's start with the basic unit selection. For 105 points you get 5 Space Marines, who are WS5 and come a pistol and CC weapon. As a nice bonus they are fearless and have furious charge. Thanks to the Mark of Khorne they have Rage and Counter Attack. This has honestly struck me kind of an odd combination. Counter-attack gives them +1 attacks if they are charged (assuming they are not already in combat when charged) while Rage gives them +2 attacks on the charge rather than +1. Okay... I mean it works, it just seems kind of odd. Like, why not just make the Berzerkers Base Attacks 2 instead of the 2 special rules? Not saying this is a 'con' of the unit, but it does strike me as odd.

Okay, so 105 points. 5 Berzerkers that are WS5, S5 on the Charge, tossing 4 attacks each on the charge. Other then that they're space marines through and through. Yeah, I say that like it's just one or two small differences between Berzerkers and normal Space Marines. But yeah, they hit more reliably, and on their terms they hit harder then normal Space Marines. So what options do they have?

Well any model can take a chain axe making their melee attacks AP4. Nice plus. I'm actually going to say this is a con because of the price for the upgrade: 3 points each. Making each berzerker 22 points. Given the prevelence of Chain Axes in connection to Berzerkers, I would make this upgrade 1 or 2 points per model instead of 3. Agree or disagree with me on this Point? Feel free to explain your reasoning below.

What else can they do?

Well up to 2 berzerkers in the unit can take plasma pistols. Okay, nice. Plasma weapons are always fun. Well Until they over heat and kill the guy holding them anyway. But that's fairly rare with Space Marines, and Berzerkers are still space marines.
One member of the unit can take an Icon of wrath, which gives the unit Furious char... wait, what? Berzerkers already have Furious charge. So... what do they get if they take the Icon? Well they can re-roll their charge distance and they add 1 to their combat results. So.. okay. That's nice. Not totally sure it's worth the 15 points though, but as it stands now taking the icon is certainly more of a pro then a con.
Finally the Champion himself can take some options from the Melee weapons (Where the Chain axe is 8 points compared to 3 points in the army list entry) and he can take a combi-weapon.

Okay, so over all Berzerkers are pretty good. For what they are.

The big issue I have with Berzerkers is in comparing them to Normal Chaos Space Marines with mark of Khorne.
For 210 points you can get a 10 man CSM squad with Mark of Khorne and Icon of Wrath and 2 Melta Guns. This is a pretty well rounded and tacticaly flexible squad.
In the case of Khorne Berserkers, a 10 man unit with 2 plasma pistols and Icon of Wraith will run you 245 points. A difference of 35 points and the only thing the Berzerkers have over the Chaos Marine Squad at this point is WS 5 compared to WS 4. Now admittedly a 3-4 point difference per model for a +1 WS is pretty reasonable of a difference. But all of that being said, I'm inclined to take a 10 man Marine unit over a 10 man Berzerker unit because of the added versatility.

So thoughts from anyone else about Khorne Berzerkers?

Plasma pistols are overcosted and not worth their points IF you want an optimal squad imo.
Take a dreadclaw 'drop pod', do not use it as a drop pod, but instead use it as a fast skimmer assault transport. Throw kharn and some bezerkers in then deepstrike T1 and turbo boost into the opponents force. If you get blown up, you can still assault next turn as they were in an assault vehicle.
I have not run this tactic yet but seen it suggested on Dakka. The ability to give them a 100pt assault transport with av12 all round, 4+ jink, deepstrike T1 and 18" turbo boost actually makes them a credible threat.

to be fair the zerkers also get fearless over the marines which is pretty big. But I still find myself running the marines every time. (the marines can also be upgraded by fabius to be S5 and fearless )

I feel they are way too costly to work without messing around for a clever delivery system, such as the dreadclaw as mentioned above (which is itself 100+ points).

The footslogging or rhino rushing zerker is a terrible unit. My friend runs world eaters, so I have a lot of experience of tearing apart poorly used bezerkers. Only the land raider even scares me, and they are easy enough to deal with. The spartan would be great, but then you are spending LOADs of points on a death star which, isn't hard to kill...


I personally would keep them same points, make the chainaxe 1 point, plasma pistols .. 8? points and give them FNP 5+ and a rule that gave them +1 to their charge distance for each wound they took from overwatch.

They can also work with huron to infiltrate and something like Be'Lakor for invisible, Cypher for shrowded and H&R. But i do find regular khornates with meltas doing better than zerkers.

Another alternative is MoK chosen with a couple hidden axes. They get around a major sticking point with berserkers, which is that they pretty much require a beatstick character to float them, otherwise they can flounder in combat really easily (they just turn into regular marines after the first round). 10 chosen with two axes, a claw, and an icon runs about the same cost as 10 zerkers. They trade fearless and WS5 for more attacks, bolters (and the ability to take some specials if youre feeling fancy), and if you take crimson's draznict for 10pts, the whole shebang gets preferred enemy. The two axe guys throw out a whopping 10 str6 ap2 attacks on the charge, which carries more than enough punch to make up for not having a lord or sorcerer in the unit. Just don't overspend on goodies, otherwise you might as well just take terminators.