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Hi all,

slowly I am finding my way into CSM play. Last playing night ended in my first win (against Eldar), yay. However, I had one unit of 8 Khorne Berzerkers which I felt didn't do much for its points. So I am asking you guys: how do you use your Zerkers to the best effect? In a Rhino? But after disembarking they can't assault. In a Land Raider? That are quite some points for it and I'd probably rather put Terminators inside. Footslogging? That was what I did (my order with more rhinos didn't arrive yet) and it ended with them walking more turns than fighting.

Regards
Murenius

8-10 Zerkers with power fist in rhino.

EZ

Hell stick Kharn in there too, that's quite a punch.

Or have them follow behind my Land raider with termies inside.

And if you have the points, point Extra Armor on their Rhinos.

Hammer and anvil. Two rhinos, one of plague marines, one of berserkers. put the plague rhino just in front of the berserkers, make them come in and deal with plagues who will likely live, then assault with berserkers.

Murenius wrote:Hi all,

slowly I am finding my way into CSM play. Last playing night ended in my first win (against Eldar), yay. However, I had one unit of 8 Khorne Berzerkers which I felt didn't do much for its points. So I am asking you guys: how do you use your Zerkers to the best effect? In a Rhino? But after disembarking they can't assault. In a Land Raider? That are quite some points for it and I'd probably rather put Terminators inside. Footslogging? That was what I did (my order with more rhinos didn't arrive yet) and it ended with them walking more turns than fighting.

Regards
Murenius

Out of a Rhino, they only can't disembark if it *moves*. There's nothing to stop you from driving up, turning sideways, then disembarking the following turn, moving, then assaulting.

First turn you move 12". Then you disembark 2" to the back of the base, move 6" and assault 6" so that's 26" from where they started to the back of the base in two turns.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Murenius wrote:Hi all,

slowly I am finding my way into CSM play. Last playing night ended in my first win (against Eldar), yay. However, I had one unit of 8 Khorne Berzerkers which I felt didn't do much for its points. So I am asking you guys: how do you use your Zerkers to the best effect? In a Rhino? But after disembarking they can't assault. In a Land Raider? That are quite some points for it and I'd probably rather put Terminators inside. Footslogging? That was what I did (my order with more rhinos didn't arrive yet) and it ended with them walking more turns than fighting.

Regards
Murenius

Out of a Rhino, they only can't disembark if it *moves*. There's nothing to stop you from driving up, turning sideways, then disembarking the following turn, moving, then assaulting.

First turn you move 12". Then you disembark 2" to the back of the base, move 6" and assault 6" so that's 26" from where they started to the back of the base in two turns.

Not true, they can disembark whenever they want, no matter how far the rhino moves. They however can not assault if the rhino moves, but can assault if the rhino stays still. You can disembark from a rhino, make your 6" move, then shoot, then make your assault move as long as the rhino is stationary. You can then move the rhino once it has been emptied.

In a LR with Abaddon. Expensive so big games only, but fearless, scoring, and anything it touches goes bye bye. Terms can get accurate DS from cheap icons so they are in less need of a ride.

Ah thanks, I actually haven't thought of keeping them in the Rhino and then disembark the following turn. Thanks a lot, I will try this in the next game

8-10 in a Rhino works very well. You have to think ahead and set up charges, but this is better that paying thecti points for a Land Raider in my opinion.

A pretty simple tactic is:

move ahead 12 and pop smoke

move ahead 12 again. At this point, if they destroy the rhino, thats ok, your berzerekers should be close enough

disembark, move and assault.

How to best use Khorne Berzerkers?

Paint them grey and make them Grey Hunters.



Best way to use Khorne Bezerkers in a CSM army?

Paint them green and make them Plague Marines.



Best way to use Khorne Bezerkers as actual Khorne Bezerkers?

In a rhino and try to outmaneuver your opponent to get their unit within 14" of the Rhino at the start of your turn.

The other route - not as dependable - but it can scare the gebus out of an opponent is the MC rhino rush.

3 rhinos with berzerkers.
2 DP
3 CC defilers
2 small units of lesser demons.
1 greater deamon.

The defilers move up the rhinos move 12" and pop smoke.
Now hopefully you roll hot and the greater demon and lesser demons pop out. If your berzerkers can, they disembark and you charge the whole mess at them. Very few can deal with the quality of a berzerker unit with one or more MCs and/or a defiler in CC.

Grakmar wrote:How to best use Khorne Berzerkers?

Paint them grey and make them Grey Hunters.

Lol, why not just make them BA Assault Marines, you dont even need to repaint them!

"Blood for the Blo... eh... I mean... Emperor! Skull for the Golden Throne!"

8 in a rhino. A landraider usually means less Obliterators. No powerfist the squad is to expensive already. If you need a powerfist you have already lost the raison d'etre of this squad. We are not talking about ork mobs and you have daemon prince for the other cc battles.

MFletch wrote:8 in a rhino. A landraider usually means less Obliterators. No powerfist the squad is to expensive already. If you need a powerfist you have already lost the raison d'etre of this squad. We are not talking about ork mobs and you have daemon prince for the other cc battles.

Sounds reasonable. I haven't seen it this way before, but you're right. Concerning the Obliterators: maybe true, but since 3 Obliterators were expensive enough I do not see myself buying 6 more in the next time. Except they make them Finecast and put 3 in a reasonably priced box.

Actually the BA idea is the best so far blood for the blood god. Blood Angels and Khorne combine to stop tyranids in the next matt ward chaos space marine codex .

My overview of CSM may help you:

The usual list is 9 oblits or 3 squads of 2 or 6 with a deff. This is needed long range fire so go with it, no one mention meta.
Then you take a daemon prince as the other HQs are too expensive and you need cc Demigod, seriously.
Then you will need transportation for troops, again no one mention meta.

Option 1
Given they are cheap rhinos you want to spam them and have 6 troops to give target saturation, I hate the word meta.
Now filling in the gaps you want some 'zerkers as cc threat against shooting troops. Plague marine are the best choice but to keep costs down you go for CSM or the chosen.

Option 2
To protect rhinos you take termies with landraiders.

So only two(one) lists which comes out of necessity.

A berzerker skull champion is one of the few "champions" that makes good use of a powerfist. He has an extra attack on other space marine sergeants/champions because of his MoK, and he has WS5 meaning he will be hitting on 3's more often than not, and with Furious Charge, he hits at S9 against a vehicle.

whitedragon wrote:A berzerker skull champion is one of the few "champions" that makes good use of a powerfist. He has an extra attack on other space marine sergeants/champions because of his MoK, and he has WS5 meaning he will be hitting on 3's more often than not, and with Furious Charge, he hits at S9 against a vehicle.

You are going to use a 200 pt unit to tackle a vehicle and you impressed that they happen to be good at it? Stop playing like an ork .

Unless you mean using it to open a transport in which case you will not have a fun time .

Indeed, if you direct the Zerkers with a Champion with power fist against a vehicle in a turn you will more or less waste all those other attacks you paid for.

I would NEVER take a power weapon over a power fist in this situation. Let us not forget that there are many many many dreadnoughts in this game! Ork dreadnoughts, space marine dreadnoughts, war walkers, killa kans, etc! This is not even the main reason i say this!

It is all about wound allocation. 8 Berserkers on average will get 33 attacks on the charge, making 24-25 hits, causing 17 wounds, 3 of which would be power weapons. Because of wound allocation you can allocate all those power weapon wounds to one man, making the power weapon almost useless. If you equip a power fist, you should cause almost 3 wounds every time, unallocatable, equating to more effective wounds, not to mention the potential to double out multi wound models. You have one less attack, but are FAR more likely to wound than with a power weapon, and will always wound on a two even off of the charge, more wounds more easily over a longer period of time taht are not allocatable due to a different initiative.

Simply put, PF is much more effective.

Mark of khorne doesn't change the fact that the model costs 61 points. In a unit of guys who cost 21 points. 145 min for a hidden PF that has 5 wounds. Compare that to a 5 man BA assault squad without jetpacks in a fast rhino and a PF. The khorne guys get 1 more attack per model, at higher WS. But are 5 points more, don't have a transport, and don't have the great synergies that BA marine lists have (like FNP bubbles). But they get Fearless! That a draw back compared to ATSKNF.

Khorne zerkers are not bad in assault, but they aren't particularly good either. The can beat up on other troops that suck in CC, but they just aren't efficient or powerful enough to hang with the real assault units out there. 8 of them including a PF champ costs more than a 5 man vanilla TH/SS squad, if I need to clarify my point any.

notabot187 wrote:Mark of khorne doesn't change the fact that the model costs 61 points. In a unit of guys who cost 21 points. 145 min for a hidden PF that has 5 wounds. Compare that to a 5 man BA assault squad without jetpacks in a fast rhino and a PF. The khorne guys get 1 more attack per model, at higher WS. But are 5 points more, don't have a transport, and don't have the great synergies that BA marine lists have (like FNP bubbles). But they get Fearless! That a draw back compared to ATSKNF.

Khorne zerkers are not bad in assault, but they aren't particularly good either. The can beat up on other troops that suck in CC, but they just aren't efficient or powerful enough to hang with the real assault units out there. 8 of them including a PF champ costs more than a 5 man vanilla TH/SS squad, if I need to clarify my point any.

We arent here to compare loyalist marines and chaos marines, this is not what the thread is about AT ALL! So you are answering this guys question by saying don't play your army, go buy a different one? That is kind of rude TBH...

And I believe that berserkers are simply better than your standard assault marines. They have more attacks, higher weapon skill, built in furious charge and are not reliant on a blood chalice to recieve it. If you put them one on one the only way they would lose is because of bad dice luck and you did not equip a power fist to prevent wound allocation.

WS 5 is an attack and defense benefit. You hit on 3s most of the time and it will be a rare event that an enemy will ever hit you on a 3.

Coupled with the fact that you get furious and berzerkers one weakness is they don't have range. So as long as you compensate for that (hyper agressive play, long ranged support) they will do fine.

Certainly other codexes offer a lot of tricks but berzerkers are pound for pound a very painful thing for people to take on.

Dave-c wrote:

notabot187 wrote:Mark of khorne doesn't change the fact that the model costs 61 points. In a unit of guys who cost 21 points. 145 min for a hidden PF that has 5 wounds. Compare that to a 5 man BA assault squad without jetpacks in a fast rhino and a PF. The khorne guys get 1 more attack per model, at higher WS. But are 5 points more, don't have a transport, and don't have the great synergies that BA marine lists have (like FNP bubbles). But they get Fearless! That a draw back compared to ATSKNF.

Khorne zerkers are not bad in assault, but they aren't particularly good either. The can beat up on other troops that suck in CC, but they just aren't efficient or powerful enough to hang with the real assault units out there. 8 of them including a PF champ costs more than a 5 man vanilla TH/SS squad, if I need to clarify my point any.

We arent here to compare loyalist marines and chaos marines, this is not what the thread is about AT ALL! So you are answering this guys question by saying don't play your army, go buy a different one? That is kind of rude TBH...

And I believe that berserkers are simply better than your standard assault marines. They have more attacks, higher weapon skill, built in furious charge and are not reliant on a blood chalice to recieve it. If you put them one on one the only way they would lose is because of bad dice luck and you did not equip a power fist to prevent wound allocation.

I'm saying don't use bezerkers, at least not with PFs, I'm not saying play a different army. They are hard to make work, they aren't efficient or particularly effective compared to what other books get, and yet they are supposed to be the main assault force of chaos. So IMHO that means that you really shouldn't look at the troop section for assault units. You should probably look at what they do do better than other armies (which isn't much, but they do have some units and builds that are different and good enough to run).

How bout I compare that champion with his squad to something actually in the chaos book, like a chaos terminator. For 250 points I get a unit of 5 chaos champions with LCs or PFs. The LCs will have 5 attacks on the charge, and the PFs with have 4. For 30 pts more I can get and icon of khorne and get 5 more attacks from the squad, or 6 per pair LC, and 5 per fist. If you don't want to spend the 10 per model for each champ, then its only 200 pts, or 230 for a iconed unit. For just a little bit more, and in a different slot, I get a unit that has better armor, more attacks, and great CC weapons that don't care about armor at all.

notabot187 wrote:
How bout I compare that champion with his squad to something actually in the chaos book, like a chaos terminator. For 250 points I get a unit of 5 chaos champions with LCs or PFs. The LCs will have 5 attacks on the charge, and the PFs with have 4. For 30 pts more I can get and icon of khorne and get 5 more attacks from the squad, or 6 per pair LC, and 5 per fist. If you don't want to spend the 10 per model for each champ, then its only 200 pts, or 230 for a iconed unit. For just a little bit more, and in a different slot, I get a unit that has better armor, more attacks, and great CC weapons that don't care about armor at all.

I see what you are saying, but there are other things to consider here. A properly equipped unit of berserkers should cost 203 points and are the least expensive cult troop choice in the codex, much less than terminators. Berserkers can be put in rhinos, terminators cannot and if you want a transport for them the only option is a Land Raider(the worst Land Raider option in 40K), greatly decreasing the points efficiency of the unit. Now factor that in, plus the terminators are not scoring, are not fearless, are not WS 5, and are not furious charge.

The terminators leave a lot to desire and are not a part of the core units for the army, and in reality not the best unit to compare with berserkers as they don't really serve the same purpose.

The best use for terminators in a chaos list is a DS'ing suicide unit with combi weapons and a chain fist, not as a hammer unit.

Dave-c wrote:I would NEVER take a power weapon over a power fist in this situation. Let us not forget that there are many many many dreadnoughts in this game! Ork dreadnoughts, space marine dreadnoughts, war walkers, killa kans, etc! This is not even the main reason i say this!

It is all about wound allocation. 8 Berserkers on average will get 33 attacks on the charge, making 24-25 hits, causing 17 wounds, 3 of which would be power weapons. Because of wound allocation you can allocate all those power weapon wounds to one man, making the power weapon almost useless. If you equip a power fist, you should cause almost 3 wounds every time, unallocatable, equating to more effective wounds, not to mention the potential to double out multi wound models. You have one less attack, but are FAR more likely to wound than with a power weapon, and will always wound on a two even off of the charge, more wounds more easily over a longer period of time taht are not allocatable due to a different initiative.

Simply put, PF is much more effective.

This is another added benefit of the Power Fist.

I dunno about anyone else, but I don't want to be stuck in CC with a walker or MC that I can't hurt. It also doesn't hurt to have a way of bashing the skull of an IC in either, or insta-gibbing multi-wound models. There's also the fact that the PW skull champion wounds MEQs on 4s if he hasn't charged, so his 4 attacks are reduced to 2.668 hits and 1.334 wounds, whereas his PF is 2 hits and most likely 2 wounds.

The PW is only better against I4 or less on the charge, or T3 or less on the charge; after that, it becomes best only against I3 and T2. If you can guarantee the charge against everything and guarantee that you will wipe them out without a protracted combat, then go for the PW, but if you can't guarantee that, or if there's even a chance of you facing a tough IC or T4 multi-wound unit, a walker, or an MC (or even all of them), then the PF is better.

That makes the PF better against Tyranids, Eldar (because of their high I, it doesn't really matter when you cause the wounds, only that you cause them, and the PF wounds Eldar on 2s as opposed to the PW's 3s if you didn't charge), Dark Eldar (for the same reasons), arguably Tau (since their battlesuits are all multi-wound, and their other units will likely die before you even get a chance to do your SC's attacks), Grey Knights (thanks to all the I-boosting abilities), BA Death Company (berzerkers with jump-packs and will probably always get the charge on us because of it, and so will have higher I), Ork Dread Spam/Kan Wall, Nob-heavy Orks, SW, vanilla SM, BT, DA, Necrons (not enough combat prowess to hit back hard before the PF), and possibly others. The majority of MEQs are here simply because the PF wounding on 2s is better than the PW wounding on 3s and 4s.

PW's are better against IG (if you manage to survive to get into combat), Orks without walkers and Nobz (no MCs and enough boyz to warrant the extra attack), Sisters, in the first rounds of combat. After the first round, we go back to being S4 and having our PW's wounding on 3s and 4s as opposed to 2s and 3s, making the PF a better investment. SW, vanilla SM, BT and DA can also fit here due to their I4.

Meh, I still feel that the PF is better than a PW against orks, they are all T 4 for the most part, you will be stuck with boys for a couple fo rounds if not more and the higher str will equate to more wounds over the course of several combats than the PW. They also have mulitwound characters to single out and insta gib, the only ork hq with eternal warrior is Ghazzy.

PF would be better against IG as well, you are likely to come across vehicles and having something that can hurt them never hurts.

Champion with PW is not a bad option but then - as said - you have to sweat dreads and the like. So that almost means you have to add a melta bomb. So now we are talking 25 for 20 for cost so it is almost a push. So you have to ask yourself if 5 S5 attacks at I 5 are worth giving up 4 S9 attacks at I1. In the case of nobz or the MC or termies I would rather have the S5 attacks more because I want the chance to kill it before it gets its devastating attacks. In almost all other cases, the power fist is going to be the better option.

Vs 10 tac marines 9 berzerkers getting 36 attacks, 24 hit,
16 wound. 5 dead. Now 6 attacks back, 3 hit, 2 wound maybe one dead berzerker. Make it 10 assault marines or grey hunters with counter attack and perhaps 2 dead berzerkers. 4 power fist attacks are going to yield a little over 2 more dead marines so 7 to 1 or 2 berzerker win.
Only when you are talking standard termies with PF is the PW going to be better because it should average north of 2 dead termies before he gets his boat-load of PF attacks. MC I might want the S5 attacks again to prevent his attacks but otherwise spending 25 seems the right thing to do.

DAaddict wrote:
Only when you are talking standard termies with PF is the PW going to be better because it should average north of 2 dead termies before he gets his boat-load of PF attacks. MC I might want the S5 attacks again to prevent his attacks but otherwise spending 25 seems the right thing to do.

Actually, probably not even then because the Termie's owning player will allocate all the power weapon wounds to one terminator (the sergeant most likely).