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In my opinion Khorne Berzerkers should be ran with a Powersword and meltabomb not a Powerfist. You want to take advantage of a S5, Init 5 powersword cutting down your enemies before they hit you. I did a Khorne list this weekend and I was cutting down Sternguads, and Terminators before they had a chance to hit me back. Powerfist sounds nice as its the only non HQ unit that has what, 4 attacks, 5 on the charge powerfist? But hitting first, and being S5 with a powersword is pretty bosS!

I am a big believer in the Heavy Support land raider now. It totally blocks LOS to your princes, and it is such a big threat that people will shoot at it. Most likely wasting a lot of fire power that would normally target your princes or weak rhinos.

And I always take a fist champ on my berzerkers. Instakilling tough HQs, wounding monstrous creatures on 2+, and assaulting vehicles with the equivalent of four lascannon shots is pretty bosS! too!

If the LR discussion is going on still:

Ive had some luck running my rhino of 10-8 ish bezerkers in a rhino with a squad of 5 plague marines (with 2 meltas) in their own rhino. Goes like this: 2 rhinos are paired up, Plague rhino rolls up in front giving bz rhino cover. Plagues hop out and melta something and cop the charge. Bz counter charge next turn.

The magic that is 3+ and fnp most times keeps the pm alive for your bz. I know rhinos arent hard to pop but use the 2x smoke and cover and the fact that there are 2 rhinos your opponent has to shoot (instead of 1 LR) and avoiding the firing lanes- i like your chances of getting at least 1 rhino in or close enough.

2 rhinos are really only a delivery system which is kinda one of my issues with a landraider- "y did i pay all these extra points for TL las cannons and heavy bolters" WTB 175 ish point LR with no weapons .... hell id settle with drop pods...

LR 240 pts (approx) vs 5PM + 2melta + rhino 170. Its still 70 points cheaper.. another scoring unit, survivability of plagues, 2 meltas...

My other issue is just 240 point delivery system for a 240 squad of BZks... 10BZs (IMO) wont conscistently do the 480 points of damage to make their LR worth it... i feel like the 270 bzrks with rhino + 170 PM has more of a chance to do 440ish points.

I know none of this is ground breaking but its a solid strat. My 2 cents. Good luck using csm competetivly- it can be done its just a little bland in 5e. (CSM rock competetive at 1500 to 1850 imo)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wonder if you could run a small raptor squad behind the 2 rhinos to add an extra punch...

Kevlar I'm right with you in that mindset. The reason I go for the powerfist is twofold. First, because he isn't an IC, he can't be picked out, so there's a very good chance he lives through the first few rounds just from not enough attacks wounding. Second reason is there needs to be SOMETHING in the squad to threaten MC's, vehicles, and to allow the insta-killing of IC's where applicable. Meltabombs only solve the vehicle problem...and honestly, I'd rather have 3 powerfist attacks than a single melta bomb attack. Remember how you can't get locked into combat with a vehicle? It means you are charging every round, so that's 4 STR 10 attacks vs the STR 8 (yes, +2D6) meltabomb. Strictly going on the odds that, more times than not, I'll be able to score at least 1 powerfist hit more reliably than the melta bomb. 1 weaker hit is always better than a stronger miss.

I'm not opposed to the lesser daemon idea, but they are the only models I do not own unfortunately :(. Stand-ins can be used to play test the idea of course, which I'm willing to give a go. Do you think smaller 5 man squads are better than larger ones? They still have to roll to come in, and I feel like theres a very good chance one unit comes in, the other doesnt, and it's just thrown away :/

The landraider debate is still at large, and I didn't even think about the LOS blocking and threat potential. The army, as it runs in the general form, does revolve around the two lash princes. I'd prefer they not be shot to hell, so I'm quite happy to have the landraider around to soak up some of the bigger shots and provide some rolling cover when necessary. Last game played, it got shot to hell with at least 10 dark lances over the first two rounds, and all that was scored was a weapon destroyed and a shaken result. By the end of the game, it had managed to destroy a raider and a jetfighter all by itself, AND delivered the berzerkers to annihilate a kabalite squad.

Which brings me to the point of why I run the berzerkers at all, and that's as a wipe-out unit. I try and save them for that one moment. The moment where I know, come hell or high water, as long as I wipe out this one particular unit, the game is mine. Last game was objectives, with two on the field, and he only had one troop choice left. The berzerkers were sent headlong at them the second their transport was popped, and that was the end of that.

I've got a game lined up for tomorrow, and I'm going to try the rhino approach with them to see how it fairs, AND I'll be adding another plague marine squad with a rhino. I'll also be switching out the extra armor for combi weapons. If they're out there, I'd appreciate some opinions on which combi-weapon to take: flamer, melta, or plasma? Also, what would you recommend when outfitting the plagues? Twin melta's, twin plasmas, one of each, etc.?

As always, please and thank you.

Aipoch wrote:Kevlar I'm right with you in that mindset. The reason I go for the powerfist is twofold. First, because he isn't an IC, he can't be picked out, so there's a very good chance he lives through the first few rounds just from not enough attacks wounding. Second reason is there needs to be SOMETHING in the squad to threaten MC's, vehicles, and to allow the insta-killing of IC's where applicable. Meltabombs only solve the vehicle problem...and honestly, I'd rather have 3 powerfist attacks than a single melta bomb attack. Remember how you can't get locked into combat with a vehicle? It means you are charging every round, so that's 4 STR 10 attacks vs the STR 8 (yes, +2D6) meltabomb. Strictly going on the odds that, more times than not, I'll be able to score at least 1 powerfist hit more reliably than the melta bomb. 1 weaker hit is always better than a stronger miss.

I'm not opposed to the lesser daemon idea, but they are the only models I do not own unfortunately :(. Stand-ins can be used to play test the idea of course, which I'm willing to give a go. Do you think smaller 5 man squads are better than larger ones? They still have to roll to come in, and I feel like theres a very good chance one unit comes in, the other doesnt, and it's just thrown away :/

The landraider debate is still at large, and I didn't even think about the LOS blocking and threat potential. The army, as it runs in the general form, does revolve around the two lash princes. I'd prefer they not be shot to hell, so I'm quite happy to have the landraider around to soak up some of the bigger shots and provide some rolling cover when necessary. Last game played, it got shot to hell with at least 10 dark lances over the first two rounds, and all that was scored was a weapon destroyed and a shaken result. By the end of the game, it had managed to destroy a raider and a jetfighter all by itself, AND delivered the berzerkers to annihilate a kabalite squad.

Which brings me to the point of why I run the berzerkers at all, and that's as a wipe-out unit. I try and save them for that one moment. The moment where I know, come hell or high water, as long as I wipe out this one particular unit, the game is mine. Last game was objectives, with two on the field, and he only had one troop choice left. The berzerkers were sent headlong at them the second their transport was popped, and that was the end of that.

I've got a game lined up for tomorrow, and I'm going to try the rhino approach with them to see how it fairs, AND I'll be adding another plague marine squad with a rhino. I'll also be switching out the extra armor for combi weapons. If they're out there, I'd appreciate some opinions on which combi-weapon to take: flamer, melta, or plasma? Also, what would you recommend when outfitting the plagues? Twin melta's, twin plasmas, one of each, etc.?

As always, please and thank you.

you have some luck with 10 lances not ripping it to shreds. i want your dice

as for combi weapons i would say unless you know how to tank shock REALLY well stick with melta. it lets you kill a tank or a guy. plasma may have more range but you are going forward towards your enemy anyway so you are going to get close. flamer is okay but only if you know how to use it and how to line it up.

also melta gives your rhino something scary after it has dumped it cargo, sure its only one shot but it can be one melta shot

as for the plauge marines i would suggest 2 things
1) dedicate them to a role in your army (tank hunter, heavy infantry killer killer or just target saturation
2) go for that thing tanks=melta heavy infantry killer=plasma Saturation=flamers go all or nothing so 2 melta or 2 plasma or 2 flamers

personally i always go for 2 melta cause it is cheaper then plasma and can instant pop T4 and still put the hurt on tanks

as a side note if you do want more plasma in your army plauge marines are a great place to put it,
you need to role a 1 to over heat, then fail a 3+ armor and a 4+ feel no pain! most likely it wont kill itself

now i am done talking on my soapbox

and i wish you the best of luck tomorrow. may you roll all six's

Honestly for the cost of a Landraider with Khorne Berzerkers you could have 2, 7man Khorne squads with Rhinos, Powersword and meltabombs. I dont see why you'd need a powerfist in there when their wounding on 3's on a charge anyhow.

Not only that but this gives 2 high priority targets instead of 1 (and LR). More zerkers, more targets, yeah rhinos are cheaper but move up 12, pop smoke, and your already halfway there against most foes. With a LR your going to have a big bullet magnet thats also going to be hard to hide in LOS, I've ran my khorne rhinos up plenty of times and put them being LOS, Landraiders can't really do that. And theres a surprising number of weapons out there that laugh at LR's (Zoanthropes im looking at you!).

As for lesser demons, I find unless your fighting someone who sucks at any form of melee their horrible. Vs SM their bad, vs orkz, tyranids, etc.... you might as well bring PM or CSM for their cost/size.. at least they can carry special weapons.

Fists give berserkers some of the antitank capability which their lack of meltaguns otherwise leaves them lacking. It also gives them the ability to inflict ID on ICs and wound MCs on a 2+. It's generally silly not to take one. If you'd rather shave points and don't care about them having those additional capabilities, don't spend the points on a champion at all.

Lesser Daemons can be useful in assault, but are most useful as 65pt Fearless Scoring units who can pop up without scatter, mid-game, in any one of 3-6 different areas around the field, to hold an objective and help you win the game. They've helped win me more games than I can count.

marmaduke wrote:you have some luck with 10 lances not ripping it to shreds. i want your dice

The dice are very rare...chessex, opaque crystal. They roll a disproportionate amount of sixes. I don't know how this is possible. On an unrelated topic, I work with neutrino bombardment, and have a lot of spare time... . The dice are up for debate on being banned :(

marmaduke wrote:as for combi weapons i would say unless you know how to tank shock REALLY well stick with melta. it lets you kill a tank or a guy. plasma may have more range but you are going forward towards your enemy anyway so you are going to get close. flamer is okay but only if you know how to use it and how to line it up.

also melta gives your rhino something scary after it has dumped it cargo, sure its only one shot but it can be one melta shot

I can tank shank, but with rhinos I don't very often. Not on any real reason other than I seem to face a lot of fearless opponents who just don't seem to care. For now, I've added a combi-melta on each rhino. However, I think I'll switch to flamers for the reasons of 1) I do know how to line them up properly and 2) I'm not going to have to worry about rolling a 1 or 2 on my one shot weapon, it'll definitely hit and do some damage

marmaduke wrote:as for the plauge marines i would suggest 2 things
1) dedicate them to a role in your army (tank hunter, heavy infantry killer killer or just target saturation
2) go for that thing tanks=melta heavy infantry killer=plasma Saturation=flamers go all or nothing so 2 melta or 2 plasma or 2 flamers

personally i always go for 2 melta cause it is cheaper then plasma and can instant pop T4 and still put the hurt on tanks

as a side note if you do want more plasma in your army plauge marines are a great place to put it,
you need to role a 1 to over heat, then fail a 3+ armor and a 4+ feel no pain! most likely it wont kill itself

Agreed, for now sticking with melta's. they've done me well so far, and I haven't had need of four plasma guns to take their place. More often than not, the melta is more than enough.

decoste007xt wrote:Honestly for the cost of a Landraider with Khorne Berzerkers you could have 2, 7man Khorne squads with Rhinos, Powersword and meltabombs. I dont see why you'd need a powerfist in there when their wounding on 3's on a charge anyhow.

Not only that but this gives 2 high priority targets instead of 1 (and LR). More zerkers, more targets, yeah rhinos are cheaper but move up 12, pop smoke, and your already halfway there against most foes. With a LR your going to have a big bullet magnet thats also going to be hard to hide in LOS, I've ran my khorne rhinos up plenty of times and put them being LOS, Landraiders can't really do that. And theres a surprising number of weapons out there that laugh at LR's (Zoanthropes im looking at you!).

As for lesser demons, I find unless your fighting someone who sucks at any form of melee their horrible. Vs SM their bad, vs orkz, tyranids, etc.... you might as well bring PM or CSM for their cost/size.. at least they can carry special weapons.

I've got a new list that foregoes the termicide and LR in favor of more berzerkers and another rhino. I disagree with your particular outlook on daemons, but as mentioned previously, I use them to drop in and help contest or control an objective. By themselves, not terribly useful. In groups, slightly annoying. As backup for plague marines sitting in cover on top of an objective, completely obnoxious.

So, the new list up for testing:

Daemon Prince, Wings, MoS, Los
155

Daemon Prince, Wings, MoS, Los
155

Berzerkers x 8, Champion, Powerfist, Meltabombs, Rhino, Combi-melta
258

Berzerkers x 8, Champion, Powerfist, Meltabombs, Rhino, Combi-melta
258

Plague Marines x 6, Champion, Powerfist, Meltagun x 2, Rhino, Combi-melta
235

Plague Marines x 6, Champion, Powerfist, Meltagun x 2, Rhino, Combi-melta
235

Obliterators x 2
150

Obliterators x 2
150

Obliterators x 2
150

Total: 1746

The points values were from memory, and though I believe they're accurate, please correct if anything seems out of place.

decoste007xt wrote:Honestly for the cost of a Landraider with Khorne Berzerkers you could have 2, 7man Khorne squads with Rhinos, Powersword and meltabombs. I dont see why you'd need a powerfist in there when their wounding on 3's on a charge anyhow.

Not only that but this gives 2 high priority targets instead of 1 (and LR). More zerkers, more targets, yeah rhinos are cheaper but move up 12, pop smoke, and your already halfway there against most foes. With a LR your going to have a big bullet magnet thats also going to be hard to hide in LOS, I've ran my khorne rhinos up plenty of times and put them being LOS, Landraiders can't really do that. And theres a surprising number of weapons out there that laugh at LR's (Zoanthropes im looking at you!).

Because a rhino is destroyed/exploded by a stiff breeze? And then your berzerkers are footslogging and pretty much useless.

Also, the LR provides complete LOS blocking to your princes, not just a cover save. And not all armies are loaded to the gills with melta. It is pretty easy to neutralize enemy melta guns before they get close to the LR. Then just laugh at the krak missiles.

Kevlar wrote:

decoste007xt wrote:Honestly for the cost of a Landraider with Khorne Berzerkers you could have 2, 7man Khorne squads with Rhinos, Powersword and meltabombs. I dont see why you'd need a powerfist in there when their wounding on 3's on a charge anyhow.

Not only that but this gives 2 high priority targets instead of 1 (and LR). More zerkers, more targets, yeah rhinos are cheaper but move up 12, pop smoke, and your already halfway there against most foes. With a LR your going to have a big bullet magnet thats also going to be hard to hide in LOS, I've ran my khorne rhinos up plenty of times and put them being LOS, Landraiders can't really do that. And theres a surprising number of weapons out there that laugh at LR's (Zoanthropes im looking at you!).

Because a rhino is destroyed/exploded by a stiff breeze? And then your berzerkers are footslogging and pretty much useless.

Also, the LR provides complete LOS blocking to your princes, not just a cover save. And not all armies are loaded to the gills with melta. It is pretty easy to neutralize enemy melta guns before they get close to the LR. Then just laugh at the krak missiles.

i agree that the LOS blocking is great... and thats were is i diverge from your thought.

1) most armies currently are loaded to the gills with melta. mech is key in the current meta. melta kills mech really well. or is there something i am missing?
2) we are talking about rhinos not ork trucks. they can take a decent beating at AR11. you cant just shoot them with bolters and stop them. you need min S5 to glance. S6 to pen. so most people will throw S7 or higher at them. so they aren't shooting the rest of your army plus most of the time if you are doing it right your rhino is in cover so 4+. kinda hard to get a 4+ cover on a LR
3) again the rhinos 9/10 times will get you to the middle of the table, after that you don't really need to go much farther.


good example above list.

8melta guns
2melta bombs

why take so many? cause melta is good and mech is king.

melta>mech

Landraiders also dont block LOS of a Demon Prince.. i don't know how you modelled yours but you can see my Princes head over the top of my Landraider. Both Plastic and Metal DP do this.

decoste007xt wrote:Landraiders also dont block LOS of a Demon Prince.. i don't know how you modelled yours but you can see my Princes head over the top of my Landraider. Both Plastic and Metal DP do this.

They are each modded a bit for flair and fun, but they do not stand any shorter than they originally came. However, LOS complete blocking comes down to who you're playing with. I've come across two type's of players when it's time to check LOS. The first, and more common approch, "Ok, I'm in range and your creatures taller than that object\sticks out from this object\I see his toenail", which generally equates to everything can always be shot on the battlefield as long as it's in range, it just get's a cover save as per the normal rules for infantry (half the models in area terrain or out of view) and 50% or more obscured for MC's and vehicles.

The second type is more fun, and involves doing as the rules tell you to. Take a knee, get down by the model's eye, and tell me what they see. Those of us that passed geometry and trig know quit well that the further an object gets away from you, the smaller it appears. I know your awesome marine has a rocket battery, but if you want to shoot at my daemon prince that's 36" away, that has a land raider 24" in front of him, I daresay that marine can't see a thing, not even his head. It's a simple matter of scale.

.......................................................___--__--^'^..^'^..^'^[]..[]....................................................................................<|||>
o..................................................././................-===:::::.....\\.\\................................................................................,//'{_}'\\.
:-:==-..........................................././...............-===::::::......//.// .............................................................................."".//..\\..""
/\..................................................\O_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_O/................................................................................. /./...\.\
The Marine_______________The Land Raider______________________________The Daemon Prince

Ok, all kidding aside about the ridiculous artwork above, you get the point. The Marine is not able to draw a line to the Daemon, not even to his head. It's a lot easier to just say "he gets a 4+ cover save" than it is to actually look and see, but next time you're in the mood for a little realism in determining your shots, get right down on eye level and see what your army really sees. There are plenty of times when a cover save isn't required, because the poor bastard really can't even see his target to begin with.
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Ok, an update. Last game was against mechanized Tau, the list did NOT include the landraider. As I thought, the berzerker rhino's were targeted first, both were popped by round 2. 1 squad never got into combat, the other suffered 2 wounds before getting there, at which point they were fine but died in turn 5. Plague marines lasted until turn 5 as well, but had to make use of a lot of cover throughout the game as a result of my opponents command squad running around in crisis suits dealing out rapid fire AP 2 nonsense. The daemon princes did well enough, one lasting until the end of the game. I managed to destroy or flee his only troop choices by turn 4, but he killed the last of mine at the end of turn five, and so we had a tactical draw. By victory points, I had a narrow win. The obliterators were the clutch units of the game, and having three firing squads really payed off; two rounds saw three different targets decimated, as opposed to only two per round if they had been 2 squads of 3. PLASMA CANNONS!!!!! Much love.

We played a friendlier small game afterwards, and I decided to try a new unit. I highly recommend 5 chosen in a rhino with 5 flamers or 5 plasma guns. An outflank entry that goes your way can honestly win you the game. First game, they managed to destroy two fire warrior units and a unit of kroot in a single round of firing with the flamers. Second game, a broadside unit sitting safely on his back line was destroyed (3 shield drones are not enough it seems).