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As I'll be painting a 10-man unit of Berzerkers soon, I wanted to ask for any tips folks may have available. Two things to consider: 1. I'm using regular CSM figures armed with pistols and swords (trying to use old stock from around the painting table), and 2. I'm painting all of my other CSM figures in Word Bearers colors. The biggest concern that I had was that I wanted to keep the army cohesive in that you can tell the Berzerkers are from the same warband (retaining some of their orginal livery), but not simply paint their banding gold or bronze and that be the distinguishing factor. Hopefully this makes sense. As always, any help is appreciated.

I would say definately go with the 2 skull helmets you get in the CSM box set for a couple of them, as well as the khorne bits on the command sprue. Adding some extra spikey bits might help as well. You could always pose them more dynamically, if you're regular WBs are posed somewhat statically. You can cut their legs off and reposition them so they look like they're running forward. If you did this with the whole squad, it could help show the "rage" within them. If you're not going to use a different shade of red on them, I'd probably suggest that you do or maybe give their armor random parts in a spot color. For example paint their upper arms and upper legs black instead of red. Or mix it up and have their armor kind of pieced together using red areas and black areas on different dudes. Or just have them all splattered with lots of blood.

What color are you using for the trim on the Word Bearers? I don't really know what the new version is, I remember it being brownish/bone last codex edition.

The gold trim for the Berserkers I feel is a must, but on top of that, if you are good a knife and putty, I suggest you try to convert some of the swords into chain axes. Extra spikey bits and MoK symbols would help emphasize they are Berserkers. If you are using blank shoulders, you can give one the word bearer's mark and the other a MoK.

I like the idea of the skull helmets. Right now I have one dedicated to my Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor; have all the pieces for a Dark Apostle. The other is free, so I'll probably swap heads with one already built. The Skull Champion is all set (lots of Khorne-esque gubbinz adorning him), so I don't need to worry there. The trim on my Word Bearers scheme is Boltgun Metal trim washed in Badab Black and highlighted in Mithril Silver. What I may try and do is a combination of everything mentioned: extra spiky bits, painting their trim in brass or bronze and changing the paint scheme a little bit to differentiate them. I'm actually shying away from doing any cutting simply because I've never done any modifications like that before.

Use the painting guide in the BRB. It looks hot and they are super berzerkery.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos/VEHICLES_INFANTRY_AND_ACCESSORIES/_WORLD-EATERS-CONVERSION-SET.html

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos/VEHICLES_INFANTRY_AND_ACCESSORIES/CHAIN-AXES.html

using any of these two would seriuosly khorne-up and marines

for the powerplant/backpack vent exhausts, swap those into skulls, and add skulls to their kneepads too.

This may be one of those times where you will have to swallow your pride and ruin your models with exessive GW-like skullohraphy. If you can sculpt a skull onto the pauldrons, to cover the pauldron, do it, and then etch the word-bearer bits into it, or paint them on.

If your main force are Word Bearers, how about you give the berzerkers a sort of flagellant-theme? I don't know how your usual models look, but something like robed madmen with weapons of whatever kind.

I've got two Berzerkers finished up to this point; I can post pictures later tonight if anyone is interested. Long story short, I did Red Gore armor with Dwarf Bronze trim, and am painting all of their helmets to look like bone. I tried to put as many skull and Khorne-esque gubbinz on them as well. By no means my best work, but they're good for what I want: decently painted army that looks pretty good on the table.