Are Berzerkers too one-dimensional?

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**AbaddonFidelis**

Sanctjud wrote:Zerkers score and get in rhinos.
Those are at least two ways they pull ahead of termies.

very true. thats why I hesitate to say terminators are the better assault unit.

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ps if zerkers could carry meltaguns there would, imo, be no reason to ever take undivided guys. they're really quite good but one of the main strengths of the csm book is its ability to spam melta weapons practically everywhere; since zerkers cant do that you're really giving up alot.

**WarOne**

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Sanctjud wrote:Zerkers score and get in rhinos.
Those are at least two ways they pull ahead of termies.

very true. thats why I hesitate to say terminators are the better assault unit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
ps if zerkers could carry meltaguns there would, imo, be no reason to ever take undivided guys. they're really quite good but one of the main strengths of the csm book is its ability to spam melta weapons practically everywhere; since zerkers cant do that you're really giving up alot.

It does make the Berzerkers relatively inflexible, but to each CSM troop choice, they have a place that people prefer over other units.

**AbaddonFidelis**

yeah. I just wish they had something. even infernus pistols would be nice...

**MechaEmperor7000**

Plaguies are the best cult troopers, there's no doubt about that (they actually have better survivabilities than the standard cult trooper, can cap objectives and are the absolute best when used in combination with the Rhino transports they get). However Khorne Berserkers do have their perks too. You're not gonna get a better Assault Specialist in the army that can do nearly as much as Zerkers (note that I didnt say they do them well). Also I never said assaulting transports. Any troop choice can do that. But Zerkers can and probably will run up and blow a hole in that Demolisher, Hellhound, Predator or Fire Prism in a pinch. CSMs with Meltaguns that close are not that much better than a squad of Zerkers (since it's charging range anyways).

Giving Zerkers Inferno Pistols would just be broken. There's no amount of points that can justify the hell that is gonna break loose when you have a squad of 10 zerkers pistol a transport to death then charge the chewy center.

**AbaddonFidelis**

blood angels can already do it with actual melta guns instead of silly-assed pistols and its not breaking the game at all. plus they have jump packs fast vehicles and feel no pain. zerkers need an upgrade just to keep up.

**candy.man**

Or another example: Space Wolves. Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are comparable units to Berserkers and are both able to purchase 2 special weapons (though Blood Claws are only able to purchase a second CC weapon if they are 15 men strong). Funny thing is they both can purchase a special CC weapon without having to purchase a sergeant/champion equivalent.

That being said, 2 x Melta furious charge/counter charge assault troops already exist in game and without complaints therefore Berserkers, also being a furious charge assault unit, would not be broken if it had access to special weapons.

**Mentat**

I don't use any cult troops in my CSM army, but I do have respect for the berserkers. I've been tempted to make an all-berserker army just for the coolness of it. Furious charge is great and I would rank them up with the best assault troops in the game. Make sure they have a power fist (IMO), so they won't get tied up indefinately by a dreadnaught or something.

**MrDrumMachine**

Berserkers would be much more worth it if they could actually go toe to toe with another codecie's dedicated CC units. It was shown earlier how they stack up against assault marines but honestly that's a bad comparison because the assault marines are barely cc "specialists". If you want to talk CC speciliasts then you need to look at what 250 points of twolf cav, nob bikers, wyches, beastmasters + beasts, incub, and almost the whole nids codex can do to those berserkers.

The answer is generally destroy them while bringing other things to the table such as really high durability, long range threat radius and duality of purpose. If you could put berserkers on bikes, give them terminator armor with something other than a godhammer transport, or even bring back some of their past survivability or extra killiness (even -1 to whatever they're fighting's save would make them worth it) then you'll find your use for them as a dedicated CC unit.

As it stands zerkers are a piss poor example of what we expect from today's cc units and you'll be better off taking plague marines or vanilla csm.

**Pilau Rice**

Indeed BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD GRAAR etc etc wash, rinse, repeat.

I always have a squad of Bezerkers, I am not a particularly good player but they always do some decent damage against the enemy. The Skull Champ with PW is pretty cool and can take quite a toll.

I think they should have their Rending back though, that would really sweeten the deal

**tedurur**

MrDrumMachine wrote:Berserkers would be much more worth it if they could actually go toe to toe with another codecie's dedicated CC units. It was shown earlier how they stack up against assault marines but honestly that's a bad comparison because the assault marines are barely cc "specialists". If you want to talk CC speciliasts then you need to look at what 250 points of twolf cav, nob bikers, wyches, beastmasters + beasts, incub, and almost the whole nids codex can do to those berserkers.The answer is generally destroy them while bringing other things to the table such as really high durability, long range threat radius and duality of purpose. If you could put berserkers on bikes, give them terminator armor with something other than a godhammer transport, or even bring back some of their past survivability or extra killiness (even -1 to whatever they're fighting's save would make them worth it) then you'll find your use for them as a dedicated CC unit.

As it stands zerkers are a piss poor example of what we expect from today's cc units and you'll be better off taking plague marines or vanilla csm.

Not much of that is scoring tho...

**erwos**

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Sanctjud wrote:Zerkers score and get in rhinos.
Those are at least two ways they pull ahead of termies.

very true. thats why I hesitate to say terminators are the better assault unit.

Point for point, berzerkers almost always come out ahead on the charge. Five CSM terminators with twin LCs and IoS are about as effective as ten berzerkers (same points cost) when charging MEQs, but start falling apart when they've got to kill stuff with storm shields or non-MEQ armor saves.

**MrDrumMachine**

Why do you want you're really good CC units scoring? Shouldn't you leave that to something more durable and able to contribute even if it's on an objective that's not super close to any particular action?

Or are you just assuming they wiped whatever they fought and it's the bottom of the 5th and hoping for a 1-2 on the dice roll?

Scoring doesn't make a unit good, doing well what the unit was intended to do is what makes the unit good. Zerkers just suck at what they do and scoring doesn't help them do it any better.

**Grey Templar**

zerkers are good at taking objectives. they can also hold objectives they take, unlike Terminators who have to let others hold them.

**MrDrumMachine**

Grey Templar wrote:zerkers are good at taking objectives. they can also hold objectives they take, unlike Terminators who have to let others hold them.

If you're going to say it then at least give a reason for it. They're bad at exactly what you just said because they have a crappy way of getting there, they have nothing to contribute once they are there, and they're just marines who will die to any torrent fire or real CC unit.

How are they good again?

**minigun762**

schadenfreude wrote:
Assault rhinos with zerkers is a bad idea no matter how good they are at it because the contents of the Rhino are still there after the assault phase.

By themselves yeah but you should be ganging up on any opponent if you can. Assault the transport with squad A then assault the contents with squad B.

Its not as optimal as shooting open the transport but it prevents you from being assaulted next turn.

**AbaddonFidelis**

erwos wrote:
AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Sanctjud wrote:Zerkers score and get in rhinos.
Those are at least two ways they pull ahead of termies.

very true. thats why I hesitate to say terminators are the better assault unit.

Point for point, berzerkers almost always come out ahead on the charge. Five CSM terminators with twin LCs and IoS are about as effective as ten berzerkers (same points cost) when charging MEQs, but start falling apart when they've got to kill stuff with storm shields or non-MEQ armor saves.

disagree. the lightning claws are more decisive against meq than the extra ws and str. on the face of it it might seem that zerkers will be better for handling non-meq mobs but the difficulty those mobs have killing any terminators means the ratio of kills to casualties stays about even. while I cant comment on the numbers per squad, point for point the terminators will almost certainly win. even if they strike at initiative, enough terminators tend to survive, and their power weapons tend to be so devastating to the zerkers, that the first round is about even or slightly in the zerkers favor, but after that the terminators start getting the better of it. to say nothing of the terminators charging the zerkers, which is a complete slaughter. AF

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MrDrumMachine wrote:Why do you want you're really good CC units scoring? Shouldn't you leave that to something more durable and able to contribute even if it's on an objective that's not super close to any particular action?

Or are you just assuming they wiped whatever they fought and it's the bottom of the 5th and hoping for a 1-2 on the dice roll?

Scoring doesn't make a unit good, doing well what the unit was intended to do is what makes the unit good. Zerkers just suck at what they do and scoring doesn't help them do it any better.

Ideally you want everything to be scoring. It doesnt make you any better in assault, but it makes your army more flexible. I agree with you though they have their problems. They're a good 2nd tier assault unit, but not 1st class.

**Sanctjud**

So... what is Tier 1?

I wouldn't label Termies in that role because Raiders (though cheaper) are not exactly a great combo compared (as that is what is going on alot) to SMurf versions of it... not even going into Edward and Jacob Marine levels.

**AbaddonFidelis**

thunder wolves. codex assault terminators. harlequins. genestealers. you know the score. chaos doesnt have a tier 1 assault unit right now. which is part of their problem. alot of units have delivery problems. I would exclude chaos terminators from the category for other reasons than that, but I'd agree with you that they arent in it. if its just within the chaos codex Id say a good assault army will have a mix of both. you need scoring, but you need power weapons and heavy armor too.

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why does your post count keep going down anyway. you were a plague lord titan princeps or whatever a few months ago werent you?

**Sanctjud**

No idea... I don't really care about my post count though...I'll care when I reach 7777 though.

**Ed_Bodger**

MrDrumMachine wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:zerkers are good at taking objectives. they can also hold objectives they take, unlike Terminators who have to let others hold them.

If you're going to say it then at least give a reason for it. They're bad at exactly what you just said because they have a crappy way of getting there, they have nothing to contribute once they are there, and they're just marines who will die to any torrent fire or real CC unit.

How are they good again?

Berzerkers are good because when they hit a unit holding an objective they will kill it (assuming it is a troop unit) and then can hold the objective themselves, something that none of the 'tier 1' cc units can do. I have done this with mine countless times. I get the fact you don't like them but I have found them very effective and much more durable than the TWC that I use in my SW army, T5 is all very well but they are a big target that gets everything shot at them. Anyway having read your contributions all you can say is you think they are crap and having re-read mine all I am doing is saying they are good so I shan't argue the case anymore, I know they work for me and I have seen them work for plenty of other people. YMMV

**Sanctjud**

Basically it puts more pressure on your enemy to commit resources into dealing with BOTH of the units on the objectives instead of just one.

But this is not really a direct way of making them kill more things or getting them there faster.
Though Mech combat units have been around a long time and have been 'good enough' as I've seen, but yea YMMV.

**Jihallah**

Well... You can use them as a counter attack force instead an assault force, so they aren't really one-dimensional.

...more two dimensional

**Sanctjud**

You can use them lol-tastically as a shooting role with a triple or even quad plasma pistol platform...

2.5 dimensional...only cause it has lol-tastically worked for me in the past.

**Nurglitch**

Quad-plasma?

**Sanctjud**

Heh, a varient of my Crap Legion.

Chaos Lord with plasma pistol.
Skull Champ w/ plasma pistol.
2 Joes with Plasma pistols.
4 more joes with just pistols.

In a rhino. Outshot the Thousand Sons most of the time. Ahh, good times.
Before anyone busts a nut, it was supposed to be as bad as it looks.

I do not suggest the above build... I only did it for 'fun', it ended up being that and more surprising than anything else.

**schadenfreude**

Sanctjud wrote:So... what is Tier 1?

I wouldn't label Termies in that role because Raiders (though cheaper) are not exactly a great combo compared (as that is what is going on alot) to SMurf versions of it... not even going into Edward and Jacob Marine levels.

Genestealers, death company, lash whip & bone sword warriors, Loganwing wolf guard, TH/SS, TH/SS Salamanders, TH/SS BA with a priest in terminator armor

**Sanctjud**

For all those that addressed my question of 'what is Tier 1', I was not specific, but my assumption was that it was with respect to the CSM Codex in itself, which AF did go into after naming what are some obvious choices outside the CSM codex.

**AbaddonFidelis**

csm dont have any tier 1 assault units at the moment. pretty lame for an assault themed army, no?

its only non-csm players who complain about the counts-as-power-armor-craze. I play counts-as armies because I have to if I dont want to get my face beat every time I start rolling dice. when gw starts paying attention to play balance I'll start paying attention to wysiwyg. this from a former nazi on the wysiwyg subject.

**Sanctjud**

It's a combined arms army then.
It's only this way due to age/creep, or what ever one might want to call it.

As to getting your face beat every time you roll with Chaos...only you man. Others are still doing fine and winning in tourneys with them.
CSM work for some and not for others, not too surprising.

**DAaddict**

Ed_Bodger wrote:I don't agree with math hammer anyway seeing as it only proves that in a totally unsupported situation *this* might happen if the player rolls mathematically accurate dice...this is rubbish. Berzerkers are up there with the best assault troops in the game. Of course they are one dimensional they are Khorne Berzerkers FFS. Someone compared them to CSM with Mark of Khorne NO they are totally different for 9 more points you get furious charge and fearless and if you wan to smash stuff in CC you want these rather than the ability to have bolters and special weapons. If you want to melta stuff use CSM if you want to rip Infantry, MC and characters into little bits use Berzerkers. They do need to be correctly supported however otherwise as I said right at the start of this thread they get shredded. There is very little that can stand in front of Guardsman blob squads and survive FRFSRF but Zerkers at least will not run away if there are still one or two left which menas your shooty blob squad will more than likely be in cc when they want to be shooting and then will get hit by something like a unit of CSM which means bye bye blob squad.

To answer the OP yes they are one-dimensional but that is their strength they are not generalists they are out and out close combat monster appreciate them for that. Also if you use them as ablative wounds for a Khorne Lord with a Deamon Weapon watch him destroy any unit you put in front of him (as long as you don't roll 1's).

You forgot WS 5. That means they are hitting most things on 3's whereas the MOK guys are only hitting on 4's. They are one-dimensional though and a "pure" cult army of berzerkers is an easy win for an experienced opponent. OTOH nothing wrong with a core assault unit of berzerkers with Kharn. That should make for 2 enemy threats removed with him or one without him.