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I've been playing Chaos for about a year now and have wondered whether Khorne Berzerkers are still a viable choice for a semi-competitive list at all?

Short answer, no. Medium answer nooooo. Long answer, you are going to end up buying a land raider and maybe getting 3 rounds of assault. For 300-400 points. So... no.

If you play against an army which marches against you on foot, they are still not really worth it. Too expensive and not enough bite.

They take an already-average unit, pay a whole lot of points to do a job that doesn't need doing, give up any flexibility in the process, and still end up needing a further investment of a transport to even do their job.
I wouldn't say they've ever been viable, much less that they still are. The game is currently hostile to both melee units and to Marines, so combining the 2 onto an expensive model that isn't even terribly impressive is a losing battle. They aren't bad at combat, but WS5 and Furious Charge is not going to let them start fistfighting Daemons, Knights or Beast Packs.

If you want slow Marine combat units, you could look at 'Fauxzerkers' which are Khornate Marines. They come in as less effective, but substantially cheaper and can carry Meltaguns. They also do not need the right HQ to become a Troops choice.
If you want an actual melee threat, best bet is to take something that doesn't need a transport to get there. Chaos actually have a few options in terms of fast melee, with Spawn being the immediate frontrunner. Maulerfiends also work nicely, and you can dip into Daemons for Flesh Hounds and Seekers as well.

The only way to make them even remotely viable is to completely commit; back them up with raptors, mauler fiends, bikes, anything and everything else melee. Then you stand a chance of winning a game occasionally.

Whoops... there doesn't seem to be anything here.

Your army has to be designed around them for it to work and you'll need land raiders to transport them. I played a mono Khorne army at the beginning of sixth edition and it was pretty good. So yes it can be competitive if you have the right list.

I use Huron to give them infiltrate large squads of them. Have had mixed results. Certainly wouldn't win any tournaments, but it's a good way to get the guys in combat turn 2 and is a lot of fun.

Sliding on over to tactics

Yes, of course they are.

They're still marines, and they still have a massive pile of bling. rerollable charge range, rage, couterattack, fearless, +1WS, Furious charge. Berzerkers still hit things like a freight train when they get into close combat, and now that we have 7th ed challenge rules, they can't even get snagged or bogged down by a few of their old hard counters.

As mentioned above, when you take two 20-man squads and huron, your opponent is going to have some serious hurt turn 2 landing on them.

Of course, they are a close combat unit, so they're going to be trickier to use, but if you wanted a point-and-click gunline or to play the game on easy mode you wouldn't be playing CSM at all.

Does that FW drop pod chaos has (deathklaw I think) allow you to assault out of it? I heard somewhere it does I believe and I feel that would make them worth it easy

hell yes they are!! as said above by some game playing pros, you have to build the list around them. landraiders i feel are mandatory. allying in some demons for back field objective scouring and a khorne herald with fleshhounds adds a lot of punch too. the mayhem helbrute pack formation is really good for this list too.

 Solosam47 wrote:
Does that FW drop pod chaos has (deathklaw I think) allow you to assault out of it? I heard somewhere it does I believe and I feel that would make them worth it easy

No. That is, the Charybdis assault claw is an assault vehicle, so you can charge out of it. On the other hand it still doesn't let you charge the run you arrive on the board, so no turn 1 charges.
More importantly, it's the same price as a land raider.

It does carry 20 marines, though, and has not insignificant firepower, so it's a way to deliver an "Oh, ****!" distraction into the middle of the enemy army.....

I think the berzerker box is still the cheapest box of power armoured bodies since you get 12 for less than the cost of a tac squad. That's gotta be worth something.

 Zuul wrote:
I think the berzerker box is still the cheapest box of power armoured bodies since you get 12 for less than the cost of a tac squad. That's gotta be worth something.

Starting a pre-heresy marine with those real-world cheap marines, so yes, it's worth something.

bogalubov wrote:

 Zuul wrote:
I think the berzerker box is still the cheapest box of power armoured bodies since you get 12 for less than the cost of a tac squad. That's gotta be worth something.

Starting a pre-heresy marine with those real-world cheap marines, so yes, it's worth something.

not really with anything in a tactics discussion.

"chaos marine" really need something more than "marine" to get CC done.

zerkers are on foot, thus lack of mobility, rhinos wont help them get into CC quick and surely they will get shot in open so..Land Raider is your best and only choice in most cases, which isnt a good unit in first place. with out Machine Spirit, your LR can hardly have opportunity to fire on someone till delivery is done, which should be turn 3 or even 4. since the 250 pts cost already included 2 TL las and HB stuff.. I'd call it a waste of points.

get juggerlord(khorne), get bikelord(nurgle), and let them go with spawns, alongside some Maulerfiends.
12" movement without waste of points, IMO, is vital in heavy CC-style play, and they are all tough unit (T5 for juggerlord and spawns, T6 for nurgle bikelord, AV12 on Maulerfiend with 5++, all better than rhinos and regular MEQ in open) which hit like truck.

meanwhile they all play disraction roles for each other, you got 4~5 fast-moving terrain-ignoring fists ramming across the board which are all likely to hit enemy at turn 2, every single one can put hurt on almost anything (power fists on maulerfiends and bikelord, axe of blind fury on juggerlord). so you wont lose much CC output when losing one or two of them to enemy fire.

Zerkers have the same issue that most chaos marine units have.
Their 'advatages' really don't make much of a difference.

Chainaxes? -anything that has a 4+ is gonna get trampled by zerkers with or without ap4.

Assault bonuses? -still gotta get to assault... And if you get assaulted there is a good chance they won't beat other assault units.

20 man blob? -gotta get to assault again, and you don't get a land raider now.

At the same time, IF you get there, IF you get the charge, IF you don't get wiped out soon as you finish the assault, then zerkers can be worth it. You gotta commit to using them for berserkers to be worth it. I see hem as a big risk big reward unit.

They use to be extremely good in 5th ed when charging and multi-assaulting was ridiculous!

 SuperBerzerker12 wrote:
I've been playing Chaos for about a year now and have wondered whether Khorne Berzerkers are still a viable choice for a semi-competitive list at all?

they arent terrible, like mutilators, possessed, tsons and warp talons. But they arent good.

Take a look, SW now have blood talons for 12 points. They have the same number of attacks on the charge(4), they have the same number attacks when charged(3), they have the same number of attacks when they are locked in combat(2)

Zerkers get fearless(over ATSKNF), WS5(better than 3), and BS 4(compared to 3) but that is just for boltpistols.

Zerkers also have to pay for an aspiring champion with silly must challenge rules. They have access to hatred, an icon that lets them reroll charge distance and gives them FC. But no TDA wolfguard leading them into battle. And they require a khorelord to be troops.

Not sure it's worth 8 points, or 66% more

Yeah, but let's assume that you take the banner over a 10-man squad. That's 9.5 more points for:

+33% chance to hit

+33% chance to wound

-33% chance to be hit

The ability to easily mass slaughter vehicles instead of relying only on krak grenades

The ability to throw a LOT more wounds down on monstrous creatures (likewise instead of relying on krak grenades)

Fearless

Cheap access to REROLLING TO HIT against like half the armies out there.

Cheap access to Ap4 melee weapons, which DOUBLES the damage done against Sv4+ models.

REROLL THEIR CHARGE ROLL


That's a huge pile of stuff, and you only "need" to take one of the best HQ choices in the game to unlock them as superscoring.

I think the comparison that's better to make is blood claws vs. MoK CSM.

In this case, the CSM lose ATSKNF, but gain +1BS, and +1WS, and have access to bolters, fearless or +1S/reroll charge range, or hatred, all for pretty trivial price increases.

If anything, blood talons are too expensive for what they do, compared to CSM at least.

As a single unit in an otherwise shooting army? Nope.

People act like assault units are bad, because they take one assault unit, then enemies don't get near it, and they get shot to death. The units that succeed in this role are counter-assault units. A good counter assault unit has to be relatively cheap (since you can't guarantee they'll ever be needed) and relatively mobile (since you can't guarantee the enemy will be near them).

Khorne Berserkers are not that unit.

Khorner Berserkers are an assault army.

When you commit an entire army to the idea of marching into the grill of the enemy army, it works fantastically. It's especially good in Maelstrom missions, where you basically win by default if the enemy is busy backing away from you the entire game.

Deathtars, and other single assault units, are lazy strategy that only works until they meet their silver bullet, of which there is always at least one. Assault armies have no such weakness.

Are Khorne Berserkers a viable unit? Absolutely, as long as you're committed to the army they are good in.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
As a single unit in an otherwise shooting army? Nope.

People act like assault units are bad, because they take one assault unit, then enemies don't get near it, and they get shot to death. The units that succeed in this role are counter-assault units. A good counter assault unit has to be relatively cheap (since you can't guarantee they'll ever be needed) and relatively mobile (since you can't guarantee the enemy will be near them).

Khorne Berserkers are not that unit.

Khorner Berserkers are an assault army.

When you commit an entire army to the idea of marching into the grill of the enemy army, it works fantastically. It's especially good in Maelstrom missions, where you basically win by default if the enemy is busy backing away from you the entire game.

Deathtars, and other single assault units, are lazy strategy that only works until they meet their silver bullet, of which there is always at least one. Assault armies have no such weakness.

Are Khorne Berserkers a viable unit? Absolutely, as long as you're committed to the army they are good in.

I agree completely. Any army short of an all artillery guard army is gonna have serious issues the second you throw down 80 berserkers on the table. Taking tons of assault can help to mitigate all those ifs I brought up earlier in the thread that hinder berserkers. Its the same idea a lot of people use with assault heavy daemon armies, threat overload. Even if half your berzerkers get killed crossing the table, that's still 40 of them making it.
So I guess you could say they aren't competitive because they don't really fit into the current meta, but don't dismiss them just because of that. I think too many 40k players get too hung up on what the tournament scene is doing and forget to have fun.

 TNT925 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
As a single unit in an otherwise shooting army? Nope.

People act like assault units are bad, because they take one assault unit, then enemies don't get near it, and they get shot to death. The units that succeed in this role are counter-assault units. A good counter assault unit has to be relatively cheap (since you can't guarantee they'll ever be needed) and relatively mobile (since you can't guarantee the enemy will be near them).

Khorne Berserkers are not that unit.

Khorner Berserkers are an assault army.

When you commit an entire army to the idea of marching into the grill of the enemy army, it works fantastically. It's especially good in Maelstrom missions, where you basically win by default if the enemy is busy backing away from you the entire game.

Deathtars, and other single assault units, are lazy strategy that only works until they meet their silver bullet, of which there is always at least one. Assault armies have no such weakness.

Are Khorne Berserkers a viable unit? Absolutely, as long as you're committed to the army they are good in.

I agree completely. Any army short of an all artillery guard army is gonna have serious issues the second you throw down 80 berserkers on the table. Taking tons of assault can help to mitigate all those ifs I brought up earlier in the thread that hinder berserkers. Its the same idea a lot of people use with assault heavy daemon armies, threat overload. Even if half your berzerkers get killed crossing the table, that's still 40 of them making it.
So I guess you could say they aren't competitive because they don't really fit into the current meta, but don't dismiss them just because of that. I think too many 40k players get too hung up on what the tournament scene is doing and forget to have fun.

Just footslogging them, or pack them into Rhinos/Land raiders? Any other unit, like Maulerfiend, CC termies, Raptors, whatever?

Plague Marines are better in 9/10 situations than actual Berserkers.

sand.zzz wrote:
Plague Marines are better in 9/10 situations than actual Berserkers.

...?

Khorne berzerkers are better against vehicles with S5 on the charge and more krak grenades (because they're cheaper). Khorne berzerkers are better in close combat against anything T2-5 because S5 is better than poisoned 4+, and WS5 I4 is better than WS4 I3. And berzerkers can re-roll their charge range and have access to mass Ap4 weapons.

I'm afraid it's the other way around. Berzerkers are better in 9 of 10 situations than plague marines, and that one way is shooting special weapons the berzerkers don't have access to. Just being a bit tougher against some target types doesn't justify the plague marine's cost.

 Ailaros wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
Plague Marines are better in 9/10 situations than actual Berserkers.

...?

Khorne berzerkers are better against vehicles with S5 on the charge and more krak grenades (because they're cheaper). Khorne berzerkers are better in close combat against anything T2-5 because S5 is better than poisoned 4+, and WS5 I4 is better than WS4 I3. And berzerkers can re-roll their charge range and have access to mass Ap4 weapons.

I'm afraid it's the other way around. Berzerkers are better in 9 of 10 situations than plague marines, and that one way is shooting special weapons the berzerkers don't have access to. Just being a bit tougher against some target types doesn't justify the plague marine's cost.

Hmm looks like I need to take a closer look at the elites.

 Ailaros wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
Plague Marines are better in 9/10 situations than actual Berserkers.

...?

Khorne berzerkers are better against vehicles with S5 on the charge and more krak grenades (because they're cheaper). Khorne berzerkers are better in close combat against anything T2-5 because S5 is better than poisoned 4+, and WS5 I4 is better than WS4 I3. And berzerkers can re-roll their charge range and have access to mass Ap4 weapons.

I'm afraid it's the other way around. Berzerkers are better in 9 of 10 situations than plague marines, and that one way is shooting special weapons the berzerkers don't have access to. Just being a bit tougher against some target types doesn't justify the plague marine's cost.

I just knew you would try to say something terrible is good.

Berserkers are terrible, plain and simple. Also, trying to say they are better than plague marines in 9/10 situations is completely delusional.
Plagues marines have higher toughness , feel no pain, and DEFENSIVE GRENADES. Plague marines are even better than berserkers in assault. They can sit back and not worry about having to charge. Berserkers are completely neutered if they're not on a turn where they're charging.

I would go in and explain further but it's pretty pointless to try and explain to somebody who seems to think berserkers are way better than plague marines, it's a complete no brainer.

 Ailaros wrote:
T2-5 because S5 is better than poisoned 4+, and WS5 I4 is better than WS4 I3. And berzerkers can re-roll their charge range and have access to mass Ap4 weapons.

Not to mention that this is misleading.

Against T4, poisoned 4+ is better than the 3+ to wound S5 gives you, since poison gives you a reroll. And even then the Berzerkers need the charge, far from a gaurantee. Against T5 they are equal and against T6+ Poisoned is better.

If the Berzerkers do not get to charge, then the Berzerkers are only better at wounding against T2 and T1. The former is extremely rare, and the latter does not really exist.

The 'mass AP4' costs additional points, making the cost difference suddenly not very noticeable at all.

WS5 I4 is better than WS4 I3, but not when the latter has poisoned weapons and defensive grenades!

Poison doesn't reroll to wound if S=T now