I was going into a rant about Beserkers in my World Eaters post, so I decided to move them into their own post.

I had a lot of these chaps from 7th, and now they are a force to be reckoned with. Being troops for World Eaters, +1 Attack on charge, Death the False Emperor (DTTFE) (my friends play Ad Mech and Imperium), and charge rerolls from their icon.

Put these guys with a Lord (reroll 1s to hit), Dark Apostle (reroll all failed hits), or an Exalted Champion (reroll all failed wounds), and along with Veterans of the long war (VOTLW) stratagem, they can be terrifying.

I like to run mine in squads of 9 in a Rhino, ideally two squads (one with a Lord, and with an Exalted Champion) for those sweet sweet rerolls. I prefer the lord of the Dark Apostle due to his better gear. I equip the HQs with powerfists (as their 2+ to hit offsets the -1 to hit) and either with a Combi Plasma or Melta. This gives the squad that extra punch vs vehicles and tougher targets.

I equip the Beserkers with Chainswords and Chainaxes, as I find the chainswords with DTTFE and S5 is better than the Pistols shooting. Also, shooting before charging is a bad idea as it can potentially make the charge harder. I also swap the Champion’s chain axe for a powerfist.

Stats!

Potentially this means that they are putting out per squad (of 9):

9 Chainsword attacks. (S5, AP0)

16 Chain Axe attacks (24 with a charge) (S6, AP-1)

3 Power fist attacks (4 with Charge) (S10, AP-3 Dd3)

This potentially generates 6 additional attacks with DTTFE (more with rerolls).

Speaking of rerolls!

Hitting on 3s – rerolling 1s or all.

Wounding most things on 3+ with full rerolls, and against those tough targets, pop VOTLW gives you +1.

This give: T5 and below – 2s. T6 – 3s. T7 and up – 4s. All with rerolls! (Chain axes)

I feel like I am missing something… Oh!

Beserkers get to attack twice now! So all that is done twice per turn… savage.

Charging!

Having a unit that can so effectively rip and tear is great, but if they don’t get there, they aren’t alot of use.

Firstly, stick them in a transport. I prefer Rhino as they are cheap, fast, and can pop smoke. Ride them forward, stick to cover, and pop smoke on the first turn. You can get pretty close with their movement.

Turn two, jump out, use the 3″ disembark to get a bit closer to the target, then move your 6″ so you can see the whites of their eyes. Drive the Rhino around the side, and charge this into combat first to soak up the over watch!

Your Beserkers should be able to make a good length charge due to their reroll from the icon. If you get a 6 and a 1, use a CP to reroll the 1 to maximum efficiency.

General tip for charging: if you charge them around a corner they cannot over watch since they cannot see you.

The Betrayer!

Kharn, Kharn, Kharn. A Beserker on super steroids. There is no denying that he could carve his way through the masses. But I find that he has a few issues that cause him to not be quite worth it.

He is a little expensive, coming in about 60 pts more that a Lord with a combi weapon and a power fist.

Also, I find that Kharn just does a better job at what the Beserkers do, and the powerfist gives that oomph to take out the tough targets.

I however haven’t tried him since he got his fancy new warlord trait, which with a single tick would push him into S7 tier which make him a bit better vs those vehicles. But he has to kill those special targets first.

The last, and probably the biggest issue is his special abilities. His reroll aura, although it does all misses, is only 1″ so if he isn’t next to them it doesn’t work. This then ties into his problem with killing friendlies. He is statistically going to kill 1 per fight phase (2 a turn), which can be painful. You can wait and activate him after both Beserker phases, but the losses are still bad.

The Alpha Legion??

Although the initial thought is Beserkers and World Eaters, using a squad of them can be pretty useful in an Alpha Legion detachment. Alpha legion have a deployment strategem which is better great. It let’s you deploy them 9″ away from the enemy at the start of your turn, this means they can move, and close that 9″ to 3″ for a guaranteed charge (unless you roll double 1 twice). Another great thing about this is that you are not limited to a 9 or 10 man unit, so you can go the full hog and throw a unit of 20! Which is a bit of overkill really…

Alas, there are a few downsides. Firstly, they count as elites instead of troops, not the worst, but filling those troop slots helps to fill up that Cp. Speaking of Cp, it will cost you 1 to put them in reserves. Also, you don’t get those rerolls as the lord or champion are seperate, so it’s an extra cp. You can however run a terminator lord who drops down next to them.

Downside

Although these guys are very powerful, I generally find that you will charge a unit, wipe it from existence, and then have a nice squad sat in the middle of your opponents army. They are now terrified of this squad and drop everything on it, this is good in some sense since they are focusing on them, but they are a shame to lose.

One way to get around this is to time all your charges for the same turn. This reduces the amount of units that are free to fire, and also gives lots of threats to focus on.

Another technique is to consolidate into another unit after you destroy the first one. You may not be able to attack, but you tie up a shooty unit, and if they don’t fall back, you cannot be shot. As a note, don’t do this to a dedicated melee unit as they will just slaughter them all.

Confusion

There was originally some confusion about the ordering and things. If the Beserkers charge they get to attack with both sets of attacks first. If the opponent uses ‘Counter Offensive’ they can go between the attacks.

They are seperate fight phases, so everything applies as normal.

Also, you can only attack units you charged so you can’t charge a unit, wipe it, consolidate into another unit, and then attack again (they can attack you however).

I hope you found this helpful. If you have any of your own tips or tricks, please let me know!

Thanks for reading.

J