Hobby Update: Free Dwarf Berserker regiments

And up now are some Berserker regiments for the Free Dwarfs! The models are GW Vulkite Dwarfs. The classic, mohawk-sporting GW Berserkers are neat, but very expensive, and I was able to pick these successors up second hand in two chunks for very cheap a few years back, achieving a similar look. And in plastic, these were easier to work with than Mantic’s offerings!

Both regiments, ready to brawl!

There were no stands to clip, and I kept all the various little tactical rocks around to help with stability. Painting was pretty easy. While I want to try my hand at highlights for the army generally, these just got pretty basic paint jobs, with just a base color, wash, and touchup on most things. The exception was the headpieces, which I originally painted a bright red, but then opted to paint over with a few gradients of green, trying to add some of my army colors to the scantily-clad units, and explore some basic highlighting techniques before moving on to the units that would really need those skills.

One regiment, alone.

For 3E, when this army was being bought and (very loosely) planned out, Berserkers looked like some quirky fun. Optional Pathfinder, with lots of attacks, Slayer, and TC1 while charging and CS1 while counter-charging made them a wild-looking unit with a high skill ceiling.

And then the second.

In 4e, Berserkers are now limited to 2 picks per Battalion, which is funky. Lacking CS and such, they aren’t super strong, and don’t have a distinct role. I guess it is a fluff reason? As touched on in the posts about the Berserker Lords, I think the army design has some big misses, and I don’t like the design choices here to limit and reduce the quirky Berserker when Ironguard Spam has been the culprit for the fun and balance issues raised for the army previously, yet remains untouched.

On the table in 4E, they’ve lost a lot of their hitting power and special rules, but got a nice points decrease while gaining a bit of Nerve, being a whopping Fearless 15 as a Troop and 18 as a Regiment, which will take some work to budge. With shooting being what it is, they might see play as instigators and disruptors, heading out to fight shooty units, or as extra thick chaff to help delay an opposing push toward your main line / units. The Berserkers are neat, but I think will suffer similarly to Succubi, where they don’t hit hard on their own, probably aren't worth carrying items, and can only take a hit from trash units, given their lowish Def but high Nerve. They are not a battle-line unit, but we'll see if we can find a home and a role for them.