Been using them as the profile says, but feral despite being 3 points cheaper, whats the big diference bettewn them? berserker its well "armoured" and way more courage as well having a 2 handed sword as alternative.. as all has having no negative penalties for swimming like armoured foes...

Berserkers have higher courage and defense

_________________
Current WIP: SMAUG

MOLON LABE

I'm hearing an echo lol. He pointed that out.

That's all the differences between the two. As you pointed out they're very similar. Not much left to discuss after your outline lol

_________________
Commission Painting @FB http://www.facebook.com/squyrepainting
Commission Customers include:
GBHL Youtube Channel
MiniWargaming

I just asked this cause peeps been saying ferals are awesome and so much better.. I do not think so, its the 2 weapons would give +1A then yea, but they dont so bettewn the 2 I prefer berserkers mainly for having D6 and an insane amount of courage, not that is 2 worried having 5 already but you just fail with snake eyes, so its very likely of all your army to route the berserkers are the crazed who stay behind for the fight.... Also excelent models to charge the ringbearers :P

That is basically it - treat beserkers as units with bodyguard who can kill. Not a great deal of things need courage checks but if you are ever up against spectres, wights, wraiths, black numenoreans they can be easily dealt with whereas a feral will most likely be mucked around for a turn or two - yes you save 3 points but if they fail a courage check for whatever reason you are playing at a disadvantage.

Ents & trolls are quite likely to get a good roll with their attacks, but 3 beserkers are going to do better with 6 attacks and you are basically guaranteed to get them into the fight, not the case with the ferals, and if 1 feral fails and there is nothing else to get in the fight, the monsters chances to win the fight are a lot better.

It depends on what else you have in your force which one to go with, boviously saving some points with ferals and being able to spend it on something which can fill the role of a beserker is the better option as you will have more bodies on the field.

also, lore-wise.. ferals are a disgusting mimic of beserkers.

_________________
My trade thread
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25957&p=325932#p325932

Berserkers are a waste. You rarely fail courage checks at a ferals courage. I used them today they passed like 85% of my checks.

You don't need that extra one d mostly and they extra three points they cost take them from awesome to holy cow I just spent 180 points on a warband

My fury enforced ferals today tasted their share of blood.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

and wat about a 2 handed weapons? captain wins fight, berserks goes for the kill

Consider the fact that strength 3 needs 5+ to wound ferals and 6 to wound berserkers. It does make a difference. The biggest consideration between the two should be that you can field 5 ferals in place of 4 berserkers; more attacks for less points.

Two handed weapons help in that they are versatile for bringing down high def models; there are instances, however, where you need support to ensure consistency in winning fights.

Understand (in your combo of captain winning the fight for the berserkers/ferals) that both can have 2 feignting attacks yet a feral would need 6s to wound most captains (def 7) where berserkers could wound on 5+.

_________________
Current WIP: SMAUG

MOLON LABE

Galanur....ferals have a fantastic amount of killing power. They tore down everyone I faced all day including murder knights of d a trolls the goblin king and others. They're cheaper and let you fill in more warriors to kill with period.

@that guy sure....yeah....but the difference is negligible. You know how many strength four hits their are in tournaments.... my ferals still needed fives all day to die same as berserkers would. My whole army was strength 4.

Berserkers are OK but half a warband is almost 100 points. Good luck winning fights when your opponent fan field almost twice as man troops.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

and if you can field both? would that sound good enough?

Sure if you want a little splash. I would do no more than 1 berserker per like 3 or 4 feral though.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Beserkers are not worse units. The reason ferals have such a good reputation is because of a guy called Dr.Grant who brings an isengard force of 2/3 ferals, 1/3 crossbows, vrasku, and Saruman.

The list is insanely difficult to beat because he is a really good player, and he uses saruman + grima disgustingly well, meaning the game suddenly becomes one in which your heroes can't do jack, and few warriors can take on a horde of ferals. He also gets bare respect cos the army is chosen from one list (a rare sight for top table players)

This fable, and the fact ferals are 3pts cheaper are the roots that started the whole beserker bashing. Beserkers are not unit, but they are the more expensive isemgard 'shock troop' - meaning alot of people will prefer ferals.

so bascially ferals are a way to keep it a bit cheaper and horde a bit more, berserkers are a more ressourcefullness in combat methods but need to be picky on numbers like some casual elite to sneak through the battle lines and take on heavy stuff or help heroes on the killing :)

Ferals having 2 hand weapons is the reason they have 2 attacks anyway.

As for them being so much better than Berserkers, I can see the courage being irrelevant in most cases. The defence though? I swear I've seen LotBR arguing against Uruk Scouts for the very same reason. Why is lower defence not ok on a 9pt model, but fine on a 12pt one?

_________________
Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

The reason I didn't talk about the defence is because that is obviously a very important stat to have. 6's to wound instead of 5's is exceptionally better, you should be going for as high defence as you can. At a tournament last week (26 players i think), the majority of players were using S3 armies, so I wouldnt assume it would always be wounding on 5's if I were you. and it doesnt just apply to combat, you have to think about monsters and such, most of which do S3 hits as side effects.

In regards to what mr brownring said about courage, of course they rarely failed, they had a shaman! There are a lot of excellent options instead of shamans, I know a lot of people dont take them. it depends on what you want in your force and how well you play.

_________________
My trade thread
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25957&p=325932#p325932

well seems ok on 12pt model cause got more attacks and courage.
Its not irrelevant when you fight terror type of models and neither when your army is broken, since evil armies are not know for being courageous, this are the few who are an exception...(so 3 pts extra for +1A and ´+2 courage basically lol

I really dont see way better on ferals to be honest, yea 3pts cheaper than a berserker
- got 2 weapons which dont give em any bonus (other than weapon feint and such)
- defence 5, only relevant vs bow S2 and S4 stuff since you wound either defence 5 or 6 on 6+ with S2 bows and 5+ with S4 stuff
- courage 5 seems irrelevent except when you fight vs other evil armies that reduces courage to 4 with ancient evils and such...

Berserkers for +3 pts got
- + 1 defence (its very relevant for 3 things I can recall, elven bowfire, S5 models, S7 models
- 2 handed weapon (if there in multiple fights that got a winning factor, they act as better as feral for giving you 2 fighting styles, without 2 handed and with 2 handed like khazad guards...not also counting they can feint)
- +2 courage (not relevant in most cases but those 15% you fail courage tests can make diference bettewn charging and fleeing, you get less than 5% chances of failling with snake eyes roll)

First of all, this is the second time youve followed me around mis quouting what Ive said and its frankly starting to get really tiring.

Second, yes, I probably questioned the D5 on the Uruk Scouts to see if they were worth it in terms of thinking for a competitive tournament. If you were to follow ALL my posts the way you blatantly nit pick at some of them you would have notice my army list for months now including 12 Raiders and Mauhur in addition to 12 ferals.

In fact I asked JamesR about the scouts and he solidified by belief in them.
Furthermore, if you looked at my army list I took a Shaman to give these ferals, and possibly Raiders fury channeled on a save of 5/6.

So if youre done taking personal shots at me again, does that answer your query?

=================
@Galanur
Basically yeah, you listed the positives and negatives. The two handed weapon is good till you fight someone like elves which are tournament heavy because then you lose a tie, and to wound them is already only 4+s.
The extra courage is ok but the way I see it any good Isengard should have one shaman at least giving all of your ferals fearless pretty much. Yesterday with a shaman and 4 ferals I trapped and killed a Mordor troll early in a game before he killed more than 1 model.
And finally, yes the defense is higher. Sure thats good when fighting strength 3 Units. But the difference in terms of making it an overall good force ready to take on any unit in the game is almost pointless.

Yesterday, playing the experienced players I did in the tournament, just about everyone threw their high strength units at my ferals.

I had morannons, black guard, a mordor troll, knights of dol amroth, and Bill and Tom of the the Three Trolls all thrown at them. I didnt have any soft units thrown at them because once people here 2 attacks and only 5 defense, they automatically throw their best units at them, which to me, and any Isengard force, is great. Thats because without berserkers, in a 750 pt army I was able to field 52 units.....Idk how many ppl had larger army lists than me yesterday.

Goblin town had 4 more because of the trolls. If they didnt have the trolls, the battle would have been easier.

This whole point is while you have 12 ferals, the enemy is going to concentrate on them....you lose some lower point units no big deal.....plus they have fury

If you put in berserkers, the trolls, black guard, knights of DA still need a 5 to kill you, and now youre losing +3 points per model.....

While my ferals were under siege my crossbows ate people up with bolts or in close combat because people dont realize how tough they are(myself included).
And my raiders ran anywhere they wanted in every game yesterday taking objectives or killing weaker enemies or preventing the enemy from winning objectives.

This is how my army was, and it did well for me, despite having a scenario where I could only shoot 12 inches.


Mauhur
12 raiders with shield
Vrasku
12 crossbows
Shaman
12 ferals
Ugluk
4 crossbows
8 uruks with shield


You have shielding, speed, range, shooting, fury(defense), model count, close combat strength. The only thing this list really really is missing, is magic.

To tell you how I did, in three games I lost a minor loss to a man who told me hes done more national competitions than anyone there, and was probably the #2 guy, the second game I beat an experienced player with a minor victory on a crazy Goblin town board, and in the 3rd game I dominated goblin town because they simply didnt have ranged firepower

So I went 2-1 at my first serious competition with people from other states and only lost to a total veteran of this game. And he got the game from me on the last two turns, me having made a vital mistake with crossbowmen early. The ferals performed ALL DAY and if I had less troops, some of the other games might not have gone as well.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

You know you're awesome when ppl start referencing you lol. Thanks for that LOTBR.

Back to the topic at hand, obviously both have their strengths and the debate centers around which is more important the better stats of the Berserker or the greater numbers of the Ferals. Isn't that the very nature of SBG?
More Goblins? Or Better Elves? Every time you build your force that's your quandary.

IMO the Berserker is better than the Feral; however the Feral being cheaper benefits you're force more in general (again IMO)

_________________
Commission Painting @FB http://www.facebook.com/squyrepainting
Commission Customers include:
GBHL Youtube Channel
MiniWargaming

Exactly. And np. We all learn from each other hear about certain things. Even if we dont agree we see reasons why the other person would do a particular thing with their force, and therefore, how to combat them.

My raiders were great yesterday......although.....on goblin town, Gandalf the white did sorcerous blast Mauhur into the caverns without him being within 5 inches of an enemy the whole game......rip Mausplat.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

alrighty thx for review...

Now seeing either models strong and weak side I will reach my conclusions.
Feral are cheap and nice, but its also nice if I can afford a couple berserkers for a bit wider edge of punch I get around. Either of their tricks lie on the wrist and on the muscle :P

Maybe Ill follow your advice 1 berserk for every 3/4 feral but in the meantime Ill try just berserkers in the army, like 5 or 6 in 500pts and such and see what will happen :)

Thx for opinions they were important