Love the models...but useful?

Pricey Ferels with axe, and a 1 in 6 chance for a Fate point... (will Piercing Strike survive the summer Rules earthquake?)

That 8" move is interesting, but using it outpaces spear support. And they must win the fight, or they die as quick as Numenorians.

That is my biggest hesitation: with only Defense 5, they will be arrow magnets, and losing a combat gives them a 30% chance of dying (on a 5+ roll) vs the 17% chance (6+ roll) of their Uruk cousins with Defense 6.

Special uses I am missing? Flanking, for example?

I've looked at these guys and I thought many things. Some people call them overpowered, some people dont.

Here are my thoughts:

1-They cost the same as berserkers. Even though they are worth every point, they are a costly model in a list that only really has expensive costly heroes and monsters that are good. They have Azog, Bolg, a horde of trolls, and then Gundabads. You probably dont wanna spend too many points on regular troops...

2-Their movement as you mentioned....whos keeping up with them? Only players who dont have enough practice would make these guys 'line breakers' ahead of the shield wall as forge world names them. Terrible choice...these guys need to be used in certain ways. One makes their movement irrelevant....and thats sticking with your line. Another would be capping objectives. With their courage....thats what they can be good for.

3-Ancient enemies....always said this is a rule that may or may never come up at a tournament. If theyre fighting elves and they have a sword, they feint anyway so who cares.

4-Their fate rule is good. But their defense goes down from a berserker. The high rolls will come, and now they can get sniped by a lucky bow, or lose a fight with a bad roll and the enemy has 1/3 chance to kill them, as opposed to 1/6 like a berserker. I typed this before I read your entire post. So note^ I agree hahaha.

When it comes down to it these guys uses are very specific for such a costly model. One HUGE thing I think would be the way to use these (hesitate to say this out loud so people do it) is heroic combats. You get Azog, or even a lowly captain with these guys, and they likely kill most targets, and then these dudes run to enemy Shaman, wizard, flags, etc......heroic combats and objective grabbing is the way to go IMO.

But if I play against these with Legolas Im going snipe city and using might to bury em.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

I found them pretty handy with movement 8 and courage 6. Pretty good scouts to keep up and moving around grabbing stuff.

I found that now my fell wargs have a nice bodyguard "rule" to protect these guys from shooting harm by staying in their way.

However I do like to get em behind the line after the lines have clashed to pick up easier targets for these F4 2A models..

My thought had been to create a warband of mounted Azog, 6 berserkers, and 2 ogres. It would be a fast moving, hard hitting formation that I could use as flankers, or as a substitute for cavalry. Of course they would be big targets for all shooting and field artillery (‘cause apparently field artillery is a thing in Middle Earth). So I’m not sure how it would work out. Another idea is to mix them into warbands of regular Gundabads and use them like goblin prowlers to trap targets of opportunity.

I’ve equipped mine with axes. I figured since they have “Ancient Enemies” swords would be effectively redundant.

That's quite an expensive warband for a certain use. What point level game is that like 1000?

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Aren't swords mentioned in the Gundabad's Wargear? If there are, then Gundabads cannot take axes.

The Berserkers can be equipped with either sword or axe as a handweapon - the figures are supplied with both as well.