A Berserk board game is in the works

[Walter]

There are a few very strange things about this game. For one, it names previously unnamed apostles:

It also includes some weirdly named ability cards, like when Guts deflects an attack, it's called:

I think the overall design looks really professional. The figures are small (they're always small in such games), but well designed. The character-specific traits come across well even in miniature. But these anomalies shown above just give me a bit of pause about how the Berserk license is being treated by the game maker. Where did these apostle names come from? If they're confirmed and from Miura's secret sourcebook well... cool! But I would love to know.

And is the implication of Falcon Guard that Guts self-identifies as a member of the Band of the Falcon...? Or is it that he's guarding against apostles who are members of the NEW Band of the Falcon? Probably not, given that there are scenarios where you're fighting non-apostles. So... I'm just a bit confused!

 

[Beelzebud]

like when Guts deflects an attack, it's called

I think that's a reference to a Italian swording posture/technic called "La Posta di Falcone" or the guard of the Hawk, I believe this comes from Kingdom of Heaven movie(no idea if it's a real thing, probably not) but also saw it in other medieval media like books or series..
It's basically a guard stance where you hold your sword above your head and then all attacks/blocks are blows from above using not only your strength but also the sword weight+gravity. Thus the Hawk/Falcon thing

So they just mixed things to try to make it look cool, but it kinda doesn't because it has nothing to do with what's happening there and also Guts having an attack "called" Falcon-whatever would never happen even if it was a shonen lol Maybe the dragon-slayer will be renamed Falcon Slayer


These apostles names got me some weird felling, specially Hazuppa since to me it's completely made-up, Daroga somehow evokes me something like a Japanese accent pronunciation of Draugr, or even a reference to something like it, I needed to google that name to be sure it's not a name of something else because it evoked me the sound of something familiar that at first I believed was something Tolkien related, maybe because it's similar to Dagor Dagorath(that's not a character). I would believe if this name really came from Miura even if on a sole note without linking to any character/place/thing, sounds like a word plays he would've done, I guess we'll never know.
I think they just choose unnamed apostles on purpose so it doesn't fell weird to have then like pawns, but they need to be named something..


Overall I liked it very much, the mechanics looks cool, top quality, the cards are well designed and they chosen good panels for battle moves. I would buy it even without enough friends to play

 

[Aazealh]

I think that's a reference to a Italian swording posture/technic called "La Posta di Falcone" or the guard of the Hawk, I believe this comes from Kingdom of Heaven movie(no idea if it's a real thing, probably not) but also saw it in other medieval media like books or series..
It's basically a guard stance where you hold your sword above your head and then all attacks/blocks are blows from above using not only your strength but also the sword weight+gravity.

So they just mixed things to try to make it look cool, but it kinda doesn't because it has nothing to do with what's happening there

That particular name for a high guard does indeed look like it comes from that movie. Using that name here is a really stupid idea because it just invites confusion, and as you said Guts is also not even using a specific posture in the scene they're depicting, he merely reacts to Serpico's stratagem in an unexpected way. 0/10.

I would believe if this name really came from Miura even if on a sole note without linking to any character/place/thing, sounds like a word plays he would've done, I guess we'll never know.

I can guarantee you these names didn't come from Miura, otherwise we'd know about it.

 

[Aazealh]

I've solved the mystery behind those apostle names.

A forum member that wishes to stay anonymous contacted the board game creator and asked him directly where they came from. He replied that they were provided by Hakusensha. I was shown the exchange.

This was surprising to me, and I had an intuition that prompted me to check the volume. Took mere seconds and bingo, there it was: those "names" are taken from random bits these two apostles say before dying.

For those who can read Hiragana, you'll see that the above panel says "Hazuppua" while the bottom left bubble has the guy say "Ide darougaaaa". Both are mangled speech, the one on top because his face is getting split from the inside, the other because he talks while transforming.

Honestly, it's a puzzling – and pretty stupid – choice to have phonetically taken these random bits of dialogue to name these guys (they could have just been Apostle type 1 and type 2, like the villagers and nobles or the Daka). I'm not going to accuse the game designer of lying, but I have a hard time believing a Japanese person would do something like that. Either way, these are definitely not real names and should be disregarded.

 

[Walter]

Wow, that's pretty silly. I can't imagine a native Japanese speaker would see those garbled lines (in hiragana) and think: "That must be their name!"

Imagine being punched in the throat, and when the police arrive and ask who did this, you're still wheezing, so they write down the suspect as "Count Breeve."

 

[Aazealh]

Wow, that's pretty silly. I can't imagine a native Japanese speaker would see those garbled lines (in hiragana) and think: "That must be their name!"

Just to be clear, nobody (Japanese native or not) could possibly be mistaken that these are names. Whoever did this deliberately took random sentence fragments and decided to call it a day, knowing full well they were pulling some big bullshit. I find it quite disrespectful towards fans, especially since this will inevitably confuse people beyond the scope of this board game, who might use it as an "official" reference because they don't know any better.

 

[Aazealh]

So the campaign launched yesterday and it's the full package for a pretty good launch price: just 199 euros. There's also a "Black Swordsman solo expansion set" that's sold separately for 79 euros. That's great value overall (better than for their previous titles) and unsurprisingly they've met their goals with over a million euros pledged so far.

Delivery is planned for November 2026.

 

[Walter]

That price is doable. I might get it after all!

 

[Grail]

Cool, thank you for the summary. That price definitely seems reasonable. I guess it's time to finally start practicing miniature painting!

 

[Beelzebud]

The solo expansion set looks very good, we can play with Guts and have Puck as a "pet"

Also it includes a bunch of nice miniatures. The BYOA capability is also cool, I would love to see what members here can came up for campaigns.

I think I'll get both of them and hope to get it to next year Christmas(delivery time expected to November 2026)

The cherry on top to me it's the Griffith exclusive miniature, a good surprise and it looks very good. It comes together with a enemy card so it's fully "playable"! (as an enemy)

 

[Beelzebud]

They release the biggest update until now, which includes an All-In option with all add-on and expansion for a discount price, and also a God Hand members add-on with the five miniatures and enemy cards.

For 335€ I think it's worth it mainly because of the miniatures(and I loved the dice tray) and the sleeves adds a big plus if you're mainly "collector" and not a player.

But I need to admit that it's a bit expensive for the size of the game itself with only 11 adventures. They do not seem to have some randomness needed to do a bunch of replays, but personally I'm good with it because it's then more faithful to the manga.

 

[Aazealh]

For 335€ I think it's worth it mainly because of the miniatures(and I loved the dice tray) and the sleeves adds a big plus if you're mainly "collector" and not a player.

Sleeves cost nothing and are only useful if you play the game a lot. For a collector who might not even open the box they have no real value. Anyway, this is a clever upselling technique, they're boosting the price by 50-75% just with add-ons.

 

[LolRose]

Not a huge fan of the Femto model to be honest, think the other members look pretty alright but something about him is seemingly off. Maybe it is the base.

 

[Beelzebud]

Sleeves cost nothing and are only useful if you play the game a lot.

I agree, but honestly all the other add-ons and expansions, just considering product value, are worth the money(to me) even paying individually for them.

All the previous add-ons + expansion announced already had the same cost of 335€, and the sleeves + God Hand Add-on were announced together with the All-in, so for someone who would already get everything it's like you're getting the sleeves + God Hand "for free"

If it was to pick each individually I would pass the extra dice set and the sleeves as they do not add much personal value to me, the God Hand seems a bit expensive for only 5 figures and enemy cards, but it has a big personal value so I would get it anyway.

In my case I would get this:

But instead I got the all-in for -10€ + sleeves + double the dices and the fake leather bag(which is not worth the money but it's cool)

To me it's a good deal
And I work with marketing so I know I'm being induced to believe that I'm getting a discount while I'm actually spending more

And if you take in account the value announced to the post-campaign retail, individually picking all the items sums up to 514€, that's completely out of my pocket range haha

 

[Aazealh]

Not a huge fan of the Femto model to be honest, think the other members look pretty alright but something about him is seemingly off. Maybe it is the base.

His proportions are a little off, and his wing(s) looks wrong, they made it like a cape that's flying off dynamically while it's longer and more static in the original, wrapping around his body (which makes sense since it's a part of said body and not some adornment).

And I work with marketing so I know I'm being induced to believe that I'm getting a discount while I'm actually spending more

Well as long as you're aware then it's OK. A grown man ought to be free to spend his hard-earned money however he wants, and there are worse ways to blow 300€. I'll probably get it too.

And if you take in account the value announced to the post-campaign retail, individually picking all the items sums up to 514€, that's completely out of my pocket range haha

This is also just marketing to induce FOMO. They'll only have a few units for stragglers, the bulk of buyers are getting it now.

 

[Beelzebud]

His proportions are a little off, and his wing(s) looks wrong, they made it like a cape that's flying off dynamically while it's longer and more static in the original, wrapping around his body (which makes sense since it's a part of said body and not some adornment).

Yes! I thought it was the cape but wasn't sure. People keep talking about his stance with the closed fist like he's about to bump some friend, but I'm okay with that it's not a big deal as it's when he used his powers for the first time trying to smash SK, but it's for sure the cape/wing that seems wrong.

Well as long as you're aware then it's OK. A grown man ought to be free to spend his hard-earned money however he wants, and there are worse ways to blow 300€. I'll probably get it too.

Hahaha honestly it's been I time since I spent anything around this value exclusively to me, and it fells worth each every drop of sweat from my hard work (although I work at home in pajamas )

 

[Aazealh]

The crowdfunding ended today with 2,733,772.28 euros (~3.185 million dollars) pledged by 7689 backers.

It's their biggest campaign to date, ahead of Mythic Battle (1.945 million euros from 6278 backers), a Conan expansion (1.7 million from 7572 backers) and Champions of Rokugan (1.65 million from 5683 backers) based on Legend of the Five Rings. Obviously the Berserk license is a draw but it seems that it didn't necessarily bring all that many more people than usual and instead amounted to bigger pledges on average.

For the record, here are the rewards that were offered over the course of the campaign. Delivery is announced for November 2026, so a full year from now.

Note that, uncharacteristically for European prices, this doesn't include VAT. So the standard "Berserker Pledge" is actually 239€ (~$278) while the "Eclipse Pledge with Shaded Miniatures" is really 486€ (~$580).

The "Late Pledges" system will open on November 13 for those who missed the campaign. It's also a foregone conclusion that they will do an expansion or two in the future.