Meet the Berserker
The Berserker is one of the two heroes in the Avalon Hill Jungles of Delthrak quest pack (2024), alongside the dwarf Explorer. The Berserker is human, and the pack includes both male and female versions of the figure.
The name tells you the job: the Berserker is a close-combat fighter who wants to be in the middle of the fight. The exact special rules that make the Berserker different from the Barbarian are printed on the hero card. We couldn't confirm their wording from an official source, so this page doesn't describe them. Instead it covers the parts of HeroQuest that every front-line fighter lives or dies by: the combat odds, where to stand, and when to back off.
Starting Statistics
The Berserker moves with two red six-sided dice (2 to 12 squares, 7 on average), like every hero. For the Berserker's Attack, Defend, Body and Mind values, see the hero card.
The Odds of Hitting Hard
Every attack works the same way. You roll your Attack dice and count skulls; each die is a skull half the time. The monster rolls its Defend dice and blocks one skull for each black shield, which comes up one time in six. Each unblocked skull removes one Body Point. Find your Attack dice on the left (count any weapon bonus) and the monster's Defend dice across the top:
Chance to Wound a Monster
Each extra Attack die is worth a lot against tough monsters. Going from 3 to 4 dice against a monster with 4 Defend dice raises your chance to wound it from 62.9% to 75.4%.
Tough monsters often need more than one hit. The next chart shows how likely you are to finish a monster with 3 Defend dice and 2 Body Points within one, two or three of your attacks:
Finishing a Tough Monster
With 3 Attack dice, one attack finishes it only 33.3% of the time, but within three attacks you get there 86.6% of the time. Fights against big monsters take several turns, so plan to survive them.
Where to Stand
Monsters can attack only the four squares that share an edge with them. They can't attack or move diagonally, and they can't pass through heroes. So the number of monsters that can hit you depends on how many of your four sides are open.
Open Room vs Corridor
Front-Line Rules of Thumb
Fight in corridors and doorways. One open side means one attacker per monster turn.
Don't charge into the middle of a room. Four attackers on one hero can remove a lot of Body Points in a single Zargon turn.
Move then attack, or attack then move. You can't split your movement around an attack, so if you plan to fall back after attacking, check your roll first and use it all after the attack.
Leave a diagonal for a friend. A Bard with a rapier can attack from the diagonal square while you hold the front.
Staying Alive
- Carry a healing potion. Potions don't use your action. If you drop to 0 Body Points, you die unless you can drink a healing potion or cast a healing spell on yourself right then; allies can't save you afterwards.
- Buy armor between quests. Each extra Defend die blocks a hit one time in three.
- Back off before you're at 1. A monster with 3 Attack dice against your 2 Defend dice wounds you 62.5% of the time. Step back and let someone else hold the line for a turn.
Into the Jungle
Jungles of Delthrak is a 16-quest pack with branching paths, so your party's choices change which quests you play. The pack also brings Raptor and Saberfang companions into play. Check the quest notes for how they act. On the Companion App, Jungles of Delthrak is one of the supported packs, which makes it easy to try with a Digital Zargon.
Try It at the Table
- Set up the two boards from the diagram with orcs and roll a few rounds of each. Count how many Body Points the hero loses in the open versus the corridor.
- Before a big fight, agree which hero holds the corridor and who takes over when the front-liner is down to half Body Points.
Where Next
- Jungles of Delthrak: the quest pack the Berserker comes from.
- Jungles of Delthrak lore: the story behind the pack.
- The Barbarian: the classic front-line fighter.
- Combat & Tactics: attack order, line of sight and blocking.
- The Explorer: the next hero in this guide.