- Note

Please note! This page relies on machine translation, so it's bound to have mistakes! It's provided only for convenience, as an easier way to read these translations until such a time that better translations become available.

Smack Zoids!

Now that the TV anime has concluded, there's never been a better time to expect Zoids fans all over the country to be inspired. This corner has been slightly renewed for the new era. We'll be taking a more eccentric approach, so please look forward to it. Now, this months' theme Zoid is the newly-released Berserk Führer. We'd like to explore the appeal of this Zoid, which was also the final mecha in the TV anime. Please also refer to pages 244 ~ 245, where we'll introduce secret design sketches.

Berserk Führer B-N Custom!

The battle of the Dark Continent has reached a new stage. The Eisen Dragoon, which has a new Magnezer-equipped Zoid, the Berserk Führer, is terrorizing the Republican Army. It's quite ironic that the Magnezers, the deadly close-combat weapons that once brought victory to the Republic have been restored by the Imperial Army and have now become a lethal weapon that inflicts such great damage to the Republican Army. Standing out amongst the Eisen Dragoon, this black-painted machine is the Black Knight. Equipped with the Geno Breaker's Free Round Shield on its left side, the way it pierces enemies with its Magnezers is said to be a fighting style worthy of being called a Knight.

The Berserk Führer's basic tactic is to strike the enemy position with its Charged Particle Cannon then rush into close-range combat, and this battle demonstrated that, given its high capabilities, the conventional Free Round Shield is still an effective weapon. For this reason, the Empire is promoting the deployment of not only Magnezers, for which there is no established production line, but also Berserk Führers armed with conventional equipment that's abundant on the front lines. There are also rumors of the formation of a powerful force second only to the Eisen Dragoon.

- Smack Zoids! B-PART

Here, we'll introduce the production article of the Berserk Führer introduced on pages 201~202, along with a number of design sketches.

Early Concepts

A design sketch of a Wild Zoid that could be said to be the origin of the Berserk Führer. It's described as a wild T-Rex thats been altered by humans. In its frame state, it's reminiscent of Republican Zoids. This is one of the earliest sketches, and where the road to the Berserk Führer began.

This sketch was drawn as a prototype plan. The bumpers on each part of the body are a design feature not seen in earlier Zoids. The image of the armor, etc. is similar to the Liger Zero's Panzer Unit.

A sketch made at the same time as the one above. It has a stealthy armor shape and you can see the basic lines of the Berserk Führer coming together. The armaments on the back seem to have been similar to that of the Geno Saurer.

Initially, the Berserk Führer was being developed under the code name "NEW T-REX," and as part of its CA play value, it was designed to be deployable in both the Republic and Empire armies by swapping out its armor. At this point, it hadn't yet been decided if it would be equipped with a Charged Particle Cannon or Magnezers, and the plan was for it to be the second CA-equipped Zoid after the Liger Zero.

The drawing (top) of the Republican T-Rex features a Shield-Integrated Beam Cannon attached to the backpack by an arm. The same equipment is also depicted on the Storm Sworder MK-II (to be announced in this corner at somepoint), so it may have been planned to develop it as a new design for Republican Army Zoids.

The drawing (bottom) of the Imperial T-Rex shows the design going in a different direction that further evolves the Geno Saurer.

This is a drawing of the Geno Maxi 2, with a more demonic design. The firing form of the Charged Particle Cannon has also been taken into account, and in addition to the deploying armor, there were other gimmicks incorporated such as deploying the forearms to serve as shock-absorbing anchors. The leg crampons and the way the tail is deployed is quite similar to the production version.

This shocking new drawing was made once the overall specifications were finalized, and was labeled the "Gojulas MK3". If you look closely, you'll see that the basic frame is the Berserk Führer. It's a plan that I would love to see come to fruition, but...

- Customization Process

The frame parts use Kosutte Gin SUN for each part, expressing a difference in texture.

Regarding the armor for each part

For this example, we used a test shot of the Berserk Führer. In the test shot provided to us, most of the back surfaces (i.e. the armor's surface) for the parts where the pegs stood were cracked (note: this has been corrected in the final product version). First, the surface was treated by applying putty to the surface and sanding it down with water-resistant sand paper, creating a smooth surface. Instant adhesive putty was used for the small parts to shorten the work time. Since the design itself was composed of straight lines, the edges of each surface were patiently sharpened to create sharp silhouettes. The arm armor was honed to a point where the seams are no longer visible when the left and right pieces are connected. The process of grinding the surfaces and edges requires patience, but it's not difficult, so it was worth a try for the production version.

I modified the Magnezer mounting parts, gluing on a 5mm plastic rod to create a joint to mount the
Berserk Führer's Free Round Shields. These joint parts are easy to install, so I recommend them to
anyone who wants to enjoy adding fun parts.

Assembling the Frame Parts

The most difficult part was the frame. Since the arrival of the power supply unit and gearbox was delayed, we thought of using the gearbox of the Geno Breaker or Geno Saurer in the worst case scenario. However, since it's actually a new design, we couldn't carry them over, and so work on the armor surface continued until the power unit and gearbox could arrive. The frame itself had a nice atmosphere with quite detailed molding, so after painting it in metallic black, a thin coat of silver was sprayed over the entire surface to give it an overall texture.

The joint parts used to attach the Free Round Shield. With this joint, you can attach any part that has
a 5mm diameter socket. By the way, you can create a 5mm socket just by attaching an 8mm plastic pipe.
Theoretically, if you attached an 8mm pipe to the Wardick, you could connect the weapon arms of the
Berserk Führer to it.

Armor Variations

The CA (Changing Armor) system allows the user to change the armor, and the peg sizes are standardized. Therefore, it's easy to make your own armor by kitbashing junk parts from plastic models. This time, we decided to replace the arm that attached to the Magnezer with a different armament. I tried attaching the Geno Breaker's Round Shield, but the method of attaching the Magnezer was different from that of the Geno Breaker's shield, so I had to make my own joint parts.

The decals are created on a computer and printed out on a printer. Even without making major modifications
to the kit you can create an original look just by applying these special design decals.

Painting Methods

The basic color of the armor is a semi-gloss black. For the accents of each part, I used a mixture of Character White and Character Blue mixed with a small amount of clear red.

The teeth and claw parts were painted with Hobby Shop GT Chrome Silver, and the Magnezer blades were painted Chrome Silver and then lightly sprayed with clear purple made from a mixture of clear red and clear blue. It gave the illusion of lightly charged particles (since it glowed purple in the TV anime version...) I made it so that the charged particles are lightly charged, but what do you think? The shaft part of the base of the Magnezer arm was painted Chrome Silver and then lightly sprayed with Clear Blue to express the difference in structural materials. The leg dampers of the frame and the center piece of the Magnezers were painted in Brass.

Since the body is painted black, I used white stickers, which aren't typically used on other Zoids. The BF-02 sticker, which was only included with the Berserk Führer, was created on a computer and printed on clear decals using an Alps Electric Micro Dry Printer. In addition, I scanned the mark for the Eisen Dragoons from the box of the kit, and made a personal emblem of the sword and shield, which was also printed as a decal. The "BN" was supposed to be an acronym for "Black Night" but as it turns out the correct spelling I was looking for is "Black Knight", so it should be BK. I only realized it while I was applying the decal. I imagined a setting in which it was the Black Nelson Special, piloted by Captain Black Nelson, who was nicknamed the "Jet-Black Duelist" and came from an aristocratic family that believed in cavalry combat in accordance with medieval chivalry, and eventually accepted that idea.

To celebrate the new opening of this corner, we'll be presenting three readers with the original design decals of Black Nelson (wry smile) which were created for this sample product. Please send us your thoughts on this corner, along with any requests, illustrations, and photos of your modified Zoids to the address on the left.

* This was a corner from the early 2000s, and the prize can no longer be claimed.