An Ode to Obscure Games: Warheads Medieval Tales UPDATED!

 Hi!

Following on from yesterdays post on Star Mogul, I thought I'd take a look at a somewhat more recent game that never really got much attention but is still in production. (Note this article has been updated with a link to the pdf's of the Warheads magazines which Seb Games have uploaded onto their site!)

Warheads: Medieval Tales was released by Urban Mammoth in the UK back in 2010 and was an interesting hybrid between miniature game and RPG and came with a line of very stylised and cartoony figures.

Based on the art of Stuart Beel, who had previously worked on Warzone 2nd edition and Void 1.1 it was very different from pretty much every game I've seen and at the time was pretty unique.

The premise is that you choose from one of the two initial warbands, the good guys Sir Hugo of Deangard  or the villainous Gui le Batard and their small band of followers and using the regularly released magazine you would play a campaign which would expand the characters, introduce new factions and whatnot over the coming months.

Set in a somewhat fictional England in 1078AD, the game would introduce various magical creatures including a Jabberwock as the releases continued and the artwork of Stuart was really quite fun and could have easily been used to draw in younger gamers who wanted to learn about wargaming and was a fascinating experiment in creating the hybrid wargame RPG that wouldn't really take off for over a decade.

The miniatures themselves were 3d sculpted using blender (if memory serves right) and while inspired by Beel's art, didn't quite match up but weren't helped by the fact that all that was initially shown were colourised renders which didn't give much of the character of the figures away.

I remember being interested in the game when it first came out as I loved the idea of a stylised, small skirmish game but at the time I was collecting other games and it kind of passed me by.

Urban Mammoth ceased trading in 2014 and only four of the six issues of Warheads was eventually released along with miniatures sets for each. The game was picked up by Scotia Grendel and kept in production including PDF versions of the rules and the last two magazines of the run were mooted but sadly didn't appear.

Handily the game has been licensed by Seb Games and I pinged a message out to Sebastian of Seb Games himself and there is plans for getting the ball rolling with the game again, hopefully akin to the new VOID game he's launched.

Interestingly there was a computer game released at the same time using the same characters and art style but I've not been able to find much information on it, or indeed its current status.

What I did love about the concept is that it was so small scale and focused on a small group of adventurers fighting it out in a mythical Britain and each release was a magazine and boxed set that would allow you to play through the campaign, building and painting your collection as you went. 

While typing this article, I did find some painted examples of the figures on the internet and they do them more justice than the renders.

I must admit I'd love to see the figures painted in a more cartoony style rather than the more traditional wargaming approach to really highlight the cartoony style but even with these few examples, its clear that the sculpts are actually pretty characterful and its a real shame that the game never really took off. 

I do suspect that it is in part due to the cartoony style, combined with the renders which put off potential gamers. Combined with its limited release, Warheads is a bit of an oddity in the wargaming sphere but is still a fascinating concept that I'd love to explore!

Hopefully we'll see Warheads get some new releases and support in the course of 2024 as its a rather fab looking little game! 

Sadly at the moment, the magazines are unavailable but Seb Games have uploaded the first four issues of the magazine and they are freely available HERE!

Hopefully tomorrow will see another update on one of the obscure little games that can be found littering my collection but until then, All the best!

Richard