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

An Ode to Obscure Games: Star Mogul

 Hi!

As my Leviathan plans have hit a bit of a snag with the expense of fixing my car and while I'm waiting for some sculpting supplies arriving I thought I'd spend a bit of time looking at some obscure games, either from my own collection or some of the little niche games that appear from time to time. Some stick around and I fully intend to pick up a copy someday while others vanish into obscurity (and I still plan on picking them up someday!)

One such game is Star Mogul.

Released in the States back in 2006, Star Mogul was very much ahead of its time as it involves rival salvage teams exploring abandoned settlements for loot while trying to stop their opponents from doing the same.

Sound familiar? The Osprey game Stargrave is much the same idea but with more powerful characters. Star Mogul is a decidedly blue collar affair with small forces, averaging about a dozen figures a side and the odd small vehicle or stompy robot to aid them looting out on the frontier in the years following an alien plague that decimated the outer worlds. 

Coupled with a somewhat ineffectual central Earth government these small companies operate beyond the law and fights regularly break out between rival teams.

What made the game so great was you had basic stats for your team but depending on how you used your experience points, resulted in a vast variety of options for how you formed your crew. They could be small in number but well equipped, larger numbers but poorly trained, add robots, quirky crew chief options and different skills and you could really play about with bringing pretty much anything to play.

As for the game, it was rather fun and leaned heavily into an ongoing campaign where your salvage crew would fight to grub whatever loot they could, and that was part of the fun; you didn't have to aim to wipe out your foes as you just needed to recover scrap whilst holding them off!

Coupled with some really interesting fog of war effects and the ability to really develop your characters, the game was a minor success and by 2007 there were two supplements.

Distant Worlds which brought in the Hydrissians, a reptile like race of aliens who had all sorts of interesting tech and the Asteroid Miners, heavily cyborgised humans who had an absolutely brilliant little line of figures.

The second supplement, Alien Evolution saw the arrival of the X-12 Android Cult, rebel robots who sought freedom from the slavery of the humans and the Mephalians, a barbarous degenerate race which has the remains of a long dead species tech and a crude knowledge of how to work it.

Sadly after the release of the Alien Evolution rules, Alpha Forge was sold to someone else who promptly did nothing with it and the game, support and miniatures were eventually sold on to Mega Minis who in turn broke up the range and sold them off piecemeal. 

Now I believe Armorcast has the rights to the rules and some of the figures but the rest have vanished back into obscurity but I highly recommend folks download the rules and have a bash. They are on SCRIBD as are the supplements and with the plethora of sci-fi figures out there these days, its pretty easy to put together a Salvage Team. 

I'd absolutely love to see this game being revamped with new miniatures, artwork and rules as it is a really great wee game with some properly characterful figures but with the status of the figure line, I doubt this will happen. 

The Desert Rose Salvage Crew painted by Supervike

Star Mogul was ahead of its time as it came out when the obsession with massive scale 28mm wargames like 40k were still strong and the niche skirmish market hadn't really developed into what we see today but if you're looking for a small skirmish game that feels a bit Necromunda meets Outland, you can't go wrong.

Looking back at it, I wish I'd picked up more of the range when they were available as I had several teams including the Asteroid Miners but they all went in the big clearout of 2008 when I went off to uni so maybe at some point I'll expend some more time on putting together two salvage crews and playing through the scenarios in the core book.

A Demo-Bot trundles through an abandoned settlement somewhere on the border 

I used to own all the books in physical format but now only have the PDF's so do plan on getting them printed out at some point and will get them bound so I can relive the pleasure of reading them.

A Salvage crew captain with trusty robot minion

Looking through my blog, I can see that I've posted about the game before and even played a game using 15mm figures which can be found HERE and HERE. I'm fairly sure I got some of the rules wrong but it gives a bit of an idea of the game.

I look forward to posting more gubbins over the coming week while I await sculpting supplies to get on with my Leviathan project but in the meantime, thanks for getting this far and All the best!

Richard

A Spanner in the Works

 Hi!

I've been quietly working away on my 2024 Leviathan plans but have hit a bit of an issue, namely my car going in for a service which has resulted in £600+ of work needing done on it.

Where's a Technomancer when you need one!

Unsurprisingly the repairs are taking precedence so my hobby budget is taking a massive hit for the foreseeable future so I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board with my plans for a years worth of gaming and really concentrate on gaming on a shoestring.

Now this still leaves me with some interesting options but its going to involve a lot less painting miniatures than I'd foreseen, at least in the scale I'd planned.

As I see things, I've got several options left open to me, all of which I should be able to do pretty much for free:

Option 1: Give up. Write off the whole thing and give up. This is a rubbish option that I shall immediately discard as stupid and defeatist!

Option 2: Go back to my sci-fi stuff as I've got enough painted figures and terrain to keep me entertained for years to come, not to mention quite a decent stack of unpainted stuff that I can work on.

Nexus Rebellion troopers

This option is a fairly easy one to do but I really feel that 2024 is the year I need to get Leviathan out of my head and onto the table so we go onto the other options:

Option 3: Make it myself but small! Essentially go back to 2008ish and make some 15mm scale warbands myself from greenstuff.

The original Boar Company

Now this option actually has some possibilities as I can sculpt 15mm quite quickly and include some bigger monsters without too much effort so its feasible to make a warband in a week, paint it and get it ready to play in a similar amount of time. Combined with the smaller playing area and it may be a bit of a winner. My only issue with this is that there is a limited amount of detail I can feasibly get into these little guys and the visuals are important to me.

Option 4: SD shenanigans! As above but with my larger scale figures. I must admit that this is my preferred option as I love making these characterful little figures and while it's a bit more effort than the 15mm option, its a pleasure to work on them.

Option 5: Papercraft it! I've been experimenting with Papercraft miniatures for a couple of years now so I could make entire warbands in a week and play campaigns easily.

I must admit that this is quite a tempting option as its super cheap but I hark back to the importance of the visual and while I love making the paper standees, I can't help but feel that its cheating somewhat as they're not 'proper' miniatures.

I think I'm going to go ponder a bit and put together a few bits and bobs and see what I like the best but I refuse to let my hobby be derailed before we even reach the end of January.

I'll post my progress in the next couple of days and hopefully I'll have something more concrete to show in my next post.

In the meantime, All the best!

Relics: The Return!

 Hi!

A quick interlude from my Leviathan stuff as today saw the announcement of the return of Relics the wargame!

As per usual my obsession with out of production games that virtually nobody plays has struck. Back in 2010, a small miniatures company called Tor Gaming released some super quirky figures that they classed as Stitchpunk and over the next few years the range expanded into a unique setting that featured voodoo doll soldiers, creepy fae and some really gnarly looking Dwarves.

At this point, I was pootling around with miniatures and was pretty much entirely focused on Leviathan so the game passed me by and by 2017 Tor announced it was closing up shop and the game and miniatures were sold on to TTCombat, who at the time were pretty much an online seller if memory serves right with no real gaming experience.

Since then the game has sat fallow as TTCombat focused on other games, namely Dropzone, Dropfleet and Carnivale and the Relics community on Facebook began to dry up and it appeared that the game was well and truly dead as while the 2nd edition of the rules were available as a pdf, the miniatures themselves, so unique a selling point of the game were unavailable.

Now we find ourselves in 2024 and TTCombat has announced that they are re-releasing the game with newly mastered models and the original range will be available once again.

Now I'm not sure if I'm going to be tempted to pick up the actual rules to try out but I do think I'm going to get some of the miniatures as they're really characterful and its not often that dead games make a comeback so I for one would love to see it reappear and continue to get support.

The first two factions to be re-released will be Orcnar and Britanan which should be happening in February with the rest following not long after.

If you're interested, its worth nipping over the TTCOMBAT page to see whats available and the 2nd edition rules can be found for free download HERE.

We shall see how things go but its well worth a peek for folks looking for a really quirky and characterful range of miniatures, and hopefully an expanding one to boot!

In the meantime, All the best!

Further Leviathan Musings

 Hi!

I've spent the last few days looking at my collection to see what I want to do in the coming year with regards to Leviathan.

I actually have at least the beginning of several warbands that just need a bit of fleshing out that will allow me to play a number of skirmish type games in the setting, be it Dwarf, Orc, Barbarian or even Elf so I have the option of just picking up some suitable figures to paint and cracking on.

While most of these were painted about ten years ago, I figure I could keep working in a fairly similar style and within a few months have all I need.

The other option I'm actually leaning towards is to go back to my Boar Company SD scale figures that I made myself and really dig into sculpting my own stuff again as its a really satisfying process that will allow me to get the figures that I want for my warbands.

The downside to this is that it is a pretty slow process and I'll need to pick up some fresh putty as my current stuff has started to go off...

I've also delved further into my rules collection to see what other rulesets would fit in with my ideas and have decided that it may be a good idea to have a bash at something like these:

I've got copies of all of them and they all look rather fun so maybe its time I actually bit the bullet and planned out and put into motion a project that would allow me to actually play them. I hope to build up my figure collection using whatever I decide on over the next few months and then try to play as many games as I can using as many rulesets as I can which will be a challenge in its own right!

With this in mind, I think I need to spend whats left of January making scenery which will be suitable for fantasy skirmish gaming in the wild frontiers, ruined cities and desolate spell wracked wastelands of Aeroth and see what I can come up with to set the scene before re-exploring the whole figures, rules and whatnot as I feel that if I can set up something that looks how I imagine it being I can start getting some figures fitted into the equation as I go.

With that in mind, I've rummaged out my old copy of How to Make Wargames Terrain from GW back in 1996 and will be using it to make some easy terrain to cover a 2'x2' battlefield initially before moving onto a 3'x3' setup which is the maximum space I have to work with. I'm also limiting myself to cost and attempting to just use scrap materials and to fit the lot into a single box once its done. 

Is it possible? I have no idea but I'll see what my day off today can result in!

In the meantime, All the best!

2024: The Year of Leviathan

Hi!

Well here we are in 2024, the 16th year I've been blogging which is totally mental! 

Over the last decade and a half I've picked up and put down many different projects but one has kept being worked towards before failing miserably and stalling again and that project is Leviathan.

Its a game that is almost like the holy grail of my hobby as I've worked at it on and off for the entire time I've been blogging, even with my Leviathan blog being my first real delve into sharing my thoughts over the interwebs. This largely forgotten and niche game with its lumpen resin sculpts and incomplete rules keeps drawing me back in and I think I want to actually do something about it.

Now Leviathan is stated to be a mass battle game but one needs a 8'x4' board to play it and large armies of infantry, cavalry, warengines and mighty monsters to play it. None of which I currently have. This got me to thinking that could I approach a Leviathan project in a different way? 

Instead of using the rules and all the massive miniatures could I use another, simpler and quicker ruleset for the mechanics and use the frankly brilliant setting to play out games in a quicker and less complex manner?

The answer is that yes I think I can! I've got a massive stack of rulebooks for fantasy and science fiction gaming and I'm almost positive that I'll be able to make use of at least one of them for a good basis for my obsessive quest.

The next thing I'll need to think about is what scale of figures do I want to use? I've played games set in Aeroth , the post apocalyptic world of Leviathan in everything from 28mm to 2mm so I'm spoiled for choice but I think I'm kind of settled on using one of three different levels of conflict:

Mass Battle 2mm 

Using my 2mm stuff and Land Ironclad rules its a cinch to play out massive battles featuring wartowers, engines of destruction and all manner of other exciting stuff that I expect in a massive wargame and should be fairly easy to put together both cheaply and relatively quickly.

Large Warband 15mm/28mm

I'm still swithering about what scale to go for in the warband level games as 15mm is cheaper but there is something awesome about seeing a 28mm scale warband on the table and by using Dragon Rampant or No Quarter I think I could put together an army in about six months so I'd have two over the course of the year and if I rotate through forces, I'd have two small armies to play by summer time.

Small Skirmish 28mm

For small warbands of 5-10 figures a side, I plan on using Brutal Quest as it is such a great rulebook and I think that if I use 28mm figures for the Large Warband option, I'll be able to use figures for both projects. It would be a fairly straight forward process to put together two warbands and game out all manner of interesting scenarios as I go.

We shall see how things develop going forward as I am more than aware that each time I've tried it, my Leviathan project has rapidly gone pear shaped and been derailed by other projects but surely this year will see me make a go if it!

I think the first thing I need to do is to look at what I've got squirrelled away and then set out a budget, timeframe and whatnot to see what I can come up with and post up here with the final(ish) decision before moving onto the project itself.

No doubt I'll be tempted by other projects as the year progresses but I think that if I can set myself with an achievable challenge and work towards actually getting the Leviathan obsession onto the gaming table, I'll be doing well.

In the meantime, All the best!

Plans for 2024 and Looking Back at 2023

 Hi!

Its been a wee bit quiet here over the last month as its both the silly season at work so I've been mentally busy and we've got guests coming to stay over Christmas so the man cave/library has had to be turned back into an actual bedroom.

This year has been a bit of a mixed bag hobby wise as I've played some brilliant fun games from a variety of games but nowhere near enough of them as the total comes to 24 compared to last years 53!

Looking at my games record, I've played Colostle and Planet 28 most and they're definitely my games of the year as they're both really quirky and simple games that are buckets of fun to play, easy to convert and bolt on extra elements and basically concentrate on having an enjoyable gaming experience.

In Colostle, my character EM-RY5, a golem adventurer has been on an epic quest to save his hometown of Granite Orchard from repeated rogue Rook attacks and I've thoroughly enjoyed the solo RPG and would highly recommend folks take a peek at it as its brilliant.

I've got several expansions for it now which are adding great little elements and plan on grabbing the second expansion and the two new job packs that I've not picked up yet over the last few months and plan on diving back into the Colostle in the new year as I try to complete the campaign.

Wargaming wise, Planet 28 and to a lesser extent, Brutal Quest continue to provide pretty much everything I want in a skirmish wargame and my small warbands continue to multiply and quite a few games have been played with the Death in the Throne Room campaign starting to come together, I'm looking forward to playing it out next year.

Looking forward, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Rogue Trader in 2024 so I can put together a bit of retro fun using the original rules but I'm still waiting on my copy arriving (like quite a few folks by the sounds of things!) so its going to be put on the backburner for a while until it does but in the meantime I do want to continue painting stuff to add to my assorted warbands.

I'm also really keen to get started with some more fantasy next year as I really want to play some grim low magic fantasy games! Over the last year or so, I've picked up a few rulebooks including Rangers of Shadowdeep and Five Leagues from the Borderlands so we shall see what I can put together.

It will be a bit of a slow process though as my painting time is decidedly limited, as can be seen by the palty number of figures I've actually managed to paint this year which sits at a mere 53 which is less than half of last years total but I do want to see if I can get a bit of inspiration for 2024 and see if I can improve on it.

I've got lots of papercraft miniatures that I can use which is an ok stopgap but I find myself really wanting to use physical miniatures, either stuff that I've bought or sculpted myself but with the hobby severely limited in both time and money, I may end up going for this approach to scratch the itch until I can slowly put together a more permanent plan.

I've also had a hankering for something different in 2024. As is always the case with me, I've got a rubbish attention span and have seen several games I'd love to lean into be it Void 2.0, Wild West Exodus, Draculas America, Battletech, Silver Bayonet, retro Doctor Who Miniatures Game or Heavy Gear Blitz to name but a few but I really need to temper the enthusiasm for the ooh shiny new things syndrome as I don't really need to start yet another mad project which will probably end up grinding to a halt not long after it starts.

When you combine it with the old projects I've got such as Vor, Flintloque, Star Mogul, Land Ironclads, 2nd Edition 40k and Somewhere on the Border, I'm already spoiled for choice!

I'll need to do some head scratching and serious pondering but I do hope that 2024 will see me getting back into the swing of things and maybe I need to set myself a monthly challenge to start a mini project that is easily achievable, plan it out in advance and complete it before moving on. It would give me the motivation to do some much needed hobby goodness and if I can complete a project and move on it may be both fun and give me lots to blog about, especially if I only need to complete say a dozen figures and a few pieces of scenery followed by a game being played...

I look forward to 2024 for new gaming and painting challenges and hope everyone has had a cracking year hobby wise and thankyou to everyone who has taken the time to read my meandering blog in its 15th year!

In the meantime, All the best! 

Richard