Warheads: Medieval Tales. I've had this for a while and I can tell you guys it's a great little game.

The game is a tabletop skirmish, with each player using (about) 2-6 characters to battle their way along a story arc described in the rule... book... which is where things immediately depart form traditional wargames.

The rulebook for Warheads: Medieval Tales is actually a magazine, or maybe it's a comic book, or perhaps a manual... but really it's a bit of all three.

The rulebook (let's call it that for simplicity) teaches the players the game as they play. You and a friend need only read the introduction, then the game throws you directly into the action, with an starter adventure, wher the two protagonists of the game... Sir Hugo and Gui Le Bâtard square off against one another on a country bridge... You shall not pass!

Which brings us to the game visuals. Justin assures me that the correct term for this style is "chibi", but I prefer to call it "cutesy". The characters each have big heads (hence the Warhaads moniker), which gives the game a a fun feeling that very reminiscent of an after-school cartoon show... in fact the whole game would make a great cartoon!

However, the comic visuals underly quite a brutal, yet simple combat system. Characters calcualte their damage number vs. their target's resistance number and then look this up on a table. The table tells you how many D6s to roll and each character "hits" on a roll of 4+... but they also get to add a skill bonus to this number... meaning most skilled characters will succeed on rolls of 3+. Of course the more successes the better!

But how do your characters get skills you may ask?

Well this brings me to the last selling point of Warheads: Medieval Tales and that's the character development aspect. Each character in the game can gain experience points, which they can then use to advance their skills and become more powerful.

Sir Hugo and Gui begin the game with a range of 5 skills which you, as the controlling player, get to select at the start of the game. However, the additional characters, already have their stats generated for you... and that's my main complaint.

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but I'm a old roleplayer at heart and personalising my own characters is what really sells a game to me. However, the cast of characters in Warheads is ever expanding... they're now on their 4th edition release!

So there's plenty of scope to find some unique characters that speak to you as a player.

PDF copies of the rule book are free and are available from the Warheads: Medieval Taleswebsite, where you can also see some 3D renders of the cast of characters, but look out for a Spotlight video on Warheads and I'll be unboxing my copies of Sir Hugo's Retinue and Gui Le Bâtard's Henchmen soon.

What do you think about Warheads?

Is it something that might tempt you to "go cute"?