John Heder, the actor who took the title role in the quirky 2004 comedy Napoleon Dynamite, has given his endorsement to 1490 Doom, an upcoming indie wargame all about climbing castles in a medieval world overcome by toxic mist. Heder actually played a beta version of the wargame while filming The Grim and The Dark, a documentary about artist John Blanche and the grimdark aesthetic popularised by Warhammer 40,000.
How did that come about? If you want to know why Napoleon Dynamite is even in a documentary about Warhammer 40k, check out this exclusive interview with producer Cody Taylor, studio director Eric Robertson, and film director Daniel Lowman. In the course of filming the documentary, Heder went from complete ignorance of the world of miniature wargames and grimdark model making, to interviewing legendary 40k artist John Blanche himself.
He also tried out his first ever wargame, playing 1490 Doom at a game night hosted by gnarly sculptor Knucklebones Miniatures: the video above shows him praising the experience. The game itself was captured on camera and will appear in the documentary when it screens.
Robertson and Taylor decided to make a documentary about the grimdark aesthetic and indie wargaming scene because they’re both massive wargaming nerds. 1490 Doom is their own original wargame, and it’s pulled straight from the Inq28 tradition that birthed titles like Trench Crusade and Turnip28.
1490 Doom puts a weird spin on the medieval age: a poisonous fog is creeping across the land, killing everything it touches. Games will see tiny groups of fighters, just three per side, scrabbling to capture resources and stay out of the range of the fog while they scale a central tower – and pushing their opponents off it.
Like all good Inq28 games it’s model agnostic – you can create original minis by smashing together generic medieval knights and any bits you have left over from building Warhammer 40k factions. But an upcoming Gamefound campaign aims to crowdfund original physical miniatures for the game, and a printed rulebook.
John Heder’s gradual transformation from Napoleon Dynamite into celebrity wargamer isn’t something we expected. Still, if Warhammer 40k has Henry Cavill, it only seems fitting that the indie scene should have an equally indie actor as its champion.
Have you tried the beta rules for 1490 Doom? Or is there another indie wargame that team Wargamer should know about? Come and let us know in the official Wargamer Discord Server.
Source: Wargamer
