)[OT] Havok (was: Re: OT: Mage Knight Rebellion

> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 15:05:05 -0700, krs@geohex.com wrote:

A couple of years ago, a UK toy company (Bluebird Toys) made a brave venture
into the "kiddie gamer" market with a system called Havok,
consisting of (crudely) prepainted plastic 25/30mm (GW style) figures
sold 3 to a box, complete with game stats etc, plus three or four rather nice
snap-together plastic vehicles for it (a light tank/APC, a heavy tank, a
rather steampunky VTOL etc). There was also a small boxed starter game with
a selection of figs, rules, card terrain etc - very much "40K lite". The
rules were ultra-simple, but it DID kind of work as a game - it had many
of the traditional wargaming elements distilled down to their simplest form
for young gamers.
Sadly, it didn't last - there were rumours that GW had a hand in killing
it
(though this may just be industry paranoia, but it WAS very GW-style in
the design and I could quite see them dropping a lawyer or two on it), and
everything ended up in toyshop clearance bins - I picked a few of the
vehicles up for the bits box at silly prices a few months back. I've also got
2 copies of the boxed set (also obtained at clearance prices). Did the game
and the figures ever make it to the US market at all, or was it purely a UK
thing?