HAVOK - A History

Back in the long-forgotten year of 1997, Bluebird toys (and designer Steve Baker) attempted to take on the constantly growing Games Workshop with a cheaper alternative to Warhammer 40k. The concept was to create a miniatures game that utilized soft plastic, pre-painted miniatures, and less reliance on glues and paints. Each miniature came with a sticker to texture the miniature’s 35mm base, creating an “all in one package” that was planned to be constantly expandable.

The fact it was planned to take on 40k is plain in it’s obviousness. The factions follow very similar paths, although much simplified even by 90s 40k standards. The factions have one foot placed in the designs of GW, with the other tickling as much of 90s 2000AD as it can wrap its toes around. The “good” faction of the setting are the Nexus Rebellion, the humans of “this universe” who can easily pass themselves off as Imperial Guard without too much squinting whilst the invading from an alternate dimension Karn have more than a whiff of Space Marine Power Armour around their design. Finally come the Pteravore, and a more plain stand in for Genestealers and Tyranids is yet to be viewed.

Bluebird entered the Tabletop market with the Havok Skirmish Battle Set, which included two forces (Karn and Nexus) in equal numbers, each with the amazingly designed Battleforms (not dreadnoughts) for that heavier weaponry and crushing melee. Within a month, expansion blisters began to be released, adding new units (with the rules for these miniatures in the box with them). And almost immediately, it all began to go very, very wrong.

Bluebird had experienced in the past some success by releasing their Manta Force* toyline originally through the Argos catalogue company in 1987 before a more general release the following year. Following this pattern, Bluebird signed an exclusivity deal for release with Argos, which caused two major issues. Firstly, Argos at that time was a “blind sale”, meaning that you didn’t know what you had when you bought a toy release that had a single serial number until you had it in your hand. Subsequently, it was difficult to buy for a certain army or to get a certain unit you wanted unless you were ready to empty the store of randomly picked by staff Havok Minis. Secondly, Argos would not let you buy more than one at a time.

This was ridiculous.

The marketing for Havok was also misplaced, with 2000 AD running a comic that was, instead of serialized, a collection of “snapshots” of the universe, making it difficult to follow any form of lore in the most basic (though beautifully illustrated) of advertisement storytelling. Bluebird realised towards the end of summer of 1997, making it too late for the Summer Holidays and far too early for the Christmas Rush, and as time went on word of the clunky ruleset, which had been designed to be simpler that the 40k set***, became the final nail in the coffin for both Havok and Bluebird. The company went bankrupt just before Christmas of that year, which halted all production of the later and newer expansions.

As Bluebird went under, many toyshops bought up unsold stock at lower prices, which created a strange secondary surge, much more popular than the first as the average public knew nothing of Bluebird’s demise and absorbtion into Mattel, until eventually, the shelves emptied and the stock dried up.

*one of the greatest toylines Humanity has ever created

**Difficult for the average 12 year old