Blue Force

A few years back North Star began releasing a range of 36mm (1/48th) Weird War Two models under the title of Projekt X. One thing led to another and Nick at North Star asked me to develop a game for the figure range. Matthew Hartley concentrated on the rules system and I worked on developing a coherent background with the emphasis on a still top secret history and classified scientific experiments, researching a lot of secret weapons ideas and units in the process.

Whilst we successfully demoed the game at Salute in 2004, Nick decided to give up on the idea so I decided that Wessex Games would release it as Geheimkrieg, removing any Projekt X references whilst keeping the core of what I'd developed. Part of this background is the British Blue Force, a top secret organisation dedicated to fighting the secret Nazi menace.

Subsequent to this Rob Broom at Scarab Miniatures has bought the Projekt X line (including these miniatures) and is developing his own rules and background so rather bizarrely we'll probably end up with Blue Force appearing in two games, which is kind of cool!

Anyway, what about the miniatures. Richard Ansell sculpted a small range of Blue Force miniatures, working in conjunction with me as I fed him background and weapon developments for the Allied secret forces. All the photos here are from the models I painted for the game back in 2004.

The Death Ray (above) is my favourite. Based on the real-life research of Harry Grindell Matthews, the model itself was based on a front cover drawing of a large Death Ray downing a Stuka over England on the cover of an old Fortean Times. The article from the magazine can be read here.

The Magnetron Gun is also based on real science (though its effects are exaggerated). The research which led to microwave ovens also led to the discovery of magnetrons and for a short while they were considered for military use. The sten gunner is a converted WWII Brit from the regular North Star 36mm WWII range.

The Battlesuits were Britain's answer to the German Mechannischritter and without the access to the high tech the Germans had, the Brits developed a hydraulic exo-skeleton to propel an armoured battlesuit across the battlefield. Lovely models by Richard, this are just so British looking and quite archaic compared to their German equivalents (the sniper at the top of the page sports a Boyes AT rifle as an anti-Mechannischritter weapon).

So what about Geheimkrieg? Well it's still in line to be published, Matthew is currently developing some optional rules to allow players to play the game using 15mm miniatures on Flames of War style multiple bases which should expand its usefulness to Weird War gamers.