Gen Con 2022: Acclaimed Leviathans steampunk miniatures wargame returns

LeviathansThe ambitious Steampunk Airship Miniatures game is being revived after more than eleven years. A crowdfunding campaign will go live Aug. 2 just before the Gen Con tabletop gaming convention, Indianapolis, Indiana. Publisher Catalyst Game Labs, the tabletop home of BattleTech, has a Kickstarter campaign. and Shadowrun franchises) has cleared the deck, as it were, overcoming a decade’s worth of impediments to bring the epic game to market in a proper fashion. Polygon talked about the project in July with Randall Bills, co-creator of company.

Catalyst is a popular 2019 hobbyist choice. BattleTech: Clan InvasionThe Kickstarter campaign raised over $2.5 million for the relaunch of an all-plastic miniature line based on the legacy BattleTech units. It was also part of Harebrained Schemes’ and Piranha Games games. With millions of mechs now in circulation, Randall says it’s time to expand the company just a little bit. Bryn Bills is his son. Leviathans line developer.

Catalyst Game Labs

“Over COVID, to entertain ourselves, we probably played upwards of 70 different miniatures games to try to just get a better feel for the industry, and Leviathans is still one of my favorites, after going through all of that, after all this time,” Bryn Bills said. “I love this universe, I love the art style, the ships. There’s really nothing that I don’t enjoy top-to-bottom.”

The historical wargame’s point of departure comes in 1878 with the discovery of the lighter-than-air substance known as electroid. The colonial European power now vying for airspace makes seagoing warships obsolete. The franchise is very reminiscent of the universe from 1920+, which was used as the base for the successful strategy game. ScytheBut without pastoral kitsch. It is all out war. This will be the opening of the game in 1910 with an all-out engagement at France-German frontier.

“LeviathansAt its most basic, it is a series of giant battleships that fly in the air and blow each other up. The steampunk genre is most focused on dirigibles with flapping wings. It’s a very cool design. LeviathansThis is a unique invention because it literally takes World War I and World War II battleships, and applies magic to them before throwing them in the air. These are huge machines that have massive chunks of metal falling apart. Just a whole different scale going on this version of steampunk warships than what is out there.”

Catalyst Game Labs

LeviathansIt has remained largely the same since its debut in 2011. The proprietary color-coded dice system is used to speed up engagements. It focuses on concepts like penetration and armor statistics (a holdover). BattleTech universe). Modern skirmishes such as Necromunda And WarcryYou only need a few miniaturized pieces to begin. There are basic and advanced levels, as well as systems for momentum and elevation. Final product will include a starter set of four ships, four dice, four standees, four miniatures pre-painted to four inches, and a starter set worth $70. Although manufacturing samples are currently underway, the aim is to produce miniatures with the same off-the shelf detail as the main product. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game And Star Wars: Armada.

Catalyst Game Labs

“We decided to have a smaller starter box, with not a full set per side, to let people understand and get into the game without having to commit to, you know, the $100 coffin box. […] The dice are simple, the cards, the whole — everything is supposed to make it easy,” Bryn said. “And so that was just another goal of making this an entry-level product for people getting into tabletop.”

There will be different statistics and sizes for ships. These include slower, more heavily-armored Leviathan-class battleships and then faster, ship-of the-line-armored cruisers. There will also be smaller attack aircraft in the game — not as miniatures, at least at first. They’ll use tokens for now.

To make the game more appealing to wider audiences, issues related to colonialism will be considered. However, the new updated version of Puerto Rico from Ravensburger is adjusting its timeline — among other things — to refocus the gameplay on local farmers rather than colonial governors, LeviathansIt is keeping most of its original timeline intact.

“The world [of Leviathans] is not a great world,” Bryn Bills said. “That’s not something we necessarily want to avoid, but it is something we definitely want to deal with. […]White men were in control, especially in Europe. [at the start of WWI]; it was all men in charge of the nations.” Other fictional departures will be included as the game’s narrative timeline tracks on. The British monarchy won’t be the only one with a woman at the helm, for instance.

“Especially for the British, India is a big part of what they are, and trying to let Indians be a bigger part of the British Empire — not by ignoring the fact that they shouldn’t be, but still giving them the power to do things. One of the main characters we have for the British is an Indian captain who’s dealing with the fact that he can’t actually be a captain. But he’s good enough that they just kind of let it slide, and dealing with what he has to overcome because of those prejudices during this conflict.”

In addition to a point system, the last game will include campaign play and competitive match play. A fiction anthology has been released already in 2021. It includes work from alternate history author Harry Turtledove — as well as key art from the late Doug Chaffee.