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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/leviathans-the-great-war




Leviathans: The Great War is a tactical miniatures game set in an alternate timeline where a groundbreaking discovery has led to the ability to make large objects float into the sky. After the Battle of Tsushima, where "flying ships" turn the tide, the major powers of the world race to forge the titular leviathans: flying warships used to expand power and defeat enemies.


The original Leviathans game was released in 2012 to critical acclaim and was received by a dedicated fanbase who loved the beautiful miniatures, unique game mechanics and immersive world.







Not the FASA game i hoped they'd relaunch, but it may scratch the boat game itch for those who don't like Mantics option (and Battletech should provide enough of a backup income stream to cope with price rises)

Oh, this again

This is the one where their mainland Chinese production partner screwed them over because of a historically accurate WW1 era map that accurately portrayed Taiwan as separate, correct?

I've been waiting for this Kickstarter. It means that the new BattleTech Kickstarter should be just around the corner...

 warboss wrote:
This is the one where their mainland Chinese production partner screwed them over because of a historically accurate WW1 era map that accurately portrayed Taiwan as separate, correct?

It certainly absolutely sounds like something the Chinese would do.

I hadn't hear that version of the story before, but it sounds as plausable as any other that i had heard (I'd basically heard prices were put up, Catalyst couldn't or wouldn't pay and the moulds 'got lost' so they couldn't take the elsewhere)


but yes it's the game that they couldn't get a 2nd printing done

I really like the aesthetic of this game, hopefully they can properly support it this time around.

I am interested for the cool ships alone!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I hadn't hear that version of the story before, but it sounds as plausable as any other that i had heard (I'd basically heard prices were put up, Catalyst couldn't or wouldn't pay and the moulds 'got lost' so they couldn't take the elsewhere)

The official links (and website) are dead likely to not re-offend CCP crybully sensibilities but the article below copying the original press release from Catalyst alludes to it in the final sentence.

https://thegaminggang.com/game-news/has-catalyst-game-labs-leviathans-crashed-and-burned/

Thanks for your continued support and enthusiasm! We Freed Taiwan once…I expect to do it again….

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 warboss wrote:
This is the one where their mainland Chinese production partner screwed them over because of a historically accurate WW1 era map that accurately portrayed Taiwan as separate, correct?

It certainly absolutely sounds like something the Chinese would do.

As a fellow Pole, I'd say any communist/socialist regime really...

Maybe this Aprol Fool's joke from 2012 had some impact on the matter...

 Ghaz wrote:
Maybe this Aprol Fool's joke from 2012 had some impact on the matter...

Spoiler:

The reverse... it was likely the response to it just like the quip I posted above. The game premiered at GenCon 2011 and my friend who went (I didn't that year) was raving about it and brought back free ships they were giving out in the demo games to players. This coverage of the con mentions the start of the troubles...

http://armchairgeneral.com/leviathans-wargame-of-the-show-at-gencon.htm

The sad fact is that Catalyst, after years developing the game and planning for this unveiling, arrived at GenCon without a single unit to sell. While they were tight lipped about what issues led them to show up empty handed, it was obvious that someone (or some manufacturing partner) had made a serious mistake.

The team at Catalyst should be commended however. Using every pre-production unit they could scrounge, and after contracting for custom dice to be delivered the night before the Con, they made an excellent showing. Every player who sat in on a demo left with a model or two, and with a story to tell about what was hands-down wargame of the show.

I think that by 2012 they just realized they were hosed and there was nothing they could do about it.

Any good guides for how to play this? I'd like to find out how it rolls before I purchase.

 warboss wrote:

The official links (and website) are dead likely to not re-offend CCP crybully sensibilities but the article below copying the original press release from Catalyst alludes to it in the final sentence.

Funny to hear a Pole complain about a political party's "crybully sensibilities"

Why do the box content renders show unpainted ships when the campaign say they come prepainted?

I have everything that was released for Leviathans the first time around (all three products; core game coffin box and both fleet boxes) and have literally been waiting a decade for this. Immediately backed.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Why do the box content renders show unpainted ships when the campaign say they come prepainted?

Because they didn't have time to paint them yet. Duh.

Almost backed it then saw the sept 2023 estimated delivery, nope'd out of that purchase real quick. I guess it's going to be a long time before this game ever hits the tabletop. I thought it'd be out sooner since it looks like they had a lot of stuff already designed but I guess not.

 judgedoug wrote:
I have everything that was released for Leviathans the first time around (all three products; core game coffin box and both fleet boxes) and have literally been waiting a decade for this. Immediately backed.

Hopefully they're not in the mothball pile of shame and got painted up in all that time!

 warboss wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
I have everything that was released for Leviathans the first time around (all three products; core game coffin box and both fleet boxes) and have literally been waiting a decade for this. Immediately backed.

Hopefully they're not in the mothball pile of shame and got painted up in all that time!

They're all prepainted so I had nothing to do but admire them!

Still have my old box - if they come out with ships other than Brits or French (say Prussian/German, or American), I might snap them up - if they’re compatible with the old game.

If JudgeDoug or someone else with hands on experience could tell us about the game, that would be great. I love the look of it, but also need to know if the level of crunch is super high. My player group is getting increasingly sheepish around highly complex games (for good or ill).

 Thargrim wrote:
Almost backed it then saw the sept 2023 estimated delivery, nope'd out of that purchase real quick. I guess it's going to be a long time before this game ever hits the tabletop. I thought it'd be out sooner since it looks like they had a lot of stuff already designed but I guess not.

A year to produce pre-painted plastic miniatures sounds like a reasonable turn-around in the current global supply chain environment.

The ships seem seriously under-armed - little turrets here and there - not at all what I was expecting.

And I heard that this game didn't come out originally because they lost their shipment of all their products or something? I guess there was more to the story.

 insaniak wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
Almost backed it then saw the sept 2023 estimated delivery, nope'd out of that purchase real quick. I guess it's going to be a long time before this game ever hits the tabletop. I thought it'd be out sooner since it looks like they had a lot of stuff already designed but I guess not.

A year to produce pre-painted plastic miniatures sounds like a reasonable turn-around in the current global supply chain environment.

I guess, but to me it feels like a year long pre order. I don't even pre order video games anymore, let alone something like this. It looks like the kickstarter is meeting it's $$ goals just fine considering it started less than 24 hours ago. If i'm still interested in the game in a year, then i'll see about picking it up.

 warboss wrote:
This is the one where their mainland Chinese production partner screwed them over because of a historically accurate WW1 era map that accurately portrayed Taiwan as separate, correct?

Actually, why does a WWI game include Taiwan as a separate entity? Disregarding the politics here, and whether Taiwan should be independent, the island was part of the Republic of China until '49, when the dicatorship fled to the island to prevent being murdered by the folks they'd been oppressing.

 Laughing Man wrote:

Actually, why does a WWI game include Taiwan as a separate entity? Disregarding the politics here, and whether Taiwan should be independent, the island was part of the Republic of China until '49, when the dicatorship fled to the island to prevent being murdered by the folks they'd been oppressing.

Taiwan was under Japanese rule during the first half of the Twentieth Century.

As for the rest of your comment, take your propaganda to a site that allows politics.

Eumerin wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

Actually, why does a WWI game include Taiwan as a separate entity? Disregarding the politics here, and whether Taiwan should be independent, the island was part of the Republic of China until '49, when the dicatorship fled to the island to prevent being murdered by the folks they'd been oppressing.

Taiwan was under Japanese rule during the first half of the Twentieth Century.

As for the rest of your comment, take your propaganda to a site that allows politics.

But it's not propaganda. The RoC was literally a military dicatorship under Chiang Kai-Shek, until it was overthrown by Mao. Not that Mao has clean hands in the slightest, but Kai-Shek murdered as many as 18 million people, and was overthrown for a damned good reason.

You are, of course, right about the Japanese occupation. My brain skipped that, and clearly needs more caffeine.

 Stormonu wrote:
Still have my old box - if they come out with ships other than Brits or French (say Prussian/German, or American), I might snap them up - if they’re compatible with the old game.

Germans and French are in the starter. Russians and British have been unlocked. And the Italians are another stretch goal.

You can (or will be able to if it's unlocked, in the case of the Italians) get a fleet box for each of those fleets.

Individual cruiser boxes for the Japanese, Americans, and Austro-Hungarians are way down the stretch goal list. But it doesn't look like they plan to release fleet boxes for those nations during the kickstarter.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Laughing Man wrote:

But it's not propaganda. The RoC was literally a military dicatorship under Chiang Kai-Shek, until it was overthrown by Mao. Not that Mao has clean hands in the slightest, but Kai-Shek murdered as many as 18 million people, and was overthrown for a damned good reason.

You are, of course, right about the Japanese occupation. My brain skipped that, and clearly needs more caffeine.

It's propaganda. Yes, I'm aware of what China was during the first half of the Twentieth Century. It was a "united in name only" country divided amongst multiple corrupt warlords, with a nominal government in Nanjing that didn't have control over large chunks of the country (and whose ruler got himself kidnapped by one of his supposed underlings... at the urging of Mao, btw). And then the Japanese invaded, took over the eastern half of the country (i.e. the parts that mattered, mostly) for longer than the entire duration of World War 2 in Europe, and... horrific things happened in those parts of the country.

In any case, I know enough about the Chinese civil war to appreciate that "chased out by the people they'd murdered" is grossly inaccurate.

But again, this is not a political site. So I'm reluctant to derail this thread by going into the details, particularly on a topic of this complexity.

Indeed. This is not the place for that particular discussion.

Does a single "fleet box" represent the standard sized game? Just trying to gauge the value proposition here.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Does a single "fleet box" represent the standard sized game? Just trying to gauge the value proposition here.

I believe it does. On their AMA (here: https://monstersinthesky.com/index.php/2022/07/21/leviathans-ama/ ) they mention a fleet box being a standard play force, with play being targeted around (IIRC) maybe half a dozen ships a side?