The French Republic Air Fleet
over 2 years ago
– Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 09:22:16 PM
Before going into the French Air Fleet, I wanted to let everyone know that there is a link to a How-to-play for Leviathans on the main page of the Kickstarter under the game play section.
Here it is as well for those looking for it.
And now onto today's main event.
[A quick note for today that not all ships have been moved to the new format, so a couple ships shown are from the original game ship card design]
The French have one overarching rule that defines their style of play. They shall be great at everything, the best at nothing.
They were very much designed as a jack of all trades faction. They have good armor, but not German armor. They are fast, but not Italian fast. They have good range, but not British range. They have good crew, but not the Russian crew.
All of this allows them to be simultaneously the easiest faction to get into as well as the most flexible.
On the point of ease of entry, having the least complicated special rules alongside ships that are all good at anything allows any new player to pick them up and immediately perform well with them.
As for the flexibility, this attribute is where French power is found. Where the Germans can often be out positioned because of their speed, they almost never will. Where the Italians have low armor means a couple shots will kill them, the French can take a beating. While the British struggle at closer ranges, the French have plenty of firepower up close. The French Leviathans are capable more than any of taking advantage of an enemy's mistakes while avoiding any of their own.
The following are a sample of the French Ship Cards with some descriptions with them.
The Grenadier is a great example of French Destroyer capability. With two large turret guns in the front and back as well as steering gear for quick turns, this ship can stay out of a close engagement fight while still dealing out damage. However, it still has enough armor to take some shots if they have to close distance or if a larger ship comes after them.
Most French cruisers are built to charge in and fire off a strong broadside. Because of this ship's quick turns and speed, it can close fast and fire its side guns with ease. After that it can either try to keep up close or pull away if the last turn didn't go well for it.
Most French cruisers are built to charge in and fire off a strong broadside. Because of this ship's quick turns and speed, it can close fast and fire its side guns with ease. After that it can either try to keep up close or pull away if the last turn didn't go well for it.
Fast for its size and with a crazy 8 guns on turrets, the Jean Bart can often act just like the knife fighting cruisers of the French, diving in and out as needed while always being able to get its guns on the enemy. While difficult to pull off, when the arcs all line up the Jean Bart can fire all of its turrets at one target, creating one of the highest damage outputs in Leviathans.
So there is the French Republic in Leviathans.
Monday will be the Italians. See you there Captains.
Lord Admiral Bryn Bills
The Great Update
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 12:28:38 AM
Got some big stuff to go over today captains. There's a lot of different things to cover so I have broken them down into their own categories for easy reference.
How to play
Within the next 24 hours we will have a how to play link on the main page of the Kickstarter. We had some delays with it but it will finally be available. The video will cover content similar to the Gen Con video for those that watched that. However, it will be slower and more detailed, including close up shots of Ship Cards as we are talking about them. This should be a great way for new players to learn the basics of Leviathans and get a much better feel for the game.
Tabletop Simulator
After the Kickstarter closes we will work to create a Tabletop simulator port for Leviathans with all the new bells and whistles for everyone that backed the Kickstarter to use. The exact time frame for this is up in the air but it will be completed before the end of the year. This way everyone can try out the new rules and abilities ahead of fulfillment.
Interview
Today at 4 PDT I will have an interview with Gen Con TV about Leviathans. We will be covering the Kickstarter as we proceed to get the word out there about the game. There will probably not be a lot of new things covered but feel free to stop by.
www.twitch.tv/GenConTV.
AMA
Yesterday I did a bit of an impromptu AMA on Discord to answer questions people had. I'm planning a more official one for this Saturday 8/13/2022 from 5-6pm PDT. Please come join us for any questions you have about the game or the Kickstarter. It will be all in chat. We had a lot of fun last time so I hope to talk to you there.
If that goes well the plan will be to have them happen regularly going forward, at least once a month until fulfillment.
Streaming
As I mentioned before, we will be doing streaming with team Lynnvander.
We will have multiple games either streamed or as standard videos for you to watch. The big thing to watch will be the full game with terrain, Battleships, Admiral Cards and the never before seen Plane Tokens. This will give you a complete feel for a game of Leviathans.
There will also be a countdown livestream on August 22nd. More details on this one as we get closer.
New Add-ons
Two new add-ons have been included to the Kickstarter. The first one is for those wanting new bases for their old Leviathans sets. These will not be required for play but will let you more easily use the new tokens and rules.
The second one is a bit more special. Working with the same artist who did the character illustrations for the current Leviathans characters, you can get yourself made into your own Leviathans Character. You will get a digital version of this character sent to you before fulfillment and you can opt in for a poster version of that illustration to be sent with the rest of shipping. All of this will be finished by the end of fulfillment.
We will also be including an add-on for packs of ship cards per faction near the end of the Kickstarter.
All in Pledge Level
As it has been requested many times, we will have an all in pledge level for those that want one of everything. It will be set up in the last 48 hours of the campaign to make sure that you have all the stretch goals included in it.
Free Ship Cards and tokens!
Finally, saving the best for last, as a surprise we have decided to give away for free the updated ship cards for the original ships to all backers that want it, alongside the new reference tokens. This will be every Ship Card from both the Core Box and the Fleet Boxes of the 2012 release. For those that do not want the ship cards or don't have the old sets, you will get a free Ship Card Pack of your choice. These will be dealt with after the Kickstarter has finished.
—
That's everything for this big update. As always, thank you all for your support. The amount of energy and excitement for the game right now is just fantastic.
Either tomorrow or Saturday we will be showing off French ship cards and talking about their design philosophy.
Have a great rest of your day Captains.
Lord Admiral Bryn Bills
German Ship Cards
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 12:59:03 AM
Here are four German Ships for viewing pleasure. Quick note, small changes can still happen between now and production, so these may not be final drafts.
So without further ado...
The German Empire
When building the Germans, we focused around two primary principles.
The first principle is that they would be slow and heavily armored. Their armor is the highest of any faction in the game. They also have higher Structural Integrity on average. This allows them to take a large amount of fire and damage without getting taken out of the air. To offset this, they also have the slowest ships. For instance, the German Battleship as shown below can only turn because of its steering gear.
The Second principle is that the German fleet needs to stick together. This is seen in the Wolve, were its speed and armor allow it to protect other ship in danger. It even has a Screening Crew, allowing it to easily block fire to a damaged area of an ally ship. Another slot that's not shown here is the Bracketing Crew which allows two ships to hit the same target.
These two principles lead to a slow moving, tight formation fleet.
Of course, there will be ships in the German fleet that can move around inside this mold, allowing your German fleets to still have a variety of options.
That's if for this update. The next update of ship cards will be for the French. See you there Captains.
Lord Admiral Bryn Bills
300K reached!
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 09:43:04 PM
With 300k unlocked we have added all of the Battle Cruisers into the game. We will show off cards for these ships later this week so you can see the role of these ships in the game.
With this level we also get the Token Set, taking the Tokens from the Starter Box as well as torpedoes and making them acrylic for those that want fancier materials.
And finally there will be five free Kickstarter exclusive ship cards. There will be one card per faction in this set and each of them will be specially selected to be made in conjunction with us by members of the community.
That's if for this update. See you later today for the start of our Ship Cards updates.
Until then, good luck Captains.
Lord Admiral Bryn Bills
Gen Con and ship model questions.
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 06:19:37 PM
We are back from Gen Con!
Thanks to everyone that came by and talked to us at the booth. It was great meeting so many of you in person.
The reception from Gen Con was amazing. So many people were excited to see the game coming back and many more were trying it out for the first time. Our demo tables were filled the entire show. Sorry for the dip in updates the last two days but I know what we accomplished there will be great for Leviathans going forward.
We have several gaming news sites that will be putting up articles on this Kickstarter over the week. All of them loved the game. We are also going to work with the same group we did the streaming with over Gen Con to have videos and streaming content created as we near the end of the Kickstarter. More details on this will be available in a couple days
As I type we are getting so close to 300k. This will put all type 3 Battle cruisers into the game. This is a huge deal as this class never made it into the game during the initial release.
Tomorrow I will have some Ship Cards to show off but I wanted to talk quickly about a question that has been asked several times and we have not given a strong enough answer to.
Ship Models
Many have asked exactly how many different unique ship models will be available. As this number will change of course I will just lay out how many models have been unlocked so far.
French:
1 Battleship Model
1 Battle Cruiser Model
2 Cruiser Models
1 Destroyer
Germans:
1 Battleship Model
1 Battle Cruiser Model
2 Cruiser Models
1 Destroyer Model
Russians:
1 Battleship Model
2 Cruiser Models
1 Destroyer
British:
1 Battleship Model
2 Cruiser Models
1 Destroyer
Italians:
1 Battleship Model
1 Cruiser Model
1 Destroyer
All of these models will be available as Ship Packs, and thus can be purchased separately. By the end of the Kickstarter we will have shown more details on most of these ships and thus allow you to understand what each one is like. However, you do not need to decide which ships you want until after the kickstarter has finished as those details will be handled after it ends.
I hope that clears up any confusion, and please message us if you have any further questions on this.
Talk to you tomorrow captains.
Lord Admiral Bryn Bills
