A spread of Aerial Torpedos from the Montcalm quickly approaches the HML Spion Kop. The French Destroyer is trying its best to force the British Leviathans away from the wounded Le Fantasque. The Spion Kop’s Captain, trying desperately to keep the Defender Class Cruiser’s guns trained on her target, does his best to focus on the task at hand and ignore the oncoming torpedoes.
At the last minute a British D Class Destroyer interjects itself between the Spion Kop and the torpedoes take the vessel amidships, tearing through her armour and destroying the starboard 3″ guns. The sacrifice wasn’t in vain though, the Spion Kop returns fire, aiming at the wounded Fantasque, and her 6″ and 3″ guns concentrate fire and drive a hole into the already breached hull ripping through the destroyed steering gear and touching off internal explosions that rip the Fantasque apart.
Finding itself outnumbered and badly outgunned, the Montcalm quickly turns and flees the field, leaving the British fleet victorious.
Leviathans cover art
Leviathans is the latest tabletop miniature game from Catalyst Game Labs. The game concept and background are the work of John Haward and the rules and game design are by Randall Bills. John is a long-time naval gamer and Randall is most well known for his work on the BattleTech rules and range. The game has already been in development for about a year now and is scheduled to be released at the end of 2009 in January of 2010.
Leviathans is a Victorian Sci-fi game, with Steampunk elements, that posits a universe where scientific advancements in the field of Electrical Flight have been made that have allowed the various world-powers to fashion levitating versions of their naval fleets. Tesla Coils and the manipulation of “electrical fluid” allow vast naval ships to raise in the air and fly, taking the projection of power to new heights and escalating tensions in Europe and the rest of the world. Set prior to World War I and prior to the development of the aircraft, these new developments replace the Dreadnought Race of our time with a “Leviathan Race” as countries scramble to adjust to the new military developments.
The world of Leviathans
Despite these “super-science” developments, the new Leviathans are not quite the armoured behemoths that their wet-navy counterparts are. They are more lightly armoured and carry fewer weapons than a similar naval vessel but this is made up by their ability to fly and impact the enemy across a much wider range.
The boxed version of the game that will come out this year will focus on the British and French and contain all the maps (the game uses a hex-based movement system), tokens, stat cards and miniatures you need to pit the French Fleet de Volée against the British Royal Sky Fleet. The plan is to ultimately expand the game to include a total of 8 empires, such as Germany, Italy and Russia and to eventually also add titanic Dreadnought and Carrier Leviathans.
The game first came to my notice at GenCon Indy 2008. David Stansel-Garner and Randall Bills were kind enough to take some time from their schedule at the show to sit down and do some interviews and as part of that David showed me, via his laptop, several concept art pieces that Doug Chaffee had produced for them.
It was clear, even then, that this was a project that was special to both David and Randall. David cradled the laptop as he spoke to me and Randall’s tone was even more excited that it usually is. Even more telling was that David, who is usually quite happy to let Randall do all the talking during these interviews, was quite eager to talk about the game. Not on camera mind you but still quite animated and excited.
A French Battleship
Part of this has to do, I think, with the fact that this is a game that is fully and wholly their own creation. Both David and Randall have spent the better part of a decade grooming and shepherding a series of games that, while they have had a hand in developing, are the ideas and work of others. Leviathans is their baby and this game allows them to step out from behind the scenes and take a more prominent role as game creators. This game will also mark Catalyst Games Labs’ metamorphosis, along with their release of Eclipse Phase and their coming casual games, into a more expansive company that offers more than just BattleTech and Shadowrun.
Now one of the downsides of giving me your email address after you give me details of a game like this is that I will invariably bug the heck out of you for more details and an opportunity to playtest it. I was quite happy then when Randall gave me access to the Leviathans playtest documents but a bit taken-aback when Randall and David also opened up their development website to me. Giving me, as it were, an “all-access” look at the development of the game as it unfolds as well as a glimpse at the work that goes into the creation of a game like Leviathans.
There are, of course, more than a few people involved in creating a miniature wargame and here are a few of the people that are involved in the game and what their contributions are:
Randall N. Bills: game developer and line developer for Leviathans. He writes the rules but also oversees the development of the entire game from flight stands to map boards
Steven Mohan, Jr and Blaine L. Pardoe: story and sourcebook fiction writers.
John Haward: background guru and idea man.
Jim Rapkins: Fact checker extraordinaire and writer.
Matt Heerdt: graphics guru and the creator of the stat cards and design elements that grace the game
Doug Chaffee: Concept artist and painter. Responsible for the design of the Leviathans and the painting and art that grace the game.
In the coming weeks I’ll be posting articles looking at various elements of the game, the development cycle and observations about the creation of this new miniature game. Next week start our look at the game with the ship status cards, their design and function.