Game Design Continued…

While we’ve only shown Type 1 and Type 2 Ships to date, you’ve already seen that on the Type 2 ships it usually requires entering 2 hexes before a turn. ‘What about Type 3 or 4 Ships,’ I’m sure you’re thinking…’those have to be higher?’ And in general they are. How do you get around that?

Well, there’s two options. The first is a general Commander’s Rule that applies to any vessel. If a ship does not spend any MPs to enter a new hex during a turn (provided it has at least 1 undamaged Engine Slot), it can always spend its entire movement to change 1 or 2 hexsides; it can never change more than 2 hexsides in this fashion.

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What Prices Paid_Part 5

by Jim Rapkins

House of Commons

12 February 1909

“The Germans!” Spittle flew from the rotund man’s lips as he spat out the words, as if they did him physical harm. His outburst did not go unnoticed. Parliament was more full than it had been in weeks, evidence of the anticipation—and dread—that many of the MPs were feeling as to how Jackie Fisher would extricate himself from this one.

“Order! The Member for Stoke-on-Trent will resume his seat or be removed from the chamber!” The gavel accompanying the Speaker’s words was lost in the cacophony of voices that exploded in contest. The Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, the Right Honourable Kelvin Harris, MP, waved the newspaper in his hand menacingly at the man seated opposite the chamber before the Speaker grudgingly acknowledged him.

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Game Design Continued…

How many different ship styles/types to include in the rules? Wow…that was a lot of thinking and discussions across a pretty large breadth of time. After all, there were so many varied types of real-world ships around the world. Ultimately, however, you have to be able to make a call and then ensure the rules and the package of the final Core Box supports that decision as much as possible.

Obviously if you’ve read the Lieutenant’s Manual you know there are Type 1 (Destroyers) and Type 2 (Light Cruisers) in the game. As future factions are released the names in parenthesis may tweak slightly, (Fast Cruiser), for example, but it’s still a Type 2 ship (i.e. a “flavor” name verses the hard code of the rules).

The Commander’s Manual contains rules for two more Ship Types: Type 3 (Armoured Cruisers) and Type 4 (Battleships). However, there’s only so many miniatures that can be included in the Core Box set. So while the rules for Armoured Cruisers are detailed, the miniatures for that size of ship do not appear in the box set and instead will be in the first supporting products released for the game line after the Core Box publishes.

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Cadet Cruise #1

Cruiser Mount Olympus

Port of [redacted by ship’s censors]

23 October 1908

Ma Mère:

I want to you to know that I am well. The events of the last few weeks I am sure have reached you via the newspapers. I hope some of my earlier posts arrived, but if they have not, this letter will attempt to get you up to date. Suffice it to say this is not how I expected to complete my cadet cruise. Do not worry about me. I am well, a little shaken and battered, but doing fine.

The cadet cruise is supposed to be the pinnacle of schooling at the École d’Aviation. We all hope for postings to one of the larger battleships. Cadets with lower grades get assigned to destroyers or even tenders. Those with the highest grades and merit are given duty aboard a battleship. I was assigned to a light cruiser, the Mount Olympus, which gives you an indication of my grades this last year. Once more, advanced mathematics has proven elusive to me.

I was made an officer of the deck on our Atlantic cruise. Justin, my roommate, has been posted to the Mount Olympus as well, as her auxiliary bridge officer. We set off to patrol the warm waters of the southern Atlantic. Many ships have made the passage to South America of late. This is all part of our [redacted by ship’s censors]

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Released PDFs Updated

This is just a quick notice that we’ve updated two PDFs: Lieutenant’s Manual and James Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt From 1910. [If you previously purchased either PDF, you should be notified of an update by email where you can download them again for free.]

I know we just updated these a few weeks ago, so wanted to let you know the exact corrections this time around and why I felt it worthwhile to update again.

For the Lieutenant’s Manual, somehow the sample Ship Card on page 7 reverted to an older, incorrect version of the file when we generated the update. Neither Matt or I have any idea how it happened…but it’s fixed.

Since we originally published the James’ Fighting Leviathans PDF, as noted in my blog, I’ve fleshed out the various Gun Batteries to a nice, anal-retentive level of spread-sheet awesomeness. In doing so I noted some tweaks that needed to be made to some Gun Batteries…and while we made one of those tweaks in the previous update (namely the change of the Beagle’s Port/Starboard 4 IN Gun Batteries from “6/8 Hex” to “5/10 Hex”, I completely missed that the Beagle mounts two such Gun Batteries in each side Location. Sorry about that…and it’s now fixed.

Thanks to those that caught these little niggles and let us know!

See ya next duty shift!

Randall

What Prices Paid_Part 4

by Jim Rapkins

HML Philopoemen

12 January 1909

Ratings spoke quietly into the speaking tubes before them as Christian continued giving rapid-fire orders. “Helm, bring us about, make sure those buggers can’t get a good shot at the boats.” Crippen nodded. Admiral Jellicoe’s plan was for the larger leviathans to shield the lighter, more nimble vessels with their bulk, whilst opening up their broadsides at the Germans arrayed against them. The Edward VII-class leviathans were well armoured enough to take whatever the Krauts could throw at them. In this fight, the Germans were simply outclassed. Even with a decade’s worth of neglect, the ocean-going vessels of the Royal Navy were still a match for any navy in the world—whether augmented by Levs or not.

As if to illustrate the point, the Philopoemen heaved under his feet as the designated batteries opened fire. The thundercrack of each gun was largely absorbed by the mass of steel and wood that served as the Philopoemen’s superstructure, and only the wavering of the pegs holding aloft from his map board the wooden blocks that served as representations of the various fleet vessels gave any indication of the Germans’ return fire.

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Game Development Continued…

First just wanted to say that the forums have been up for less than a week and we already have 99 members and are on the verge of breaking 100. That’s fantastic to see…and anyone that follows these blogs that have not checked out the forums yet, please feel free to stop on by and check them out. We’ve already got a host of great discussions going (the Forum link is right next to the Home link in the header bar above).

So, moving on to the meat of this blog. Originally, like so many other games along similar lines, there was no making repairs on the fly in this game. Thinking back on it I’m not sure why I went this route, though it likely was a case of always striving to strip the game down, helping with ease of learning and play. Ultimately, several things came together to change my mind.

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Electroid Aloft-Leviathans’ MITS.com Forums Launch!

The long awaited monstersinthesky.com forums are active: the link to the forums is right next to the “home” link in the header bar.

As with every aspect of this project, I’ve grand plans for what I’d like to see with these forums. Unfortunately, it simply was proving too much to tackle at this time. And the community that has been following my blogs and the progress of Leviathans for long months has been asking for forums….a lot of asking (which is a great thing).

So we’ve scaled back for an initial launch; at this point I feel forums are more important than that grand vision. As usual, however, we’ll be working in the background on a 2.0 keel overhaul for down the line. To help with that upgrade, I’ve created a dedicated thread in the General Discussion section, where anyone can post their ideas for ways to improve the forum.

At the current time there are no hard and fast rules about what is and what is not appropriate on the forum. However, these forums are moderated by our Sky Captains (sorry…but I’ve seen far too many un-moderated forums descend into anarchy that drives even the most ardent fans away). As such, please use common sense and be courteous. If we must institute some specific rules due to forum member complaints, then we’ll move in that direction.

But for now…please, come, type, discuss…and enjoy. Thanks for your patience on this!

See ya next duty shift!

Randall

Primer For New Airmen Excerpt PDF Available

Leviathans’ Primer for New Airmen Excerpt offers up a sneak peak of 21 of the 96 pages that will be in the full Primer — just one of the pieces that will be inside the Leviathans Core Box Set: Buy from Catalyst’s BattleShop • Buy from DriveThruRPG

Two previous Leviathans‘ PDF releases have also been updated — if you’ve already bought them, the updates are free, and if not, now is a fine time to take a first look at the Leviathan’s Lieutenants Manual, the 32-page Quick-Start Rules for Leviathans (Buy from Catalyst’s BattleShop • Buy from DriveThruRPG) and James’ Fighting Leviathans: Excerpt From 1910 — 4 additional ships for use with those introductory rules (Buy from Catalyst’s BattleShop • Buy from DriveThruRPG)

What Prices Paid_Part 3

by Jim Rapkins

HML Philopoemen

12 January 1909

“This is a fool’s errand, lad. Mark my words. Bloody Admiralty thinks the Krauts will back down after this little display.”

As always, Petty Officer Alun Crippen struggled to understand exactly what his captain was saying. He knew his own Welsh accent was hard for some of the lads to decipher at times, but Captain Christian’s thick New Zealand brogue was nigh impenetrable. Especially when he was irritated, as he was now. But one didn’t have to be a linguist to understand the snort of derision that followed the words.

In any case, the captain was right. The Philopoemen was classified as a Battleship, a behemoth of the air; battle-hardened in the skies of the Dutch East Indies. And the Edward VII-class leviathan was not alone in the low clouds. Crippen knew there were another twelve of the Sky Fleet’s workhorses in the sky with them. But it was the rest of the vessels accompanying them that caused a looked of disgust to settle over the captain’s craggy features.

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