The Forces of Leviathan Part 1: Introduction

 Hi!

As I dive back into Leviathan, I thought I'd reacquaint myself with the forces from the game and it might be a good idea to post my exploration here too so anyone interested in the game or setting can peruse my findings.

The core game states that it covers background and rules on the Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves and Human Barbarians, each with a different style of play with their own strengths and weaknesses which make for a very dynamic sort of a game as a Dwarf force will play very differently from a Barbarian one for example.

With this in mind, I thought I'd post an initial overview of the forces and then individual articles on each which will delve into the individual units and playstyle.

Barbarians

The Barbarians make use of swarms of lightly armed infantry backed up with great boar riding cavalry and with yet larger chariots, wartowers and mighty battle elementals summoned by their druids.

While their infantry is fierce, their lack of armour means you're going to want to strike hard and fast and use superior numbers and manoeuvrability to take out enemy warengines before superior firepower can crush them.

They also have access to Warpers, human warriors imbued with Earthpower who can balloon into mighty warpspasms which allows them to take on even demons and large warbeasts as equals.

Orcs and Goblins

 

The Orcs are a nomadic people who stride into battle accompanied by great lizardlike warbeasts equipped with towering howdah's. They also have lizard riding cavalry and a good selection of infantry.

The Goblins on the other hand, are a slave race who are handy for cannon fodder and making a nuisance of themselves while the larger Orcs crush their foes with massed warbeasts.

The only artillery and longrange firepower they have access to are the largest of warbeasts, namely Necrosaurs and Titanosaurs which can mount harpoons or great trebuchets and the Orcs can even be accompanied by an avatar of their god, Gorath!

Elves

The Elves are the cause of the Death that has come to Aeroth and are despised by all but also feared as well as while they will find themselves outnumbered by all the other factions, the Elves have terrifyingly powerful weapons at their disposal ranging from Power Lances to dragons. 

To make matters worse for their foes, they also have access to a selection of demons that fight alongside them. These mighty and terrifying foes are amongst the most powerful in the game, each with its own abilities.

The Elves will rely on holding their infantry at arms length from their foes while their dragons, demons and otherworldly allies crush them in brutal close combat.

Dwarves

The Dwarves have reached the industrial age and their infantry is rock solid and with a wide selection of artillery, the Dwarves can pound foes with everything from cannons to mortars to grapeshot.

On top of this, they have access to clanking battletanks bristling with guns, missiles and flamethrowers as well as lumbering ironclad machines called Wargolems which can go toe to toe with pretty much anything.

As the slowest moving of the forces, the Dwarves are best in the defence, pummelling their foes with artillery before mopping up with their tanks and Wargolems.

I'm really looking forward to delving into each faction in depth but thats a post for another day, in the meantime I hope folks have been tempted to have to have a look at the game, if for no other reason than for a bit of inspiration for some forces that are very different from the more usual fantasy tropes we've seen.

All the best!

So What is Leviathan?

 Hi!

I thought it might be worth posting a bit about what Leviathan is and why it attracted me back in the day and why it still holds such a fascination for me.

Originally published back in the heady days of 1995, Leviathan is quote:

 ''A fast paced 25mm tabletop fantasy battle system, set in a world on the eve of destruction!"

For me, this title, combined with the iconic imagery from Adrian Smith and background by Bill King and chunky monstrous miniatures from GW Alumni such as Kev Adams, Tim Prow and Peter Flannery really grabbed my attention as a callow teenager who had just left the Games Workshop hobby and discovered that there were actually other games out there.

Barbarian Clans

Instead of a setting inspired by Tolkien or Moorcock, we find ourself in a post apocalyptic world where everything has pretty much gone to hell in a hand basket. The Elves, eternal, glorious and the undisputed rulers of Aeroth became indolent and debauched and their last emperor, Balthuzur delved deep into forbidden lore and eventually stole and broke the great seal, a mighty magical device that had kept the Lords of the Abyss contained for ages untold.

This marked the end of the world in an event that became known as The Death. A tide of wild magic swept the globe and turned the once beautiful world into a blasted wasteland with shattered mountain ranges, deserts of polychromatic sand and weird forests of fungi springing up overnight, only to disappear as quickly.

The surviving peoples now must fight to survive in this brutal new world amongst the demon haunted ruins of a once great civilisation.

The game itself centred around a mass battle system that sees you commanding mighty heroes, warbeasts, engines of war and all manner of gribbly monsters alongside regiments of infantry and cavalry. For its time, it was pretty groundbreaking with some brilliant elements that results in a very different gaming experience to other games of the time which were rather stodgy in comparison.

While I love the game, I did always think that it didn't quite mesh with the background and would have been better suited to a skirmish game rather than massive armies clashing and that for such a game it would have suited a different scale, something I'm excited to see Seb Games now embracing and with rumours of a second edition of the 28mm game being something closer to a large scale skirmish, things are looking up!

Elven Warhost

Similarly, the game doesn't feel quite finished as magic was left out completely, intended for a supplement called Earthpower that never appeared and some of the elements of the rules didn't quite feel fully either playtested or explained. These are small niggles though as I've tried to play at least one game a year for the last decade or so and it flows surprisingly well.

Leviathan, while short lived would go onto influence other brilliant and often times groundbreaking games like Chronopia, its visuals and concepts morphing and developing but still recognisably descended from the original.

Orc and Elf Cavalry

Supported by a range of cracking and characterful miniatures, Leviathan is a visual treat and while the unpainted resin often looked lumpen and uninspiring, the painted figures ooze personality and character that many of the newer ranges lack.

What draws me back time and again though is the setting. The feel of a post apocalyptic world with steamtanks, magic and monsters really appealed to me back in the 90s and still does now. 

The rules are freely available as a pdf download and I highly recommend folks take a peek, if for no other reason than to read the fantastic background writing by none other than William King, the creator of Felix and Gotrek and the compelling artwork of Adrian Smith who so vividly brought this ruinous world to life.

With all this in mind, I'll be posting more details on the world, its denizens and history over the coming weeks as well as delving into some of the articles that I've dug up over the years that shows what might have been.

Hopefully my posts will tempt others to dip their toe into the world of Aeroth or Theia as the new game has renamed it. Leviathan has a real Oldhammer vibe with a range of figures which are readily available and proxies for infantry are pretty easy to find and I am really excited to once again venture into the wastes in search of adventure!

All the best!

Welcome to the End Times!

 Hi!

I'd started this blog back in 2009 to chronicle my ongoing obsession with an old wargame called Leviathan that has consumed much of my hobbytime on and off since its release back in 1995.

In 1996 I'd left the Games Workshop hobby but still wanted to continue in my brewing wargame obsession and I wandered into Macs Models on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and saw the rulebook and a host of original art on the wall from Adrian Smith who developed this amazing visualisation of a game and world unlike anything I'd seen before.

I picked up the rulebook and a couple of bits and bobs and being a teenager, promptly did nothing with them, instead moving onto other games such as Warzone, Chronopia, Flintloque and VOR to name but a few and the original Leviathan rulebook sat unloved on a shelf all the way through college and into my working life and moving into my own digs. 

In 2008, I made the decision to go to give up my job and go off to university as a mature student to finally get my degree and sold pretty much my entire collection of miniatures that I'd amassed, along with most of my books and whatnot but I did end up keeping a small selection of books and Leviathan ended up moving with me from Dundee to Worcester.

In my flat as a first year I happened to pick up my Leviathan rulebook and sat down to have a bit of a read and my word my mind was blown. All the fond memories of being a teenage wargamer came back to me and I decided to re-explore the game. By this point Fantasy Forge had become Grendel but had gone out of business many moons before but the Leviathan range had been picked up by Scotia who became Scotia Grendel and during my remaining years of uni, I spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort obsessing over a game nobody played and was pretty much dead.

Sadly by 2015, I burned out and was forced to clear out the massive amount of resin and lead I'd collected and once again Leviathan kind of went on the backburner as a game I loved but didn't do anything with. From time to time I'd dip back in and paint the odd figure or try to do something with the game in 15mm or smaller scale but it always stalled out almost immediately.

My Leviathan blog was getting pretty heavily spammed and I decided to mothball it, its posts reverted to drafts in the hope that at some point in the future, I'd come back to it and finally do it justice.

Now here we are in 2024, 29 years after Leviathan's first release and Seb Games has taken up the mantle of Leviathan and is re-releasing all the classic sculpts and even bringing the game into a new 10mm scale that is looking very promising.

Orc Titanosaur

So what do I do with this blog? Leviathan has been central to my Wargaming experience on and off for nearly 30 years now and I feel the stirrings of the post apocalyptic wasteland of Aeroth once again. 

Now we're already in September (where's the year gone!) and I think its far too late in the year to be trying some massive and possibly mad project but as 2025 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of Leviathan, I'm going to try and do something with it, if for no other reason than to finally get it out of my system!

The remainder of this year will be spent reacquainting myself with the setting, rules and massive amounts of notes, background and whatnot that I've put together over the years which I'll be posting up here as a bit of a love letter to the game. 

The plan for 2025 is to collect and paint a warband for each of the forces in the original game and to then play out a mini campaign. This is pretty ambitious but I am desperately keen on actually making a go of it and I'll be using a mixture of the original sculpts and period suitable figures to bring the game fully to life.

I'll also be following the development of Seb Games' 10mm and possible 2nd edition of Leviathan with interest and will try to record it here too (who knows, I may end up collecting some of the 10mm stuff too!).

Hopefully I'll be updating this blog with a weekly post with all manner of Leviathan musings, ramblings and hopefully the odd miniature too but in the meantime, All the best!