Is there a sadder tale in all of gaming?
>release in 2012
>chinese manufacturer holds your molds hostage
>game dies out the gate
>kickstarter
>big success, new product on the way
>oh boy
>two years late
>convention only release
>completely shit the bed

Why is this so cursed?

>>95835010 (OP)
>Takes place in 1910
>Tries to hype up Grand Duchess Anastasia

Dude she's like 9.

>>95835037
Out of 10

>>95835010 (OP)
>Why is this so cursed?

Because CGL are a bunch of corrupt incompetents.

>>95835010 (OP)
Wait, I was actually looking at buying into this. Where are you seeing it as a convention only release? Are they seriously not going to have it available in retail stores?

>>95837082

Game is literally two years past due date and our last major shipping update was "its in america" in January. There's been zero motion to get it into retail however its on sale at every convention CGL approaches.

>>95835339
Pretty much this. CGL just are so criminally incompetent it is unreal.

>there's a dieselpunk skyship ww1 game anon!
>just kidding, its dead

Why the fuck would you post this, you have made me deeply angry, like finding out there was a video game in development where you could just beat women senseless and set them aon fire and it was scrapped

>>95837718
Anon, some small good news for you.

>>95837540 is outright lying. I had some throwaway money and so I backed the Kickstarter. CGL had a disaster with their last battletech kickstarter shipping (the logistics company lied and tried to inflate shipping costs to make more money), so CGL is using a new company for the Levs shipping. They're also double checking everything to make sure people aren't getting false charges, or getting triple charged like what happened during the battletech KS. That's taking time. But I can say that, checking my own page, the address is locked and shipping has been charged as of last Friday, which means that my own shit has either just shipped or is about to. It's not a phantom product.

The other way anon is lying is saying that shit is being sold at cons. It's not. They've said repeatedly that they aren't going to sell anything except for possibly the starter boxes until every single backer has their stuff. They've stuck to that so far, although I could see them selling starter boxes at Gencon just to prove the game actually exists.

Yes, CGL is a shitty company, and yes it's bullshit that it's taken this long to get our stuff. I'll never back another CGL Kickstarter. That's not even a question. But that doesn't mean anon is being in any way truthful. Nobody is buying Levs stuff at cons while backers wait for their stuff.

>>95841024

>I will never back a CGL kickstarter again

You'll be throwing your pennies for more cheap chinaplastic like the lying bootlicker faggot you are.

>>95843859
You seem unreasonably upset.

>>95844435
>You seem unreasonably upset.

Fuck you and kill yourself you stupid bootlicking faggot cuck. You and everyone else who gives money to Criminal Game Labs.

So if it's dieselpunk how the fuck do the ships fly? Because that much iron wouldn't work. Also if this is ww1 is there any trench action when air power is this advanced?

>>95846654

weird science shit.

>>95846654
Cavortite, or whatever the in-universe name for it is. Basically, some mineral that generates anti-gravity when you run electricity through it.

>>95845630
oh oh schizo melty

>>95850067
Criminal Game Labs are a bunch of theiving faggots and everyone who supports that company should be killed. They've never made anything good and they exist only to Jew as much money as possible out of the rubes who support them. They are literally, without exaggeration, the worst company which ever has or ever will exist in the gaming industry. Their ethical standards make GW look like puritans. I hope you and everyone else who gives them a dime are all killed in the coming civil war, and I'll laugh at your crying families the whole time. Fuck CGL and fuck you.

>>95851069
you schizos are always big talkers but you're on the fast track to uno reversoing yourselves if you're this hysterical over wardollies

>>95835010 (OP)
If push comes to shove for CGL then Leviathans is going to get the axe. It sucks, but that's just how it is in this day and age with all the shit going on

>>95835010 (OP)

I dunno man, what about the MonPoc Boardgame kickstarter. That haunts me to this day.

>After years of fumbling Privateer Press give the rights to Mythic Games to make a plastic model edition of MonPoc
>Kickstarter does very well as people assume that literally anybody would be better with the rights than PP
>(This was slap bang in the middle of the 3rd edition WMH debacle)
>This assumption proves... erroneous.
>Mythic games turn out to be a Ponzi Scheme in a French made Trenchcoat
>Take the money, claim Bankruptcy and walk away scot free.
>MonPoc iteself is effectively dead as because Mythic had the rights that meant that SFG couldn't buy it in the buyout, even though the game is probably by far the closest to what they as a company would be familar with.
>KS have to make do with getting the STL files to print out at their own expense and some PDFs.
>Some of the PDF's aren't even formatted correctly and we get thumbnails for some of the monster cards.
>The game will never have any further development in our lifetimes.

>This game was once a massive hit in Japan a near impossible market to crack due to social conditions.

It's so fucking depressing.

>>95853802
>This game was once a massive hit in Japan a near impossible market to crack due to social conditions.
And remember that this directly caused it to get axed the first time, because Matt Wilson couldn't handle the fact that it was outperforming his SERIOUS ELITE HARDCORE GAME for SERIOUS ELITE HARDCORE GAMERS ONLY somewhere.

>>95854876

The saddest thing was the interview they gave at MonCon where they revealed that any profits MonPoc made were funnelled right into WMH and they had to subsist on whatever dreggs the upper echeleons deigned to give them.

>>95837082
porchbux mc fuckface stole another million off CGL and got forgiven again so CGl are 'having delivery issues'

>>95837718
just to make you extra angry. it was killed probably because porchbux stole again. and then the money for levs went to make fucking 'battletech 40gay' instead.

>>95854980
>battletech 40gay'
Then at least it went to a good cause. The more games which emulate 40k, the better.

>>95835010 (OP)
>Is there a sadder tale in all of gaming?
Oh man, the 2012 release was so much worse than that.
>get game made in China b/c plastic manufacturing necessary didn't exist anywhere but China, US, and Germany, and the price for a box between the 3 was like $90/box from China, $225 from Germany, and $350 from US
>be historically accurate and color Japan and Taiwan the same color b/c Japan conquered Taiwan in the 1870s and only lost it after WW2
>Chinese government impounds and destroys the whole 1st production run
>publish game AGAIN at own expense
>chinese company holds molds hostage. $7 million to get product and the molds back
>CGL says fuck China we'll find a way somehow
>Get new mold plates cut by other company, ship them to Germany for production
>shipping container falls off boat, molds lost
>new molds AGAIN
>lead artist (Doug chafee) dies, his estate refuses to let CGL use his stuff unless they pay more $$
>CGL can't use the new molds that used the artists art. Chafee estate wants another $2 mill
>While trying to find $ for art, a lightning strike on game devs house kills the computer and their backup server, nuking all the dev files
>fuck it, game is cursed, CGL walks away

It was unbelievable to watch happen. I don't like CGL, but no game deserved this sort of luck. Not when 40k is allowed to keep existing.

>>95861576
jesus

>CCP asshurt basically killed a wargame
Wumao

>>95861611
Happens all the time, One China is a garbage policy and their censors even check stuff that is not intended for sale in China. But only after it's made, they let all the factory workers be exposed to it, then destroy it before it can be trucked away.

>>95861576
I think they deserve what they get for doing business with China.

>>95861811
You probably do business with China 10 times a week.

>>95861811
Name a non-GW gaming model company which doesn't.

>>95861827
Not for long lmfao

>>95861811
If those prices are correct, then the choice was either to do business with China or not to do business at all. Are you seriously suggesting that if an industry cannot create product without doing business with China then that industry should not exist?

>>95861576

DESU it just sounded just Jupiter was angry for how much they fucked the Italians over

>>95861827

In terms of minis I work with WGA and the UK so

>>95835200
I see a pedo.

>>95861576
i knew the first launch was rocky, but not that rocky

>>95861576

I have to wonder why they're bothering then.

Also is there a reason the ships fly close enough to be broadsiding one another?

>>95862317
>Are you seriously suggesting that if an industry cannot create product without doing business with China then that industry should not exist?
Yes. All business should survive solely on domestic production. If a business requires outsourced production to survive, then that business should've survive at all.

>>95865302
The reason they keep giving on their media outlets is that the game didn't get a fair chance to succeed or fail on its own merits. If it got a full release and no one cared then they wouldn't bother and let it die.

I personally think that it's because it was a very well received idea for a game (go back and look at gaming news from back then and you'll see a fair bit of anticipation for the game), that CGL wholely owns themselves. CGL doesn't actually own Battletech and Shadowrun. They license those IPs from Fanatics. Leviathans is an IP that they developed internally, and that they don't have to share any profit from with a 3rd party.

>>95865302
>reason the ships fly close enough to be broadsiding one another?
Same reason as on Star Trek. It looks good visually. If they were at realistic ranges, the enemy would be a 1/32nd inch long smudge on the horizon on a full 8.5x11 splash page image. And if they were at realistic ranges on the tabletop, you'd be shooting at ranges of 30+ IRL feet, and would move about 1 inch per turn.

>>95865393

is there a lore reason you unbelievable smug asshole

>>95865543
Yes.

>>95865543
NTA, but there is, yes. Since there is no radar, the only reason long range gunnery is possible at sea is because you can see the splashes from the fall of shot, and make gunnery corrections based on where you see the splashes and how much you missed by. That isn't really possible in an airborne environment, so gunnery necessarily requires ships to be closer for accurate fire.

Compare and contrast to IRL WW1 aircraft; a machine gun fires a couple of miles, but put it on a sopwith Camel or a Fokker, and you can only hit things out to a couple hundred yards at best. Hitting things while flying is hard.

So do we have a pdf or something?

>>95867446
Can we post PDFs yet? I've got the rules.

>>95869046
dump it in the newvola or something

>>95869814
Link to new vola plz? I didn't know there was one.

"they are not selling it at cons"
>Pic related, people playing with their recently purchased Leviathans boxed purchased at Origins

Im sure there's a good explanation.

>>95874116
Oh shit, is that Torchlight Games in Ontario? Great store, I love that place. Played some 40k there just last week.

>>95874116
Informality is such a disease.

>>95874183

im not allowed in because i called the owner a faggot for not selling me cards that werent on sale

>>95874116
That's...that's Randall Bills anon. The owner of the company? If he brings shit to demo games with that's not selling something. Why on earth would you lie this hard about a game that isn't even released yet?
>the box on the table is the 2012 box btw

>>95865302
>I have to wonder why they're bothering then.
In addition to owning the IP, there are a handful of people in the company (as well as several resident fa/tg/uys) who are extremely passionate about the game. The fa/tg/uys gave it a rule-fixing pass and tightened it up quite a bit.

>>95874833

I was literally there and bought a battlecruiser box, so keep lying to defend the shoddy practices of the pedolyst game labs.

>>95877674
>he said, without a picture of the box or a receipt

>>95878671

>doxx yourself so the Rem/Valk army can shoot you and your family dead

>>95835010 (OP)
This seems like the sort of game I could probably really enjoy, but the retail price will be absolutely fucked if it even sees wide spread retail release at all. And ultimately I don't want to willingly give CGL any money because they are incompetent shitcunts. Hopefully the rulebook ends up as a PDF and someone makes STLs for the models.

>>95874116
No anon you don't get it, they said they won't sell at cons plural. They are allowed to sell at one.

>>95879665
Yes, hopefully.

But you could certainly post a timestamped pic that proved you bought something if you actually had one. You don't. I know, because that pic was taken at SOBSCON at Torchlight in Burlington, and no Levs stuff was being sold. All the Levs stuff there was the property of the local demo guy. I know, because I'm in the fucking pic.

So kill yourself, liar. Or hopefully one of the more unhinged people will do it for you. Either way I won't mourn your death and, judging by your behavior, neither will your family.

>>95880079

Circle the person in the pic that you're supposed to be, or you're a liar, and you deserve to die. :)

>>95879731

There's a good selection, oddly enough, of skyboats because of game that exists called Empire's Sky or someshit. There's also like 10 different skyship games.

>>95880228
>doxx yourself
Yeah, ok. I'm sitting at the back table alongside Justin Ralton, the demo agent who was doing the Levs stuff at the event.

Now KYS.

>>95880233
If GW would just properly bring back Man'O'War I wouldn't need any of this other stuff. Battlefleet Gothic would be the preference but I don't see them doing that without tying it to Horus Heresy meaning nothing besides Imperials and Admech.

>>95880289
GW will never do either of those. If you want a sky ship game you have to abandon the GW ecosystem.

>>95880263

Oh justin was a nice guy.

>>95835010 (OP)
https://brigademodels.co.uk/product-category/imperial-skies/flotilla-packs/

https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/castles-in-the-sky-9781472844965/

https://www.dystopianwars.com/

All better alternatives I think

>>95880306
>abandon the GW ecosystem.
FUCK YOU NEVER

GW IS MOTHER. GW IS FATHER. I will never leave them.

>>95880337
They left me in 1998

>>95880332
Brigade models look like shit, and dystopian wars is a dead game and has been ded for years. Those are not an improvement.

>>95881154
>and dystopian wars is a dead game and has been ded for years
And looking at how the company that bought it after Spartan went bankrupt mutilated the setting it should stay that way.

>>95861999
Warlord Games. Corvus Belli. Mantic.

>>95881582
None of those sell games that use plastic models, do they? They're all using spin cast metal, or resin castings afaik.

>>95882499
that wasn't one of your conditions but even then you should shut the fuck up before you dig yourself an even deeper hole you stupid fuck; for your own sake

>>95882499
Mantic sells plastic, and Mantic casts models in the UK. However, their plastic models are cast in China and the sprues are shipped to the UK for assembly. So by loophole, they technically "count" as being Made in UK for purposes of things like tariffs. But no, Mantic doesn't make their own plastic minis in the UK. No one does except for GW, and they took 20 years to get their own plastic facilities up and running for their whole product line.

Anons point is pretty valid. If you want molded plastic minis, and you aren't GW, you either make them in China or you don't exist. We're still 5 years off, minimum, of that changing, and probably a lot more.

>>95882528
>But no, Mantic doesn't make their own plastic minis in the UK. No one does except for GW
the most ignorant clowns on this board will adopt this sort of plummy authoritative tone and then post complete counterfactual horseshit

>>95862317
China is notorious for undercutting everyone but when when it actually comes to cost of production and especially delivery, they skyrocket especially if you are not a megacorpo. From non-existing quality control to whatever bullshit corrupt excuse they can think of. If you actually want your product to arrive on time and at an acceptable quality you have to pay a premium. So in reality if they are saying its going to be $90 a box they are straight up lying to you and in the end probably going to be paying closer to $300 a box after all their "hidden" costs are revealed.

tl;dr if you are a small company never do business with China, go literally anywhere else. They will scam you out of your money and there won't be shit you can do about it.

>>95882539
>he said, while posting evidence to the contrary
It's all moot anyway. Nobody cares with a British company is doing. We're talking about an American company unable to produce products economically unless they go to China. Any discussion of Brits is entirely irrelevant. Nobody cares what they do. How many AMERICAN gaming companies do stateside inhouse plastic injection molding? I'm not aware of any.

>>95882614
>acktually the goalposts were over here all along
I've heard WGA moved all their production to the USA a few years back because doing business with China sucked balls.

>>95882614
>he said, while posting evidence to the contrary
well where was your evidence for your retarded bullshit?
brits only became irrelevant once you embarrassed yourself, unfortunately you didn't heed the core lesson
you are not aware of any because you're a retard wasting your time writing retarded shit instead of reading

>>95882528
people will post this when WGA exists and they cast their models in florida(lol)

Seriously dude

>>95861811
Yeah should've done Taiwan instead

>>95883194
Wait, so all my WGA dudes are Florida Man?

>>95883676
Any recent ones are. iirc, they were also looking into setting up Euro production so they don't have to ship stuff across the Atlantic, but I don't know if that ever happened.

>>95874116
SOBScon was fun, hope they do it again.

>>95882628
They did, yeah. They're still in massive debt for it though. And they announced the move in 2021, and actually did it in 2023.

Doing some research, the Leviathans KS was announced in 2021 and kicked off in 2022. If it was announced in 2021, that means that they had to have the production information already in hand. You don't announce a KS without knowing where you're going to have your models made. So now we're looking at 2020 or even 2019 for fair dates of comparison. The commitment to produce in China predates the WGA Florida move by years.

With that said, CGL SHOULD have taken their profit margin from the Battletech KS campaigns, which were wildly successful, and invested it into Stateside plastic production so they controlled their own fate. But comparing a choice made in 2019/2020 against the state of wargame plastic production in 2023 (when WGAs facility actually went online), is pretty stupid and makes anon look dishonest. You wouldn't shit on someone for not buying a house during 2021 because the internet rates in 2025 are low.

>>95883506
Unironically this.
Taiwan is the real China and West Taiwan is the fake China.

>>95881582
Corvus Belli plastic production is done through Uncool, whose manufacturing is done is China.

>>95885659
It's a retarded comparison anyway. They aren't similar products. WGA does sprue casting. They cast the minis, and shove them in a box, and you get a box of sprues you have to assemble and paint yourself. The entire point of a game like leviathans is that The minis are prepainted and pre-assembled and ready to play right out of the box. So you don't just have to pay for the plastic to get cast, you also have to pay for assembly and prepainting. Nobody in the US or UK does that in house, period. To avoid using China they would have had to rework the entire basic concept of the game.

>>95885659
CGL has actually made moves for US production, just not for plastic. They just outright bought IWM, the rights holder to all Battletech miniatures and the official producer of all metal models. All of their plastic and resin models had been made under a license from IWM, but now that they own IWM and the metal production, they're free to do anything they want with models for an indefinite period of time.
Of course, they could always just fuck it up.

>>95885738
As far as I'm aware Corvus Belli doesn't make any plastic miniatures. Are you talking about their new siocast stuff or is this something else?

So is it coming out or not. Didnt this shit get funded three years ago

>>95886125
Yes, it is coming out. Even if they continue to fuck it up, it should still come out. I guess if WW3 happens and the shipping hub gets nuked then we'll know for sure the game is cursed, but almost anything less than that shouldn't kill it at this stage.

>>95882499
Warlord has hundreds of plastic kits, most of which are made by Renedra in Wisbech, UK.
The plastic kits which aren't made by Renedra are those sold under license from Italeri, and they're made in Italy.

>>95882528
The Mantic factory is a 10 minute drive down the street from GW in Nottingham.

>>95882547
Weren't some of the molds for warmahordes stolen and used to make toys for something like happy meals in China

>>95885860
They didn't do that for specific procurement of manufacture means though. It was done because IWM owner has been looking to retire for a good time now and it was up for grabs, and CGL wanted the BT model production license. It will be interesting to see how or if the metals production side of things sticks around as I could easily see them yeeting it in favour of whatever plastic production means they manage to secure. If CGL wasn't such a shit of a business now would be a good time for them to invest in some Siocast system for local production with an eye towards gearing it up for bigger run production. As not only could they then manufacture their own stuff but be in a position to capitalise on other tabletop gaming companies needing US based production due to all the China stuff.

>>95886333
From memory the molds were seized by a Chinese company for non-payment. Normally one would be inclined to believe that is just the Chinese doing Chinese things, but given PP is involved actual non-payment is a plausible possibility. But yeah they ultimately ended up making cheap toys with them, you can still find them on Ali Express I am pretty sure.

>>95886761
How did PP manage to stay in business as long as they did? I don't remember anyone having something nice to say about the guys running it and everything after their second ed seemed to be more disliked than any mistake GW has made

>>95887543
Question for the ages. By all accounts they should have folded a long long time ago. Stock was difficult to procure reliably outside of the US. They burned bridges with retailers. They had way too many projects going at any one time. They purposely tanked Monpoc out of spite. The list goes on. Probably the best thing they ever actually did was the P3 line of paints, and even then they really failed to capitalise on them and gain real market share.

>>95881154
Dystopian wars is currently played and has new starter sets. The Brigade Models are proper Aeronefs and you're a Phillistine.

>>95887681
>Brigade Models are proper Aeronefs
Proper shit on a flight stand, you mean. They might be great models for boomers, but nobody born after 1990 is going to accept their shit detail, mold lines, and ugly, blocky lack of detail. Whatever valid points you may have had can be safely disregarded now that you've revealed your crippling lack of taste. So long, boomer.

>>95835037
Why do people always onion-face about late Romanovs? All they ever did was be retarded and/or die (and Nick had it coming).

>>95887543
They had a lot of good ideas and stumbled into good execution a few times before careening back to tardation. The first edition of monpoc managed to break into the notoriously difficult Japanese market and didn't have any real competition. Then Matt got jealous and stepped in to rework it in his own image and they lost the Japanese market along with most of the original fans elsewhere. I played the new version, but very few fans of the original did.

>>95887756
Yawn
You just don't understand the appeal of flying pre Dreadnoughts, and that's on you.
There are also Irregular Miniatures which have also plenty of personality.

>>95887852
Of course I like flying boats. The problem with Brigade is the poor quality of sculpts, not the concept. You aren't actually trying to argue that the Brigade sculpts look better than these?

>>95887756
>shit detail, mold lines, and ugly, blocky lack of detail
being so keen for a list of three you write the same thing twice is trying too hard, don't think I can trust you on the casting quality either
>>95892876
despite those being much bigger they are also quite low detail

>>95862703
Pedo site, tourist

>>95892876
>more noise

Is this because shitting up /hwg/ didn't go well for you?

>>95893548
Perhaps amazingly, in the 20 years that I've been hanging around here, never seen CP. Is it like some kind of Castlevania 2 "What a horrible night to have a curse" callout when it happens? Or is it more like the Succubus coffin from SotN?

>>95893739
NTA but pretty schizo to assume some random poster you assumingly disagree with strongly is somebody shitting up /hwg/, the current thread doesn't even seem too bad. You doing ok?

>>95885659
>pretty stupid and makes anon look dishonest
Hardly, when the claim being refuted was:
>If you want molded plastic minis, and you aren't GW, you either make them in China or you don't exist
And already back-pedalled on that to discount the UK.
>>95885780
>The minis are prepainted and pre-assembled
Has that business model ever worked? As far as I'm aware everyone that's tried it has failed. So maybe they should rework the basic concept.

>>95898762
>Has that business model ever worked? As far as I'm aware everyone that's tried it has failed. So maybe they should rework the basic concept.
Xwing and its ilk held the #2 spot in the miniatures market for the better part of a decade. Yes, license bump, but it also allowed them to do things like hand out free ships at tournaments. They couldn't re-create the magic with Trek Flightpath, but that game was mishandled pretty badly in certain ways. And Armada was far and away the most popular naval game for years. So there's definitely a market, it's just not the 40k people and a solid chunk of /tg/

>>95898762
Prepainted models worked for Xwing, clix, and monsterpocalypse. Monpoc only failed because the company owner got upset that a side project he wasn't directly working on was doing better than the ones he was, so he stepped in and reworked it with unassembled resin and metal models. Pirates of the Spanish Main also did quite well, although you did have to assemble its snap-fit plastic card models. No painting required though.

Are they running this at Origins? I want to see if they're selling any product for it at the con.

>>95904379
Was at Origins today, no Leviathans for sale. I'll try and remember to take booth pics tomorrow for proof. It's not being sold at the con.

>>95904379
They’re running it, but it’s not for sale . The people who say it is are lying

>>95880337
Stockholm Syndrome is real.

>>95909272

Thats weird Randall told me if I sucked his dick I could have a starter

>>95913953

that would be a seperate non-CGL transaction then.

>>95880332
Castles in the sky rules are an unpolished mess. The artwork in the book is nice, at least.

>>95909272
>>95909060
There is an absolute madman here running Leviathans in a full naval uniform, and it's like 80 degrees in the hall. An absolute chad.

Also, confirmed. No Levs for sale here, except for a Levs fiction anthology.

>>95915078
That's almost certainly NEA, he's a bit mad. Hell of a guy though.

>>95913953
It's Randall, being a corrupt faggot isn't official company policy. Just a personal perk. Probably gets off more on the embezzling than the hummer. Now if you could find a way to mix fictional warcrimes into there he'd probably make you an Associate Line Developer within the week

>>95915282
What's an NEA?

>>95916871
Not Entirely Anon, a mostly battletech namefag with a lot of behind the scenes experience with the game. Won a lot of tournaments back in the day, affected canon here and there, has been a big supporter of Leviathans since the start.

>>95917700
run through the /btg/ archives and you'll find a alot of posts of him explaining the game, we also get confirmation on various con stories from him. Like the resin sniffing

>>95898762
>>95900041
I get the feeling prepainting/assembling works a lot better for vehicles than it does characters. I don't think people mind that their ships come in naval grey with little portholes dotted in as opposed to a character looking like ecce homo.

And, incidentally, I have been given permission to share the PDF of the Leviathans core rulebook. Which I'll do when I get back to my desktop on Sunday morning, if the thread is still here and someone can drop the new vola link or something.

>>95835010 (OP)
Catalyst?

>>95844435
No, Catalyst inherited some of FASA's worst scumbags. They're criminal in ways that would make people go full meltdown if GW or Wizards did, but because people like Battletech gets swept under the rug.

Basically everyone in its management should have liens put on their houses to pay the various people they've screwed.

>>95861811
Gonna cry?

>>95865302
>Also is there a reason the ships fly close enough to be broadsiding one another?
Anyone who asks this type of question about tabletop wargames is either insincere or retarded.

>>95918421
You're largely right but, I think a big part of the difference is that when catalyst fucks contractors and freelancers over hard it doesn't feel like it effects the greater community (it does though) the way GW does slamming lawsuits and CnDs down on popular stuff left and right. They're also real good at riding grey areas, staying in civil law not criminal law territory, and screwing people who can't afford to fight even a small company. People mostly care when they can feel it personally. Also when a company isn't traded and the owners literally refuse to hold you accountable in any way for embezzlent...it's basically a raise/bonus with extra steps.

>>95919200
It's just frustrating because I love Battletech as a game, but FASA and later Catalyst were up to the same tricks. Say what you will about him as a writer, but Stackpole stopped writing Battletech stuff because FASA wouldn't pay him contractually agreed money. This is the shit they've always done, and evidently always gotten away with. I believe they tried to ratfuck Ben Rome with his Il-Clan manuscript similarly, and that's in Battletech which pays their bills - unlike Shadowrun which they're most infamous for.

With GW, I honestly think their positions around unauthorized third parties profiting from their IP are more defensible, even though their lawsuits are closer to lolsuits in a lot of cases. Of course, they're hurt by going after popular Youtubers and such who can bitch to a large audience. However, those people should have known they were playing with fire in the way they were making money from Warhammer without an actual business relationship with GW.

>>95919252
Oh yeah a lot of content out there was solidly in fuck around and find out territory legally speaking, but that doesn't mean it was smart to go after more than the broken IP laws make them. Which is something I'm always skeptical of given how many brands don't go the Disney/Nintendo hyper aggressive route the way GW does and seem to be just fine. GW is really good at blunting the goodwill and momentum they build up and apparently hate organic free marketing. But they're world class at hooking dolphins and whales, only ethots and gacha have them beat there, so it seems it never actually matters in the end and the line keeps going up. As for battle tech I feel you brother, but it's something we live with unfortunately as the devil we know is probably better than the alternatives at this point in time. I doubt we would be so lucky as the war machine players (they still exist allegedly) getting picked up by steam forge instead of some ignoble fate like a brand collector/venture capital, asmodee, or maybe even Microsoft coming for the proper rights instead of a few years of licensing. I think that we probably have to wait for the current management cabal to literally die off or retire and hope the next batch is less shit.

I preordered the core box and Operation hannibal mostly because i think the lore sounds neat. The Anthology book was a fun read and i wanna know more about the Switzerland situation (I will fight to liberate my homeland)

>>95919961
What is happening in Switzerland?

>>95920996
it got disolved and split among the neighboring states

>>95921003
What a based setting. Fuck the Swiss.

>>95918002

It's literally just rebrand(dot)ly(slash)newvola

>>95921401

>italians were allowed to develop leviathans

I honestly am filled with a deep deep disgust at this setting

>>95921573

also the readme says

>/newVolaDrop
is where you drop files.

However I assume you're bullshitting anyway. *shrug*

>>95920996
>>95921003
Did the Albion also devastate Belgium? Because with flying ships, they have no need for their harbors and no need to tolerate its industry either.

>>95919386
Yeah, I think GW are being a bit silly going after YouTubers whose videos probably brought them thousands of Horus Heresy book sales; but I'm also a bit sympathetic to them being sensitive to how their IP is portrayed. That's nevertheless not not paying people with whom you have a contract to pay them for doing work.

On the other hand, CGL is also made up of FASA alums that deeply love BT, and I'd hate to see, Asmodee for example acquire and run BT into the ground.

I like this game it's fun. Picrel - a mix of the old and new French models, repainted in my preferred color scheme

>>95865302
>is there a reason the ships fly close enough to be broadsiding one another?
Per canon, combat ranges have been dropping significantly since the introduction of skyships, because without the ability to check the height of shell splashes, you can't range in and correct your fire, so you need to get close to the enemy to guarantee hits at all. This has even lead Austria-Hungary to build their ships with peaked rams, similar to the real life Torpedo Rams of the late 19th century and that one Austrian ship that got a ramming kill in real life.

>>95921587
The Italians have a battleship with six torpedo launchers on a side and a turret mounted torpedo launcher in the bow. I'll tolerate a lot to allow that level of glorious nonsense.

>>95923141
What's CGL's policy right now about resin models and other fan content related to game mechanics? I think I saw something a while back about them asking that fans not produce certain Leviathans content but forget the details. They were pushing someone's 3D models at the time I think.

>>95924943
Remembering something about the US and Germans in WW2 having tank ammunition that burned a certain color in the base of the shell, I did a brief search to see if I could find something about the history of the technology. Only the base of the shell burned to help conceal it from an incoming PoV while letting friendlies and the shooters see it from an outgoing PoV, while the color helped with ID. Anyway, I couldn't find anything on it except that the UK was among the early adopters in WW2.

>>95925147
You could theoretically do something with colored smoke trails, but it's unreliable especially with WW1 chemistry, and the game is more interesting at close range anyway.

>>95921599

PDF rulebook was uploaded to voladrop at about 0100 EST. So it should go live soonish.

Thank you to those who provided the info.

The models are actually pretty nice, though they could benefit from a wash.

>>95887769
>and Nick had it coming
Are you a jew or merely the victim of jewish lies

>>95835037
>>95926803
The Anastasia Romanov who exists in the Levs timeline is a different person from the Anastasia from real life, due to the timeline diverging twenty years ago and her parents having different timing with producing an heir. She's in her twenties and since taking the throne in 1911 has apparently learned to command Leviathans and fleets, as she's available as both a Captain and Admiral choice.

>>95887769

Tsar Nicky was a retard with multiple chances to turn back from his doom. Some token reforms or even just pulling out of WWI could have saved him and his family.

I feel like people sympathize with slain nobles/royals because you can read their letters and detailed accounts of their lives so there's a parasocial bond not unlike what people who aren't history nerds feel about Pewdiepie or Call Her Daddy. My GF is really obsessed with Marie Antoinette and her circle of friends.

One can forget that revolutions start because the normal people were suffering enough to be willing to risk their lives and upend their entire culture and economy. But of course the people who had to eat their dog to survive or were forced into prostitution didn't have their stories passed on.

>>95926455
where do i find this vola? can't find much useful info on it even on desuarchive

>>95927912
>One can forget that revolutions start because the normal people were suffering enough to be willing to risk their lives and upend their entire culture and economy
The worst the State-General of the French Revolution could expect in return for their ingratitude was the equivalent of having their smart phone taken away.

>>95927950
Read the thread. Specifically, read >>95921573

>>95928372
much obliged

>>95877674
if you don't want people "defend(ing) the shoddy practices of pedolyst game labs" then why did you buy their product you massive faggot

>>95928480

its 100% morally consistent to use slave labour and condemn it

>>95926455
Thank you. The rules are kind of clunky, but I can see a very dedicated crew of Battletech veterans finding some fun out of them. I do like the use of colour-coded d12 in trying to break the mechanical restraints of a clearly Classic Btech-inspired ruleset, even if the end result is charmingly old-style.
I know it's peculiar, but the lore is ... weak. It marries the typical poor CGL poor writing with some ludicrous setups (Russia, whatever the Dalmatian Italian female admiral is, a gender bender version of D'Annunzio?). Starting the thing with an excruciatingly boring pseudo-scientific rant about fake science does not help either).
What worries me, what market there is for a lore-poor, mechanically heavy game for such a niche setup (airships)? Also, get better art, Castles in the Sky may have been the typical generic Osprey ruleset, but the art sure blows out of the sky whatever Leviathan provides. Even the eye wants his part.

>>95925161
Yeah, it was more a historic observation. I'm okay with in-close firing and, yes, it does make things more interesting. It kind of meshes with some stuff I was putting together but haven't fully fleshed out yet.

>>95926832
>>95929100
Feels a little bit Magical Realm but I guess it could be worse. I'll probably mostly focus on the game itself over the lore but I do get a little bit of that CGL writing vibe from scratching the surface.

I enjoyed the original game, what little I did play of it. An Anon had run a partial session here before the quest board existed and I liked it enough to get a box. Getting people together is another one of those hurdles.

>>95929100

>>95930609

>>95930616

>>95930625

>>95930632

>>95930638

>>95930644

>>95930651

>>95930660

>>95930665

>>95930665

okay. jesus. the art is better. the game is factually not.

>>95930672

>>95930681

>>95930675
Absolutely, and absolutely.

>>95930688

>>95930694
The artist is Mike Doscher btw

>>95921599
Why did you assume he was bullshitting?

>>95930750
Because I don't want any game to succeed except for Ospreys

>>95929469
Magical Realm? It's a historical figure commander, it's not that deep.

>>95853802
A thousand deaths upon Mythic for fucking Monsterpocalypse. What a fun game to paint for.

First time I got burned by a Kickstarter too; I was real lucky up to that point.

>>95930835
If it's not historically accurate, it's magical realm.

>>95931278
Maybe you shouldn't click on threads about ahistorical games then.

>>95930964

I'll back a small press RPG that looks interesting but I don't trust some no-name company to produce an expansive miniatures range, especially in plastic.

>>95932909
That makes you just another paypig. All tabletop games should be free.

>>95931278
I genuinely cannot tell if this is satire or not.

>>95929100
>clunky

uh?

>>95930702
Impressive artist, honestly. Osprey often has a good eye for book art, not a surprise considering the kind of books they publish. Sure Leviathan's could use some better designs/art, their ships are ugly-looking blobs of metal that fail to be striking or majestic.
>>95930675
Has anyone even tried Castles in the Sky? From a quick read it seems to be Battlefleet Gothic/Aeronautica Imperialis inspired, kind of funny considering how Leviathans is clearly Battletech-inspired. But I've got burned a lot of times with subpar Osprey rulesets that looked okaysh from a first read.

>>95934452

i dunno. I play void admirals because I'm not a huge faggot

>>95934452
>considering how Leviathans is clearly Battletech-inspired
Ok, now that I've had a chance to read the Levs rulebook, I don't understand this comparison. How are you claiming that Levs is ripping off Battletech? It has a completely different dice system, and different to hit and damage system, and a different armor system (BT is ablative, Levs is penetrative). The only similarities I can see are that both games use a hex grid, and that both of them are granular enough that you lose components of your unit one at a time and have to work around accumulated damage as the game progresses.

>>95938893
>both games use a hex grid
And dropped. Nothing good requires a hex grid. Open movement is the only acceptable choice in a miniatures game.

>>95940162
gamelet take

>>95935862
>look up game
>some shitty indie Battlefleet Gothic knockoff that uses AI art

this is masterful bait

British Leviathan class Battleship

>>95940876
French Faucon class Cruiser

>>95940884
German Prussia-class Battleship

>>95940888
Russian Berkut class Destroyer

>>95940897
Italian Mare Nostrum class Battlecruiser

>>95940904
Austria-Hungarian Adler class cruiser

>>95940913
Japanese Kawa class cruiser

>>95894346
you've never been on /vp/

>>95940923
United States Frontier-class Cruiser

Dump over. The first five factions are going to be available at launch, the Austria-Hungarians, Japanese, and US are being saved for wave 2. But this gives a solid look at each skyfleet's aesthetics.

Also, there was a kickstarter update today: Looks like shipping will be charged and start going out in the second week of July. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/leviathans-the-great-war/posts/4417600

>>95938893
>>95934452
If anything it's got more in common with Crimson Skies, but even that's a very vague comparison
>t. idly sketching out converting the FASA-Trek ships to Levs

>>95940939
Despite loving the Frogs' and White Fleet ships IRL I suspect I may have to get the Japanese Levs, they hit that perfect John Carter button for me.

>>95941289
They are pretty cool.

>>95941396

>they arent selling them at cons trust me

>>95941396
Unsurprising to see CGL is selling the stuff at Cons instead of fulfilling the KS first.

>>95941435
>>95941435
What makes you think I bought this? I got it from the same supply as the ships >>95926481 here.

>>95941463
Oh well it is ok then if they are just giving them away at Cons instead of fulfilling the KS first. That is an entirely different kettle of fish.

>>95931334
I can sympathize with >>95931278 to some extent. Most knew it would be ahistorical coming in because airships levitated by SCIENCE! is, well, very ahistorical, but there's not really an inherent expectation that birthdays will get shifted around for historical figures.

>>95941469
It's basically just that the demo team lead got a bunch of stock for putting his demo kit together, and ended up having more than needed, so some other demo agents such as me got a couple boxes as well. I got that Kawa because I play Kuritans in Battletech and got a French fleet box because I'm committing to France, they're half of >>95924943

Since I only need one, I'm gonna give away the French fleet box from my kickstarter as a prize when the game delivers and I can actually host events, so I don't actually come out ahead.

>>95941476
haven't jumped in to this convo yet, but it's pretty cringeworthy fiddling with the numbers so princess anastasia can be an epin admiral

>>95941478
So they were giving out stock at Cons before fulfilling the KS. Got it.

>>95941497
Yes, but only to super special boys like me.

>>95941490
Might as well go even further and have Golden Kamuy AU crossover where Asirpa acts as her nemesis with an independent fleet purchased with the story's Ainu gold. You know, make something of it.

>>95941519
Given how Russia and Japan are gearing up for another war that would take a lot less work than you expect.

>>95941497
To members of their own fucking demo team, genius. Read the post. Giving shit to their own people internally isn't the same as selling it at conventions.

Are you even capable of a take that isn't in bad faith?

>>95941490
And it's still 100% mary sue having an admiral that age. Unless they do something I couldn't ever picture them have the balls for and making it so taking her gives you extra points in exchange for penalties to represent the fact that she got promoted into a position far above what she's qualified for thanks to royal nepotism.

>>95941631
She's serving at sky to learn to command so that she can eventually be a good Tsar. Same as how the British sent their princes to sea for centuries.

>>95941605
Oh well as long as it is just to people other than those who paid for it via the KS before fulfilling the KS then that is fine of course. Don't want those KS backers getting uppity and thinking their delayed KS should be fulfilled before CGL gives out stock to whom they feel like.

>>95941650
>>95941631
>>95941490
It's a callback to another FASA game
The Black Swan is routinely hinted to be Anastasia; one of the missions in the PC game is retrieving the Russian crown jewels. She is extremely invested in this. http://mirror.crimsonski.es/universe/pilots/b_swan.htm

>>95941674
I don't have anything to do with these guys but my sympathy for you not getting your models in a timely matter is still less and less each time you post

>>95941736
I don't care about your facts. I want to be mad.

>>95941766
And fuck you too. Catalyst shouldn't be allowed to sell any products for any game at all until they fill out KS orders.

>>95941790
I hope your toes get bitten off by a parrot

>>95941674
One of the listed privileges of being on the demo team is early access to CGL product. Has been since the Fasa days. Companies trat volunteers who help them better than bitter shits like you. Seethe and dilate. I hope you're the very last person to get their stuff.

>>95941790
>I want to be mad.
Which is why I'm unsympathetic. You really are an annoying, effeminate, whining little shitbag.

>>95941802
It would probably be less of an issue if CGL had actually communicated what is happening with the US backers stuff that is supposedly already in the US, rather than seeing all this happening instead of being told when they can expect to receive their stuff.

>>95941796
It's really a terrible situation when someone who has a legitimate grievance but is communicating it like such a jackass that it makes CGL of all companies look reasonable.
Like holy fuck dude, you read like a falseflag black argument, quit being a bitch.

>>95940904
>>95940939
Fuck they're seriously some fugly ships with lame art. Why do they hate Americans and Italians so? Not that the other ships are decent-looking, but those are particularly ugly.
>>95941631
Anastasia doesn't irk me a lot. Again, to have fun, check the Special Snowflake Italian Sky Admiral with lesbian haircut and commands the fleet because we say so. Add to that Dalmatian irredentism for some extreme right-wing charm and the hilarious Italian mistranslation (suggestion, you can use "aeronave", an old italian term for blimp for a flying ship, volante sounds like a police car, but again CGL and good writing are on opposite sides).

>>95942229
>Why do they hate Americans and Italians so?
who wouldn't?

>>95941478
>you dont get to have your game that you paid money for and is two years late
>HOWEVER, if you are CGL's chief #1 ballsuckler you get to get one(1) free mech
>this is acceptable behavior to a company two years late

I'd totally forgotten about this but my LGS owner asked what everyone would want and did a pretty big kickstarter pledge. I think I'm in for German and French starter fleets. What are the odds this shit gets made and I actually have to pony up?

>>95941766

thankfully the law is on my side

>>95942229
Austria better still control the Veneto and Lake Garda/Como.

>>95942600
he's basically immune to small arms fire, bullets wouldn't go deep enough to harm vital organs

>>95942600
The shit has been made and has been shipped to the US. They're collecting pledges, including from your LGS owner, next month, and it'll probably deliver by end of August.

>all this CGL bootlicking

lol

>>95942600

i remember when this guy went viral and someone who served with him said he could bench press 400 pounds and then someone found his post history proved it was him coping on reddit. also his wife left him over the weight game

>>95881582
Corvus Belli still exists?!

>>95940884
>>95940888
i like the french and german designs

>>95945136
Good news, the starter kit is French vs German, a Destroyer and Cruiser each.

Just preordered the box, plane tokens and a british fleet. Very stoked. Fuck Pardoe.

So how does the game actually work? This thread is pushing 250 posts and I've barely even seen anything about the game itself. I don't care about CGL. I just want a cool ship game that doesn't take 30 minutes to resolve 2 ships shooting at each other.

>>95946168
>I just want a cool ship game that doesn't take 30 minutes to resolve 2 ships shooting at each other.
There's this game called Battleship...

>>95946168

I was wondering if anyone was ever going to bother asking.

I'm about to head to work for the evening. Give me an hour; I have a canned example I can post up here from my phone.

>>95942639
The worst part about this info is that it had to come from a superbacker relaying the info rather than CGL actually updating the KS with this info.

>>95946322
Are you some kind of special stupid?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/leviathans-the-great-war/posts/4417600

>>95946335
>Are you some kind of special stupid?
No. Anything I can do to hurt Catalyst is worthwhile. That's what they get for firing an author because he's a conservative. They declared war on my politics, I declare war on them.

>>95946380
I'm actually convinced this is 100% a false flag now.

>>95946168
So, picrel is a ship card. This contains all the info needed to use the ship in a game, including firing arcs and the like. NEA will have a better explanation, but I'll take you through the ship card while we wait.

At the top, you have the name of the ship, its class, and the nationality banner, so we can immediately know this is the Imperial Japanese ship Tokushima, a Kawa class. Top right is the Ship Type, which is the size. 1 is Destroyers, 2 is Cruisers, 3 is Battlecruisers, 4 is Battleships, and an event featured a Sky Fort with 5. This works as your Initiative stat - bigger ships have to move first, and smaller ships go later, letting destroyers respond to a battleship's movement.

At the bottom right you have "Enter Hexes Before Turn", which is how many hexes a ship has to move straight before it can turn. These are ships, not planes, so they're clumsy and not agile. The Tokushima has EHBT 3, so she has to go three hexes forward before she can turn - bad at turning but fast in a straight line is part of the Japanese identity. A similar French cruiser might have EHBT 2.

Continuing clockwise, bottom left has Starting MP, your movement points. MP is actually determined by the ship's Engine slots, but they put the starting total here so you don't have to add it up.

Top left is Structural Integrity, basically your ship's HP, how hard it is to kill.
(1/2)

>>95946442
Attached the wrong ship card image, but here's the Tokushima. You'll see that around the art, the ship is divided into four locations, Bow, Starboard, Stern, and Port. These are both your arcs for outgoing shots and incoming damage. Each Location is broken up into six slots. When a ship takes a hit, the hit will randomly hit one of those slots, and possibly destroy it if it punches through the armor. Each slot is a system of some sort, like guns, armor, engines, crew, and stabilizers. Anything not covered in the core rulebook has its rules printed on the back. The white numbers in the brown arrows are the armor level that particular slot has.

The colored circles correspond to dice. A green is a D4, blue is D6, yellow is D8, red is D10, and black is D12. It's a danger scale, bigger dice get a more dangerous color, so the guns contribute that die to the dice pool you roll to attack. Each gun has two values, one for short range and one for long.

I'll let NEA actually handle explaining gameplay, since I've gotta get to a TTRPG session.

>>95946424
If you were a regular in /btg/ you'd know this guy is genuine, he posts like that all the time.

>>95946424

Blaine Pardoe is an american hero and was by far the best author CGL ever fired

Land&Sea is a better game than Battletech.

>>95946465
Yeah, no.

>>95946486
Wow, I've discovered a person I hate more than someone who comes into a franchise and disdainfully ignores all the previously established lore: someone who's been writing in the franchise for 35 years, still can't get it right, and has a melt of fucking facebook when someone gives him a mild correction, jesus christ.

>>95946486
Wow, I've discovered a person I hate more than someone who comes into a franchise and disdainfully ignores all the previously established lore: someone who's been writing in the franchise for 35 years, still can't get it right, and has a meltly on fucking facebook when someone gives him a mild correction, jesus christ.

>>95946538
Yeah, cry political persecution all they want, fact is the guy was a combative asshole who had to be removed from the Official Forums because of how often he'd start shitstorms.

>>95946380
>declaring war by consistently demonstrating that you're entirely untrustworthy and by being so annoying you turn people off from your position by default
picrel

>>95946424
it does stink a bit

>>95946597
The other option is schizoid, and given what >>95946453 said and the disturbed dude's reply, that's my current bet. But damn, that makes me sadder. Dudes got worse issues than 59% of troons.

>>95946215
>>95946168

Ok, ready. Sorry, but this is canned, so I'll be doubling up on what was already posted a bit.

First, a short version tour of the record sheet and then a combat example, including how to kill a ship.

This card is the Faucon-class Geneve, a French cruiser. Each individual ship card is slightly different, but all ships of the same class will have *broadly* similar armaments, armor, and engine performance. Top right box is Ship Type, which tells you when you move. Ships are rated from Type 5 down to Type 0. All Type 5s move, then all 4s, then all 3s, etc. Top left is Structural Integrity; a ship's resistance to dying. Higher = better. Bottom left is Starting MP (Movement Points). 1 MP to enter a hex, 1 MP to turn 1 hexside. There's other stuff you can do with MP, like using your ships as mobile terrain to block line of fire. Bottom right is your ship's inertia; you must move forward that many hexes before turning once.

This ship has 4 Locations, bow, stern, port, starboard. Each Location has 6 Slots; each contains destructible equipment. The white number is the TN to kill a Slot, which is modified by the presence of an Armor Slot in that location (slot 1 on the Port side's white number is 11, this counts as a 12 as long as Port Slot 6 still exists).

The green and red ribbons running through each Location are your ship's Defense. If you entered a new hex, and someone is shooting at your Port side, you'd look at the green ribbon. If you were stationary (or just rotated in place), you'd use the red ribbon instead. These dice add to the shooters dice pool to hit you.

Dice are ALL color-coded d12s, so the core game mechanic is to look at the colors, pull the matching dice, and roll that pool. Yes, you can play with normal polyhedrals; it's suggested to color match them anyway.
dGreen = d4
dBlue = d6
dYellow = d8
dRed = d10
dBlack = d12

>>95946676

combat example

The Geneve is shooting at another cruiser that matches its stats exactly, port side to port side. The 2 ships are 3 hexes apart.

The Geneve has a 75mm gun in the bow and stern. It rotates its turrets to fire port, and fires each gun individually. Every gunshot starts with a white Slot Die (d6); this tells us where we actually hit.
The gun has a range of 4/8 hexes; so it's in the short range bracket, so we pull a dBlue. The forward gun has a Crew Slot in that location, which has a Green dot, so we pull a dGreen. Finally, we're shooting at the port Location. Both ships moved this turn, so we look at the *target's* green ribbon. The dot on the green ribbon is dBlack, so we pull that color die.

Our die pool is:
>d6+dBlue+dGreen+dBlack

Slot die shows a 2, and the other dice sum up to a 13. The white value of Slot 2 is a 12 (+1 for the armor slot in port slot 6), meaning a 13 meets or exceeds the white value. Slot 2 on that ship is destroyed. All damage is simultaneous, so it can shoot back from that slot this turn, but after that it's gone.

The same calculation happens with the Stern 75mm gun, except that there's no Crew slot in that location, so the dice pool is only:

>d6+dBlue+dBlack

Slot die shows a 1, and the other dice sum up to a 7. That's not high enough, and so the shot is lost. We don't care whether it missed, or was a dud, or hit and didn't penetrate. It has no terminal effect, so it's lost in the abstraction.

Finally, we have 3x 75mm guns on the port side. Each of them has a white triangle, and they're all the same caliber. This means we can use an alternate fire mode called "bracket fire"; slaving multiple guns together to really hammer 1 slot. Each gun adds to the pool, and we keep the best 2 results. With the crew die in the port side, our dice pool is this:

>d6+dBlue+dBlue+dBlue+dGreen+dBlack

Slot die shows a 2, and the other dice sum up to 18. But slot 2 is already destroyed. What happens?

>>95946688

Now we move on to a Breaking the Keel check. This is how to kill ships.

First, since we've hit a destroyed Slot, we retain our attack roll of an 18, and reroll the Slot die. Whatever we reroll gets hit by that 18 (so if we roll 1, Slot 1 is hit by an 18 and is destroyed). The shot is inside the vessel, looking to create a significant emotional event. In this case, we reroll the white d6 and get...a 2. Imagine.

So we've hit a destroyed slot, and rerolled *into* a destroyed slot. Now the ship might go up in smoke. You roll 2dRed (ie, 2d10), and must meet or exceed the Structural Integrity of the ship. This specific roll is the Breaking the Keel roll. You might note that the SI value of a Geneve is 22, which is...hard...to beat on "2d10". However, every destroyed slot on the ship is +1, and every destroyed slot in that Location is ALSO a +1. There's only 1 destroyed slot so far (Slot 2), so that counts as a +2. We roll 2dRed+2, and need to meet or beat a 22.

Unsurprisingly, we don't get a 20, and so the target ship survives. However, we ALSO reduce the SI by -1; the ship is now more vulnerable to future critical damage. If we'd rolled a 20 (total result 22), then the target ship would be knocked out of action. Again, whether it outright explodes, sinks gently to the earth, breaks in half, or whatever, is lost in the abstraction (campaign rules will go into more depth). It's out of the game.

There's a bunch of other stuff, like aerial torpedoes, fighters and bombers (don't expect much out of these; the focus is 100% remaining on the ships), ground-to-air fire, clouds, mountains, floating fortresses and so forth. But this example shows the core mechanic of the game. ID colors from the ship card, pull matching colored dice, roll and sum up, meet or beat a TN. The only numerical modifiers are during a Break the Keel check, so it's minimal combat math.

>>95946335
Compare the comment section of the KS to that update and you will see a Superbacker had that info 13 days prior and provided it there. So yes CGL was worthlessly slow in actually updating what is happening.

>>95946843
lmao, my dude you got into a worthless-off with CGL and win, that's impressive

>>95946728


I'm confused, dont slots need to be hit and damaged first before they get blown up? Was this a last minute change to speed up games?

>>95946486
But le Razorfist says he cool though? :^)

>>95946728

for stage purposes how tall is one of those ships from base to top? It looks like a 3in flight peg

>>95946688
.
So is the "t" on the card meaning it can fire in all directions or

>>95946728

for lamination purposes how big are the ship cards

>>95930835
Yeah, I led that with 'feels a little bit' and I don't mean just Anastasia. I also feel like they were trying to seed a little bit of bait into the game. True or not, I'm giving them the side eye on that and will still play the game. I just won't necessarily embrace the lore for my use.

>>95941736
Does Catalyst no longer own Crimson Skies? If they do, I'd rather they do a revival.

>>95942229
I'm bothered that the models came out a bit too thick. Especially compared to the models from the first edition. I get that they need to hold up to handling but I can also see a bit of how the mold and assembly played a part in how the final product looks. I feel like I might need to remake or create a mod kit to 3D print

>>95886748
I've heard Siocast turned out to not be as good as advertised, not 100% sure though. I've never bought a Siocast product, so can't speak on it from personal experience. One of the big things was the characteristics of the (as I understand it, proprietary) plastic wasn't spectacular for hobbyists. I don't know if you have to stick to their plastic though.

I don't think this vid is the final word on the matter but it does offer some good insight into the challenges of producing a product using purely domestic sources in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

>>95949429
Reread the example anon. The 2nd example post hit and damaged the slot. The 3rd example shows what happens when you hit the destroyed slot again.

>>95949429

A slot must be hit first, before it can be hit a second time and generate a Breaking the Keel check.

>>95950372
>It looks like a 3in flight peg

About 2 inches, IIRC.

>>95950462
>So is the "t" on the card

T means the weapon is turreted. A Bow or Stern mounted turret allows the weapon to fire into either the port or starboard arc, as well as the arc in which it is mounted. A turret on a side Location is functionally a wing turret, and it allows the the weapon access to about half each of the Bow and Stern firing arcs.... But the weapon cannot cross the centerline of the ship. So a port Wing turret could fire into the forward arc, but not into the center line of hexes or into the hexes in the forward arc located on the starboard half of the ship.

Attempting to model cross deck fire made the rules hideously complex, and historical ships *generally* didn't do cross-deck fire with wing turrets anyway, because it fucked up their own ship. The juice to make that possible in the game wasn't worth the squeeze.

>>95950781
>how big are the ship cards

A5 and A6 (battleship cards are bigger)

>>95952707
>Does Catalyst no longer own Crimson Skies

They sort of just acquired some of them. CGL just acquired the minis manufacturer IWM, and *they* own the rights to make Crimson Skies miniatures. However the game itself is owned by Microsoft, so nobody is ever going to get the rights to that ever again.

>>95952750
>models came out a bit too thick.

I don't disagree, but on the flip side I have something like 75 minis from the first game release, which *were* nicely in scale with thin masts and gun barrels. And those things broke like you would not believe; maybe 25 are still 100% intact after this long. I REALLY like the Osprey art posted up thread, but I'm not sure plastic models made true scale can survive even moderate handling. Masts were infamous on the initial release for snapping while in the plastic trays in the box.

>>95952891
People get confused about Siocast. The same company makes both a casting material they call Siocast which is a thermoplastic resin or something along those lines which has a learning curve attached to it. But they also make a casting system, i.e. makes molds, they call Siocast. That is designed as a cheaper middle ground between the full on sort of production machines GW uses and making silicon molds yourself. Literally for small manufacturers. So it doesn't necessarily mean they need to use the same materials for casting that most associate with Siocast.

>>95953417
Yeah, the promotional stuff I saw years ago gave the impression it was an "ecosystem" they were trying to push, which is why I wasn't sure how possible it is to move to a different plastic.

>>95953013
>Breaking parts
They could try to go with a more flexible plastic. Similar to Reaper's Bones, perhaps. I recall that took a little bit of doing. I only have the older Bones products and primer didn't play well with the material. I think I heard that issue was fixed, though.

>>95953940
>They could try to go with a more flexible plastic
NTA, but no thank you. Have you seen the warping on Reapers soft plastic? These are multi part minis that need to be assembled at the factory. If you used a soft plastic you'd never be able to assemble them. They wouldn't fit together accurately.

>>95953967
Eh, I don't know about that one. Bandai products seem to say otherwise.

>>95953979
Bandai plastic is a whole fucking lot different than Reaper Bones, anon. Even GW plastics overscale things like antennas, because in scale stuff breaks under normal wear and tear.

>>95953996
>It's different
But I was throwing an example out there and said "similar to Reaper's Bones, perhaps." I should also note that I was talking about fitting, because I have run across some warping in capsule figures before, but not often. Hot water treatment seems to work most of the time.
I totally get that parts need to be oversized to escape breakage but picking the right materials can help with that problem while preserving a little bit more of the aesthetic. Speaking of aesthetic, when I mentioned the thickness, it wasn't just about the barrels and masts. I was looking at the hull and the influence of demolding on the hull shape and details. Some people I know have gotten their shipping quotes already but I'm still waiting on mine. I'll take a closer look at the models when I get mine.

>>95953940
Pretty sure that Corvus Belli use a Siocast system for their bigger stuff now. They had teething issues initially but once the system and materials are grasped and refined for what they are doing the quality and usability is fine. It certainly wouldn't be metal, but if they can produce and sell it for even slightly cheaper it will be better for them in the long run. Plus it doesn't need to be mutually exclusive either. They can still make the odd metal stuff if they want. It is just that something akin to a Siocast system can be feasible and scalable based on demand if they are willing to invest and put in the work to untangle themselves from relying on overseas child slave labour or euros.

>>95954160
Yeah, could also be bug testing often found with early adopters too. Maybe a combination of both. The question I have is if the hardware can use consumables (mold and casting materials) from sources outside the company in China (or elsewhere to be fair, because tariffs and supply chain challenges is still going to be a thing and that's where this conversation started, I think).
I remember seeing some experiments done with injection molding using 3D printed resin molds and they seem to be promising, but I don't think they'd hold up to higher volume printing and there's a question about how well they'll handle fine parts. Are there any systems similar to Siocast out there now?

>Plus it doesn't need to be mutually exclusive either.
I was thinking earlier, but didn't post, about multipart models being a combination of soft and harder plastics, but why not even combine it with some white metal pieces? Granted, being top heavy is something to watch out for, but also a white metal puck at the base might be nice to have. Not a complicated thing for sure, but some people might like a hassle free drop-in weight. Maybe even with a divot for a magnet insert as an option. Just random musings

>>95954285
I am sure someone else has probably looked at a middle grade production system but I can't think of any off the top of my head. As far as compatibility goes it depends on too many factors to really say yes or no. In the end a mold is a mold and can be made to work in different ways, but there would need to be re-work done to facilitate that and the end product may not be as good. Perfect example is the GW Finecast fiasco. They modified existing molds to use their shitty faux resin to disastrous results. Which was more an issue of Finecast as a material than the actual molding process change itself. Ultimately they wouldn't really need to rely on those existing molds if they get their own system setup. Especially as the quality wouldn't be much different, or possibly better with the new system. The issue is output limitations which could be a problem given they consider it a retail product. But that being said I cannot imagine it somehow being worst than having to rely on mass shipments from China. If anything the reliability of their supply should go up when moving to in-house production as there is no longer a manufacture and shipment delay for them to then on-send.

>>95954402
There are a few I can think of, but nothing anyone "in the industry" is trying. The current standard for metal models is actually a pretty refined pewter recipe. It gets much cheaper (and brittler, less detailed, etc) if you really want it to. Even moreso if you don't mind risking getting busted for lead toys. Plaster is also an option that I don't think any major industry players even consider. Some plaster recipes are surprisingly robust, but working with it after its been molded is like resin, but worse. Dirt cheap though.

>>95954402
>I cannot imagine it somehow being worst than having to rely on mass shipments from China
I mean, there fundamental problem is that Liya International is doing CGLs plastics. In one of their "look how nice we are" videos, they bragged that they were paying their employees about US$4.50/hour, which is around 25% above market rate. Ok, fine. But there was a job listing for Iron Wind Metals up a few months ago, and IWM would be CGLs US based minis producer. They were hiring for a spin caster at a starting rate of $24/hour, plus benefits. I work in HR; the actual cost to the company for that employee is going to be something like $35-40/hour in the end after insurance and benefit costs.

So any time you claim that anything is better than made in China, remember that you're comparing a <$5/hour employee to a $35/hour employee. Saving 85% on your personnel costs makes up for a WHOLE LOT of shipping and logistics costs. To say nothing of having to buy all of their manufacturing facilities, molds, and machining from scratch to do it in the US. Liya uses a couple dozen 40oz shot size molding machines. There's a Haitian ZEIII machine on KD Capital Equipment right now, used, and thats a cool 185 thousand for just the one machine.

I can't see production of anything high volume, and anything plastic, moving to the US anytime soon.

>>95954648
Wargames Atlantic did it, although signs point to them having some other business propping them up, or possibly an independently wealthy owner.

>>95954648

the startup costs are expensive, but you can still draw an easy profit and be happy.

important you understand that labor costs to produce massively pale in the cost to transport goods. This is also by the way why interstellar commerce will never be a thing.

>>95954648
There are a number of other factors involved that straight hours comparison. Especially since the requirement to sell models fully assembled may no longer be a factor. You are also assuming they would be using comparable machines which wouldn't be the case if they are adopting something like Siocast and moving to more proper resins. Your points are somewhat valid but not the extent that you seem to believe. There is also a factor around the amount of production necessary if moved in house as it would no longer need to have excess production to factor in the shipping etc. So even if the casters are working full time the actual amount needing to be produced in a day would be less overall than what the Chinese factories were doing.

>>95941811
expecting competence after the Battletech
shitshow.

I like how this thread has been proven objectively wrong, whilei t was up

>>95954648
You're still yapping when you've been proven wrong in this thread multiple times. Clearly there are manufacturers in America, Germany, Italy and the UK who make plastic minis and frankly the wind seems to be blowing against China these days.

>>95954661
>Wargames Atlantic did it, although signs point to them having some other business propping them up
WGA was only able to do it because they partnered with a billion dollar Chinese plastics manufacturing company (Altera) who wanted to start plastic production in the US anyway due to fallout from the Covid shipping insanity.
Source:
>wargamesatlantic.com/blogs/news/made-in-the-usa

WGA didn't foot the bill on their own, and they never would have been able to pull it off independently, the way people here are insisting that other companies do. They lucked into a unique circumstance, and good for them, but it's hardly repeatable or an example to hold other businesses to.

>>95956835
I just wanted to troll people about catalyst being the worst gaming company to ever exist

This thread has sucked

>>95959250
Sounds like you'd have more fun in /btg/ where everyone whines about CGL and agrees on it

>>95959228
>nobody can do what Airfix did
>nobody can do what Revell did
>nobody can do what Tamiya did
>nobody can do what Italeri did
>nobody can do what Renedra did
>nobody can do what Zvezda did
>nobody can do what Games Workshop did
you are here
>nobody can do what Wargames Atlantic did

>>95959228
You are again assuming that the final outcome must be a carbon copy of existing manufacturing setups. Half of the discussion in this thread has been about alternatives to that sort of setup as those are becoming both available and more feasible. It is also somewhat interesting that you use this as an example since this sort of proves how big a cost/time sink the shipping and logistics is. Otherwise they wouldn't want to suffer setting up US based production with all its associated increased labour costs unless it was worth it compared to relying solely on Chinese based manufacturing.

>>95960260
It wasn't a cost/time though. They specifically call out unreliability as the main reason.

One of the bigger annoyances I have with the setting is that you're just kind of the military and I dont think other FASA properties would have been as successful as they were if you were just "kind of the military" I guess. In CS you could be in the military but you could also be a pirate adventurer type, in battletech you can be one of many militaries, a technobarbarian and you can be a complete unknown merc.

I guess what I'm saying is that the setting really needs its "captain nemos" and I hope that the great war ends with a bunch of countries being broken up into smaller ones with pirates stealing levs and shit. I dunno

>>95961196

FWIW, anon, I can *promise* that the concept of Southeast Asian jungle sky pirates is being worked on, alongside a formal RPG. Different mechanics, but a lot of Rogue Trader conceptual DNA in how to handle it. But, like with Crimson Skies and BattleTech before it, the wargame leads the way.

>>95961256

Yeah, a formal RPG might be nice, as long as its not like Mechwarrior Destiny. Is there any room in the lore for Canada to get a fleet? The fucking brazilians got one

>>95961269

Canada still falls under the umbrella of the British Commonwealth nations. Therefore, any Levs they operate would be a part of the Royal Navy (similar to India; the unique British cruiser is captained by a Sikh, Amil Dahr, so colonials are part of the RN). I don't recall offhand much mention of dedicated Canadian fleet information, largely because Canada didn't have the sort of heavy shipbuilding that transitioned to Leviathan construction facilities during the early 1900s.

If there is more extant information on Canadian air fleets that is shareable publicly, I'm not currently privy to it. The line devs have kept quite a lot of the detailed fluff very tightly under wraps.

>>95960941
And what does unreliably cost anon? Cost/time.

>>95961360
Are there any unique swiss ships? I know that there are swiss mercs but is tjere the possibilty that we might get some pre-second-berlin-confernce Levs?

>>95962086

As a matter of fact...

>apologies for the photo of a screen; I'm actually at work and am limited I'm what I can do here

>>95961196
>>95961256
>Southeast Asia
Well that's good to hear. I poked around the discord a little bit a while ago and noted that China was being skipped on and so started doing research, writing, and design on my own. The short version is that it starts the warlord era one year earlier but there are a few changes in the late 1800s under Manchu rule that lead up to those events.

>>95962469
china is being skipped on purpose because cgl hates the chinese for fucking over the game the first time

>>95962501
That and they don't want their shit confiscated again, I know.

>>95962193
Hell yeah!
Is that a german model or a new one?

>>95961360

what's Israel doing in all of this?

>>95963560
...not existing?

>>95963580

Great! Thank you for admitting that CGL hates Jews, and is using their games as a platform to screech from the bully pulpit

>>95963611

Well I have to get to work but I'm just going to post the date Israel was founded as a nation and will instruct you to look up what was going on in the levant during the great war.

>>95961360
So where can I learn more about the Lore NEA?

>>95961269
>The fucking Brazilians got one
Any other Latin American nations that have a fleet?

>>95846887
Scans. It's from first men in the moon.

>>95968399
>he doesn't know about the LatAm Dreadnought Race
Short answer: at the turn of the 20th century IRL a solid chunk of South America beggared themselves in a mutual naval arms race, mostly procuring foreign ships. Several of them were seized by the manufacturing countries when WWI went hot. A few were ships made for, E.G., the Ottomans that they couldn't pay for.
So if it follows RL at all there are going to be quite a few British and American Leviathans tooling around the skies down there.

>>95968370
Try the rulebook in the Vola, anon

>>95968399
>>95968672
Drachinifel does a pretty good presentation on South American dreads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnl-wtl5-1E

>>95926832
hnnng