Jovian Leviathans: Fan Fleet List for War Rocket: Monstrous Space Creatures Hunt In Space!

Crash Slabjaw yanked at the controls.

"Phan!  Dango! You two man the auxiliary proton cannons! We've got company!"

Crash was a veteran of the Belt Wars and knew this space well.  But they'd whooped those Imperials but good.  So what had struck their rocket?  No asteroid could have got near then with his skills in the pilot chair!

"Nothing on the radar box, Captain!" cried Betty

Crash stole a glance at Betty's shapely gams, beautifully revealed by her space-fleet issue mini skirt.
He wouldn't mind getting her back on the radar box...

The rocket rocked violently.
'No time for that now', he thought regretfully.

Suddenly the forward viewport was filled with ... could that be right? It looked like a giant eye!

His mouth hung limp as he watched in shock as the eye drifted up, his view replaced with a massive monstrous mouth.

Pulling hard on the controls the rocket glanced against a row of giant jagged teeth. But too late: it was the inside of the teeth!  That was the last thing he saw before his view became blacker than space.

........................

Last month I showed you the kit-bashed 'Jovian Leviathan' fleet I made, for either a Tyrannid Battlefleet Gothic fleet, or as giant space-swimming creatures native to Jovian Seas for War Rocket. 

I promised then to put up the first version of the War Rocket fleet concept I have for them, but I didn't take the time to do it until now.  I'd hoped to test the rules out, but I haven't had a chance, so it's all first-draft concept at this point.  So feel free to give the fleet a try!  If you haven't played War Rocket, from Hydra Miniatures, I highly recommend the game: fast paced, easy rules but very tactical. I have tried to make this article as similar as possible to the War Rocket format to make it easier to incorporate with the game.

War Rocket divides a fleet into different classes of Rockets: Class I, II, III, IV, and a rare V such as the Zenithian Mother Ship.  The two most significant aspects of a fleet is decided by the type of movement it uses (Some fleets are fast but not agile, some agile but not that fast, fast & agile but not tough and tough but not very fast or agile) and the power & angles of weapons.

I decided that the Jovians, being living creatures, would be quite agile, but compared to rockets with thrusters, a bit slow. They'd also not have as many weapons, but they'd all have close physical weapons that they use to lash out at enemies nearby.  Hopefully this combo would make a fun and challenging fleet to play: You want to get close, but don't have the speed to make that easy.  You do however have very good maneuverability, so you can exploit errors your opponent might make and it will reward you for clever tactics.

MOVEMENT

Swimming Movement

This movement type is used by the races of Jovian Leviathans which are native to the gas seas of Jovian worlds.  These creatures contain large reserves of gas which they expel from various vents to propel themselves through space. While their top speed can not match rockets of the terrestrial worlds, they are exceedingly agile.

* Each speed point can be used for 1 inch of movement in the forward direction.
* Use 1 speed point for a rotation up to 60 degrees (one hex face).  -or-
* Use 2 speed points for a rotation up to 120 degrees (two hex faces).
* Each rotation (either a 1 or 2 speed point rotation) must be followed by 2"of movement before a new rotation.
* Leviathans may start their turn with a free rotation up to 60 degrees even if they ended their last turn with a rotation.

Leviathans are affected by Space Objects in the same way as Rockets.

Fleet Sheet: 

"S" = Speed. "D" is the defense value of the creature/ship.

The main difference in weapons type is the inclusion of physical weapons: claws, tentacles, tails, etc, that they use to lash out at nearby foes. These are described in text below the chart for each class. 

Class I: Manta. 10pts.  Fast creatures which hunt in packs. Lashing weapons are only a threat to the front.

Class II: Shark. 15pts. Similar to Mantas but more resistant to damage. 

Class III: Orca. 20pts. A fearsome beast.  Seen as solo hunters or in packs. 

Class IV: Kraken 30pts.  A true monster. Unlike smaller Jovians, this creature has projectile weapons which fire to the rear, so be careful when you approach it! 

Class V: Great Leviathan 40pts. The largest beast of the Jovian seas and deep space.  Relatively slow, but dangerous to be sure. 

Upgrade: 5 pts: "Great Maw": Any hit of a stun or better against a Class I enemy inflicted by the lashing weapon in the front 60 degree facing results in the swallowing of the rocket: remove the model from play. 

Note: I made the Class III weaker than other fleets' Class III to reduce the point cost and give room to expand the fleet to accommodate a Class V creature. 

* It should go without saying, but Jovians may not be boarded. 

FLEET RECOGNITION: JOVIANS

Manta (Class I)

Shark (Class II)

Orca (Class III)

Kraken (Class IV)

Great Leviathan (Class V)

Until I get them painted, this will have to do.

I still need to complete a list of ship upgrades, and try them out on the table. And paint. 

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!

Jovian Leviathans : The Galaxy's Most Fearsome Monsters: Also a Tyranid BFG Fleet

When dinosuars walked the earth the ground shook under their weight and mammals hid in fear.

When man braved the seas their sturdiest ships were broken by the backs of the great cetaceans.

As the intelligent races of the small rocky worlds escaped their homes' gravity wells feeling themselves to be undisputed masters, winners of evolution's race, they found they were once again insignificant.

For the Jovian Worlds hold true terrors: Leviathans.

Leviathans, often called 'living space ships' since they rival the largest vessels ever built, are native to the gas oceans of worlds which dwarf the rocky inner planets of the countless stars.  Some say they are no more than very large cattle, but others believe they have a long and ancient intelligence which has spanned the galaxy, inhabiting nearly every gas giant. To make matters more dangerous, they can travel within the vacuum of space, and are fiercely territorial.

.....................................................

For a very long time I've wanted to convert up a fleet of 'living ships' for general space ship gaming or to use as a Tyranid fleet in Battlefleet Gothic. The minis that GW made were alright, but it's a lot more fun to make my own. Besides, I wanted to have a lot more variety. Different species, some more abstract, and others more recognizable as a 'creature' to a human eye. 

I always liked the idea of Moya from Farscape:

Though Moya is a 'living ship' that's been genetically engineered to function as a ship for small terrestrial beings like us.  What I was after was something a bit more natural and primal.

I used the Tyranid BFG fleet construction rules as a guide, in case I ever want to use them in that game, but in a more general sense I also wanted to have Small, Average, Bigger & Big to count as Class I, II, III & IV for War Rocket.

I've written my own fleet rules for 'Jovian Leviathans' to be compatible with the War Rocket rules, because I think they'd be very fun in that genre. One of my favorite things in MOOII (Masters of Orion II) was the space dragons & space eels that guard good planets. So why not?  Seems just as appropriate in the fun flash & pulp of War Rocket as it does for the Doom & Dark of BFG.

I'll share the fleet rules in another update soon.

I've worked on this fleet on & off for while, and it's nearly finished. But I didn't want to wait any longer for painting before I showed them ;)

Hive Ships

So you saw the preview Leviathan in the last two updates and the first picture here.  This is a 'Hive Ship' for BFG or a Class IV (actually it will be a larger 'Class V' in War Rocket) or just a very big battleship in any other system.

Miloam

I also built a very different species but also a Hive Ship or Class IV:

This species is more of a 'Torpedo' shooter and a slicer, while the first one, Miloam, relies on claws and hail of shooting shots. I took inspiration for this one from the Shadow vessels of Babylon 5. 

Cruisers

The next class down: BFG Cruisers or War Rocket Class III:

I built two of this species. The Tiger of the Jovian Seas.  A decent far striker and a deadly dorsal slicer, to rip open the ever more massive jellyfish-like floaters. 

Another cruiser.  A stalker: short range lance-like weapons and heavy jaw-claws to crush prey. 

The last of the Cruisers / Class III species. In BFG a torpedo vessel. All of the Cruisers / Class III species have a dorsal slicer as a common trait. 

Escorts

Kraken with battery fire in BFG or Class II in War Rocket

Kraken (Maybe Vanguard Drone?) with Feeder Tendrils / Class II

Watch out! Coming to get you!

Kraken with Lance-type weapons / Class II

Escort Drone with Lance-type weapons / Class I

Escort Drone with battery-fire / Class I

Some more green-stuff work & bit of filing to be done still, and need to make fighter & assault craft still.

But for the most part the fleet is done.  More than enough for some good games of War Rocket, 1500 pts or more in BFG and lots of options for whatever other system I might use. 

I'll probably have to paint them before mounting on flight stands, since I'll probably use clear acrylic stands with hex bases, so I could use them easily on battlefields in both space and over alien worlds. 

Space Battles in a Flash! A Few Test Games of War Rocket

On Friday we had some open gaming, as the Empire of the Dead season has wound down and the new Victorian Science Fiction campaign, this time on the Moon, is still in it's preparing forces & locations phase.

So I brought some War Rocket fleets and tried it out with a friend. He'd never played it, and it'd been a long time since I'd tried out the rules, so we played a few games with small fleets.

I gave him his choice of fleets, and he chose the Zenithians, with their stunningly agile saucers.
I countered with the Imperials: far less maneuverable, but much more sturdy.
Mostly I chose them because they're my favorite I've painted just based on the looks.

Click for larger:

To play a game of War Rocket you'll need a few counters or tokens.  What I found works well is to have a "been hit" token, for this I used little acrylic fire pieces from Litko. I have a few sizes, so a medium could stand for 3 hits, large 5, etc. This is because you delegate all your hits before testing to see the effect.

One effect from being hit is a stun.  So I also brought many red & yellow glass beads to record stun.
The first turn a rocket is stunned it has a red token, then at the start of the next turn it shifts to yellow, it is still stunned, but it will clear the next turn.  A rocket that is stunned twice is destroyed, in which case you just remove the rocket. The red & yellow system makes sure you remember when to clear off a stun.

In Game 1 we tested out the rules with four Class I rockets each. The Z's smashed the Imperials soundly.
I then realized we'd used the first line of the hit results chart for both fleets.  I'd mistakenly looked at the four tiers as Classes of ships..but not so! Even a Class I Imperial ship has a sturdiness of 2, so is harder to damage.  But we'd hammered out the activation system and hit allocation and were ready to have at again.

Game 2

We upped the fleets to four rockets each: two Class I rockets and two Class II rockets.

The crafty Z's set up to engulf the steadfast Imperials.

Movement is done from slowest to fastest: it gives the faster rockets the edge in placing their rockets.
My Class II's knew they'd never be allowed to fire so they rocketed past the Z's, leaving the Class I's to cover them and shoot in retribution, hoping the sturdiness of the Imperial design would see them safe.

Both of the Imperial Class II took heavy fire: 4 hits to one, 2 to the other.  The Imperial Class I's fired twice at the nearest Class II Saucer.

Both sides lost a Class II in this fight. The Imperial did it's best to swing around, drawing them back to his escorts, which held their action- a ship may declare a 'delayed action' doing nothing that turn so that it can make a complete preemptive turn before the enemy ships in the following turn. This worked well as they weathered the Saucer fire and destroyed the other Class II saucer. A victory for the Imperials.

Game 3

We tried the next higher class of Rocket: the Class III

We kept the fleets small for speed of play. A Class III & two Class II.  This time I played Galacteer, though I continued to use the Imperial ships just because I like how they look and enjoyed having the chance to play them.

The Galacteer rockets are not as sturdy as the Imperials, but they are twice as agile: they can make a turn every 2" of straight movement, compared to 4" for Imperial.

Things went well for the Z's at first: first time in range they destroyed a Class II, and then the other!
But using delayed actions and some lucky (for me) damage result rolls saw the Galacteer Class III destroy the Z III and a II and the remaining saucer fled the zone.

Assessment: 

What a fun game!  This is a very fast & light space combat game.
If Spaceship games where you need datafax cards and penciling in boxed damage, then erasing them as systems repair, keeping track of ammunition and number of crew wear you down then this is likely a good game for you.  With stun carry-over it has enough 'lasting effects' to feel realistic without requiring a lot of record keeping. It would also be very easy to run large fleets with this system.

For play style I have to think I'd enjoy the Zenithian the most.  They are very fast and can change direction at any point without needing to spend movement to turn, so the only time you need to turn is to bring weapons to bare. This means they can zoom past a foe, then spend movement to turn 2 or 3 times to get in firing arc and hit the enemy without fear of retaliation.  This advantage is going to be lessened in larger fleet games, with their enemy keeping ships in reserve to cover such possibilities, but it still means they will receive less shots than they dish out, but then- they are much more fragile, a Class III saucer has a durability of 2, same as a Class I Imperial (!), so it balances back again.   The delayed action option is a fun one, and can be quite the tactical fencing to make it work.

One thought occurred to me, this rule set would make a great option for playing Battlestar Galactica fighter combat. With Cylons using the Zenithian Class I profile and Colonial Vypers using the Galacteer Class I. 

Have Spaceship- Will Travel.

Scott asked for a picture of the Vojik, armed scout ship from the last update, with one of the PCP crew.
I should have done it the first time, but I was too lazy to go get the bag with the crew, and was taking pictures fast.  So this fixes that.

Captain Vok and The Vojik. 

Makes for a nice one-man flyer in 28mm scale and a good sized ship for War Rocket scale. 

Alien Invasion Called on Account of Rain & Fastest Speed Painting

Well hell.
Three Fridays in a row I've missed gaming.  Two from working overtime but this last Friday I was determined to get to gaming.  Time is closing for Empire of the Dead and I wanted to get some more games in, especially since I'd painted up a mini for the Pangalactic Confederation of Planets.

So I packed everything and headed out. Checked google traffic as I always do, to see which of the two possible ways I take was the clearest, and it looked pretty good.  But it was raining.  And maybe people were leaving town early for Thanksgiving week?  I don't know.  But google traffic lied.  In a big way.  Instead of a clear freeway I had a parking lot.  The rain coming down and it took 10 minutes to travel the one mile distance up the freeway to the next exit. Seeing nothing but the same as far up as I could see, and knowing it takes 30-40 minutes to get there on an average day I called it quits, got off at that exit and went home.  Looks like it's the end for this season of Empire of the Dead.  Holidays next, then gearing up for VSF campaign on the Moon.

I know, crazy to complain about the weather: spoiled Californian.  I know many have much worse weather to deal with.  I tease my girlfriend that she lives in the Ice Age half the year as it's already snowing and below zero.  But driving 5 miles an hour in the rain for a couple hours.. no. That is why the PCP have spaceships.

Here is the mini I painted for the PCP.  It was very much a speed painting job.  I had converted this months ago for the faction, but deciding I wanted a chance to field it at least once, I primed & painted it the afternoon before I left.  After priming, it took less than 20 minutes to paint.

The Vojik: armed scout vessel. 

I went for a metal finish, for a retro sci-fi look. 

I forget the manufacturer of this mini. I saw it on sale and thought it was just right for the PCP crew. 

It had big bulk boxy weapons, so I ditched those and converted some eldar bright lances for its weapons. 

In Empire of the Dead, one of the pieces of gear a character can get is a steam powered gyrocopter.  

It allows the person to fly, and still perform an action even though he moves.  I thought this would be a perfect sci-fi version of this.  Give the character a repeating rifle (2 shots) and have this fly around and shoot twice- like it's weapons would suggest.  A model with flight can perch on top of terrain- like trees and roofs, so would be ideal for keeping a rifleman out of charge threat of werewolves and vampires.  

I kept the base black, since I can now also use it for War Rocket! 

Someday it will get some use on the tabletop.  

Depending on the rain...

Enjoy!

Blue Squadron Standing By: Galacteer Strike Team

I decided to do something a bit different for my Galacteer fleet from War Rocket.  Unlike the other race fleets, these won't be uniform. I've divided them up into three squadrons of a Class II and three Class I rockets each.  All will have white hulls, with the accent color of their squadron.  I think this should still look good if I want to combine them into one fleet, but will also make it very easy to divide them up for the multi-player game I'd like to run at a Game Convention next year which will have each person commanding a small group of rockets in a space battle and race to a planetoid, where they then command a small ground party to   secure an object of importance.

Here is Blue Squadron:

I probably should have photo'd them against my star mat, but I was too lazy to get all that out ;)

Close up on the command ship, can click for larger.

The other two squadrons will be Red & Green. 

Galacteer War Rocket: Review & Tutorial

Time flies.  I was very surprised to realize it was almost a year ago that I did the first review of a War Rocket faction, the Zenithians.  I still have to do a full review of the Pirates, but at the moment, let's take a look at the signature fleet, the Galacteers from Hydra Miniatures.

The Galacteer faction is the shining protagonist of the setting: Earth's finest, protecting our planet from the multitude of dangers in space. In design they show their evolution from Earth's aircraft.  They are the second most maneuverable fleet in the game, outclassed only by the Zenithians, but they're a bit sturdier than Zenithian.  The Galacteers seem a good fleet for someone who enjoys flexibility of movement over a 'stand firm and exchange punches' style of play but without being a complete 'glass cannon'.

I bought the fleet pack deal, which comes with 9 Class I rockets and 3 Class II rockets. 

While I do have 'full' fleets including Class III & IV rockets for Zenithian, Imperial & Pirates, the Galacteer and Valkyrie fleets I've only bought the intro fleet deals.. for now. 

Opening the pack and arranging the parts, this is what we find. 

The Class I rockets are single cast, and the Class II have separate dorsal and ventral fins. Unlike some of the other fleets, there isn't any easy tell by engines or fins to identify the classification of the ships, but the size differences are distinct. 

Unfortunately I did find a few casting errors in the set.  Here are two Class I rockets, with the one on left hasn't had the nose filled completely. I had to use green stuff to build it out.  

A miscast thruster pod on a Class I wing.  Again, repairable, but still regrettable. 

The flight stand attachment works the same way as the other fleets: the hole is bigger than the stub on the flight stand, best to cut the stub off, and attach with a bit of green stuff to get a tight fit. 

As seen on the Zenithians:

Just for added balance on the table I add weight to the base by gluing in extra metal from cut bases and tabs of other miniatures. Save everything and you'll find uses for it.

And the fleet is assembled:

I have used a few taller flight stand stems from GW kits, to give some height variety.  

I don't have any Class III or IV rockets for this fleet yet, but they look like this:

Eventually, since I'm a completest, I'd like to have higher Class ships for this fleet than just the I & II, and Hydra Miniatures did just have a sale, and I was very tempted. I am still indecisive though,because I really do like the Class III (teh 'X' wing design is quite cool) but not crazy about the Class IV for some reason.... the wide hull loses the aesthetic to my eye.  And since I have three fleets that have Class III & IV rockets, I'd realistically need the same for Galacteer and Valkeeri, but I'd rather have two Class III Galacteers than a Class IV... so would that mean I'd be ordering a Class III & IV for Valkeeri and three Class III for Galacteers?  That started adding up to more than I can spare at the moment... especially when I wanted some of the Retro Raygun and little plant aliens too.  So I'm holding off on the higher class rockets for these two fleets for now.  

I have in mind to run a multi-scale game at a game con next year, where each player would command a small fleet of ships, all trying to race to, and prevent others from reaching, a planet to send down a small strike team to obtain an ancient artifact.  The game would have space combat as well as warrior vrs warrior action on the planet surface.  Different human, alien and robotic factions in a free for all.  

So I'll be painting the Galacteers up as squadrons in accent colors of Blue, Red & Green with a Class II and three Class I rockets each.  

Additional Uses:

It's always useful to consider what additional uses miniatures you buy might have, beyond your initial intention.  The Class I rockets would make nice 'near future' fighter aircraft for example, and would work well in a game like Epic 40k.  The Class II rocket would make an ideal 'Luxury liner' in any space combat game.  With all the round windows down the side, looking a lot like a passenger jet or cruise ship, it could easily stand in for a civilian space liner that needs to be protected (or raided) in any spaceship game, like Battlefleet Gothic, Full Thrust or Firestorm Armada.  

So how do I rate the Galacteer fleet? 

Rating:

Casting: 7/10
Cleverness of design: 9/10
Aesthetics: 8/10

Thanks for reading! 

Enjoy!