Leviathan
Alert
Combat
Type
Power to Awaken
Invades with Planets
As an invader, at the start of launch, you may use this power to “awaken” one of your home planets with a solo base as a “leviathan”. Your leviathan becomes your flagship for this invasion. Any ships stationed on the leviathan are automatically committed. Awakened leviathans add 20 might to your fleet.
When establishing a base with an awakened leviathan, you may use any ships stationed on it. If your awakened leviathan is destroyed, vaporize it and destroy all ships stationed on it. At the end of your campaign, rebound your awakened leviathan.
Legacy: Invaders add 10 might to their fleet during combat.
Ancient titans who feed on a planet’s energy for sustenance, the Leviathans spend most of their time in hibernation, storing their energy for when it is most needed. Their devoted “followers” who pilot their ships are merely flesh puppets the beasts control psychically to handle the grunt work while they slumber.
Invader: Launch
Optional
Wild Flare
As the invader, after destiny, you may discharge this flare to vacate one planet from another alien’s system, jump that planet to your system, and establish a base on that planet. Then end the invasion. Burnout.
Invader: Destiny
Super Flare
When awakening a leviathan, you may discharge this flare to awaken any of your home planets . All ships on that leviathan which are not yours or the defender’s are treated as your sponsor ships, and those aliens may not commit more ships to the invasion.
Invader: Launch
Modifications
- Changed from the power of “worldships” to the power to “awaken.” My version of Leviathan doesn’t have worldships. The Leviathans themselves are the planets. Planning to change original Relic’s power name, as it is the original power to “awaken.”
- Original Leviathan’s power can create a “worldship” out of any home planet that does not have other ships on it. This phrasing seems weird to me, as it implies that you can send an empty worldship to have a pointless invasion where only sponsors can gain bases. In the interest of not wasting time, I set it so only secured planets can be worldships.
- Original Leviathan’s planets are not destroyed when losing after awakening. I added this for the spectacle, as well as creating a fitting tradeoff for the benefits of sending the leviathan. The original still loses the base, which would be functionally similar to my version of the power, since reestablishing home bases is uncommon.
- Original Wild Leviathan lets you swap two planets, allowing a free +1 dominion at the start of an invasion. While you need to have it during your own turn to use it, it is a textbook example of “have a flare zap or lose the game” kind of flare. Having at least one secured planet is almost guaranteed, and even going 1 for 1 with someone else is easy to ignore as long as any other player has less dominion than you. Modified to give an alien an extra home base instead, while also taking home/foreign bases away from someone else.
- Leviathan’s legacy is a simple +10 might for invaders, effectively neutralizing Citadel’s legacy. If both legacies are active at once, Leviathan’s bonus is lessened. I intentionally give them different values to prevent both legacies in play from having no effect. It provides a unique scenario whether one, both, or neither are in play. Any win-based aliens such as Void, Winner, and Barbarian can take advantage of this legacy to better use their power. Aliens that like to lose as a defender like Pickpocket and Sneak can also use it well. Spiff can have some trouble with it, since it is less likely to lose.Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Despite being an invader-only power, Leviathan wants to win as a defender as much as possible. Protecting those home bases ensures that Leviathan has as much of a safety net as possible. As the invader, its leviathans grant a major combat bonus, allowing it to use its stronger pods as defender.
- When winning your first encounter as Leviathan, keep some ships on it so you can use your leviathan again for the second encounter. If your planet is empty, you can no longer use it as a Leviathan.
- By sending a leviathan first, Leviathan can guarantee a second invasion. Depending on how the first goes and who the defender is, Leviathan may wish to send its leviathan again (if confident) or its regular flagship (if not).
- Losing 3 times as the invader will prevent Leviathan from waking up its leviathans further. This can happen earlier if Leviathan loses as defender, so go hard on Leviathan if invading them.
- Leviathan’s +20 combat power can be a huge hurdle to overcome without a strong encounter pod or combat power. Consider either saving your strong pods against them or gunning for compensation if they invade.
- Despite Leviathan’s great offensive might, it still takes 3 campaign cycles for Leviathan to win purely by itself. To avoid someone else grabbing the victory first, Leviathan will likely need to sponsor some invasions as well.
Development Notes
- Leviathan is another alien purported to be the largest in size, along with Macron. It’s large enough to cover the majority of a planet. However, since it fits one of its planets into the gate, I like the implication that one of Macron’s ships is as big as a planet, creating a stark difference in size. I definitely think my Macron is bigger since it cannot even establish a base on other planets due to being too big.
- I considered whether Leviathan should get its +20 combat bonus as the defender. Mechanically, it makes more sense that the +20 is invader-only, but I needed a thematic explanation as to why it doesn’t get the bonus as defender. One also has to consider why a planet has to be secured in order to use the power, as surely a giant monster wouldn’t care about a few bases on its planet surface. I opted for the “awaken” power theming to explain both, as Leviathan has to “wake up” in order to get its bonus. While this bonus could technically be applied as defender, the fuel requirement could make sense as a resource that requires it to wake up. This makes me wonder if theoretically the power could still act when defender if you have extra fuel. Biggest hurdle to this is how complicated it makes the power description.
- Leviathan is a pure combat power in the same vein as Virus and Warrior. Unlike those, it is invader-only, meaning it doesn’t see as much use of its power. However, the might gained from its power is both strong and consistent. +20 is a high bar to overcome, even with every other alien sponsoring you with max ships. In a standard 5-alien match, an all vs 1 against Leviathan (with max ships) has a base 24 vs. 16, giving Leviathan a +7 advantage (due to defender tiebreaker). What it lacks compared to other combat powers is scaling, allowing others to close the gap as the match goes on. Some combat aliens like Sorcerer and Trickster can bypass Leviathan’s power entirely, making them bad matchups for Leviathan.
- I like the idea of Leviathan being both the large beast that wakes up to invade, as well as the small “puppets” it uses to pilot its ships. It allows the title of “Leviathan” to apply to the whole alien while working with existing mechanics, as opposed to feeling like two aliens in a symbiotic relationship. The fact that it psychically controls the puppets while sleeping, even after getting deactivated, adds to the intimidation factor.
- Leviathan has to be careful about establishing bases using the ships on its leviathan. If it commits all of them, it loses the authority from the planet and would give Grump a free base if it’s participating.