Two hours and ten minutes later, our first game of Leviathans is done, straight from the starter box… well, almost from the starter box as I had to refer back to the separate full rulebook several times as the quick start rules were lacking, but I need to take myself back out of this discussion* and leave it to the players.
Turns 1-5First off, I should have had them start on a slightly reduced board size as there was no feasible way for the starter French or German ships to engage on turn one, but the range had closed enough for attacks to start being made on the second turn, so both kids stayed engaged. The speeds are very variable with French ships having about a 50% advantage over German ones until damage takes effect, but there was no risk of anyone being stuck and unable to maneuver.
Play moved along at a reasonable clip for a first time, with the longest turn taking about 15 minutes, but most were under 10, for movement, attacks, and cleanup. Both enjoyed rolling the pools of dice for each attack, but it was a struggle for me to keep all of the modifiers correct as the difficulty to hit a target changes not only with range, but also the target’s relative position to the attacker. Most relevant quote of the first half, “This is like 40% math!”
The first Break the Keel roll occurred on turn five; if damage is repeatedly done to the same location of a ship, it triggers a test on whether the ship is destroyed, which would be about when I expected from the readthrough. The French Bretagne survived, but with a permanent negative to be applied to future tests.
Turns 6 – 11That survival was a harbinger of things to come as another 4 Break the Keel rolls came up on both cruisers in following turns, I decided that we would wrap the introductory game after a ship, any ship was destroyed. The issue is that Breaking the Keel has to occur from multiple hits to the same location, which can be turned away and protected without much maneuvering at all.
I suggested that both kids could skip movement if they were happy with their firing positions, as the game allows it on any turn, with the only downside being that a ship with Full Stop suffers negative modifiers during attacks, and both agreed almost immediately. They had a good time rolling the larger pools of stationary target dice, and I think that next time it will be struggle to get them to move out aggressively.
Finally, the German Brandenburg detonated on turn 11, but as you can see from its record card, a huge amount of damage was soaked up over the course of the game, and even so, it was a close roll when it finally did crash.
Both had a good time and asked when they could play again, so watch this space after I have tightened up the recordkeeping side of the game.
*Multiple times throughout the phases of a turn you may need to roll 2 Red custom dice… only 1 was included. I am glad I already picked up extra dice sets as a campaign addon.
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