renegade legion

[trader jim]

Wanted, Wanted, Wanted.....

I am looking for a very good/excellent copy of..

the old "renegade legion" (FASA) "LEVIATHAN"
Technical readout (plans/drawings) published in the 90s.

Will pay nice Jucy $$$$$ for book.....

Also interested in the Board Games...Execellent
shape
Also the metal figs and stands. e-mail me !!

 

[Border Reiver]

Oooops too late. I sold mine on e-bay during my great clear out October 04 to April 05. Sorry

 

[trader jim]

if anyonr reads this.. i still need one....

 

[aramis]

Jim: they didn't ship with metal minis. At least not in the early printings. They shipped with folding boxes Illoed on 5 sides. The minis were available separately.

My boxes are integrated and in great shape; I'd be asking about $300 for the full shebang, Lev, Cent, Int, Shan. Cty, Lev Ship Breif, Int Ship Briefs, and Legionnaire.

 

[trader jim]

OUCH!!! That Hurts...thanks but i have to hold off and just look for the Tech Readout of the Leviathan (ship briefing)

wanna part with yours??

 

[aramis]

All or nothing. Sorry.

 

[robject]

I've forwarded your list and price to a friend who might be interested...

 

[Darkhstarr]

Unfortunately, my wife sold off her Renegade books at a garage sale.

 

[kafka47]

Trader Jim, are involved in the project to bring the RL world into 2320AD?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Trader Jim:
OUCH!!! That Hurts...thanks but i have to hold off and just look for the Tech Readout of the Leviathan (ship briefing)

wanna part with yours??

You want the Leviathan ships manual?

There were 55 designs, and 26 of them were illegal by the game's few super-simple design rules.

Typical were bay-geometry violations (lasers bays mounted fore and aft that had more BFs than side-mounted bays) and energy violations (used more than the plants put out).

I also believe I remember that there was an illegal missile system, and possibly a couple of more obscure errors. There just weren't many things that could go wrong*, but over half the ships were anyway.

There were also numerous designs that used far too little energy for the power plants installed (a titanic waste of money) or that didn't use all the BFs in question (by large amounts).

-----------------------------

* I never was happy with the Leviathan design sequence. Interceptor was fantastic, and nothing in that line matched it.

 

[robject]

Chris, I have a tangential question. What are the R.L. ship design systems like?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by robject:
Chris, I have a tangential question. What are the R.L. ship design systems like?

From what I recall from my last work on Leviathan in 1992:
</font>

• Pick Power Plant: You go down the list of available engines (a simple chart). The largest engine generates 50,000K energy, and you can mount up to three. You total up the weight, cost, and energy generated. The systems you mount cannot take more than the energy generated. The ship class is based on the energy generated. There were destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and battleships. I forget what the breaks were except for battleship. if you generated 100K or more, your design was a battleship.</font>
• Pick Armor & Weapons: There were point defenses, spinal mounts, missile bays, and laser bays. Oh, and fighter bays.
  </font>
  • </font>
  • Armor: The armor limit was based on the class (which is based on the total energy output). There were six armor facings, and each could have up to 20 "rows" of boxes, and each row was 10 boxes wide. A BB could take all 20 rows. Cruisers I believe could take 15 rows (I'm trying to remember), and I can't remember what the lesser breaks were. You recorded the cost and weight based on the amount of armor selected, and there was no reason not to take the maximum amount allowed by the class' limit.</font>
  • Point Defenses: I have trouble recalling this. It was an ancillary system, based on the ship class to some extent. It provided anti-missile and anti-fighter firepower. (But from my vague and distant memories of playing a few games in 1991, IIRC, it wasn't particularly useful against missiles.)</font>
  • Spinal Mounts: Each ship could mount a single spinal mount (all are gigantic super electromagnetic canons). You picked a spinal mount off of a limited simple list and recorded the weight, cost, and energy used. I believe (IIRC) there was a rule like you couldn't mount a spinal that took more than 1/3 of your available energy. The largest spinal took 50k energy, so if you wanted a BB with the biggest gun, you mounted the three largest engines. The largest spinal mount would punch a hole 15 rows deep and I can't remember how many boxes wide to the armor facing it hit. It could only be fired straight down the hex-row in front of the ship, and had ok range.</font>
  • Missile Bays: There was a very limited list of available bays, six I believe. You did 50, 100, or 150 damage to every armor facing of the target ship. Missile hits were devastating, they were by far the most powerful weapon system. The systems also had 1, 2 or 3 total shots available. The biggest system was E, and could do 150 damage, carried 3 shots, and was typically only mounted on BB's (it may have been a design rule). BB's almost inevitably mounted an E missile system, even if they omitted their spinal mount.</font>
  • Laser Bays: The number of laser bays a ship could take was based on the class. A BB could take six on each side and two fore and aft. I can't remember the lesser class breaks. Each laser bay took a number of "Bay Factors". Each class had a limit on the number of Bay Factors that could be mounted (BB I think was 5000, but I'm vague on it now). You could not install a laser bay fore or aft with Bay Factors larger than those of any laser bays installed on the sides (the "Bay Geometry" rule). There were a large number of laser bay choices with varying range and damage. You totalled up the cost, weight, energy used, and BFs used.</font>
  • Fighter Bays: I just can't remember this one exactly. There was a limit on the number of fighters you could carry. I think the limit involved Bay Factors (and that carriers got more Bay Factors for sacrificing 1/3 of their energy, or something like that). Fighters units could be directed against capital ships or other fighter units.</font>
  • Carrier: If you designed your ships as a "carrier", you could carry triple the normal limit in fighters (IIRC). You sacrificed 1/3 of your available energy to do so . . . and I can't remember what else right now. Oh, and I think you couldn't have a spinal mount on a carrier.</font>
• Engines, FTL, Misc: There were a few more ancillary systems. You recorded their costs, weights, etc.</font>
• Totals: You recorded the final cost and weight. That's it. Only energy and Bay Factors really restricted design. Cost and weight were meaningless totals, just descriptive figures that were listed on the ship's stats when design was done.</font>

Overall, it was an exceptionally unsatisfying design sequence. Unlike Interceptor, where design tradeoffs were balanced on a razor's edge, Leviathan design rules had very few design elements that you had to work on. Really, the only brain-power necessary was balancing a good list of mounted laser bays based on the Bay Factor/Bay Geometry limits. Everything else was pretty much just recording the numbers and totalling them at the end. (Well, the cost could matter if you were playing a "Trillion Credit Squadron" type campaign.)

I found ship duels to be extremely ponderous. The primary decision was when to fire the missile bay, and it was clear that whatever BB fired a volley successfully first was going to hose the enemy target quite badly. This led to a premium on both sides fireing their E type missile systems ASAP. Spinal mounts were very difficult to employ (as they should be). Laser bays did limited damage by themselves, and although multiple hits could add up, they didn't come close to missiles or spinal mounts.

It might be different in campaigns. I remember an included campaign of multiple scenarios that had missile resupply rules (that might restrict your firing decision on that system), but I and my friends who played it disliked it so much in comparison to Interceptor (we played that for two years) that we simply gave up and put Leviathan away after only two or three games. I did some ship design work for awhile because I'm such a gearhead, but that's it.