Leviathans: new Alternate History steampunk board game

[VidaLaVida]

So I was at the local Renaissance Faire a couple weeks ago, and I saw this game box in one of the bookstores that were set up. I didn't have enough cash at the time to get it (it's got a hefty price tag: $100), but I sure was intrigued. It's a board game released last year with a specific alternate history premise:

In 1878 the Polish genius Rynchowski isolated an electrical fluid with remarkable lifting capabilities. A single, pivotal event that would change the world.

The smartest military minds of the coming generation—Zeppelin, Jellico, Fisher and others—diverted their attention to the glorious new technological revolution and sea-going battleships were abandoned around the world. In their place, armored giants took to the skies.

In 1906, Great Britain launched the HMS Leviathan, the first of the “super air ships”, sparking an arms race around the world. By 1910 the most powerful nations boasted large High Fleets, and the start of small skirmishes left the world uneasy…welcome to Leviathans!

http://monstersinthesky.com/

Basically, it's a steampunk airship combat board game, where, in ATL 1910, the world's empires have adopted sky navies as the main source of their military strength. Right now, there are two countries' fleets available, Britain and France, with six other factions (Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy, the United States, and Austria-Hungary) to be released soon afterwards.

I'm not much of a board gamer, but I might have to check this one out. Anyone played this?

 

[e of pi]

I'm not much of a board gamer, but I might have to check this one out. Anyone played this?

I have, I tried a test game at genCon last year with my SO. It was a little 2-v-2, a French destroyer and cruiser against their Brit equivalents--there were four of us around the table, each fighting one ship. I had the French DD, my SO played the Brit CA. The game was pretty fun--we managed to disable both her main engines, and then I screened against the other DD while our CA slugged it out with a broadside of her's we'd already damaged until he silenced every gun she could bear (and of course with engines out she couldn't turn.) Finally, we broke her back and dropped her out of the sky, but the Brit DD had managed to get a couple lucky hits on the two of us, and our CA had taking a pasting before it managed to silence her guns. it came down to me vs. the other DD, with me already short a gun and an engine. We were running out of our slot, so he and I agreed he had about a 70% chance of winning. We rolled a d10, it came up less than 7, so we agreed his DD eventually killed mine. It was a lot of fun, and the models are really cool--I got to take a DD home with me as a prize.

I'm going to try a more complex round at the con this year--if I had somebody local to play with, I might buy the starter box, but at the moment I don't.