Warship Build 26 — Leviathan Heavy Transport

After a somewhat long while, I begin what I will tentatively call the Second Volume of my Battletech warship builds (after having already started the Fourth Volume of ‘Mechs and vehicles). To begin on a high note, I decided to do this by presenting the largest build I ever made for this blog: the Leviathan!

This warship was developed by Clan Ghost Bear with the help of Clan Snow Raven. It started as a concept for the largest warship ever made — a battleship like the McKenna but even larger and more powerful. However, political developments during the early 3050s, resulting from the Clanner defeat in Tukayyid, led to a quick and drastic change of things.

There was a severe cultural shock within Clanner society. Things quickly started to get out of hand as leaders blamed each other for the debacle, unable to admit their own failings as individuals and as a society. The Refusal War between Wolves and Jade Falcons and the destruction of the Smoke Jaguars later in the decade showed that these warring societies were descending into a pit of self-destruction. The only way a population would survive what was coming was to leave the Homeworlds and start anew elsewhere.

The Ghost Bears thus decided they would transfer their assets to their holdings in the Inner Sphere. This led to some snap decisions to support the exodus, among which was the initiative to modify the Leviathans, which were still under construction, into heavy transports, eschewing the heavy weapons entirely.

This would also mean that no Leviathan would truly be built to the original specifications, despite the later development of the Block II and Block III versions. The class was never that common either, with the original hulls being reconfigured into a battleship configuration some time later and only a few new vessels built afterwards for both the Bears and the Ravens. Most would be destroyed during the war against the Word of Blake.

At more that 200 parts this is by far my largest build, even larger than the Turanic Attack Carrier and the McKenna Battleship. In lore this ship is around 1600 meters long (an entire mile), so using my 75m-per-stud scale, this led it to become 24 studs long! Absolutely massive! I will admit that it is more of a sculpt than something useable in a game (maybe you can use it as terrain, I think).

It is also a bit tricky to build.

In order to avoid making the instructions longer than they already are, in steps 8, 10, and 11, where the parts are mirrowed in both sides of the ship, I decided to have one side dismantled as I usually do so you can see where the parts land, and the other one already done so you can see the final result. This will hopefully allow you to see how to make those sections, but I will admit this is a complex thing to make.

If you do build it, please let me see how it turned out.

I should also add this was inspired by requests from a Discord channel I partake in that came right after I started making warship models. It was kind of a joke, I reckon, but I gave it a try. Took me a few months to make the thing, but then it was almost an year until I got to complete the instructions.

But here we are. You have a giant ship to play with! Let me know your thoughts.