Leviathan
GUTS AND GEARS — THE BEASTS AND MACHINES OF THE IRON KINGDOMS
The military forces of the Dragonfather seem built around methods of maximizing stealth, surprise, and terror and specialize in strikes against vulnerable targets. The Leviathan perfectly suits this doctrine. The Leviathan’s crustacean form scuttles across the ocean floor and rough coastal terrain with equal ease. Cryx utilizes this helljack’s amphibious capabilities to deploy these vicious weapons at sea, allowing them to approach enemies unseen and perform surprise strikes. Combined with the Nightmare Empire’s command of the sea, this ability to deploy heavy assets well in advance of a battle grants Cryxian forces tremendous flexibility.
First seen in 586 AR, the Leviathan played a major role in the Scharde Invasions and earned the dread-tinged respect of Cygnar’s Third Army. Those soldiers soon learned that they might get no more warning that a simple raid had escalated to a true incursion than the burbling hiss of a Leviathan’s furnace louvers switching from internal to external air supplies. They quickly associated the chilling wail of the helljack’s spiker cannon with
souls unwillingly thrown to Urcaen and told stories of battlefields haunted by the shrieking dead.
Scouts from the 9th Division’s 72nd Brigade first nicknamed the Leviathan the “assassin crab” for the way they crawled across almost impassable terrain. One soldier described their gait as, “graceful and quick, despite their strange design. Their legs don’t move quickly, but they cover so much ground.
Nothing slows them.” This mobility combined with their amphibious capabilities made the Leviathan the true terror of the Battle of Death’s Door in 587 A.R. This engagement stripped the “assassin crab” of its nickname and the hallow bravado which spawned it. Afterwards, Cygnaran soldiers called them the “killing tide.”
Leviathan Large Helljack
In Service: Unknown. First documented sighting 586 AR
Height: 10’5”
Weight: 7 tons
Maximum Land Speed: 10.5 mph
Carrying Capacity: 1,866 lbs
Maximum Load: 2,800 lbs
Fuel Load: 90 lbs. necrotite / 240 lbs. coal
Fuel Consumption: 12 hrs general, 2 hrs combat
Designer Notations: “The boiler’s louver system utilizes water pressure to keep it sealed tight and running on internal air stored in the Leviathan’s various chambers. When out of the water, the pressure drops, the vents open, and the fires have pure air to consume.”
— Master Necrotech Mortenebra
Battlefield recommendations: “Lure the enemy into swamps and marshes where Leviathans wait in ambush. Use swift, deep waterways to move behind enemy lines. Arise from the depths of rivers and lakes to rip through the hulls of their ships. Fear is our weapon. Teach the enemy to fear the water.”
— Lich Lord Terminus
At sundown on Gorim 4th, Solesh 587 AR a sizeable Cryxian force composed primarily of thralls and mortal raiders landed at the northern tip of the Blue Sands, only twenty-five miles from Ceryl, where the waters of the Guilder’s Run meet the Sea of a Thousand Souls between a series of coastal rock
formations once known as the Pillars of Dawn. Reinforcements rushed in
from as far away as Highgate, more than 400 miles south, and intercepted the invaders at the Pillars, just on the southern side of the Run. The initial Cygnaran forces attacked the Cryxian’s southern flank to prevent them from crossing Guilder’s Run. Exploiting what he saw as a tactical error, then Colonel Sebastian Nemo, fought to keep the bulk of the Cryxians pinned against the Run and drive those that had already crossed back north. Hours of hard fighting finally threw the last of the raiders back across the river and the Cygnarans advanced north towards the jutting formations that they would soon come to call Death’s Door.
“We observed a number of ships anchored well out of cannon range,” Nemo wrote in his report, “but we had been advised that the navy was responding in force and would deal with them. Not until we had actually reached the Pillars did we understand the elaborate trap.” Scouts saw dark forms, quickly identified as helljacks, falling from the distant ships. As the Cygnarans reached the Pillars of Dawn, the tide rose and bore with it waves of dripping Leviathans. More helljacks, accompanied by barges of undead troops, moved up Gilder’s Run to cut off the defenders. Nemo coordinated a masterful fighting withdraw to the east, using the terrain to nullify the Cryxian numbers, but the Leviathans adroitly engineered mobility allowed them to consistently circumvent his defenses. Only by committing reserve troops including volunteers from Ceryl’s Fraternal Order of Wizardry and leaving the city essentially undefended did the Cygnarans compromise the Cryxian position and force them to break off.
Although Cygnaran forces eventually triumphed, the three-day battle branded the terror of the Leviathan in the minds of the soldiers who fought it. Stories quickly arose both under- and overestimating the helljack’s effectiveness. None doubted the assertion, however, that the “killing tide” nearly earned Cryx a foothold that would have allowed them virtually unimpeded access to the heart of Cygnar.
Cygnaran commanders and mechaniks, however, managed to gather a great deal of intelligence regarding the Leviathan’s deployment methods and range of capabilities. Though lacking the speed of other helljacks, the Leviathan’s four legged configuration allows unhindered mobility in nearly any terrain and makes it nearly impossible to knock down. The machine’s massive crushing claw mimics a crustacean’s natural armament so closely as to make the inspirational inference obvious but for the known preference of necrotechs to pervert nature rather than copy it. The machine possesses greater strength than any other Cryx helljack to date, and soldiers have observed the claw maiming the head and arms of friendly warjacks in a single hit. The spiker cannon’s astounding range, accuracy, and tremendous rate of fire make it an unquestionably lethal weapon. The deployment of it on such a stable, mobile, and flexible chassis only increases the danger it poses. Soldiers who do not quickly learn to take cover when facing Leviathans rarely live to regret their mistake.
Fonte: No Quarter 13
