Planetside: Directorate Leviathan Helix – Thoughts
Kraggi here from the Varcan Cluster, another post about Planetfall and one of the Leviathan Helixes available in the game, focusing on my primary faction the Directorate.
After my previous post on the Core Helix, here are some thoughts on the Leviathan Helix for the Directorate… overall very impressed and am seriously thinking about a second…
There are three parts to this Helix, the Wraith, Haunter transport & the Patriot Grand Company!
Wraith
This is an awesome model, lets just get that out of the way from the start, I love the size and detail of it, before I even got to use it on the battlefield.
As a flyer he is perhaps one of the most mobile Leviathans out there, able to threaten a huge area of the board.
With split fire and three different weapons he really can cause your opponent a lot of headaches.
You need to watch out for the enemy AA, and anything with Mastery of the Skies played on it needs to be dealt with swiftly and effectively, beyond that, put him down on the table and aim for a Secondary or your Primary objective, with the intent of getting your Patriots in range to take the building off any enemies there might be!
I also quite like how it stores its transport… in the centre of the model, very much appreciated how Spartan have put this one together!
Haunter
This guys main function is just to get the Grand Company to where you want it, front and rear facing weapons are nice, but as you are (in most cases) only able to use one of them at a time, they aren’t a game changer here.
Having Assault Vehicle on this is awesome as it really gives your opponent no chance to prevent you getting your Grand Company to attack whatever you want, some sensible tactical card play here can boost your 8 bases to some truly terrifying numbers of attack dice!
Grand Company Patriot Infantry
With 8 bases, all of which have Kill Team throwing out a minimum 24 AD when initiating a CQB, this guys are beasts.
Add in three sweeper teams and you boost that 24 to 30 AD and you can begin to see the threat that these guys pose.
Yes they might get trashed in response depending on what you pit them against, but they have a pretty decent damage output, add a tactical card to boost them further to 38 AD all up and you are looking at something truly terrifying
The threat range on these guys is amazing as well, with a 12” Wraith Move, 7” Carrier move, and their own 4”, plus 4” CQB you can threaten anything within 27”, for full effectiveness you are probably looking at a realistic threat range of about 21-22″”, but that’s not to be sniffed at!
Summary
This helix brings a nice mobile heavy hitter to the table for the Directorate, it can be vulnerable to enemy fire, especially if someone wants to focus it down, however you can always elect to move it off the table, and only give up half the victory points for it.
Given that it clocks in at 15 in total, and that most people are playing 50 point games that is something to bear in mind, while I dont think the Haunter is anything to write home about, with Assault vehicle it does mean the enemy has to deal with your Leviathan as soon as it moves, because those troops can be out and in their face very quickly otherwise.
Having played against this it is terrifying how much hurt it can lay down in one turn, but the key is to avoid wasting shots on it at the beginning of the game, if you aren’t hitting on a 5+ without using placed shots, you probably should look at killing something else, and then dealing with this when its not moving flat out.
More Planetside in the day ahead.
