How to Beat Leviathans & Where to Find Them in Subnautica

1. Kittens Game Leviathan Feed
2. Kittens Game How To Get Leviathans
3. Leviathan Miniatures Game
4. Kittens Game Leviathans Trade
5. Leviathans Board Game
6. Kittens Game Leviathans

These creatures are usually only found far from shore, in oceans or seas. It's quite the sight to see a leviathan rise from the water, greater in size than any boat. It's still a common myth that sailors who never returned have been dragged to their deaths by leviathans. Should anyone harm the. Leviathans: How exactly do they work? I have just bought 2 Markers and 1 Black Pyramid. As I understand it, this will give me a chance that Leviathans will appear at some point, with the chance increasing as I build more Black Pyramids and Markers.

There are plenty of monstrous creatures lurking in Subnautica, but none are as intimidating as Leviathans. Some of these huge creatures are capable of killing you on sight and destroying some of your vehicles. For you brave souls out there, here’s how to find and beat Leviathans in Subnautica.

The Leviathans roam through the ocean and are usually found swimming in large, open areas. Since they thrive in these locations, it makes it all the more easier to escape if you find one lurking about in Subnautica.

They are easy to spot because of how huge they are, and while a few are harmless, there are those that won’t hesitate to attack you. These types Leviathans will send out an ear-piercing screech from afar and will circle their targets before attacking, usually from behind.

Here are all of the many different Leviathans and where to find them in Subnautica:

• Sea Treaders – Generally harmless unless you approach them. Can be found in the Grand Reef and the Sea Trader’s Path.
• Reapers – One of the most ruthless creatures in the game. It will hunt you down and destroy your Seamoth and Prawn Suit. Can be found in the open areas of the Dunes and Mountains.
• Reefbacks – Passives creatures who don’t pose a real threat. Can be found in almost every open-water biome, often swimming in groups.
• Ghosts – Aggressive creatures who won’t hesitate to kill you. Three are in Lost River, two are in the Grand Reef, and one is in the Northern Blood Kelp Zones.
• Sea Dragons – The largest aggressive aquatic fauna in Subnautica. Two are in the Inactive Lava Zone and one is in the Lava Lakes.
• Sea Emperor – Considered the largest Leviathan in the game and is part of the story.

How to Beat Leviathans in Subnautica

If, for whatever reason, you want to take on these killer serpents, prepare for a long, arduous fight. You’d usually want to run away from them, but sometimes running isn’t an option in Subnautica.

Make sure you bring along a Stasis Rifle with you before engaging the enemy. You can craft one with the Fabricator using the following ingredients:

• Computer Chip
• Battery
• Titanium
• Magnetite (2x)

Also, make sure to bring along some knives. Bring as many of them as you can, because you’ll be using it throughout the entire fight.

When the Leviathan comes close, shock it with your rifle and hit it with the knife. Once it unfreezes, just paralyze it again and hammer away with your weapon. It will definitely take a while to beat one of these beasts in Subnautica, but the Leviathan will go down eventually. You can also use the drill from your Prawn Suit, which will take around three to five drillings to kill it in Subnautica.

That’s pretty much everything you need to know about where to find and how to beat Leviathans in Subnautica. For more tips and tricks on the game, be sure to search for Twinfinite.

Check out some of our other guides to help you get started:

TL;DR

Question: Where to find Leviathans in Subnautica and how to beat them?

Answer: Leviathans can be found in different locations depending on their species. Reefbacks can often be found in open water biomes, while Reapers are generally found in the open areas of the Dunes and Mountains. Check our guide for the full list.

I bought one of the full boxed games, then added another, and have played them with my adult sons, gamers all, with varied tastes in games, tending toward Warhammer Fantasy Battle and role-playing. All enjoyed Leviathans, which is a rare consensus. You just really can't say anything bad about the game (well, actually you can; more anon), the rules are easy to get into, and there's so much flavor I can't keep my dog from licking the box. It isn't cheap -- about a hundred bucks at your game store -- but when you compare Sails of Glory pushing $90, you are getting a lot more with Leviathans for a measly $10 more, starting with twice as many pre-painted plastic ships with superior detail, not to mention a box built for the ages.
Leviathans = Titanics?
I'm not going to dwell on Leviathan's failure to float, but it just seems strange to me that a clever, well-made PPP minis lite naval wargame with a steampunk veneer and tons of fluff would not push enough buttons to be a hit. It ought to be the kind of game someone would spring for at the local game store and generate buzz. But obviously not. I guess I fall into a narrow category of gamer who loves naval games, but doesn't mind a fantasy element and doesn't view a 3-digit price tag as a psychological barrier. (As usual, a lot cheaper on line.) The lack of follow-up didn't help, but there is so much play in what is out there already, I'm baffled. I hope they get Leviathans airborne again, but I've got everything I need. The most pressing issue are more factions, not bolting a bunch of new rules onto an elegant system.

The things you CAN complain about in components: (1) the PLASTIC is on the brittle side. I haven't broken a ship, but I have broken one of the bases. I tried to pull out the elevation stand, and the base was too brittle to take it. Out came the stand with a plastic 'plug' leaving a ragged hole in the middle of an otherwise undamaged base. Seems elementary that the fitting should not be so tight as to exceed the strength of the base! (2) FLAGS. Not a big deal unless you painstakingly attach all the little suckers only to find them falling ingloriously off the masts of your fleet because someone forgot the glue. Do I really want to take brush in hand and apply my own glue? No, I do not. (3) DICE: the heart of the combat system is a collection of different colored dice, so it is useful to be able to read them. But my batch came with some recessed numbers smeared with white paint over much of one side, while others were completely innocent of any paint whatsoever. That lack of quality control is just tacky.
Ships
Those are the only complaints I have. Otherwise, the ships are big enough to show detail, well-designed to give a distinctly different feel for either faction that matches their different approach to combat. They're just plain cool. Each of the British and French sides get a 'Leviathan,' essentially a pre-WWI dreadnaught, which most would call a battleship. The ships are recognizably from our own pre-WWI historical era, which adds to the appeal for naval wargamers, and helps in the suspension of disbelief.
Each also has two destroyers, and one each light cruiser. The scale feels right, with a Leviathan dwarfing a destroyer. The 'painting' puts appropriate colors on various parts of the ship which does not look messy up close, and looks quite nice at table-top distance.
Board
Two sections of hard mounted board provide an attractive playing surface over sea and land. The good news is that you can play on a fairly small area (our dining room table is fine); the bad news is that it looks a little cramped, and, rarely, can be cramped. The rules turn a sweeping battle in the clouds into a battleship cage match in which a vessel disintegrates if it edges off the board. Hmm. This sounds worse than it has proved in play, because weapon ranges tend to bring ships in close, but it has forced unrealistic choices on a Commander once or twice. One of the reasons I bought the second box was for the extra boards. (The extra boxed set is a much better deal than buying one each of the two factions available. Now I have not only more flexibility in putting together opposing fleets, but all the extras, too.)
Ship Cards
Each ship has one or more laminated damage cards which depict the information the captain must know about his weapons, speed, maneuverability, and damage. (There are a couple options for the light cruiser, giving you two very different ships to choose from for your game.) You mark damage right on the card with erasable markers. I have never seen a problem with a clean wipe-off.

Kittens Game Leviathan Feed

It packs a lot of info into a handy size, and represents a good example of the way the game system builds in factors you don't have to worry about. For example, when you fire, you will always get a die from your opponent's card. It will be a better die for targeting factors in your favor, and not so good when your target is harder to hit on account of speed or whatever. This is so much more elegant than looking up different factors on a table like in most naval wargames. This sort of -- I have to use the word again -- elegant method of handling the non-fun stuff of gaming behind the scenes is what I love most about this game.
Keeping track of damage could not be easier. Each 'location' (a major aspect of the ship, say, the entire starboard side of a light cruiser) will have six 'slots.' Each slot has a 'breach number' which an attacker must meet or beat to destroy. (Surviving armor slots in a location -- if any -- are added to the breach number.) If your attack punches through, that slot is destroyed, with various consequences depending on what that slot contained (e.g. gun knocked out, loss of crew, etc.). Lost slots are just marked off the card with your marker.
Another example of clever use of a card to translate 'real world' action into the game is that some smaller, speedier ships will have 'missed' slots. So your Leviathan can to all appearances land a devastating blow on a destroyer, but it was actually a near miss, or perhaps punched right through without detonating.
Fluff
I have never seen so much fluff in a board game. Ship recognition cards, a nice-looking poster, and two novellas are some of the totally unnecessary items that got put into the box. The artwork is very nice and the writing is entertaining. A lot of work obviously went into world-building. It enhanced my enjoyment of the game and added to the perceived value.
Dice
Quality control issues aside, the dice are peculiar but work perfectly in this game. They're all 12-siders, but numbered so as to make them work like different polyhedron dice. You can substitute regular D4, D6, D8, D10, and D12, but the dice are coded by color on the ship cards, so you would need appropriately colored dice unless you can remember 'green means D4.' Having the dice be physically the same (while giving results as though they were different polyhedron dice)lubricates the combat, and was a good call on the designer's part.
String
Torpedo resolution requires a meticulous determination of line of sight. A long piece of string, ideal for stretching over the board, is provided for this purpose. I'm not joking. Whenever anyone brings up the price, 'the string' has become the standard rejoinder. Since it is necessary for game play, and string being no longer something many of us keep around the house, I like my string. Easily worth 15 bucks right there.
Box
If ever a box deserved its own mention in a review, this is the box that does. Let me speak for a moment of some ghosts of boxes past, and they are ghosts because they have long since departed before their time. Please observe a moment of silence for Twilight Imperium, and Tide of Iron. Alas, the games deserved better than their boxes. The mighty intergalactic fleet of conquest has long since been scattered by the cat and sucked up into the vacuum cleaner, and half of TOI fell down the heat vent. How demoralizing. These tragedies could have been prevented if only the boxes had not been made of construction paper.
Leviathan's box exceeds minimum construction standards for schools in 32 countries. It keeps everything together, and cradles your precious ships in custom, form-fitted recesses. Between the string and the box, I don't know how they could have sold this for less than $150. (Catalyst is probably saying the same thing.) Seriously. there's something scary strong about this box.
I am not going to be comprehensive, since you can download the rules (and a whole lot more) from: http://monstersinthesky.com/download/ These are not intended to be examples of play, but to give potential buyers an idea of how it plays. I want to show you how easy, and, ironically, realistic it is.
Shooting
I am on the bridge of the Leviathan, indeed a monster in the sky, and the biggest thing up there. The French Jean Bart, the pride of their fleet, is ahead, at a distance of 16 hexes, just within range of my mighty 12 in. forward turrets. I see on my ship's card that gun's long range color code is red, so I grab a red die (equivalent to a 10-sider). I have a crew in that location, so I add a green die (D4). The Jean Bart is a big target heading straight for me, so I take the target dice colors from the forward location on her card, in this case a red (D10) and a blue (D6). To this, I add a normal six-sider to determine which of six 'slots' in the forward 'location' my attack strikes.

Kittens Game How To Get Leviathans

The 12' gun thunders. It is the largest gun in the sky and a decided advantage for the British. The normal six-sider gives slot '2' -- one of Jean Bart's 274 mm gun. The 'breach number' for that slot is 12, and she has two slots worth of armor in her forward location, which add +1 each, making a total breach number of 14. This is the number my other dice have to equal of beat to destroy that slot. Leviathan's breach roll adds up to 15, which destroys slot 2 on the forward location, and the 274 mm. gun! Leviathan's other 12 in. fails to damage.
The French captain frowns as he circles that location. (Firing guns is considered simultaneous, so he does not cross it out yet.) When it is his turn, he fires each 274 gun (the one in slot 2 for the first and last time) at Leviathan's forward location. Reading off his ship card, he gets a yellow die (D8)at long range, and a green die (D4) for a crew slot in that location. From Leviathan's card, he gets a red (D10) and blue (D6)for target dice. To these he adds the normal six-sider for location. The first 274 mm. fails to breach, rolling a 14 on the Tesla trim tank. (Since that slot's breach number is 14, this would normally be a breach, but Leviathan has two intact armor slots, so the French player would have needed a 16.)
The other 274 mm. gun is more successful. The six-sider yields the same slot -- 5, the Tesla trim tank again. This time the breach roll is 18, more than enough to destroy slot 5. Leviathan will now fire at -1 to his breach and Break the Keel (more later) rolls as it will be a less steady gunnery platform. Both players frown and mark off their destroyed slots.
And that's just how smooth combat is.
I'm pretty sure you're supposed to 'call your shots,' but that seems rather tedious, so we let each ship choose its target when it shoots. There are also rules for different types of guns, such as saturation fire.

Leviathan Miniatures Game

Torpedoes
Firing a torpedo is easy. You put a numbered launch counter next to the firing ship, and a target counter with the same number up to 18 hexes away. These counters are both placed face down. NOTE: We played with them face-up at first, but the game bogged down into excruciating calculations of every possible torpedo track and plotting moves to protect your ships. It is much better to keep the counters face-down so there is an element of uncertainty. Now captains do their best, but usually can't be sure which target counter is associated with which launch counter. There is a certain 'Damn the torpedoes' attitude required to preserve your freedom of maneuver. While torpedoes are nothing to laugh at, they're not ship-killers either. Besides inflicting damage, torpedoes can channel an over-cautious enemy's movement and inflict psychological pressure.
Again, the Leviathan trademark of deceptively simple and dramatic combat is reflected in the torpedo game. Flipping over the torpedo counters and seeing who got hit is always an exciting moment.
Torpedo fire involves trying to predict where enemy ships are likely to be after they move. Everything gets resolved after movement, and if a ship is on a track between two counters with the same number (the STRING remember?) it takes an attack. (It is embarrassing when you forget where your own torpedo tracks are and eat one of your own fish (birds?). Sometimes a brave little destroyer has interposed itself between a likely torpedo track and your Leviathan to take one for England.
Again, an elegant way to handle what has often been a pain in games. Notice the hidden torpedo targeting without any bookkeeping, and that it is not necessary to actually move torpedoes across the board.
Some ships are heavy on torpedoes, and some have none at all. When you have a choice of assigning a model to one ship card or another, it is usually the choice between torpedo-heavy or gun-heavy. Torpedoes are nicely balanced. Nothing seems broken in this game. Sometimes I have taken as many torpedoes as my ship cards would allow, but guns are surer. Often, torpedoes fly harmlessly through the sky until they drop, because the player failed to guess where his target would be after his move.
Destruction of Ships
I love the way ships get destroyed. It is simple, realistic, original and adds a lot of drama to the game. As a ship takes damage in an individual location (as in our Leviathan's forward location we used in our gunnery example) it is losing its slots in that location, one by one. Meanwhile, it may very well be taking damage in other locations, too. (Note, taking damage and losing slots means the same thing.)
For example, later in the battle, Leviathan has continued to take a pounding. The British captain has grown silent as he has marked off slot after slot destroyed. He has lost seven slots elsewhere, and four slots in his forward location -- including slot 5, which knocked out one of his Tesla trim tanks, if you recall. Only slots 1 and 2 -- Armor and a 12 in. gun turret -- are spared.
His nemesis, Jean Bart fires his remaining 274 mm. gun and the six-sider slot die indicates 3. Since slot 3 is destroyed, Jean Bart rolls again to determine a new slot. The French captain is hoping for something other than a 1 or 2, the slots that have not been destroyed. While it would be nice to further degrade Leviathan's combat effectiveness, he is hoping for something bigger: breaking her keel.
The next roll yields slot 5 -- the old Tesla trim tank that was knocked out in the first exchange of gunnery. Since the re-roll gives a destroyed slot, the Leviathan is in grave danger of a catastrophic failure that tear her in two and sink her from the sky: Breaking the Keel. The French captain will roll two red dice (D10). He is trying to meet or beat Leviathan's Structural Integrity value of 30. Obviously, that's not going to happen with two 10-siders, but he gets to add one for every slot destroyed anywhere, and another for every slot destroyed in the targeted location, in this case the forward location. So... +7 for slots destroyed elsewhere, +4 for slots in the forward location, and +4 again for those same slots in the forward location, it being the one currently under attack. (In other words, all slots destroyed in the location targeted by the attack that triggered the Breaking the Keel roll give +2 each, while all other slots are only one each.) The total of modifiers is thus +15.
The French Captain needs to roll 15 on his two red dice. He shakes the pair and they tumble onto the table. The British Leviathan shudders, throwing crewmen to the deck, and even over the side, their fall arrested by safety lines. An explosion deep within the vessel's hull sounds like thunder from within, followed by a shriek of metal like a live thing in agony. Slowly, Leviathan lists to starboard, and a shout goes up from the French crew. Yet the movement is arrested. The shout dies as Leviathan -- somehow -- rights herself and maintains her forward momentum: directly at Jean Bart.
The roll was 13.
That's the kind of drama I look forward to in a game. Leviathans has many such cinematic moments.
At first, you have almost no chance of killing any ship, let alone a Leviathan with a structural integrity of 30. But as damage accumulates, your plusses increase, as we saw, until every Breaking the Keel roll is potentially decisive. Additionally, the rolls themselves become more frequent as more slots get knocked out, because there are more destroyed slots for that re-roll to hit, triggering a Breaking the Keel roll.
In the play of the game, ships gradually lose combat effectiveness as guns and other systems are knocked out, but they don't necessarily go down from mere accumulated damage. When sufficiently weakened, however, they are vulnerable to a catastrophic failure. Also, while unlikely, a lucky Breaking the Keel roll can take out a ship fairly early in the game. Also, the examples have used Leviathans. Smaller ships have lower Structural Integrity values, and are much easier to take out.
This is far better from the old naval wargame method of marking off hull boxes until your ship sinks, big surprise. Again, a simple, superior game mechanic that is dramatic and fun.
Movement
There is nothing too original here, but Catalyst has borrowed mechanics from some of the good games. First the class of biggest ships move, the player who lost the initiative roll first, then the other player. (This gives the player with initiative the advantage of reacting.) Then the next lower class of ships the same way, and so on down to destroyers. The board has a hex grid and movement is easy. Each ship card shows how many hexes a ship may move, and how many hexes it must move before turning a hexside.
There are some rules for special moves, too. Ships are also able to screen other ships to protect them. This makes destroyers useful in one of their historical roles. I don't believe I have ever seen this satisfactorily represented in naval wargame (at least not one aimed at a popular audience). Destroyers also pack a punch with their torpedoes. It is nice to see them portrayed as something other than just very weak versions of battleships. There was a reason navies built lots of destroyers, although you wouldn't know it from most games.
Damage can knock out steering and engines, leaving ships less useful and more vulnerable.
The French are much faster than the British, which allows a different style of play.
Playing Time
We have spent half a day playing a game with full fleets, but the more familiar we become with the rules, the shorter a game is. Even so, game play is measured in hours. I suppose you could play a short game between smaller fleets, but, hey, I bought two boxes so I could have more ships. I want to try things like four destroyers on picket duty runs into a lone light cruiser, and see what happens. (I suspect the light cruiser would come off the worse.)

As everybody knows, only the British and French are available. Each faction -- I don't really like that term, but everyone seems to use it; I think I'll use nationality, instead. Each nationality has an identical fleet in the complete game box: a Leviathan, a light cruiser, and two destroyers. The different fleets reflect different design philosophies, however, which are presented nicely in the game.
The British have heavier guns and armor, but are slow. The French are fast, but don't pack the same punch or have the same protection. The modelers have done a good job making the ships look like their characteristics. The French ships are sleek, while the British ships look more like the blunt instruments they are. The difference in play for the British and French nationalities are significant, yet don't feel 'bolted on' for the sake of difference. The French are famous for their elan, and the British for their bulldog determination.
It's nice to see a game with different nationalities (or 'factions' if you must) where the characteristics are organic to a story line in a world very much like our own around 1910.
Given the price of games these days, it is hard to look at what you get in the Leviathans box and say it isn't worth it. If you have any interest in early 20th warships with or without a steampunk vision of flying versions of them, I think you would enjoy this game. It has the most satisfying naval rules I've ever met. With little effort, you could probably make a fine WWI naval wargame out of it.
The miniatures are great in design and execution, the painting looks nice and clean. I admire the way the rules and cards handle factors in combat so you never have to think about them. The depths of the system are opaque, so you can concentrate on tactics. It is not a hard game to learn, and there are plenty of examples in the rules. There are quick-start rules, then the full set.
If there's one downside, it might be all those boxes sitting on shelves. That means you are probably going to be a one-man band in your local gaming group. And it is hard to generate enthusiasm for a game that has no discernible future.
Since it ticks all my boxes, yet hasn't done well, I'm wondering if I have learned I am just an atypical gamer. There probably aren't many people wandering into a game store who know who Sir 'Jacky' Fisher is, or what the Dogger Bank incident is. This is the very game I would have made if I made games, which is why it gets 10 stars for me. (The string is worth 2, in case you're wondering.)
The one-sentence summary is: If you think you might like this game, you will.
Catalyst: Quo Vadis?
Right now, Catalyst has a great game on its hands. That's something, but apparently not enough.
Most people are attributing its lackluster sales to Catalyst's poor post-release performance, especially its failure to release additional 'factions.' But I have to think the failure of a game that was, after all, complete, that also had additional ship sets from the two original nationalities, cannot be attributed to a 'lack of factions.' Of course, now there are plenty of reasons to worry about Leviathan's future, but I'm not sure there were early in the distribution.
Historical-type wargames can be good sellers. Memoir44 did not become popular by appealing only to grognards. Battlelore is pretty much the same game with the addition of fantasy elements. So lite wargames can sell, and fantasy is not the kiss of death to a lite wargame.
Now we have Sails of Glory out. (Just bought it today.) The box is interesting. It puts the actual ship miniatures on display in the packaging. Would Leviathan have done better showing those appealing miniatures? How much extra does that cost, I wonder? I think another route would have been much better.
Look what Privateer Press did for Warmachine: complete demo sets for game stores with painted minis and a small terrain board on a free-standing display. That sold tons of starter sets for PP. They, too, had to get peoples' attention about a new fantasy world and concept of play. I was a Press Ganger for PP and they did everything right at first. I think Catalyst would have been smart to have put together demo kits with one ship for each side, simplified, one-sheet rules that included the coolest parts of the game, and done some real marketing. Granted, a Warmachine demo could be played really fast, but I bet you could demo the basics of Leviathans quickly, too.
Maybe in the end it was a case of people balking at a Benjamin for a high-concept game they didn't know anything about, from a company not known for board games.
This is the one thing I hope Catalyst doesn't do: push paper instead of plastic. The appealing thing about the game is its relative ease of play. We don't need a bunch of new rules cluttering up the game 'to keep interest up.' I have stopped playing games I was heavily invested in just because companies could not resist adding so many new rules (and special rules for newer, more powerful, characters) that you literally had to download the latest errata before your Thursday night game. (And even then it was impossible to reconcile some mutually-interacting abilities -- bah.)

Kittens Game Leviathans Trade

Altitude was planned from the start, and that's bad enough. I can say I have never seen an aerial or space game improved by elevation rules. They invariably wind up being a clunky, frustrating waste of time. Please, Catalyst, please don't blow whatever chance this game has by needlessly complicating it. There are a few things that might be done -- additional ship cards, for example -- that would truly enhance the existing game, as long as they did not introduce power creep. Maybe scenarios -- plenty of historical ones to pick from, and they have obviously done their homework.
So, like I said: Catalyst has a great game on its hands. But right now, it is a game without a future, and they couldn't make another run now if they wanted to. I am not much a fan of kickstarter, but I might make an exception. In the meantime, is there a reason they couldn't make a quality hex and counter boardgame with identical rules to keep the concept alive? I don't see any reason you couldn't port it over rule-by-rule, and then we could see not only British and French, but Germans and Italians, and Russians (!) and Japanese. I really hope this is what Catalyst ends up doing.

Leviathans Board Game

Fortunately, I have never seen a game disappear from my closet because a company stopped supporting it. I will be playing Leviathans for as long as I'm playing anything. Leviathans has all the earmarks of a labor of love, and I suspect Catalyst is not going to want to abandon it.

Kittens Game Leviathans

--St. Corbinian's Bear

• [+] Dice rolls