Universal Battle, Cool things inside!

Got a long way to the latest club/store, or just eager for new opponents?

Universal battle is a browser based tool made to let you play Warhammer Fantasy Battles online! It's completely legal and free, altough you may subscribe for additional benefits.

It has got all the things necessary for games including measure sticks, templates, movement trays and various number generators for dice including d6's, artillery and scatter. Terrain and markers exist aswell!

(An empty playing field with various templates)



The website is www.universalbattle.com. You are free to enter as a guest, or create an account of your own. Once that's done, you join the lobby, from which where you can create and join games. Joining a game is as simple as clicking on one, and all games (unless they have a password) allow for a dozen spectators.

Once you join a game, you may pick a race and you're presented with an empty green field. Pick Orcs and Goblins (of course) and then use the map tools to drag and drop various bits of terrain onto the battlefield until you get something like this, for example:

(Picture of ready map)



With a map ready. it's time to set up your units! On the lower part of the screen (not visible in the screenshots) there's a tab called "Add units". Clicking it brings up a menu in which you can pick unit type, size, ranks and command.

(As a FREE user, you don't have access to all the models of your race. You can however (by swapping armies in the menu) proxy certain models with the help of other race.)

Add up until you've got your entire army there! Here's an example of how it can look once completely set up (notice that all units have translucent movement trays- UB has inbuilt wheeling and reforming, making movement pretty easy)

(Army ready)



Now all you need is someone to play against! If you've hosted a game, you are the only one capable of editing the map and adding units. To give permission to an opponent to play, you click on his name in the lobby and choose "Allow user to play". Now he too can add units!

(Opponent ready)



Now you're ready to play! To remove models or make way for characters, simply left click on a model and drag it around to make room.



Final words!

It's a lot of fun to use and it really broadens your horizons since all kinds of nationalities play yhe game. Practice your armylist against new opponents or play against a friend. It may take some getting used to, but I really do recommend UB!

As a free user, you can use all the tools necessary to play. However, becoming a PRO user is pretty cheap (I paid, I believe, 3$ for 3 months?) and it lets you do among other things:

- Customize and build your own units from a pretty extensive model creator

- Save your army deployment (so you don't have to add units all the time)

- Support the website



Helpful links:

A more in-depth and complete guide here:
http://www.universalbattle.com/guide.php

More screenshots can be found here:
http://www.universalbattle.com/screens.php

This post has been edited by Squigkikka on Jun 13 2012, 06:15 PM

Awesome, I'm going to have to check this out.

Is it newbie friendly?

Very. I use it a lot, not to play ( I prefer using dolls, and I have plenty of opponents nearby ), but it's a great toll if you make an armylist and want to see how it looks together. It's often far better to see the synergies when you place the models down, than just thinking about it

It is very easy to use though though, and opens the opportunity to play long distance games against friends

It's very newbie friendly, and even more so if you can get someone to show you a bit how it works in a game

The nicest thing is that there aren't any game mechanics included other than rolling dice!

This means no copyright issues what so ever! And you don't have a problem with, say, that a new unit or something like that isn't updated... You just make a new unit entry... so.. it's just as flexible as normal warhammer, only you suddenly own all miniatures

Only "problem" is that True Line of Sight isn't possible. You'll have to get some sort of system, like the ETC system...

Or apply sort of common sense to it.

Which is why i put 'problem' in ""