I’ve never been much of a fan of VTTs in the past as they are always limited and things are likely to degenerate into the old table top arguments of “you can’t see that – yes I can” style conflict. This one, Wartop, changes all that. In doubt about whether you can see something. Just drop the camera down to the level of a model’s head and take a look. Why has nobody ever done that before? It’s so bloody obvious!
So, having watched a little bit of the development of this application, I decided to give it a try. Have to say, I’m impressed.
Okay, so from an unbeliever, why suddenly am I showing any interest in a VTT? Simple, I and my friends cannot always meet at times that are convenient to us, or dedicate the amount of time necessary to a physical table top game – whether skirmish or war. Having to pack stuff away also does not help. Even with photographs of the field, it’s never going to go back precisely the way it was.
This solves that problem. We can set up a battlefield, set up combatants, save the whole thing, and off we go at our convenience. We can then save progress for a later date and get on with our lives. No mess, no fuss, no time wasting packing stuff away or setting up again. So much easier.
With some of the things that I’ve heard are coming down the line to this application, I confess I’m rather excited for the future. Some very cool stuff is going to arrive over the next few months that I think will make this the go-to VTT for skirmishing and war-game.
Worth the money? Absolutely.
For those who stumble on this post, the link to take a look at Wartop and view some of the content and demos is WARTOP Have fun.
Okay, so I’ve been fiddling a bit more with this and while I find the camera controls over the table a little clunky to start with, once you get used to the WASD QE Space/LCtrl controls, it becomes much easier. Just like playing a game I guess, you get to know how the keys will operate and it just gets easier as you go on.
One thing that has got me very interested is the number and styles of games that are being added to the game. Currently there’s
Many Ages (Fantasy)
The Streets of Erekh (Fantasy)
Nebula – All Out War (Science Fiction)
Deadzone (Science Fiction)
Invaders of Zylon (Science Fiction)
Ultracombat Squad (Modern)
With – so it is rumoured – a huge selection that will be arriving over the next few months. These include minis and terrain for skirmishing and it does all look really nice. Admittedly I would have liked to spend a little time decorating the models, but that might be a bit more than this app is intended to deal with. Ho hum. Can live with it. You can change the block colours of the minis – to make it easier to identify opposing forces.
All of the terrain is modular, and if you own a particular DLC, you can use the terrain in that in any of the other games. Though quite why you would want tech gear in your fantasy skirmish I don’t know. But hey, perhaps you want to play in a regressive future following a global disaster that has reduced mankind to a medieval state. Might be fun huh?
I can see though that this app is going to be eating up all of my pocket money with DLCs and content. The advantage I suppose is that where it’s all virtual, I don’t have to try and find space in my hobby room to store it all.
Meanwhile, having a lot of fun just messing with the map creation and construction tools. If only I had some sense of design, maybe I could make something nice out of it all rather than a confused pile of bits. But then, even Lego was a challenge for me. Never could get the hang out of building something out of pieces without an instruction set.