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See title. I haven't played a game of 40k in months, and I'm feeling sad about that.

But is Tabletop Simulator worth it, to get for 40k and possibly other games?

I've had the most success with Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, and Underworlds. 40k tends to be limited by the pace of releases (new stuff takes a while to show up), and the only BFG models I've found are top-heavy and fall over while you're moving them.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've had the most success with Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, and Underworlds. 40k tends to be limited by the pace of releases (new stuff takes a while to show up), and the only BFG models I've found are top-heavy and fall over while you're moving them.

...

Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

It's just part of how the program handles movement of pieces. If models are falling over, that would seem to be a problem with how they've been configured - you can edit the center of gravity.

On the upside, it allows for a table flip, without models actually getting damaged

I imagine some of it comes from the VR side of things, tbh.

Haven't tried it for 40k - works OK for Arkham Horror LCG, though the camera controls bug me when using keyboard/mouse.

Use it all the time for Legion, X-Wing, Heroquest and Underworlds and works great (also really easy to find games via discord). Tried it with 40k a couple of times and didn't really get on with it but that could have been the mod.

For 40k I was always partial to Vassal myself, but I'm not sure if they have an up to date version available on that platform these days.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've had the most success with Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, and Underworlds. 40k tends to be limited by the pace of releases (new stuff takes a while to show up), and the only BFG models I've found are top-heavy and fall over while you're moving them.

...

Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Table-flipping, dice rolling, and presumably so people can make games that involve physics elements?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've had the most success with Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, and Underworlds. 40k tends to be limited by the pace of releases (new stuff takes a while to show up), and the only BFG models I've found are top-heavy and fall over while you're moving them.

...

Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Table-flipping, dice rolling, and presumably so people can make games that involve physics elements?

Fair enough-I'm thinking of it in a 40k lens.

So what's my best option for online 40k?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've had the most success with Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, and Underworlds. 40k tends to be limited by the pace of releases (new stuff takes a while to show up), and the only BFG models I've found are top-heavy and fall over while you're moving them.

...

Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Table-flipping, dice rolling, and presumably so people can make games that involve physics elements?

Fair enough-I'm thinking of it in a 40k lens.

So what's my best option for online 40k?

Tabletop simulator

 vaklor4 wrote:
Tabletop simulator

Fair enough.

Is it worth it? I'd imagine I'd probably be getting games with fellow dakkanaughts and not much else.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
Tabletop simulator

Fair enough.

Is it worth it? I'd imagine I'd probably be getting games with fellow dakkanaughts and not much else.

Theres a whole discord server made specifically to find games, google "TTS warhammer discord" and you should find it pretty quickly.

Warhammer aside, TTS is super good for playing boardgames and even DnD. Many popular boardgames have complete mods with electronic controls (automatically dealing cards in catan for example)

Thank you for the server recommendation!

It's not as good as real 40k, but during lockdowns or when you want to play people from around the globe it's a decent alternative. Trying some silly army combination without selling a kidney and spending weeks of painting also is a nice advantage.

Make sure that you have someone who knows how it works introduce you, the learning curve is rather steep if you try doing it yourself.

 Jidmah wrote:
It's not as good as real 40k, but during lockdowns or when you want to play people from around the globe it's a decent alternative. Trying some silly army combination without selling a kidney and spending weeks of painting also is a nice advantage.

Make sure that you have someone who knows how it works introduce you, the learning curve is rather steep if you try doing it yourself.

Seconded, it's not as good as IRL 40k. But it's the only option for some of us rn.

 JNAProductions wrote:


Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Because tabletop simulator is exactly what it says on the tin.

It is a tabletop simulator. Seriously. It's that simple XD The entire 'game' is little more than a virtual table top with a bunch of macros and functions that let you play tabletop games on it. You'll want to browse the Steam Workshop to get a broad idea of what exactly has been made for it (it's a lot).

 LordofHats wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:


Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Because tabletop simulator is exactly what it says on the tin.

It is a tabletop simulator. Seriously. It's that simple XD The entire 'game' is little more than a virtual table top with a bunch of macros and functions that let you play tabletop games on it. You'll want to browse the Steam Workshop to get a broad idea of what exactly has been made for it (it's a lot).

Well simulating falling models seems bit superfluous ;-) What positive things it adds?

Just because you can simulate flaws of real models while adding additional flaws doesn't mean you HAVE to. Is there actually positive feature it adds? Simulating table flip isn't.

tneva82 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:


Wait, what?

There's simulated gravity and falling in Tabletop Simulator?

Why? And, in that case, what the heck else can I use?

Because tabletop simulator is exactly what it says on the tin.

It is a tabletop simulator. Seriously. It's that simple XD The entire 'game' is little more than a virtual table top with a bunch of macros and functions that let you play tabletop games on it. You'll want to browse the Steam Workshop to get a broad idea of what exactly has been made for it (it's a lot).

Well simulating falling models seems bit superfluous ;-) What positive things it adds?

Simply put, it recreates the exact same situation you would face in a RL game. Just like you can't balance a model on a piece of terrain by a milimeter edge of its base, you cannot do so in the simulator.

tneva82 wrote:
Well simulating falling models seems bit superfluous ;-) What positive things it adds?

Just because you can simulate flaws of real models while adding additional flaws doesn't mean you HAVE to. Is there actually positive feature it adds? Simulating table flip isn't.

Accidentally curling a unit of gretchin into a ball and flinging them at a knight surely added a lot of positivity to a recent game of mine

I just wish the damn framework had a better undo function

The main downside is that it's pretty clunky - although certain very dedicated 'mods' mitigate this a good deal - and some of the models are of, eh, dubious/inconsistent quality.

There should be the Steam Winter Sale in a few days and it'll inevitably be on sale then for cheap, so it won't burn a hole in your pocket.

There is a competitor called Tabletop Playground that is in development and is already vastly superior in my mind, but it's in the Chicken and the Egg phase right now.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There is a competitor called Tabletop Playground that is in development and is already vastly superior in my mind, but it's in the Chicken and the Egg phase right now.

Care to summarize a few things that it does better than TTS?

Tabletop Simulator is fantastic.

The UI looks like it was designed in the 90's, and the controls take a little time to get comfortable with. But after that... it's fantatic.

My group has been playing a ton of boardgames on the platform, including Warhammer 40K.

As far as 40K goes, the Battleforged Workshop Mod Compilation is amazing and automatically builds a library of resources in TTS for playing 40K. This basically puts curated sets of miniatures at your fingertips for most armies, game table setups, and terrain sets that you can load in. It's pretty fantastic. I'll connect over voice chat with my opponent (steam voice or discord) and we'll play our game. it really works amazingly well.

 Jidmah wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There is a competitor called Tabletop Playground that is in development and is already vastly superior in my mind, but it's in the Chicken and the Egg phase right now.

Care to summarize a few things that it does better than TTS?

Basically, it's built from the ground up to attempt to tackle the issues TTS has.

It has a higher player cap than TTS. It's built in Unreal 4 instead of Unity, which means it can actually have high quality models without making the game commit sudoku. TTS is highly dependent on external editors for it's LUA code that is... let's call it vintage. TTP uses Javascript and has built in editing tools. TTP was also built from the ground up to support Wargaming, whereas a lot of TTS's Wargaming functions are janky to say the least. TTS also has less than ideal physics for wargaming.

As I said, it's in a bit of an awkward position at the moment. It's still early access, and there is far less content and install base. But I feel that if enough content creators worked on it, it could be a big success.

Sounds good. But the most important question is... does it have a proper undo function?

40k on TTS is complicated, time consuming, and not much fun. Thats my first time experience with Battlescribe2TTS Tool. Moving the models around is difficult with terrain, the game always wants to place them on top of terrain, when you release them they roll all over the place. Rolling lots of dice is difficult. You need to drag and drop them onto a tiny box, and then they get sorted by the game, but thats very hard to hit with 20+ dice. I ended up rolling them all over the place, and then you cant remove them all at once. Maybe i get better with practice, but i dont feel like investing time in it.

 p5freak wrote:
40k on TTS is complicated, time consuming, and not much fun. Thats my first time experience with Battlescribe2TTS Tool. Moving the models around is difficult with terrain, the game always wants to place them on top of terrain, when you release them they roll all over the place. Rolling lots of dice is difficult. You need to drag and drop them onto a tiny box, and then they get sorted by the game, but thats very hard to hit with 20+ dice. I ended up rolling them all over the place, and then you cant remove them all at once. Maybe i get better with practice, but i dont feel like investing time in it.

theres an option to remove the "models pop to the top of terrain" when you right click the models, i forgot the exact name but its there.
if you right click as you move the models, it places on the ground so they won't roll all over the place when you release them.
Theres a mod you can use where you just drop all your dice in a box and the results are laid down in neat rows below it, making for easy rerolls.

 p5freak wrote:
40k on TTS is complicated, time consuming, and not much fun. Thats my first time experience with Battlescribe2TTS Tool. Moving the models around is difficult with terrain, the game always wants to place them on top of terrain, when you release them they roll all over the place. Rolling lots of dice is difficult. You need to drag and drop them onto a tiny box, and then they get sorted by the game, but thats very hard to hit with 20+ dice. I ended up rolling them all over the place, and then you cant remove them all at once. Maybe i get better with practice, but i dont feel like investing time in it.

It can be a little fussy at times for sure.

I don't use the battlescribe thing at all (the army roster tool). I always make my army lists manually on paper or a google doc. From there, it's much faster for me to just load an empty table and then import the models I want from the army mod files (using the "expand" feature to see what models I need) and just drag and drop to organize the models. Save the whole army block and an "object" and it's good to important into a game. I've also been using the pop-up tooltip option to write in unit stats and special rules when I make an army, so I have all the stats and rules for units literally encoded right on the models - meaning I don't need to be flipping through my codex book all the time. My opponent does the same and it's amazingly handy.

I find the dice rollers to be incredibly useful, even with rolling dozens of dice at a time. You can toss dice on the rolling tray and it will tell you how many dice are on the tray. Then just drag a selection box around them, wiggle your mouse to clump them up, and drop them in the roller box and it will sort out all the results. You can then drag a box around the failing dice or whatever and move them off the tray. It's significantly faster than rolling a similar amount of dice in real life once you get the hang of it.

My experience is as others have said, not as good as the real thing, but is worth it if you are unable to get games in otherwise. It's even working out for me in those cases where I get home from a 10hr day at work, am just wrecked, and not about to drive 30 minutes to someone's house, lugging a bunch of models and gear around. I text a buddy and in 10 minutes we can have a game going. Also what's huge is if we only have an hour or so to play is we can save the game and come back to it.

It does take some practice and the right mods to really make it worthwhile to play, but once you get to that point, it's not bad.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There is a competitor called Tabletop Playground that is in development and is already vastly superior in my mind, but it's in the Chicken and the Egg phase right now.

Care to summarize a few things that it does better than TTS?

Basically, it's built from the ground up to attempt to tackle the issues TTS has.

It has a higher player cap than TTS. It's built in Unreal 4 instead of Unity, which means it can actually have high quality models without making the game commit sudoku. TTS is highly dependent on external editors for it's LUA code that is... let's call it vintage. TTP uses Javascript and has built in editing tools. TTP was also built from the ground up to support Wargaming, whereas a lot of TTS's Wargaming functions are janky to say the least. TTS also has less than ideal physics for wargaming.

As I said, it's in a bit of an awkward position at the moment. It's still early access, and there is far less content and install base. But I feel that if enough content creators worked on it, it could be a big success.

I do find TTS works a lot better for card and board games than games heavy on miniatures. RPG's depends on how simulatory the game is. If all you need to do it roll dice, shuffle decks and deal cards, and move some tokens around TTS is easy, intuitive, and extremely well functional. If you need to do anything more intensive, like deal with which direciton a model is face, line of sight through terrain, or moving things with precise measurements TTS becomes very clunky very fast.