You want to get started in Tabletop Simulator (TTS). Fittsy is here to save the day! Or at least help out enough for you to get started and learn enough to jump into it and get going.
In my adventure to try and get better, I’ve gotten into using TTS. I’ve been using it for a couple of different things. Mostly for checking out deployment and movement options but I’ve also been getting into playing full games on there now too. So after a few months of using it and some 10 odd games, I figured I’d share what I’ve learnt and maybe help you to get started with it too.
I’ll try and keep this updated but I’m also interested to know if there’s things I’ve missed or if there are better ways to do things. Let me know in the comments or over on the Woehammer Discord!
Step 1: Get TTS
Step 2: Install the mods you need and prep an army
Step 3: …
Step 4: Learn how to use it / Play games / Profit
OK, that was a serious stretch for the meme… and I didn’t even bother to do a picture of it. Well, onto the actual article after that poor attempt at humour. This one is going to be pretty light on pictures sorry. It may even be a bit of a “boring” Fittsy’s Foughts but… it could be an actually useful one 😛
Getting yourself setup
First up, you’ll need to download and install Tabletop Simulator. I don’t know if there is an alternative to doing it via Steam but I’m old / couldn’t be bothered checking / literally don’t knwo what journalistic integrity is. I’m so honest, I don’t even know if the last point there is relevant. Anyway… getting on with things…
Do yourself a favour and do the tutorial!
This’ll really help you get to grips with the controls. To start it up click on the little light globe icon in the middle when you start TTS up. If you can’t find that… you’re probably doomed. But really, if you can’t find it, come and chat and we’ll help you via Discord!
Ok, you’ve done the tutorial now? Good! On with the show!
Next step will be to head onto Steam Workshop, click on “Community” in the top bar then “Workshop”. Then you need to get to the Tabletop Simulator section of the Workshop by using the “Search for a Workshop” field.
Then search for “Age of Sigmar” in the workshop… or just use this link to head straight there.
Then you’ll need a mod for the table and a mod for your army. I’m currently using these two:
Age of Sigmar 4th Edition Table https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3272401079
Malkavitch’s Models: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3272457903
You can find other good options around like Mitch’s Maps and Ulthuan. You may find that for your army or for other reasons that other options work better for you!
Get an army ready to play with
Click Create in TTS and then select your Model Mod of choice.
If you’re in Malavitch’s, right click on the bag for the army you want and then you can use the search function to find the models you want, so long as you know how to spell the names of your units 😉. Just click on the models you need and drag them onto the table.
Here, you can use right click and then clone to make more of something or press ctrl+c ctrl+v.
You can also save warscroll cards if that’s how you want to see your rules while you play… of course, you can always use your standard tools like warscroll cards or an excel file with your rules listed per phase. Or why not all 3 as I do sometimes 😀
Once you’ve got all the pieces you want to have ready for when you play, you have two options (that I know of). You can just select it all with shift click or drag to select, then right click and choose “Save Object”. Or you can empty a bag out and put everything you want back in there. Right click that one and save it. Up to you! I started with the bag but then found just spawning an army into the game was easier.
On that note, when you want to bring that army out to play, just click the Objects Icon in the top row and then on “Saved Objects” to go and pick the army you want.
Setting up your Table
Head on over to the Main Menu and go back to “Create” to get started on a table.
Click your mod, click ok when it asks for confirmation then wait patiently while it loads.
Then I normally follow these three steps (assuming you already know which map you’re going to play).
- Find the green bag with the terrain for the map you want and click the “place” button underneath it.
- Right click on the “deployment zones” button just next to the green bags, go to state, then hover over the numbers until you find the map you need and click that.
- Right click on the GHB and do the same for the objectives.
Then bam, you should have something that looks like what you have here below and you are ready to bring your army in and start deploying!
Doing your game stuff
Measuring
The tutorial should have introduced you to the basics but there are a couple of bonus parts here.
Use the rulers if you need to! If the other tools are bugging out, just use a ruler or 2! You can also copy these if you need more.
AURAs! These are a game changer for playing AoS in TTS. If you’re using “Makalvitchs” or a similar mod, then when you right click, you’ll be able to change the state which will show you measurements based on the models base. You can also change this by simply hovering and pressing numbers too! Just go and give this a try for yourself, measuring those 3” ranges becomes amazingly easier and quicker.
If you’ve got “auto” on, then when you move your models, it will tell you how far you’re moving them. The other option is to stick to “free” where you’ll then need to press tab from where you start until where you want to end to measure.
Moving models
Sounds so easy but is also sort of easy to fuck up from time to time. My two main tips here beyond the tutorial is that:
Pressing “ESC” whilst holding the models means you return them to where you picked them up from.
If you right click while you’re holding them it will place them back on the surface of the table so that you can see they’re going to sit fine. This is key if you want to use the auto measurement tools in TTS for them to calculate your distance correctly.
A cool trick is picking up your unit and then pressing the numbers 1,2,3 etc to rank them up automatically! Give it a try!
Rolling Dice
Have a play around in tts, I find getting used to the dice rolling came very quickly!
Right clicking on the “Clear Mat” thing is very helpful to get rid of the dice but you can also pick them up and press delete or similar. I also really like using the “Roll all dice” after adding the dice in to the correct amount with the red buttons. Otherwise, you pick up all your dice, shake your mouse around and then drop them on the thing that looks like a galaxy.
Then you’ll want to practice right clicking or clicking on the buttons next to your dice to delete certain rolls or all numbers below a certain value. You’ll want to practice this because every so often you’ll click on the wrong thing and then you’ll need another trick…
The “Last 5 Rolls” button is a life saver if you mess something up… or if you and your opponent simply forget what you were up to.
Communication
You’ll want to be on voice chat… the best place for that is naturally the Woehammer Discord 😉
Otherwise, you’ve got a couple of things that can help such as pressing tab when you’ve got the ruler (“line”) tool selected to ping on the table or if you want to get fancy you can use the draw function to help communicate between you both.
Handy tips (stuff that didn’t fit somewhere else)
- Don’t press rewind! Don’t press ctrl+z. Look, we all do it sometimes… but it causes all sorts of headaches. Just try your best not to press it.
- Use “Color Tint” (it hurts me to misspell colour) to change how the bases look! It’ll make it easier to tell units apart. Just right click, then select the colour you want to use. You can do it to mark up certain states too in case Nurgle is getting you diseased or something gross like that.
- Markers and stuff. You’ll find them all in front of your dice area. Use them! Especially those little red blood drop wound markers!
- Copy your units, is it too hard to show on the table the wounds or prayer points? Copy your units place them to one side and put your markers there!
- The ALT key! If you want to see a zoomed preview of something it’ll show it right up big on your screen so that you can read it without jiggling your view around!
- Hover your mouse over a unit and often you’ll be able to see the unit stats (doesn’t seem to always work 100% and different mods may or may not have it).
- Just play roughly ignoring coherency or you’ll have a bad time! Talk over it with your opponent first of course and remove models in the same way you would on the table and you’ll be fine. I played a game doing everything correctly, it was a pain in the arse and it took ages too!
Get out there and give TTS a go!
Now go get yourself setup and start practicing how things work. Then go get yourself a game with someone else and have fun. This is definitely a learn by doing thing and other players will help you out with how to do things and playing the game. If you do run into trouble, ask around. Like I said earlier, there’s heaps of people in the Woehammer Discord who will help out!
It’s a really helpful tool for when you can’t just have a table setup to play around with your deployment or just to see how battleplans are for different lists. I’ll make callbacks to using TTS in other articles and it’s one of the changes that has helped me already feel better prepared and ready when I walk up to a table in real life and want to throw dice competitively!
