Official Battleplan Blog

View the new Fallen Kingdom and Vanguards factions

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Check out the new Fallen Kingdom and Vanguards cards now available in Battleplan for Summoner Wars! It includes all Units, Events, and Starting Setups.

If you haven't pre-ordered your copies of the new faction decks, we highly recommend you do so now at the Plaid Hat Games Store. Shipping day is just around the corner! Or, if you haven't played Summoner Wars yet, now is a great time to join the growing ranks of other Summoner Wars fans. Simply start with one of the two Starter Sets: Cave Goblins vs Tundra Orcs or Guild Dwarves vs Cave Goblins.

Validate your rosters

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Today, we rolled out a new feature of Battleplan that automatically validates your army or deck as you change it, according to the ruleset you have selected. If there is an invalid combination of things in your roster—be it duplicate units or exceeding point totals—messages will appear at the bottom explaining what's wrong. Of course, there is the option to turn off these messages entirely by choosing "No Rules" from the list of rulesets.

The new validation system goes further than just telling you what's wrong after you've made the change, it also lets you know before you make the change whether the change will be valid or not. This is done through dynamically changing the style of the add/remove buttons. A solid color button means that adding or removing the item is OK and won't invalidate your roster. A partially gray, partially colored button—paired with a popup message when hovering over the button—lets you know that adding or removing the item will cause your roster to be invalid, which will likely be accompanied with a message saying why it's invalid.

For some game systems—such as Heroscape, which has all of three core army designing constraints—the new validation system will offer a minor benefit, while other game systems—such as Summoner Wars, which has more complex deck designing constraints—will provide a much greater benefit by tracking the details for you. In any case, this means you spend less time on the arduous calculations of ensuring a valid deck or army, and more time strategizing and designing the deck or army you have in mind. (Or you can spend the same amount of time designing more decks and armies. Either way is fine with us.)

While we are quite proud of the new validation system, we also have future plans for extending it that we're excited about working to bring you. The most notable of the planned extensions is to offer fix options along with the validation messages you receive. For example, in Summoner Wars, if you add a Summoner, you'll get a message saying you need to add the Summoner's required cards. With the fix options, you'll be given an option to add all the missing cards in one click. Or, if you somehow end up with multiple factions in your deck, you'll be given options to remove all but the faction of your choice.

We'll be working hard to bring that part to you soon. In the meantime, we trust you'll find the new validation feature quite neat and beneficial.

Better buttons for faster edits

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Many of our most recent changes to Battleplan been in the spirit of reducing the time it takes you to create an army or deck, so you spend less time building and more time playing. The first change we made was to increase the clickable area of the add/remove buttons, making them easier to hit. Previously, they were 10x10 pixels, and we increase them by a whopping 2 pixels in both directions, totaling 12x12 pixels. While 2 pixels may not seem like much, think about it this way: a 10x10 pixel image has a total of 100 pixels, where a 12x12 pixel image has a total of 144 pixels. So, the 12x12 pixel image has 44% more area than that of the 10x10 pixel image! Certainly not insignificant.

Another change was to put add/remove buttons next to the items in the browse pane (the list on the left). This comes with several benefits, but most significant is the ability to quickly add (or remove) an item to your roster, where before you would have to click on the item to view it and then move your pointer to the add (or remove) button next to the tabs. This also allows you to actively see how adding or removing an item changes the statistics within the roster's Analysis tab.

The Summoner Wars console in particular has a couple of notable changes. First off, we've put add/remove buttons next to the required cards within a Summoner's Stats tab. Again, this affords less navigation activity and more focus on designing your deck and, even more importantly, playing the game. Secondly, we've added links to quickly load a standard Summoner Wars faction deck. Just click the Clear button at the bottom of the roster pane and you'll see them in the list area. So now, if you just want to tweak one of the standard decks, you no long have to construct it from scratch.

Stats galore and a little more

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Yesterday's released came with several changes, some large, some small. The largest and most significant change is the way roster stats are handled. (A roster is what we generically call armies, decks, etc.) First, you'll notice that there is less text at the top of the roster pane, and what remains is simplified, easy-to-read information about the primary constraints for constructing your roster. For example, the primary constraint in building a Summoner Wars deck is the number of cards allowed in the deck. Heroscape, on the other hand, has two primary constraints: the point size of the army and the number of starting spaces allowed on the map you'll be playing. Continuing with Heroscape as the example, the new layout provides instant visibility to your army's point total, the maximum points set for your army, and the number of points you have left to spend; all of which was formerly hidden under a collapsed label. These same changes have also been made to our HeroClix console.

The other roster stats have moved to the new roster details page. You can view this page by selecting the roster "Details" item in the roster pane. (e.g. "Army Details", "Deck Details", etc.) With all this new space available, we were able to significantly expand on the stats that are shown. We've added some fields and sliced the numbers up in different way, making it quicker and easier to calculate the risks in your game. We believe there is more useful information about a roster that isn't in there yet, so we'll keep looking and adding as it comes to us.

In addition to the immediate benefits of these changes, we're also excited about how nicely they set things up for features we have planned for next few months. One among those is the awaited roster validator, which will be especially useful for Summoner Wars.

Battleplan goes mobile

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Today we bring Battleplan to the palm of your hand with the new Battleplan Mobile Edition site. It's a beautiful marriage, really, because it makes perfect sense. When gathered around a table full of miniatures or cards, practically everyone has their mobile phone with them, but how many bring their laptop computer? Often there isn't even enough room for it, and when there is, using it can be awkward because it's off to the side or otherwise in the way. But, with the rise of the newer, more powerful smartphones, we'll be able to take greater advantage of the as-you-go style of computing that mobile devices offer verses the stop-and-go of laptops and desktops.

To visit the new Mobile Edition site, simply direct your smartphone to mythacle.com.

Introducing Battleplan for Summoner Wars

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

A little over a month ago, the startup Plaid Hat Games debuted its first game: Summoner Wars. And it has been duly well received by the gaming community. If Summoner Wars is a sign of things to come, we're anxiously awaiting what other gaming goodness Plaid Hat Games has to turn out!

Upon reading the rules for Summoner Wars, we instantly saw it fitting in perfectly with our growing family of Battleplan consoles. So as our closing efforts for the year 2009, we give you our third and newest console, Battleplan for Summoner Wars.

Have a Mythacle New Year!

Breaking the rules

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0000

There is one clear advantage tabletop games have over video games: house rules. House rules are deviations from the standard rules that are (hopefully) agreed upon by those participating in a game session. They might involve large changes, minor tweaks, or simply a particular interpretation of the standard rules. They might aid in simplifying the game, or they may add new types of dynamics and challenges. With tabletop games, and house rules, you can play the game the way you want to play it.

With this in mind, we have adopted a policy of keeping letter-of-the-law restrictions to a minimum in Battleplan. Battleplan will do less of rules enforcing and offer more of rules reminding.

We begin observing this policy in today's release by allowing duplicate Unique units in a Heroscape army or a HeroClix force. For example, in Heroscape it's not uncommon for some players to treat Zettian Guards as a Common Squad and have several of them in their army. Now Battleplan will allow that army to be created.

The half gray/half green "add" button is a visual indication that while adding a duplicate is allowed by Battleplan, it isn't allowed according to the game's rules.

Have fun breaking the rules!

Battleplan for HeroClix: Alpha2

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, we rolled out an update to Battleplan for HeroClix. We're calling it Alpha2. That just means it's still not ready for prime time, but it is a little closer. Here are some of the new things to look for:

Team Ability, Trait, and Special Power descriptions
Character keywords
Groups for grouping by stat symbol (Boot, Wing, Dolphin, etc.)
Working filters
Improved layout for character powers
Improved layout for popup balloon

And coming soon: force printing capability.

If you have an idea you'd like to see in Battleplan for HeroClix, suggestions can be posted to the Batteplan Help Group.

Better Army Card images

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Over the next several weeks, we'll be rolling out new Army Card images. This will address several issues we've had with the old images, such as missing card images, inaccurate information on some cards, and copious JPEG artifacts.

We already have some of the new images online. So far, we've installed new images for Marvel: The Conflict Begins, Defenders of Kinsland (Wave 8), Blackmoon's Siege (Wave 9), Crest of the Valkyrie, and three of the five promo units. The others will follow over the next several weeks as we work through the scans and process them one by one (which can be a time-consuming, labor-intensive process).

Introducing Battleplan for HeroClix

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday evening we released the new Battlplan console for HeroClix! The HeroClix console is currently in the Alpha stage of development. This simply means that the core set of features isn't finalized yet and there are some things that need to be added to be a full-fledged force designer for modern HeroClix. Specifically, the things we'll be adding includes listing team abilities, character special powers, named powers, keywords, and feats.

Don't forget the upside to it being an Alpha version: you of the HeroClix community have a chance to provide early input on the things you'd like to see in a force designer and help define the direction of Battleplan. If you have thoughts on the matter, join the Battleplan Help Group and let us know.

Subgroups and more

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Battleplan now gives you the ability to subgroup units in the Units list. Who are the Human Champions that can take advantage of the MacDirk Warriors' powers? Or who are the Vydar units with a Range of 4 or more that can benefit from Vydar's Range Enhancement Aura emanating from Laglor? Now these kinds of questions are a little easier to answer using subgroups.

Accompanying subgroups are additional grouping categories. Here are the new ones.

Universe for easily separating classic Heroscape from Marvel.
Type (Common/Unique) if you don't care whether a unit is a Hero or a Squad.
Type (Hero/Squad) if you don't care whether a unit is Common or Unique.
Figures, because more figures in a Squad means more attacks per turn.
Spaces (Per Figure) to easily find those double-space units.
Spaces (All Figures) when you're concerned about starting zone limitations.

The Universe, Figures, and Spaces (for all figures) also appears on the unit's dossier summary.

Print your armies with Battleplan

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:30:00 +0000

You can now print the armies you design in Battleplan. The Print button, located at the bottom of the Army list, opens a new browser window with a printable version of all the important unit information listed in tabular form. The printable view also includes the statistics for the entire army (total spaces, averages, etc.), and you can give your army a name worthy of its ferocity.

Furthermore, Battleplan 1.2 introduces the Briefing Room: a "home" page with various bits of information relating to Battleplan. Now we don't have to see the 10th Regiment of Foot pointing their guns at us every time we visit.

Battleplan 1.1 release

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:01:00 +0000

One week ago, we introduced you to Battleplan. It was met with such good response that we wanted to give you more of it. Before the initial release, the original plan was to roll out an upgrade in about three weeks. After the initial release, we shortened it to two weeks. But now, after one short week of many long nights, we bring you Battleplan 1.1.

Here are some of the more notable changes:

Multiple Common units of the same name are now consolidated into a single army entry. Aside from simply taking less space, this gives you quick reference to how many of a particular Common unit you have in your army. It also shows the total points spent on that unit so you can see how you've divided up your point budget.
Multiple Common units of the same name are counted as only one in the "Army Cards" totals. This will give you a more accurate idea of how many cards you really need space for on your gaming table.
Added the ability to set a maximum number of spaces. Points are then only thing you spend when you design an army. If you have a strict limit to the number of starting spaces for your match, this will track how many spaces you have left, or if you've claimed too many.
Added + and - buttons to next to each unit in the army list. This makes it quicker to increase or decrease a Common unit's count in your army.
Added the "Special Power" grouping. Now you can scroll to a special power and find all the units that have it. There is also a "Special Power [2+]" grouping that only shows the special power groups with two or more units in it so you can quickly find other units with the same special powers.
Added a zoom-in feature for unit images. If you need to read the text on the Army Card thumbnail, click on it to zoom in without having to open a new window. Move the mouse pointer around on the thumbnail image to focus the zoom window. Further clicking on the thumbnail will alternate between locking the focus and tracking the mouse movement. Clicking on the zoom window to close it. And, if you still need the full-size image, you can double-click on the thumbnail to open it in a new window.

Additionally, we've made numerous bug fixes, speed enhancements, and UI tweaks.

Battleplan is currently tested to run correctly in Chrome, Firefox 3, IE7, IE8 (RC1), and Safari 3. Battleplan was also tested to run in Opera 9, but it breaks. (Sorry Opera fans!)

Thanks to those who made suggestions and reported bugs this past week. Suggestions and bug reports can be posted to either the Battleplan thread at Heroscapers.com or the Batteplan Help Group.

Battleplan 1.0 release

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Cain) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:23:00 +0000

Today, we're happy to bring you Battleplan, a Web-based army designer for the Heroscape game system.

With the 1.0 release of Battleplan, you can view the profiles of all 153 official Heroscape characters, group characters by stats or attributes, and review their special power descriptions. As you design your army, the army statistics are calculated automatically. If you set a maximum point size for your army, it will dynamically calculate the remaining points you have to spend, and the available selection of characters will either fade or hide if it's too expensive, depending on your settings.

Battleplan also minimizes server communication by keeping the majority of the processing in the Web browser, so making changes to your army is quick and responsive.

As much as we are excited about today's release, we are also excited about the plans we have for the future of Battleplan. We're interested in helping you play your favorite game better, so stay tuned!