A playtest build. About twenty minutes, and you can play it on your own.
A hex-map miniatures wargame with one twist that shapes everything else: you draft your
warband with the battlefield already in front of you. Composition is a decision about
terrain, not a deckbuilding exercise done in the dark.
And when a unit dies it permanently reshapes the hex it fell on — a wood becomes a graveyard,
a ruin becomes rubble. The ground you fought over is different for the rest of the match. That
mechanic is called Last Stand.
You can play this on your own. The second seat is a sparring bot by default: it
drafts its own warband, chooses its own colours and fights for itself. Set the names, press
deal, and go. Nothing to install, no account, no sign-in — it all runs in this page.
Two of you? Change Second seat to Human and share one screen, passing
it back and forth.
What I'd love you to notice
Balance has been simulated across tens of thousands of games. Fun has been tested by
nobody — which is the entire reason I'm asking. Blunt answers are more useful than kind ones.
Did the visible map actually change what you drafted? That's the central bet of the
design. If you found yourself picking on raw unit quality and ignoring the terrain, that is the
single most useful thing you could tell me.
Ten turns — right, short, or long? If a game ended on the clock rather than with
someone breaking, did that ending feel earned or arbitrary?
How did the last two or three turns feel? Specifically: when you were ahead, did you
want to avoid contact and run down the clock? I suspect that's possible and I'd rather hear it
from a player than from a simulation.
Did Last Stand ever change your plan? Did you fight for a hex because of what dying
there would leave behind — or did the terrain changes just wash over you?
Which opponent did you play? The bot and a second human answer different
questions, so tell me which. The bot charges at whatever is nearest and defends itself
badly — if you beat it, the interesting part is how, not that you did.
Anything you had to be told rather than could see. Every one of those is a bug in the
interface, not in you.
Known rough edges
The sparring bot is simple. It charges the nearest enemy and takes whatever it
can reach, and it plays exactly the rules you do. It is there so you do not need a second
person. Simple is not the same as weak — it beat me in the first match I played against
it — so if it beats you, that is worth telling me rather than assuming it is your
fault. Let me know what you think of it either way.
Two humans means one screen. Networked play exists in the code but is switched
off at the server end.
It's a prototype. Expect unpolished corners; tell me about the ones that got in your way.