UB User Guide (WIP)

Welcome to my Universal Guide and Tutorial.  I hope you find this useful and please send me any feedback.  So let's jump right in.  Upon logging in you will see the following screen:


For now I will focus on game play so we will connect to the lobby.  This is the where you can chat, start a game or create your own game.


To get a good idea of how everything works, I will walk through creating/hosting a game.  When you click "Host a game" you will see the following screen:

If you are looking to find an opponent it is good to name your game in the manner I have in the image above.  Clicking the lock icon will lock the game and will only allow a player you have given the password to, to join the game.  Only useful if you want to play a friend and not have any spectators chiming in.

Once you have created your game you will be taken into your game room.  The game room has three main components: the battlefield, the chat area and the bottom menu.  I always use the Zoom feature at the top of the battlefield to zoom in closer to the battlefield.

Before we dive into the game, I will explain the menu at the bottom of the screen:


The first three icons allow you to center the battlefield, zoom in and zoom out.  Very useful when lining up units and bases.

The trash icon is used to remove things from the battlefield (i.e. models, notes you wrote, etc.)

The grid icon places a grid on the battlefield and is completely useless in my opinion

The pen icon allows you to write freehand on the battlefield.  This is used primarily to draw arrows when you are showing your opponent a charge you are declaring. For example if I want to charge my Ogres into the High Elf Spear Unit I would draw it on the battlefield for clarity:


The dice icon opens up the dice roller which you will use to do all your rolling.  It is pretty self-explanatory so I will leave it at that.


The Tools menu gives you access to tools such as rulers and templates that you use during game play.  We will cover those in more detail later.


The map icon lets you build, save and load maps (terrain) for your battlefield, which is empty to start with.  We will cover maps later as well.


The Add Units button does exactly that, it lets you add units to your army.  We will go over units later.


The information (i) button is very useful once you have units on the board.  It allows you to add information to your units and view information your opponent has added about his unit.  If you are playing open list, this is where you could say what each unit/model is equipped with.

The volume button needs no explanation and the M icon brings up a game menu:

Brilliant so far matey Enjoy your first, of many, pet gnoblars

JJ

To get started, lets just grab a pre-made army and map.  I find army and map building very fun and will go into that in more detail later in the tutorial. 

Click the red Maps button in the main nav

Browse around and find a map you like and click on it. You will now see a screen like this one:


Click the download button and save the .UBM file to your computer.


Now comes one of the really annoying things about UB, click home to get back to the lobby. Yes, you have to log back in and go back to the lobby.  Bummer but we deal with it.

Now the fun starts and we can set up a game.

Now that we have a map, we can set up a room for gaming.  Go back through the lobby and click Host a game.  For now just name the room Testing so people wont come in looking for a game.

The first screen you see is the Army Selection screen.  Here is where you pick the models you will use to build your army with.  Eventually you create your own army (models) but for now let's just pick a pre-made army.  From the Premade Pro Army list scroll down to an army you like (highlighting a name will let you browse the models in the army).  A few clicks down you can find New Ogres, this is a good starting point and what I will use for the tutorial.
 

Once you pick your army, you will be taken into the battlefield, click Zoom at the top right to get a closer look and center the battlefield so everything is visible on your monitor.

Lets load up our map.  Click the Maps button on the bottom of the screen.


To load the map we already saved, click the green cube with the down arrow and you will see the following screen:


Click the folder icon and browse to the UBM file we saved earlier. Click OK and the map will load onto the battlefield.  IMPORTANT - click the small lock icon in the Maps window to lock the pieces of terrain so they don't move around during game play.  Close out the maps window - grats, you just loaded your first map!

Lets add some units/models to the battlefield.  Click the Add units button at the bottom:


The top of the screen shows all the models in your army, you can scroll across and mouse over any model to see what it is named.  Select the unit you want to form by clicking the model.  That model will now appear in the main window:


Use the front and side counters to set how many ranks and files you want for the unit.  Select if they are a regular unit or skimishers, the choose the direction you want to face them. Use the options below the picture of the model to add command to the unit (champion, musician, standard bearer).  Once you have your unit formed, click the Place It button.  Grats you have your first unit on the board!!!

Now that we have a unit on the battlefield we can begin to manipulate the unit.  Clicking the small green tab below the unit will highlight the unit and bring up the movement options:



Clicking on the circle on the left of the unit will cycle through the three rotation options: Wheel Right, Wheel Left, Rotate (reform).  To perform the action you wish, click and hold the arrow to the right of the unit and mouse up or down.  This will rotate/wheel your unit and even show the actual degrees (useful when angled and trying to line up units base to base)...pretty cool

Lets grab a ruler and move our unit.  Hit the tools button on the bottom of the screen:


Make sure you hit the Tools button in the pop up and then scroll to the right. You will find two rulers, 12 inches and 24 inches.  Pick one and add it to the battlefield.  Line it up with your unit so you have a line to follow:


Click and hold the green tab at the bottom of the unit and move your unit up. Just that easy.

This is coming along brilliantly, another Gnoblar for you

JJ

Wow this will end up being very cool. Awesome work!