Directory of starting warbands

You've probably heard that the Tabletop Geeks Roster Builder now supports saving. Well, now you can also browse through all the starting warbands that others have created very easily in the directory of saved rosters.

The directory lists all of the created warbands of any user who does not have his site set to private. At the time of writing there are already 2 pages of saved rosters available in the directory and more being added every day. So, check it out and see what warbands everyone is creating.

http://directory.tabletopgeeks.com/rosters/

Let me know what you think. Are there any features you'd like to see added to this directory?

Hi Svenn,

This is great. I'll have to finish up the Nemesis Crown warbands so that they can become a first class citizen together with the other warbands (currently my Gunnery School of Nuln warband is showing up as Averlanders warband type but that doesn't matter).

Is it possible for an option to be added to delete old warbands? I was experimenting and created one or two warbands that I don't want anymore (e.g. a Gunnery School of Nuln warband that only has the leader).

Also, in lieu of free edit (which doesn't seem to work on the roster building) is it possible to allow us to upload XML documents that we have created outside of the roster builder for displaying inside the roster builder. This would compliment the download option and would allow me to post each version of my warband as new advances are gained simply by editing the XML to show the new stats/skills. I can understand if you don't want to do this for security as it may open the door for people to try to compromise your site with (deliberately or accidentally) malformed XML.

Anyway, looking good.

Cheers!

Deleting is something I meant to put in but keep forgetting! I'll try and get that in asap.

As far as uploading your own XML... that's a great idea. I'll look into how I could let you do this. I could possibly give out FTP access on a case by case basis until I get that set up directly through the site. I have the ability to add ftp accounts with access to very specific locations.

What's the issue with free edit? It should allow you free reign without worrying about gold (but will still stop you from adding incorrect amounts of units and such).

As far as the Nemesis Crown warbands showing as Averland... that's the default list item. Since I don't have a button/dropdown set up for Nemesis Crown warbands the listbox just defaults to Averland. If I add a button or add them to the dropdown that will be fixed.

Free edit doesn't yet let me increase experience, increase/decrease attributes or add skills, spells and injuries. Editing the XML would allow me to do this and hopefully the roster builder will then happily display my 'experienced' warband. Obviously I may encounter some difficulties if I then try to edit that warband within the roster builder but that is OK.


Oh another idea... it would be good if there was a button to add extra henchmen slots as needed. This would allow me to have every henchman in his/her/its own group if desired. Obviously this gets complex when printing the roster if there are more henchmen than can fit on a single page (how easy/hard would it be to dynamically add an extra page to the image or else use a different base image file when printing a three page warband roster?). Also, adding extra henchmen slots would give extra room for hired swords.

Alternatively, having separate slots specifically tailored for hired swords would be good which are an amalgamation of hero and henchmen slots (e.g. allowing skill lists to be chosen and injuries to be recorded). I always find normal rosters a pain for hired swords because using henchmen slots just feels messy. Of course that would require some image editing to create file for printing special Hired Sword slots as I do not believe that any Mordheim roster currently has this functionality.

Sorry for a flood of unsolicitated ideas, I use your roster builder and I like it. However, as a software developer my thoughts naturally move to how a software system (in this example your roster builder) could be changed to better suit my needs.

Ah yes, Free Edit was the in-between the starting warbands and the full update-able warband. The full ability to update between battles with exp, skills and spells, etc is next up.

I think I intentionally matched up the henchman slots to the printable roster. I suppose I could make a third page that's just a copy of the henchman page so you have 2 of those? That would take some time editing though. Do people really need that many henchman slots?

I like the idea of a separate section for hired swords. I'll have to look into that.

Thanks for the ideas! I wish everyone would give as much feedback as you have. It would make it a lot easier to know that people are gonna use what I'm actually adding. Up until this point I've just been doing things I thought would help people and hoping they used it.

Well my gaming group has found it useful so far as an easy way to create starting warbands (it removes the need to keep track of costs, etc). I'm keen to extend that for the life of my warband (currently I'm using the editable PDF roster which is great but clunky at times). I see this as having the potential to be a *hugely* useful tool for all Mordheim players.

In regards to printing I guess I'm a little bit different to most people in regards to Mordheim rosters. I have a netbook which I am able to take to most games and so I often just use the electronic version of my roster. In that regards I don't mind how big my roster gets as I won't be printing. That would not be a requirement for other people though. It would seem common to me to require three pages for experienced warbands that are up to their maximum warband size and include extras like hired swords but I doubt that people would ever need more than three pages. In your list of priorities it is probably worth keeping this quite low as it would only benefit a handful of gamers while other changes would benefit a greater range of gamers.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. It shouldn't be incredibly difficult to set up the extra henchmen slots (I hope) but it's going to have to wait a bit unfortunately.

As far as the updating of the roster throughout the campaign, I'd like to get this in asap. Currently I'm trying to plan out how to set it up that is easy to use and does not clutter the roster up too much. Any ideas or suggestions on how you'd like it to work would be appreciated.

Should I put an "Add Experience" button that allows you to just enter a number in a popup box? Should I try and make the actual boxes clickable? Should injuries/spells/level up skills just go in the skills dropdown box so you can add them freely? Should I have a popup box for adding gold crowns or just make that an editable textbox? Should the stats have +/- buttons or should those be an editable textbox?

The hard parts I'm having the most trouble with I think is determining how to set up the equipment for during a campaign since it's possible to get stuff that's not on your starting list. Also, Lad's Got Talent is going to be interesting to try and figure out.

Currently, I'm thinking that after the starting warband I'll just allow the Free Edit setup to enable all of this extra stuff and not try and validate everything, as that would be very difficult with all the possibilities. Thoughts?

I agree that validating everything for all warband types across all possible scenarios is next to impossible. What you have done for validation of starting warbands is great. I think that for updating rosters it would be best to keep it as flexible as possible with only limited validation. Remember: KISS.

I would make the characteristics into text boxes because this is probably easier than adding +/- buttons. I was actually experimenting with this last night and got the characteristics looking quite nice in a HTML form using just text boxes (nothing fancy though as my HTML is quite rusty). I wouldn't even worry about validating the characteristics initially as that can be added later.

As for experience, do whatever is easier for you (whether that is an "Add Experience" button or a text box or the ability to check off each individual experience box). Later on you can make this more powerful if people ask for it. The same for gold crowns. I'd be happy with anything (although I personally probably would prefer text boxes over buttons but using buttons for updating would allow for better validation).

You could probably allow the drop down list to be editable so that it is possible to type anything in and then click on the "Add" button. Later on you can start working at pre-populating that list based on skill lists available, etc as a shortcut while still allowing people to free type.

Henchmen promotion definitely is a tricky one and I don't have any suggestions for that at this time. I don't know whether it would be possible to have a 'promote' button that refreshes the page. Of course it would still be necessary to allow the two skill lists to be chosen.

Anyway, this is a big post. I think that if you just get something working that is a blank slate and flexible then that is sufficient initially. You can then work off feedback from people who use the roster builder as to what can be improved and what is missing (e.g. the "ride" skill list or even the "holy" skill list playing a Relics of the Crusade campaign). Do what is easy and what is fun for you to do. You have no competition so whatever you do is almost guaranteed to be better than the paper based systems that most people use today.

Well, this is working pretty well so far. We've got several pages of warbands that you can browse through now. Keep em coming!