If you’re looking for a way to play Chain of Command, What a Tanker!, Battlegroup, Nuts! etc., look no further. This module for the popular VASSAL program will allow you and a friend to play games online. Here’s a link to the module:
Better Lucky than Good v1.0 (83.6Mb)*Better Lucky than Good v1.1 (~84Mb)*- Added some more Vehicles and Guns to British and Germans
- New Deployment Lines (in Models > Deployment)
- New “White Border” (in Terrain > Ground) for quickly cleaning up the Map edges
- A couple of new Maps added (in the Scenarios folder)
- Better Lucky than Good v1.1.1 (~84Mb) *
- Target/Scatter Die added
- Some new Maps added (in the Scenarios folder)
- Early War French (~350kb) *
- Add this file (do not unzip) to the BLtG_ext folder of v1.1.1 of the module.
- Larger Boards (~5.5Mb) *
- Add this file (do not unzip) to the BLtG_ext folder of v1.1.1 of the module.
- Adds 8′ x 6′ grass, desert and snow boards for larger games.
- Start new game offline > Choose Other Board Size > Select Table > Pick the size/style.
Installation instructions
- Install VASSAL from here. There are versions for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
- Download the Better Lucky than Good module (.zip) archive from the link above.
- Unzip the archive to a location you’ll remember.
- Launch VASSAL.
- ‘Open’ the BLtGv1.x.vmod file in VASSAL from the location you unzipped it to. It’ll take a little while to load the assets. This may take a couple of minutes the first time.
Note: you may be asked to give your name and give a password the first time you launch the module. When playing online your name will appear as whatever you enter, but just enter anything you like (it’s not important; I’ve never been asked for the password again)!
Setting up a game
- Launch Better Lucky than Good from the Module Library in VASSAL by double-clicking on it.
- Choose ‘Start new game offline’.
- Choose ‘Map 1 (Western Europe)’ and then ‘Player 1’.
You should end up with something like this:
You’ll find models and counters are in the Models section. Just drag them to the Map. Right-click on a model to see what options there are for moving it, etc. There are keyboard shortcuts for most things!
Bringing your game online
Click the double-arrow button on the top left. This will open the online games dialog on the top right. Click the other double-arrow button in that dialog. Create a new game/room by entering a name and hitting the Enter key.
If your opponent selects the ‘Look for new game online’ option (instead of Step 2 above) they can double-click the name of the game/room you’ve created and the map (and all model movements, dice rolls etc.) should automatically synchronised. VASSAL has a basic text chat built in, but I usually have a voice chat running with my opponent.
I hope that’s all clear! I’ll do a video about these features and some of the more advanced features soon…
Until next time,
Owen
* Big thanks all of the other asset creators that allow their images to be reused. Specifically I’d like to thank Suki. I used some of the vehicles he/she created. Check out their other historics modules here.