JV_Map/V_Map Gameset for
Compact Combat

Version 1.0

Compact Combat is a man-to-man combat board game system published by Microtactix. It is designed to support games of small force combats between players using a square grid game board and cardboard standup or lead figures. It currently comprises two products: Compact Warrior and the expansion Compact Sorceror. You can actually download a free "special edition" of Compact Warrior in PDF format from Microtactix's web site.

I am rather fond of Compact Combat; if you need further proof of this, see:

• My review of Compact Warrior on rpg.net
• My review of Compact Sorceror on rpg.net

This gameset should allow you to play Compact Combat over E-mail, using either Todd Zircher's tool V_Map (for Windows) or my own JV_Map (for any platform supporting Java 1.1). Although I designed this gameset with Compact Combat in mind, the counters are really just generic "virtual miniatures" of people which could be used for any fantasy combat game.

Compact Combat^TM is a trademark of Microtactix Games

Download

Download the gameset: cw_gameset.zip.

There are three files in the .zip archive: the counters, a 20x20 blank square grid playing map, and a sample .VMP file for V_Map or JV_Map. The two images are included as GIF images; even though the default for V_Map is BMP, JV_Map doesn't support BMP files at the moment....

Instructions for Use

Position

- - -

For each counter, there are actually four counters in the gameset, representing the four positions: standing, kneeling, supine, and prone.

Facing

Facing is very important in games of Compact Combat. Alas, on a two dimensional computer screen, the usual method with tabletop games of Compact Combat (i.e. your character faces the way that the miniature faces) won't work. There aren't counters in the gameset to represent the various characters facing in other directions; you must keep track of facing some other way. I would suggest keeping track of facing by moving the counter towards ones side of the square it occupies; the side it is closest to is the direction it faces. So, in the example below, the archer is facing towards the left of the map while the sorceress is facing towards the bottom of the map:

Alternate Maps

Of course, you can use more interesting maps than the blank grid provided. Feel free to substitute your own map. Use a hex map, if you're using a rules set that needs it, or if you're using house rules for playing Compact Combat on a hex grid. If you use a different map file, you will need to edit the "MAP" line of the VMP file (cw.vmp) to indicate the name of the file with the image of your map.