What is TacticalDropz?

TacticalDropz is a browser-based planning tool for visualizing Warhammer 40K deployments before you get to the table. Import your army list, drag units onto the board, check cohesion, measure distances, and plan your deployment against real mission layouts — all without paper or screenshots.

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Free vs Pro

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Typical Workflow

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📦 Staging Area

The staging area sits between the toolbar and the board. It shows all units from your imported list as draggable pills.

• Each pill shows unit name, model count, base size, and a color dot by category
• Red = Characters    Teal = Battleline    Blue = Vehicles    Purple = Monsters    Orange = Transports
• Deployed units grey out with a dashed border — drag again to reposition on the board
• Deleting a unit from the board returns it to staging automatically
• Clear Board — removes all drawings, returns list units to staging (list stays intact)
• Clear List — removes the imported list entirely and clears all list-placed units

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📋 List Import

TacticalDropz supports two list formats:

GW App (Official App export)

Copy your list from the GW App and paste it directly. The parser extracts unit names, counts models by counting bullet points (not weapons), and auto-infers base sizes. Works even when the app exports everything as a single long line.

New Recruit — Short format (recommended)

Uses the pattern 10x Unit Name (pts). Model counts are read directly from the Nx prefix — most reliable format.

Review Modal

After pasting, a review modal shows every parsed unit with editable count, shape picker, and filtered size dropdown. Correct anything before units hit staging.

• Select shape first — ○ circle, ⬭ oval, ▭ rectangle — then pick the dimension from the filtered list
• ✓ = base size confident    ? = inferred, please verify

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🎯 Place Models Tool

The default tool. Place and arrange model bases directly on the board.

Toolbar controls

• Shape picker — select ○ circle, ⬭ oval, or ▭ rectangle first. The size dropdown filters to matching options only.
• Size dropdown — filtered by selected shape
• Count — quick buttons (1, 5, 10) or type a number
• Unit name — label shown above the placed group on the board

Placing a group

• Click empty space — drops a new group at that position

Selecting & moving

• Click a base — enters edit mode and selects that base
• Ctrl + Click — add or remove a base from the current selection
• Drag a selected base — moves all selected bases together
• Click empty space — deselects and exits edit mode
• Click unit name in the right panel — selects all bases in that unit and enters edit mode

Rotating ovals & rectangles

• Select an oval or rectangle base — a yellow ↻ handle appears above it connected by a dashed line
• Drag the handle to rotate freely in any direction
• With multiple bases selected, dragging the handle rotates all selected bases simultaneously
• Each base stores its own independent rotation — individual bases in a squad can face different directions

Editing a group

• Right click a base in edit mode — removes that individual base from the group
• Right click a unit name in the right panel — rename it
• Click 🗑️ in the right panel — delete the whole group (returns to staging if from an imported list)

Cohesion

• ■ Green dashed lines = all bases within 2" cohesion
• ■ Red dashed lines = one or more bases out of cohesion

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Other Tools

✏️ Draw Unit

• Click — add a point to outline a unit zone
• Right click — undo the last placed point
• Double click — close the shape and finish
• Drag inside a finished shape — move it around the board

📏 Measure

• Click — set the start point, then click again to set the end — distance shown in inches
• Right click a measurement line — delete it

🏷️ Label

• Click anywhere on the board — places a text label (prompts for text)
• Right click a label — delete it

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Terrain & Missions

The left sidebar starts with an Edition selector — 11th (the default) or 10th. It changes what the rest of the nav below it shows.

11th Edition NEW

Pick My Disposition and Opponent Disposition — each is one of the five Force Dispositions: Take and Hold, Purge the Foe, Disruption, Reconnaissance, Priority Assets. That pairing determines the mission (each side can have a different mission name, even on the same physical board) and which board layouts — A, B, or C — are available to pick.

🔦 LoS Area NEW

Select a unit, then click 🔦 LoS Area in the toolbar to see how far it can see, blocked by terrain. Standing outside a ruin, the whole structure blocks sight; standing inside one, only its dense (green) walls block — you can see out through open sides. A unit straddling a terrain edge counts as fully inside it. Click the button again to clear it.

📐 Table Set Up Mode NEW

Switch the Mode selector at the top of the left sidebar from Deployment Practice to Table Set Up to turn the board into a physical setup guide — instead of placing models, it labels every terrain piece's corners with measurements in inches, so you can position real terrain on your real table before a game.

• Every terrain area's corners are labeled with their distance from one board corner
• Click any of the 4 board-corner markers to re-origin all the measurements from wherever you're standing
• Measurements round to the nearest quarter inch, to match what you can actually read off a tape measure

10th Edition

Switch Edition to 10th for the classic flow:

• Format — GW (8 layout configurations), WTC (full map images for all 6 missions), or UKTC (coming soon)
• Mission — select from the list to see deployment zones and objectives
• Layout — pick terrain layout 1–8

WTC — Hidden Supplies

When WTC terrain and Hammer & Anvil are both selected (10th Edition), a Hidden Supplies toggle appears in the top nav to switch to the Hidden Supplies variant of that layout.

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💾 Save & Load

• Save Plan — downloads your board state as a JSON file
• Load Plan — restores a previously saved board from a JSON file
• Clear Board — resets all drawings, returns list units to staging
• Your imported army list persists automatically across page refreshes (free users, same browser)

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📱 Mobile

On phones, TacticalDropz runs in view-only mode — the full canvas fills your screen with no toolbar or menus in the way. Use it to reference terrain layouts while setting up the table, or load a saved deployment to show your opponent your plan.

Navigation

• Tap ☰ in the top-left corner to open the menu
• Tap outside the menu panel to close it
• All selections stay open until you close the menu manually

Menu sections

• Account — log in, sign up, Go Pro, or log out
• Board — About & Help, Clear Board, Save and load deployments (Pro)
• Edition — 11th (default) or 10th; changes the sections below it
• My Disposition / Opponent Disposition — 11th Edition only; pick each side's Force Disposition
• Format — 10th Edition only; switch between GW, WTC, UKTC
• Mission — 10th Edition only; select the mission to see deployment zones and objectives
• Layout — pick a layout: A/B/C for 11th Edition, 1–8 for 10th
• Hidden Supplies — appears when WTC + Hammer & Anvil are selected (10th Edition)

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Feedback

TacticalDropz is actively developed. If something doesn't work, looks wrong, or you have a feature idea — feedback is genuinely appreciated and shapes what gets built next.

📧 Send feedback