How to use FaB Tabletop

1.1 Framing your play area (zoom & rotation)

The camera setup screen previews exactly what your opponent will see. Use Rotate if your camera is mounted sideways or upside-down — most overhead rigs end up somewhere near 180° — then use Zoom to fill the frame with your playmat and crop out the desk around it.

Aim to have your whole playmat in frame with a little room to spare: your pitch zone, arsenal and hero card should all be readable without your opponent squinting. Both sliders save to your browser when you click Save & Continue, so every future game starts with the same framing.

1.2 Using your phone as a camera (optional)

If your laptop webcam can't see the table, or if you'd prefer, you can use your phone as a camera instead. Open the settings dialog and scan the QR code under Phone Camera with your phone, accept the camera permission on the phone, then switch Camera Source to Phone once the badge reads "Phone connected".

Your phone stays on the relay page for the rest of the match, with its own zoom slider and a button to flip between the front and rear cameras. Streaming video is hard work for a phone, so keep it plugged in — and mount it somewhere it won't get knocked while you play.

1.3 Where your tiles land

Every tracker you turn on — Physical damage, Arcane damage, Amp, Go Again, on-hit effects, custom counters — appears as a tile drawn over your video feed, and your opponent sees it in the same spot you do. Tiles are draggable, so you can drop each one somewhere that matches how you arrange your physical playmat. Putting the Physical tile near the slot where you place attack cards, for example, makes on-hit damage easy to read at a glance.

Tiles stack neatly when several are active at once, which is what a typical attack looks like: the damage on the chain, the on-hit effects riding along with it, and whether the attack has Go Again.

2.1 Browsing public games

Public games are grouped by format — Classic Constructed, Blitz, and so on — with a count next to each. Expand a format to see who's waiting: you get the game title, the host's name, their language, and their hero, plus a link to their decklist if they shared one. Hit Join and you'll go straight to camera setup, then into the game.

2.2 Creating a game

To host, pick a Format, give the game a Title (this is what other players see in the lobby), choose your Hero, and optionally paste a Fabrary Decklist link so your opponent can check what you're bringing. Then hit Start.

Two toggles change who can find you. Private game keeps the game out of the public list — share the game code from the in-game settings dialog instead. Competitive leaves the game public but hides your hero from the listing, so you don't tip your matchup before the match starts. If you just want to run it back, Quick match at the top reuses the settings from your last game.

2.3 Joining a private game

To join a private game, ask the host for their game code — they can copy it from their in-game settings dialog. Click Join private in the lobby and paste it in. The full game link works too, so a host can just send you the URL.

2.4 Resuming a game in progress

If you're already in a game, a Game in Progress panel appears at the top of the lobby with the game's title and format. Rejoin Game drops you back in — handy after a refresh, a dropped connection, or closing the tab by accident. Leave Game bows out for good and frees your opponent up to find someone else.

You have a five minute grace period after disconnecting before you're marked as having left, so a browser crash mid-match isn't the end of the game.

3.1 Top bar: camera, mic, sound, connection, settings, leave

The top bar holds your own camera preview on the far left, then toggles for your camera, your microphone, and your speaker (mute your opponent without muting yourself). In the middle is the game title and your opponent's hero. On the right sits the connection badge — Connecting, Connected or Disconnected — then the settings gear and the leave-game button. If your opponent turns off their camera or mic, an indicator appears on their feed.

3.2 Life total

Your life total sits at the bottom of the sidebar with +/- buttons, and your opponent's is mirrored in the corner of their board. Most Classic Constructed heroes start at 40 — when an opponent's Snatch hits you for 4, tap minus four times to drop from 40 to 36. Life is the one thing Reset Board never touches, so it carries across the whole match.

3.3 Combat chain management

The top of the sidebar is your combat chain. Toggle Physical or Arcane when an attack is incoming and set the amount with +/-; your opponent sees the number update live, so they know exactly what's on the chain before it resolves. A 5-power attack met with 2 block and no armour means you set Physical to 3. Dual-damage chains just use both tiles at once.

Amp carries its own counter for the X in Amp X, and Go Again is a straight toggle — flip it when your attack grants it, so your opponent knows another action is coming rather than waiting on you.

When the chain closes, Reset Board clears everything you had lit up — damage, Amp, Go Again, abilities, on-hit effects and custom counters — in one click. Your life total and proxy tokens survive, since those carry between chains.

3.4 On-hit effects

The On Hits dropdown tracks everything that triggers off a successful hit — Bloodrot Pox, Frostbite, Frailty, Inertia, Mark, card draw, discard, banishing from arsenal or graveyard, and plenty more. Effects with a variable amount (Lose Health, Deal Damage, Deal Arcane Damage, Gain Health) have their own +/- so you can set the X; the rest are simple toggles.

Each one you tick becomes a tile on your opponent's view, and hovering it shows the reminder text — useful when they haven't met that card before. Create Token… at the bottom opens a second panel for the tokens you make for yourself: Runechants, Embers, Seismic Surge, Spectral Shield, and the rest.

3.5 Tokens & counters

Create Proxy Token tracks a token someone would otherwise have to remember. Pick who it lands on — Me or Opponent — then pick the token; the whole list is available to either side, so you can hand over a Mark or a Frostbite and still give yourself a Runechant. Counters use +/- for the ones that stack; Mark is a single toggle since you can only ever be marked once.

Both players see the same panel, and it lists both sides: collapsed it's a row of chips per player, expanded it splits into Yours and Opponent tabs showing each token as a card so you can read exactly what it does. Either player can add to or clear either list — whoever notices the trigger first can tidy it up.

For anything the app doesn't have a tile for, type a name into the Counter… box and hit +. That drops a named counter onto your board that you can increment, decrement, and drag wherever you like — good for one-off card effects and hero-specific tracking.

3.6 Click a card to recognise it

Can't read a card on your opponent's mat? Click it. FaB Tabletop grabs that frame, finds the card in it, and matches it against the full card database — the high-resolution card image pops out on top of the board a moment later, no typing required.

Recognition runs entirely in your browser, so it doesn't cost your opponent anything and works while they're mid-turn. Pop-outs are draggable and you can open as many as you like, which makes it easy to line up a couple of cards and compare them. If the match isn't quite right, the dropdown under the image offers the other candidates, and the coloured dots switch between pitch variants. Cards lying sideways on the mat work fine, and so do cards facing away from you.

A scan needs a reasonably clear look at the card — heavy glare, a hand covering the art, or a card at a steep angle can all defeat it. If nothing opens, nudge the card into better light and try again, or fall back to the search box below.

3.7 Card search

The Search card… box looks up any FaB card by name. It's forgiving of typos and half-remembered names, so "scar for" is enough to find Scar for a Scar. The result pops out the same way a scanned card does — draggable, closable, and readable by both of you.

Every pop-out doubles as a search box: edit the name in its header to swap it for a different card without opening another one. The coloured dots underneath jump between pitch variants, so you can show your opponent the red, yellow, and blue versions of a card in a couple of clicks.

3.8 In-game settings

The settings dialog covers everything you might need to change mid-match:

• Flip opponent's view — rotate their feed 180° if their camera is mounted the other way up.
• Card scan debug overlay — shows what the card scanner actually sees. Handy if recognition is misbehaving and you want to report why.
• Effect volume and Opponent volume — independent sliders for the app's sound effects and your opponent's microphone.
• Share game — copy the game code so someone can join a private game.
• Camera Source — switch between your webcam and your phone, with the QR code and connection badge right below.
• Reconfigure Camera — jump back to camera setup to re-do your zoom and rotation.