The pre-battle experience, rebuilt end to end — from the moment you open a lobby to the moment the first turn starts, every screen is new.

THE MUSTER — a real character-select screen. Friend matches (one-unit-each) now draft the way the big tactics games do: the host calls everyone in TOGETHER, and the whole room picks on one shared 90-second clock. An 18-calling portrait grid in the centre (locked jobs show their unlock path; the weekly 🎁 free-rotation job is marked), stage tabs for CALLING → SUB-CLASS → REACTION → SUPPORT → MOVEMENT, and both teams on the rails showing every player's pick AS THEY THINK — deliberating portraits run black & white, and colour fades in the moment a player locks in. ⚄ LET FATE DECIDE rolls a random legal loadout you can still adjust; if the clock runs out, fate takes the undecided. When every banner is sworn, the grid gives way to both armies standing as live 3D models, and the host marches.
THE WAR TABLE — the waiting room, dressed. The lobby wears the muster's look: seat cards on team rails (host crown, AI seats labelled), the invite code writ LARGE with a ⧉ COPY button, and one gold button: TO THE MUSTER. Pick your team by clicking the open chair on the other side — the server referees the seat, so racing for the last chair resolves cleanly. AI fill now happens at muster time: bots take visible seats at the table instead of appearing from nowhere at match start.
THE MARCH INTO BATTLE. After the roll ceremony, your army WALKS onto the battlefield — each unit in from its own side, carrying the weapon it just rolled — and the opening turn holds until the last soldier stands. Then: BATTLE COMMENCES! across the field in the Shattered Crowns gold, with the battlefield's name beneath.
The board breathes. Move and targeting tiles now pulse FFT-style — a slow wave that ripples outward from the acting unit.
Portrait fixes. Windstrider, White Seraph and Bard sat low in every portrait frame (their feather/halo/plume pushed the face down) — corrected everywhere busts render. Five keyed splash portraits had invisible transparent holes (the seraph's hood, the ninja's arms, the dancer's forearm, the geomancer's fur, the orator's cravat) — all re-cut clean.
For the technically curious: two new lobby endpoints (/api/lobby/muster, /api/lobby/set_team), live pick broadcast via the widened lobby poll, and a server-side fate roll at deadline expiry. Older clients keep working against the new server; the new muster flow needs this build's server.

Muster