Translucent Flipbook decals/particles

Okay so basically I’m making a rainy environment. I made a particle system for the actual rain, and I’d like to add in some little ripples on the ground. I made a little animation in max, made a flipbook and tested it on a surface. Works lovely.

However, the second I turn this into a decal material and apply it as a decal to the scene, it doesn’t render. Other types of animation work fine, such as the rotate function.

Is this a bug? Or am I missing something? Maybe there is a better way to scatter around little ripples?

I tried adding the material to a particle system. It works fine when blend mode is set to opaque. But the second I change it to translucent, the normal map stops working.

Here is my material setup:

http://puu.sh/c4R1S/3ed036febb.jpg