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I always said that going digital would be the death of the game.

Sure its free now, but for how long? Guess GW can cut the cost of publishing now, considering they can just update the app. This seems like a good thing now but wait until this is the only way to get the rules.

Now you can add another item to the list of things needed to play. An Android or IPhone product!

Not to be a flame thread, but what do people think of using your cell phone as a game aid? What about your device simply replacing the entire library?

Can this be a good thing, and if so, how?

Hopefully they do. Carrying around a bunch of books or printed PDFs is annoying at best.

Well, I know that I already use my phone/tablet for WHFB and 40k (Battlescribe) and for Warmachine/Hordes (Warroom), so I don't see much of a difference. Warmachine/Hordes do the whole digital books thing too, through a separate dedicated app as well. And you have to buy the army rules for the Warroom app, as well, while it seems that the rules will be free for the AoS one, which would actually be a one-up, in that situation. I don't see them dropping print books either. Considering its already been leaked that they've got more material coming out.

Basically, what I'm saying is, welcome to the future. You can get with it, or stick with the books (which is just fine, I actually own both a print copy of the 40k rules, and a digital one for when I go out to play), but in any case it's totally disengenious to pretend like its a requirement.

Well if they stop printing books it sure is.

Also, how do you get these warscrolls without access to the internet?

Like posted above, digital is going to be the future whether you're coming with it or not. I still love having a physical book to thumb through, but I can't pretend like they were all that convenient to lug around.

Now with almost everybody owning a capable device (though if you can't afford a smartphone/tablet then maybe GW games are not the budget games to be into) it seems pretty reasonable to more fully integrate them into the game.

And I mean, it's a free ruelset for Warscrolls from the get-go. I'd count that as a win either way. They could very well start charging in the future, but I see no purpose getting up in arms about that possibility yet.

Well, if you totally lack internet access, you're boned. But if that's the case, I suspect you have more to worry about than playing Warhammer. Otherwise, I'd imagine once you've downloaded it, you can access it any time, much like things work now, what with iBooks/epubs/pdfs/whatever's. So being online or offline, you have it. Not to mention, if they have the rules for units in the boxes, you've got them right in front of you. And, since we know there's more material coming in print, I'd imagine you'll have access to it there as well.

The situation hasn't changed from what it is now. And, in the hypothetical situation that GW stops printing books (however unlikely that is in reality), well, you can get a tablet or smart phone damn cheap these days (and you can use those things for far more than just looking at books as well), and computers do still have printers. Like I said before, welcome to the future.

 darkcloak wrote:
Well if they stop printing books it sure is.

Also, how do you get these warscrolls without access to the internet?

You can download them as PDFs from the Webstore onto your computer and then print them off. If you don't have an Internet connection at home you can go to a public library to download them.

I've been using my iPad mini as a gaming aid since I bought it. I already have all the PDFs on it to play AoS with, but an extra free app won't hurt at all :-)

Sounds good overall. With the available rules PDFs in infinity, I'm kinda used to using my phone for most things. Just have to wait and see what they deliver.

You can get a decent tablet for £99 these days, if you want to run the interactive app. If you just want the rules and scrolls, they can be put on Kindle.

GW have stated the app will be free. Since they want to make money from selling model kits, anything they charge for, that acts as a barrier, is against their strategy.

 Bi'ios wrote:
Well, if you totally lack internet access, you're boned.

Indeed. It's a non-issue. Please stop scaremongering.

If you don't have the internet, I'd be a little surprised if you managed to play any wargame

99% of people have a smart phone and therefore has access to the rules.
Many people have tablets (and you can get some pretty cheap on amazon)
Just about everyone has internet, if you don't you can simply go to a local library and print what you need, or save it to a flash drive.

You could also borrow a friend's internet for a second and get the pdfs. That's the thing, pdf = portable document format meaning you don't need net access to use the file once you have it.

Guys, please read the whole post and don't quote out of context...

Yep yep yep. GW has promises free rules, accessible to everyone. There is no possible way this could turn around and GW would never lie/ withhold information.

I think it's great that they are making some attempt at bringing things up to speed, but I can't shake the feeling that pretty soon all my 40k books will go poof as well.

Come on guys, was carrying All Those Books really that bad? I'm ashamed of us nerds sometimes. Do some push-ups for Christ sake. Lol

And look at all these lame excuses. Go to a friends house, go to the library. What the hell is that? That's some poor excuses guys, that's even worse than being too lazy to carry books.

Why can't I just go buy the books I want from the people who make them? Why the hoops?

It would take all of five minutes to send all those PDFs to the printer on GWs end and the finished product could be sold for dirt. Instead GW can't even get off their ass for ten minutes and do something properly. Maybe if they put any effort into this release at all then perhaps I'd be more inclined to believe GW desired my patronage and not just a quick hundie.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
99% of people have smart phones.

Is that a worldwide number or did that just get pulled out of thin air?

ive had a mobile phone on me almost every day for the last 17 years im cool with it

 darkcloak wrote:

99% of people have smart phones.

Is that a worldwide number or did that just get pulled out of thin air?

100% of the people I play games with, work with and hang out with have smartphones.

If you start looking at all ages, from new borns to the extremely old, and all countries, including the slums of India and China, you will see a sharp decrease in smart phone percentage. But I also feel those places and ages might be outside of the demographic AoS is aiming for.

Then 99% of people do not own smartphones, 99% of wargamers own them.

I'm sorry but I just can't see this app as anything other than a precursor. Call it doomsayers disease but mark my words. Next year there will be no books. Just apps and probably a subscription.

You wanted to know how you were going to run those limited edition formations, this is it baby. $6.99 a month for WD, Visions and Formation of the week. All on your handy, and totally traceable smartphone.

Prove me wrong. Please.

darkcloak wrote:And look at all these lame excuses. Go to a friends house, go to the library. What the hell is that? That's some poor excuses guys, that's even worse than being too lazy to carry books.

Is that a worldwide number or did that just get pulled out of thin air?

How many people do you know don't have internet in their home where they can download the free PDFs? there are very few compared to the entire populous that don't have immediate access at their home or in their hand, and for those people there are alternatives for access. Simple as that.

That number comes from a pretty good estimate when up until recently I was the only person in my company of over 700 people who did not own a smart phone (The CEO actually asked this question during a quarterly meeting and I was the only one without) but even now I have one but did have a tablet before, so I still had a way to bring pdfs with me.

You want a book that bad and GW isn't going to supply them, you could print the pdfs and staple them together. (This is just a joke. I can see why they provide electronic format as that is no cost to them and they are giving it for free, whereas printing costs and the less you print, the higher the cost per book to them)

darkcloak wrote:Then 99% of people do not own smartphones, 99% of wargamers own them.

I'm sorry but I just can't see this app as anything other than a precursor. Call it doomsayers disease but mark my words. Next year there will be no books. Just apps and probably a subscription.

You wanted to know how you were going to run those limited edition formations, this is it baby. $6.99 a month for WD, Visions and Formation of the week. All on your handy, and totally traceable smartphone.

Prove me wrong. Please.

Pirate Bay LOL.

Uhm...are we discussing availability of internet among wargamers on an internet forum?

LOL, yeah
Pretty silly.

Not everyone is blessed with 1st world problems.

Books are an integral part of human culture, regardless of what's in them. To simply do away with them as I suspect GW is planning is well... Heresy!

It's not so easy living in a 1st world country making 2nd world wages

 darkcloak wrote:
Not everyone is blessed with 1st world problems.

Books are an integral part of human culture, regardless of what's in them. To simply do away with them as I suspect GW is planning is well... Heresy!

Question, how many not blessed with 1st world problems are playing Miniature Table Top Wargames?

Personally I think the app is great idea and it being free is big bonus.

Even if they do start to charge in the future the chances are it will still be a fraction of the cost of the current books.

It also allows them to "fix" rules on the fly though not sure how this would work given that they are putting printed warcrolls into the model boxes, but guess it's not really any different to having an online errater.

If the app goes on google play for android users, then once it's free they can never change it to a pay app as per google play's TOS.

You can go from pay to free, but not the other way around so that's always a good sign if they put it there.

Much of the future release stuff (if rumors pan out) will be in print. Warscrolls will be with the models you purchase and campaign books will have additional rules, warscrolls, etc. Even the robust rules are in print form in WD and are probably in the starter set. Print is not being abandoned from what we've been told and I for one don't mind having a handy app on my phone. Plus, there is nothing really wrong with a publisher reducing costs. Having unsold stock not only wastes money initially to print, but costs money to keep in inventory.

kaotkbliss wrote:
If the app goes on google play for android users, then once it's free they can never change it to a pay app as per google play's TOS.

You can go from pay to free, but not the other way around so that's always a good sign if they put it there.

This is the sort of thing I was hoping to hear. Not a bunch of tripe about how only people with cell phones and internet play wargames. I say that digital only affects people who are unable to connect to that media, and the only response to that argument is that those people don't exist? That's thin.

Also there is nothing stopping GW from releasing a free app and a paid premium app. There is also nothing stopping them from having a free app with optional purchases.

The rumours may say that printed media will be available, but that's just a rumour. GW also went and said that there was no need to worry about invalidated models, but then they went and and made up the beard rules. They also said that new releases would not have beard rules. Now from a certain viewpoint you could say that GW did in fact invalidate the old armies. Stormcasts just get bonuses, High Elves have to play eye gazing mind games for a +1.

See my point? GW has no problem saying one thing and doing another, or simply not saying anything at all and doing something ridiculous! Why should this free app be any different?




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 Gridge wrote:
Much of the future release stuff (if rumors pan out) will be in print. Warscrolls will be with the models you purchase and campaign books will have additional rules, warscrolls, etc. Even the robust rules are in print form in WD and are probably in the starter set. Print is not being abandoned from what we've been told and I for one don't mind having a handy app on my phone. Plus, there is nothing really wrong with a publisher reducing costs. Having unsold stock not only wastes money initially to print, but costs money to keep in inventory.

I don't mind a handy app either, but I'd much rather have a good book to read too. My cell phones battery dies out much quicker than my imagination! Lol

 darkcloak wrote:
I always said that going digital would be the death of the game.

Sure its free now, but for how long? Guess GW can cut the cost of publishing now, considering they can just update the app. This seems like a good thing now but wait until this is the only way to get the rules.

Now you can add another item to the list of things needed to play. An Android or IPhone product!

Not to be a flame thread, but what do people think of using your cell phone as a game aid? What about your device simply replacing the entire library?

Can this be a good thing, and if so, how?

I must admit your post somewhat sounds pretentious, no idea why. Maybe it's the choice of words, but it kinda seems to imply like going digital is a bad idea, which I would disagree with wholeheartedly.

I have been using my iPad for years as a help with wargaming - I can easily get the rulebook PDFs on it, have them all on one device with a really good battery life and - in case of interactive editions - have a gorgeous ibook that's ripe with bling and useful functions such as hyperlinks between rules and stats and such.

Not to mention having your army lists on applications such as Battlescribe or Quartermaster - it's just so easy and you can simply modify those lists if necessary between two games on the spot without having to write it all down, calculate the points and, well, rely on handwriting.

So yeah, if GW releases a free app that allows you to build armies AND contains rules (it also will have to be easy to use to not become cumbersome), then I am all for it - been using Privateer Press' awesome WarRoom (or whatever it was called) application for quite some time now and seeing how great a help it can be, I definetely support that move.

Now imagine if it was interactive like PP's app and, say, removing wounds from your model in battle mode would alter the stats on the go on your screen just like PP's app moves damage around, showing you which parts of the machines are broken now.

Overall going free and going digital is a great move. It also forces the developer to update it with each OS update to work properly, so they'll have a whip to keep it supported rather than just release an app and leave it alone.

darkcloak wrote:Well if they stop printing books it sure is.

Also, how do you get these warscrolls without access to the internet?

darkcloak wrote:Not everyone is blessed with 1st world problems.

Books are an integral part of human culture, regardless of what's in them. To simply do away with them as I suspect GW is planning is well... Heresy!

Hyperbole-o-meter is going off the CHARTS!

Games Workshop giving Us Blessed Few Hundred Million a free app is now the modern day equivalent of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

Your speculation is only causing your knickers to twist - you have to be on a wind up.

 darkcloak wrote:
Prove me wrong. Please.

You're missing the point. We're not trying to say you're wrong that they will go all digital. It's that no one cares if you're right.

 darkcloak wrote:
Books are an integral part of human culture, regardless of what's in them.

No, the printed book is an integral part of human historical culture. We've evolved onto a new medium. The books are still here, they're just digital.
Next you're gonna say that books are really too new fangled and that we need to go back to scrolls as they are important to our cultural identity.

I like a good book as much as the next guy, but I've pretty much gone over to exclusively using my ipad. The books read the same, I just don't have to angle my book to the light anymore.

Let. It. Go.