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Ok, the best Army Builder you have used in the last couple of years, (include any that have been axed by GW):
For Me:
#1. The 40k Army List Builder - The best builder I have ever seen! It had all of the data and none of the hideous look of Battlescribe, (Too bad GW canned it!)
#2. HQ - Solid ease of use with some issues here and there
#3. Battlescribe - solid on the data, but clunky and ugly as hell!
Opinions?
The only one I use is Battlescribe.
Although I did have an issue with it's rules accuracy the last time I played as Imperial Guard, the Tank Commander had some rules that aren't in the codex or index. Don't know what happened but I think it was fixed shortly after that.
So whilst I build my army in Battlescribe, and it's a god send for printing out a list as you get all the stats/rules, I always check against the codices just in case.
I use battlescribe to get points right and army validity.
Rules I read in books, not because I don't trust BS, but because that's where I'm used to reading them and BS more often than not is a shortened version of them. Also anyone playing likely know 99% of the rules by heart anyway.
If it's easy to do on spreadsheet you can be sure it's easy to get right in BS. Plus others can easily check my army without running through multiple tabs of a homebrew Excel workbook.
Why anyone would want to double up on the work done to maintain BS data, and add risk of errors, is beyond me.
Horst wrote: What happens if there's a Chapter Approved or Errata, and you miss a change? What happens if your spreadsheet is out of date and you don't realize it?
Battlescribe is crowdsourcing quality control. Yes, there are occasionally errors... that are quickly fixed by that crowd. If you have an error in your spreadsheet, then you may never catch it.
I still do not see why you would use your own system over a pre-built one. It's available as a free app for your phone... its not like it costs money. You can put together a list in 10 minutes easily with it. I'm just very confused why you would reinvent the wheel and risk invalid data when you don't have to.
I buy the new updated books and take 1-2min to fix them..... I have mind updated and fix before BS is normally.
And there isnt errors b.c i know my points and i double check time to time, and its never invalid. I dont understand why you think it is invald information...
Why? B.c it takes no time at all, i am in control of it.
The real question is, why are you so against me doing it? Why are you so defensive that i dont need BS and can make lists in minutes with spreadsheet? The spreadsheet doesnt cot me money either. and PS, BS does have errors, what if you didnt notice their errors?
Hmmm,
I'm not reading anywhere where someone objected to you using a spreadsheet. I did read several examples of why people don't use it and why they don't, only to read you say how easy it is and how fast you can do it.....so what are you digging at?
An army builder app requires less initial build time and less maintenance then a spreadsheet.......plus the biggest factor is a very simple one that destroys your argument about how easy it is......not every has experience with spreadsheets and may not even have access to one that is any good.
Pushing as hard as you are about spreadsheets being the easiest and best just brings up an image of monkey's humping a doorknob rather than an "Ahhhh" moment.
Im not pushing, go read all the comments, i made a small comment about them, then he said its so hard you need to be a savant or super intelligent to not make a mistake and you cant trust people that dont use a program....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
torblind wrote: I use battlescribe to get points right and army validity.
Rules I read in books, not because I don't trust BS, but because that's where I'm used to reading them and BS more often than not is a shortened version of them. Also anyone playing likely know 99% of the rules by heart anyway.
If it's easy to do on spreadsheet you can be sure it's easy to get right in BS. Plus others can easily check my army without running through multiple tabs of a homebrew Excel workbook.
Why anyone would want to double up on the work done to maintain BS data, and add risk of errors, is beyond me.
You are not risking errors, its just numbers, this is a stupid argument, REMOVED - BrookM
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/04/25 14:44:32
The people who are most convinced by their own skills are usually the ones most likely to do mistakes. I would double-check any list you write when playing against you, since your type is the kind that usually has the most problems in their list.
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
Horst wrote: What happens if there's a Chapter Approved or Errata, and you miss a change? What happens if your spreadsheet is out of date and you don't realize it?
Battlescribe is crowdsourcing quality control. Yes, there are occasionally errors... that are quickly fixed by that crowd. If you have an error in your spreadsheet, then you may never catch it.
I still do not see why you would use your own system over a pre-built one. It's available as a free app for your phone... its not like it costs money. You can put together a list in 10 minutes easily with it. I'm just very confused why you would reinvent the wheel and risk invalid data when you don't have to.
I buy the new updated books and take 1-2min to fix them..... I have mind updated and fix before BS is normally.
And there isnt errors b.c i know my points and i double check time to time, and its never invalid. I dont understand why you think it is invald information...
Why? B.c it takes no time at all, i am in control of it.
The real question is, why are you so against me doing it? Why are you so defensive that i dont need BS and can make lists in minutes with spreadsheet? The spreadsheet doesnt cot me money either. and PS, BS does have errors, what if you didnt notice their errors?
Hmmm,
I'm not reading anywhere where someone objected to you using a spreadsheet. I did read several examples of why people don't use it and why they don't, only to read you say how easy it is and how fast you can do it.....so what are you digging at?
An army builder app requires less initial build time and less maintenance then a spreadsheet.......plus the biggest factor is a very simple one that destroys your argument about how easy it is......not every has experience with spreadsheets and may not even have access to one that is any good.
Pushing as hard as you are about spreadsheets being the easiest and best just brings up an image of monkey's humping a doorknob rather than an "Ahhhh" moment.
Im not pushing, go read all the comments, i made a small comment about them, then he said its so hard you need to be a savant or super intelligent to not make a mistake and you cant trust people that dont use a program....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
torblind wrote: I use battlescribe to get points right and army validity.
Rules I read in books, not because I don't trust BS, but because that's where I'm used to reading them and BS more often than not is a shortened version of them. Also anyone playing likely know 99% of the rules by heart anyway.
If it's easy to do on spreadsheet you can be sure it's easy to get right in BS. Plus others can easily check my army without running through multiple tabs of a homebrew Excel workbook.
Why anyone would want to double up on the work done to maintain BS data, and add risk of errors, is beyond me.
You are not risking errors, its just numbers, this is a stupid argument, REMOVED - BrookM
I believe you are misinformed.
Just copying numbers, for the average human, has a single-digit error rate. That doesn't mean that, for a hundred numbers, there is a N% chance of one being wrong; it means, when just copying numbers, each number has an N% chance of being wrong.
Now, even if we assume it's 1%, that might not sound so bad - 99% chance each number is right. But a 1% failure rate over 100 numbers is actually only a 36% chance to not make a mistake.
It is common hubris to believe oneself infallible at simple tasks. Or that anyone who could make a mistake on simple tasks is stupid or careless. But that's only because of sharpening; we recognize and remember other peoples mistakes much more readily than our own.
Another common hubris is how long it actually would take us to do something we consider simple. Anyone who has had to work on A team should notice this quickly.
I'm sure there are a hundred pages in the DE book. And CA, and CWE, etc etc - at least 600 pages across all the relevant sources for your armies. To extract all that information (not just numbers; there are special rules you need to consult too) in 10 minutes means averaging one second a page - flipping, reading, absorbing, extracting numbers, structuring the spreadsheet, and then entering the numbers. That sounds really fast, to me.
The average human makes mistakes regularly. We compensate by checking our work or having it reviewed all the time. Insisting anyone who ever makes a mistake on mundane tasks has a learning disability is simpleminded.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/25 14:44:41
Horst wrote: What happens if there's a Chapter Approved or Errata, and you miss a change? What happens if your spreadsheet is out of date and you don't realize it?
Battlescribe is crowdsourcing quality control. Yes, there are occasionally errors... that are quickly fixed by that crowd. If you have an error in your spreadsheet, then you may never catch it.
I still do not see why you would use your own system over a pre-built one. It's available as a free app for your phone... its not like it costs money. You can put together a list in 10 minutes easily with it. I'm just very confused why you would reinvent the wheel and risk invalid data when you don't have to.
I buy the new updated books and take 1-2min to fix them..... I have mind updated and fix before BS is normally.
And there isnt errors b.c i know my points and i double check time to time, and its never invalid. I dont understand why you think it is invald information...
Why? B.c it takes no time at all, i am in control of it.
The real question is, why are you so against me doing it? Why are you so defensive that i dont need BS and can make lists in minutes with spreadsheet? The spreadsheet doesnt cot me money either. and PS, BS does have errors, what if you didnt notice their errors?
Hmmm,
I'm not reading anywhere where someone objected to you using a spreadsheet. I did read several examples of why people don't use it and why they don't, only to read you say how easy it is and how fast you can do it.....so what are you digging at?
An army builder app requires less initial build time and less maintenance then a spreadsheet.......plus the biggest factor is a very simple one that destroys your argument about how easy it is......not every has experience with spreadsheets and may not even have access to one that is any good.
Pushing as hard as you are about spreadsheets being the easiest and best just brings up an image of monkey's humping a doorknob rather than an "Ahhhh" moment.
Im not pushing, go read all the comments, i made a small comment about them, then he said its so hard you need to be a savant or super intelligent to not make a mistake and you cant trust people that dont use a program....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
torblind wrote: I use battlescribe to get points right and army validity.
Rules I read in books, not because I don't trust BS, but because that's where I'm used to reading them and BS more often than not is a shortened version of them. Also anyone playing likely know 99% of the rules by heart anyway.
If it's easy to do on spreadsheet you can be sure it's easy to get right in BS. Plus others can easily check my army without running through multiple tabs of a homebrew Excel workbook.
Why anyone would want to double up on the work done to maintain BS data, and add risk of errors, is beyond me.
You are not risking errors, its just numbers, this is a stupid argument, if anyone thinks its to hard to copy a number they need to go gte check out for a learning disability.
I believe you are misinformed.
Just copying numbers, for the average human, has a single-digit error rate. That doesn't mean that, for a hundred numbers, there is a N% chance of one being wrong; it means, when just copying numbers, each number has an N% chance of being wrong.
Now, even if we assume it's 1%, that might not sound so bad - 99% chance each number is right. But a 1% failure rate over 100 numbers is actually only a 36% chance to not make a mistake.
It is common hubris to believe oneself infallible at simple tasks. Or that anyone who could make a mistake on simple tasks is stupid or careless. But that's only because of sharpening; we recognize and remember other peoples mistakes much more readily than our own.
Another common hubris is how long it actually would take us to do something we consider simple. Anyone who has had to work on A team should notice this quickly.
I'm sure there are a hundred pages in the DE book. And CA, and CWE, etc etc - at least 600 pages across all the relevant sources for your armies. To extract all that information (not just numbers; there are special rules you need to consult too) in 10 minutes means averaging one second a page - flipping, reading, absorbing, extracting numbers, structuring the spreadsheet, and then entering the numbers. That sounds really fast, to me.
The average human makes mistakes regularly. We compensate by checking our work or having it reviewed all the time. Insisting anyone who ever makes a mistake on mundane tasks has a learning disability is simpleminded.
You are not extracting all the pages, just the units name and gear with points, why would i copy story or rules? that is why i have a codex for, if i need to look up a rule i grab my book. We are talking about list building not rules.
Amishprn86 wrote: For for those that just updated BS, it isnt working. but my spreadsheet is, have a nice day not knowing how to build you army with Pen and paper.
Note: yes it was fix within a few hours, but it shows one of my points, i can trust my information.
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Just use Battlescribe it is very easy.
The thing is, i never once said to not use it, nor said you shouldnt.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BaconCatBug wrote: I hope Amishprn86 is consitant with his name and doesn't use the internet or computers!
I just a very short drive from amish country
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/25 12:39:52
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Just use Battlescribe it is very easy.
The thing is, i never once said to not use it, nor said you shouldnt.
You sort of did. You said to just use pen and paper.
Look, I don't have a problem with you using pen and paper if you enjoy. I get that the physicality of it could be enjoyable. But Battlescribe is great too.
Of course everyone should use their preferred technique, if that's your position too then all is chill.
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Just use Battlescribe it is very easy.
The thing is, i never once said to not use it, nor said you shouldnt.
You sort of did. You said to just use pen and paper.
Look, I don't have a problem with you using pen and paper if you enjoy. I get that the physicality of it could be enjoyable. But Battlescribe is great too.
Of course everyone should use their preferred technique, if that's your position too then all is chill.
But i dont use pen and paper, all i said was an option, that option is use your own sheet of points, and everyone jump on me like its impossible to do and will make tones of mistakes and BS is the best and is never wrong, and blah blah blah.
use w/e the fu you want, but pretending a quick points reference is a terrible idea b.c you have to do basic math is silly.
Horst wrote: What happens if there's a Chapter Approved or Errata, and you miss a change? What happens if your spreadsheet is out of date and you don't realize it?
Battlescribe is crowdsourcing quality control. Yes, there are occasionally errors... that are quickly fixed by that crowd. If you have an error in your spreadsheet, then you may never catch it.
I still do not see why you would use your own system over a pre-built one. It's available as a free app for your phone... its not like it costs money. You can put together a list in 10 minutes easily with it. I'm just very confused why you would reinvent the wheel and risk invalid data when you don't have to.
I buy the new updated books and take 1-2min to fix them..... I have mind updated and fix before BS is normally.
And there isnt errors b.c i know my points and i double check time to time, and its never invalid. I dont understand why you think it is invald information...
Why? B.c it takes no time at all, i am in control of it.
The real question is, why are you so against me doing it? Why are you so defensive that i dont need BS and can make lists in minutes with spreadsheet? The spreadsheet doesnt cot me money either. and PS, BS does have errors, what if you didnt notice their errors?
Hmmm,
I'm not reading anywhere where someone objected to you using a spreadsheet. I did read several examples of why people don't use it and why they don't, only to read you say how easy it is and how fast you can do it.....so what are you digging at?
An army builder app requires less initial build time and less maintenance then a spreadsheet.......plus the biggest factor is a very simple one that destroys your argument about how easy it is......not every has experience with spreadsheets and may not even have access to one that is any good.
Pushing as hard as you are about spreadsheets being the easiest and best just brings up an image of monkey's humping a doorknob rather than an "Ahhhh" moment.
Im not pushing, go read all the comments, i made a small comment about them, then he said its so hard you need to be a savant or super intelligent to not make a mistake and you cant trust people that dont use a program....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
torblind wrote: I use battlescribe to get points right and army validity.
Rules I read in books, not because I don't trust BS, but because that's where I'm used to reading them and BS more often than not is a shortened version of them. Also anyone playing likely know 99% of the rules by heart anyway.
If it's easy to do on spreadsheet you can be sure it's easy to get right in BS. Plus others can easily check my army without running through multiple tabs of a homebrew Excel workbook.
Why anyone would want to double up on the work done to maintain BS data, and add risk of errors, is beyond me.
You are not risking errors, its just numbers, this is a stupid argument, if anyone thinks its to hard to copy a number they need to go gte check out for a learning disability.
I believe you are misinformed.
Just copying numbers, for the average human, has a single-digit error rate. That doesn't mean that, for a hundred numbers, there is a N% chance of one being wrong; it means, when just copying numbers, each number has an N% chance of being wrong.
Now, even if we assume it's 1%, that might not sound so bad - 99% chance each number is right. But a 1% failure rate over 100 numbers is actually only a 36% chance to not make a mistake.
It is common hubris to believe oneself infallible at simple tasks. Or that anyone who could make a mistake on simple tasks is stupid or careless. But that's only because of sharpening; we recognize and remember other peoples mistakes much more readily than our own.
Another common hubris is how long it actually would take us to do something we consider simple. Anyone who has had to work on A team should notice this quickly.
I'm sure there are a hundred pages in the DE book. And CA, and CWE, etc etc - at least 600 pages across all the relevant sources for your armies. To extract all that information (not just numbers; there are special rules you need to consult too) in 10 minutes means averaging one second a page - flipping, reading, absorbing, extracting numbers, structuring the spreadsheet, and then entering the numbers. That sounds really fast, to me.
The average human makes mistakes regularly. We compensate by checking our work or having it reviewed all the time. Insisting anyone who ever makes a mistake on mundane tasks has a learning disability is simpleminded.
You are not extracting all the pages, just the units name and gear with points, why would i copy story or rules? that is why i have a codex for, if i need to look up a rule i grab my book. We are talking about list building not rules.
Of course not; but you average across all the pages. Sight unseen, you'd need to flip through to know which pages have the rules and which don't. The pages without rules will certainly take less than a second per page, even sight unseen, if you're laser-focused on extracting the rules. But the pages with rules/points take a lot longer.
If you're not extracting any of the rules, then the solution is incomplete; you need to know which slots the units belong to, and which rules change the slots, and any other rules that impact what units can go in what armies. Unit names, gear, points, and options are only part of what needs to be used to construct an army. You needn't care about the rules about how to use them on the table itself, but you need to find all the rules that apply to listbuilding; you can't do that without going through all the rules to know which ones impact list building and which ones do not.
The extremely lowballed estimates are partly a product of not realizing all the overhead. It may have been 10 minutes of direct copying, but knowing which values to copy, and where to find them in the books, and what listbuilding rules need to be present - all that combined is going to exceed 10 minutes.
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Just use Battlescribe it is very easy.
The thing is, i never once said to not use it, nor said you shouldnt.
I think you've said we shouldn't use BattleScribe about as much as I've said we should. It's important to point out that - as far as I've read this thread - neither of us is saying the other should *not be allowed* to do it their way. We just disagree on the relative merits of extracting your own list building setup from the books vs using BattleScribe.
Sure, at a desk or something. What if I'm on the bus to work and I couldn't get a seat (a regular occurrence) but I have list ideas bouncing in my head I want to start figuring out.
Just use Battlescribe it is very easy.
The thing is, i never once said to not use it, nor said you shouldnt.
You sort of did. You said to just use pen and paper.
Look, I don't have a problem with you using pen and paper if you enjoy. I get that the physicality of it could be enjoyable. But Battlescribe is great too.
Of course everyone should use their preferred technique, if that's your position too then all is chill.
But i dont use pen and paper, all i said was an option, that option is use your own sheet of points, and everyone jump on me like its impossible to do and will make tones of mistakes and BS is the best and is never wrong, and blah blah blah.
use w/e the fu you want, but pretending a quick points reference is a terrible idea b.c you have to do basic math is silly.
We may be talking past eachother.
In my profession (business software development), anyone half decent can write a method to sort data. Easily and quickly.
No competent (business software) developer writes a sort method to sort their data. They just reference some already-built `sort` method. It's not because it's hard. It's not because they can't do it. It's because it's faster, safer, and more reliable to use what someone else already wrote. There are occasional devs who believe that it's just a quick task that only requires the most basic math, and so write their own. These people never work out - they get practically nothing done, take forever to do it, and whatever they do write is full of bugs. It's not that these people are "less smart" or that they're less capable of writing a `sort` than the competent developers - many are often smarter or more capable even. It's that doing it themselves when other people have already done it is inefficient. It's that each piece might be just a minute or two, and it might sound like it's a 10 minute thing all together, but the stuff really adds up to days - you just don't see it. It's that mistakes happen, so it's better to use existing functionality than writing your own. When talking about excellence, expedience, and reliability, the community answer is almost always superior to rolling it yourself.
All this is not to say don't use pen & paper (or spreadsheets, or whatever). It's to say don't do it for reasons of excellence, expedience, or reliability. One person I play does it by hand because they enjoy doing the math - that person should certainly continue to do it by hand.
One other note - if you do have a problem with the quality, timeliness, or reliability of BattleScribe, then just extract the data yourself. You can either create your own documents for BattleScribe to use, or fork the existing repos. You can fix any mistake they've made, or just write your own document. All the benefits of either system, and still less effort.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/25 13:40:00
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
Anyone can start their own version of it - click the 'fork' button to start your own copy, then make your changes. You can then fix whatever is wrong, then use it. You can even then offer to merge it back to the public repo, so everyone gets it.
@amish - if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, it's really cool how it all works. I think you'd enjoy giving it a try. This is how code ("Open Source" or otherwise) gets managed, and how people collaborate. Even if you have no interest in slinging code ever, being familiar with this part of it is very enlightening.
Anyone can start their own version of it - click the 'fork' button to start your own copy, then make your changes. You can then fix whatever is wrong, then use it. You can even then offer to merge it back to the public repo, so everyone gets it.
@amish - if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, it's really cool how it all works. I think you'd enjoy giving it a try. This is how code ("Open Source" or otherwise) gets managed, and how people collaborate. Even if you have no interest in slinging code ever, being familiar with this part of it is very enlightening.
My wife is a programmer (tho she is looking into cyber security b.c how many jobs there is), i know a little about code, i cant do it, i tried (I mentally cant do it).
15k+
Emperor's Spears 2500
Beastmen 10k
you want, but pretending a quick points reference is a terrible idea b.c you have to do basic math is silly.
