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At work I've started using Excel pivot tables to sort and summarize information, and found a great way to build armies using it. You just create a list of commonly used entries (see picture 1 below). Then using the pivot table, you can easily change out and total up points until you get what you want (picture 2 below). I have found this much easier that other programs because it already summarizes the common unit configurations I use. Any thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I forgot to add that the best part is that I can easily take out or add in units to scale to different point sizes. Printing options with Excel are great too. Mez

Are you trying to get us a C&D?

lord_blackfang wrote:Are you trying to get us a C&D?

Total win!!


GG

Might I suggest that you explain how exactly you made the pivot table and wot notz and how you got to the end result?

That looks like a HUGE amount of work. It appears that you've added a row for every single variation of a unit that can be selected. You have multiple variants of wave serpents, fire dragons, and autarchs just from what I'm seeing. It seems a colossal effort for something that can be created in 5-10 minutes with your codex and a blank excel sheet.

I agree with Buttler in that if you explained how you created the spreadsheet, maybe that would help others critique and give advice on how to make it better.

Yeah, sorry I made this too confusing. Yes, you have to enter in every combination you would ever like to play, but once you have done that, by using the "COUNTIF" statement in excel, you can total up points by adding an "X" to the box, and the total points is automatically calculated for you. Its then easy to add and remove Xs to get to a good, balanced army for the number of points you are playing with. Also easy to track on one sheet all your variations of armies. I have posted a new picture to show you. If anyone wants the XLS file, please let me know and I could post it here.

CHANGE THE POST TITLE!

THE C&D ATTACK PANDAS ARE CLOSING IN!

An 'ARMY BUILDER' you say?

What a catchy combination of words - you should see if they'll let you trademark it....

I use pivot tables all the time in my work, and I use my own Excel sheet for building armies, but for the life of me I cannot see why I would ever want to use pivot tables to build an army...

This is the kinda crap excel was made for, contrary to popular belief. I have no idea why someone would pay money for a separate program. It strikes me as a little lazy but I'm sure there are thousands of users who would disagree so there's obviously something I'm missing about it.

I have to agree with you Cannerus, I use excel to make all my WHFB lists, all though I use it much differently and I think its much easier than doing every single option on a pivot table. It also makes it print friendly and tells me what percent of my army is core/hero/etc..

Excel rules for making lists, though I think using Pivots over complicates things. I think you can largely just use sumif for most of your needs.

Here's a pic of the one I made for my Orks.

I have a seperate master list of wargear, owners and prices on another tab and then just do a vlookup to pull the point cost.

You can see I have combo's I frequently purchase together, such as Nob PK Bosspole, or Trukk RPJ RAM Plank Rokkit.

Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

Excel for making lists? I never thought of that. the main reason i never maade lists is because i never wanted to do the math.

This looks good...

Roleplayer wrote:Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

You're joking right? Trademarks for generic terms like "dish washer", "tooth brusher", "army builder", or any other description of a noun + verb combination tend not to stand up in court very well - check out the limited case law (they usually don't even make it to the bench). Just because a company tries to trademark a generic noun + verb combination doesn't mean it would stand up in court.

Mezmaron wrote:

Roleplayer wrote:Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

You're joking right? Trademarks for generic terms like "dish washer", "tooth brusher", "army builder", or any other description of a noun + verb combination tend not to stand up in court very well - check out the limited case law (they usually don't even make it to the bench). Just because a company tries to trademark a generic noun + verb combination doesn't mean it would stand up in court.

You clearly have not been paying attention to the news...

Gwar! wrote:

Mezmaron wrote:

Roleplayer wrote:Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

You're joking right? Trademarks for generic terms like "dish washer", "tooth brusher", "army builder", or any other description of a noun + verb combination tend not to stand up in court very well - check out the limited case law (they usually don't even make it to the bench). Just because a company tries to trademark a generic noun + verb combination doesn't mean it would stand up in court.

You clearly have not been paying attention to the news...

Like, in Afghanistan?

Mezmaron wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Mezmaron wrote:

Roleplayer wrote:Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

You're joking right? Trademarks for generic terms like "dish washer", "tooth brusher", "army builder", or any other description of a noun + verb combination tend not to stand up in court very well - check out the limited case law (they usually don't even make it to the bench). Just because a company tries to trademark a generic noun + verb combination doesn't mean it would stand up in court.

You clearly have not been paying attention to the news...

Like, in Afghanistan?

Is that near Cadia?

Roleplayer wrote:Excel is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

Roleplayer wrote:Ork is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

Roleplayer wrote:Warhammer is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

We can continue with this silly exercise and then close Dakka because we can´t use registered words in our threads as per your statement . So far the OP made a thread to talk how he is building his army list using Excel, he is not trying to sell a new army builder or similar.

Can we have a little bit of common sense for a change?

M.

"He is not trying to sell a new wargaming army roster creation program or similar" is what you were trying to say!

Ups! Yeah my mistake.

Hey Gwar can I ask you some advice on the bug army with lots of teeth taking allies from other with pointy eared guys to fight some guys in power suits?

M.

Mezmaron wrote:At work I've started using Excel pivot tables to sort and summarize information, and found a great way to build armies using it. You just create a list of commonly used entries (see picture 1 below). Then using the pivot table, you can easily change out and total up points until you get what you want (picture 2 below). I have found this much easier that other programs because it already summarizes the common unit configurations I use. Any thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I forgot to add that the best part is that I can easily take out or add in units to scale to different point sizes. Printing options with Excel are great too. Mez

I have a BFG excel sheet that used pivot tables. Quit nice. I just copy and paste on my excel sheets from the full selection.

Mezmaron wrote:

Roleplayer wrote:Army Builder is a registered trademark of a company, not a generic term. You should change the title of your post to army creation tool, or 'list builder' or something.

Unless of course, the point of your post is to troll and start a flame war.

You're joking right? Trademarks for generic terms like "dish washer", "tooth brusher", "army builder", or any other description of a noun + verb combination tend not to stand up in court very well - check out the limited case law (they usually don't even make it to the bench). Just because a company tries to trademark a generic noun + verb combination doesn't mean it would stand up in court.

Army Builder is not a generic term, and it IS a registered trademark
Its only entered common usage due to the success of their product

But hey, I dont work for lone wolf, I dont particulary care. Just trying to save dakka a C&D letter

Listen to the latest epiasode of the d6 generation, they explain it well there!

Why not just enter a quantity instead of X's. That way, you could actually just use a quantity of 11 and split them into a 5 and 6-man squad, instead of using 2 separate line entries for 5 and 6-man squads.

Or you could download The Forge from http://www.thedigitalfoundry.com/forge/ and then just basically type the army list from all the codex's you have into it (or download the pre-made ones for free, but GW wont like that)

Gorechild wrote:Or you could download The Forge from http://www.thedigitalfoundry.com/forge/ and then just basically type the army list from all the codex's you have into it (or download the pre-made ones for free, but GW wont like that)

Gorechild, what does this program do? It looks intriguing but I don't want to download it without knowing what it does.

thanks,

GG

Heh, i need to brush up on my excel skills :( Some of these look nice!

I just use a simple spreadsheet with multiplying and adding . . . but no we need pivot tables to over complicate everything =p



Oshova

generalgrog- its really good, I downloaded the Eldar army list for it, only took a couple seconds.
its got a 4 main windows; a list of units (farseer, autaurch, avatar ect) a list of wargear, a box that explains special rules and then a box that you enter an army list into. You just click on somthing, for example Dire Avengers, you type in the squad size, hit enter and it brings you to the list of all the wargear the squad can take and adds the squad to a roster, you can then click on a Dire Avenger Exarch, duel shuriken catapults, and bladestorm, or whatever gear or powers you want the squad to have. They all get put into the roster and it keeps a running total of how many points it comes to. you can put dividers in after you've kitted out a squad just so its clearer to distinguish everything.you can do it for any number of units and it just keeps adding them on to the bottom of the list. you can then print the list out, it gives you the stats, point cost and lists the wargear you gave each thing. then there's a list of all the equipment (weapons and other wargear used in the army). Its really convenient and once you've done it a couple times its really quick, I got it yesterday and have a good grasp of it.
iirc there was eldar, SM, ork, IG, space wolves, Chaos Daemons, and I think tau on there. but once you download it there's a help thing to tell you how to make your own for other armys. there was also a tonne of fantasy warhammer lists on there but I didn't look at them, it can be used for almost any wargame by the looks of it.