Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm thinking of goin with army builder atleast until i play more and really know what i am doing. Also i like the idea of being able to see if someone is trying to pull one on me because i am new. the last few times ive played I've felt my oppents has far exceeded the allotted amount of points

My friends and I went in halves on the AB license back in April of last year. Even with the summaries of special rules being removed and replaced with page numbers, it's still convenient to reference the page numbers.

AB takes more of the human dishonesty factor out of the game. I'm more inclined to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt when they bring an AB list than one that they created in excel or wrote out by hand. I do just fine with math, but, as someone else said, it's a matter of convenience that I enjoy.

In addition, I can check out other armies and lists with ease. There have been more than one occasion where I went in after the fact and checked the army I played to make sure that things were on the up and up.

I've used Battlescribe and Quartermaster apps...AB blows them away in terms of layout, ease of use, and the end result.

Army builder is great, and as another poster said, you can split the cost with a friend, as you get two codes. IIRC, it's about $8 to update your subscription, and that updates it for both people (so ~$4 a year per person).

Paying the subscription just means that AB alerts you when there are updates, and will download them automatically. If you do not want to pay for the auto-updates, you can download them all manually from the hosting website, and AB will update them right away when you start it after downloading new files.

My favorite part of AB has to be the fact that you can play with lists from other codexes, and get an idea of things you may have to face.

tvih wrote:

In any case, each to their own (despite waiting an hour for people to fiddle with their pen and paper before actually getting to play is a pain in the butt)

I find "hold on let me boot up my laptop that's sitting on the gaming table while I make an army list" far more irritating than someone quickly writing a list with a codex next to them.

my original issue with this is the whole "absolute waste of money, a solution in search of a problem" thing, which could just as well be said about anything that makes things a tad easier but isn't necessary. Which is, well, most things.

Maybe different life philosophies. I don't see the point in spending money on something I can do myself, faster and with less equipment. I don't find the computer programs easier. I guess maybe if I had to build an army list from scratch every time, while I'm at home. However, I have a word file that I can easily update and cut/paste things across. When not at home, the army builder is far less easy than pen, paper and codex.

Although I challenge the idea of "most things" making stuff a tad easier. I find that rather hard to believe.

I'm a BattleScribe user, and it does what I expect from such a product :
- Make a list,
- Check point total / validation rules
- Display it nicely for printing.

Adding DataFile is quite easy (go on a website, copy-paste an url...), and changing them is easy if you notice an error.

Two small questions to Army Builder users :
I haven't used Army builder since the 2.2 version; Which features Army builder offer that BattleScribe doen't?
The DataFile creator back then was a mess, is the new version better?

Battlescribe is great and I highly recommend it, but it does require a little fiddling to make it work (namely, adding the data repositories to the program)

It's also free, so there you go.

I personally use both AB and BS. BS's formatting can be a bit wonky and like other users have mentioned, the community datafiles can be ... off. But it has a mobile app which I use on Android so that has come in handy. I prefer AB and using it to print lists (can do PDF for a tablet).

The biggest benefit I get is validating my math on points. Sometimes when I'm tooling around with points, I forget to add/subtract something and my subtotal gets off. I won't catch it until I redo all the math. This pays in spades. Plus condensed tables based off of my army is handy for reference, so I'm not flipping as much when i need to check something.

I always use BattleScribe and I really love how it's community-driven.
To me that means:
-Faster updates.
-Faster fixes.
-No expensive fee.
-More customization.

Getting the game-system/data-rep to work isn't that difficult either.
You go to a website/forum => download the zip => put it in the right submap => Get your army going!

ps. I looked it up, but cannot find it.
Is it allowed to post a link to the forum where I get my files for BS?

 kcwm wrote:
My friends and I went in halves on the AB license back in April of last year. Even with the summaries of special rules being removed and replaced with page numbers, it's still convenient to reference the page numbers.

AB takes more of the human dishonesty factor out of the game. I'm more inclined to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt when they bring an AB list than one that they created in excel or wrote out by hand. I do just fine with math, but, as someone else said, it's a matter of convenience that I enjoy.

In addition, I can check out other armies and lists with ease. There have been more than one occasion where I went in after the fact and checked the army I played to make sure that things were on the up and up.

I've used Battlescribe and Quartermaster apps...AB blows them away in terms of layout, ease of use, and the end result.

Well said. These are the reasons I like Army Builder. I trust an Army builder list more than a poorly written/organized list on a pad of paper. Considering the cost of models, paint, terrain, ect, Army Builder is just another expense imho.

tvih wrote:
(despite waiting an hour for people to fiddle with their pen and paper before actually getting to play is a pain in the butt)

Sounds like you just play with people who don't understand what they're doing. Giving them a program to make their lists just means they're going to spend an hour fiddling with army builder before playing.

(A pen and paper list takes me a few minutes to write, even starting from scratch.)

 kcwm wrote:
Even with the summaries of special rules being removed and replaced with page numbers, it's still convenient to reference the page numbers.

Oh, they've finally killed off that stupidity? Having page after page after page of irrelevant rules is one of the things I hate most about army builder lists. I don't care about all of your special rules (which I've probably memorized anyway, and if I haven't I'll just look at your codex), I just want a clear listing of all your units and upgrade choices. And for that a simple pen and paper list is MUCH more readable than endless pages of army builder nonsense.

 Peregrine wrote:


Oh, they've finally killed off that stupidity? Having page after page after page of irrelevant rules is one of the things I hate most about army builder lists. I don't care about all of your special rules (which I've probably memorized anyway, and if I haven't I'll just look at your codex), I just want a clear listing of all your units and upgrade choices. And for that a simple pen and paper list is MUCH more readable than endless pages of army builder nonsense.

Uh, no. That "stupidity," as you so charmingly call it, was always an optional part of making a list. AB has fully customizable outputs to include as much or as little information as you want. The volunteer team that produces the files was contacted by GW and they have redacted files to remove any special rule information in the files. Users can still add such information back in however they want and AB will let them show as much or as little of it as they want.

I have yet to see a hand-written list worthy of the appellation "MUCH more readable."

 Arschbombe wrote:
Uh, no. That "stupidity," as you so charmingly call it, was always an optional part of making a list.

Optional or not, every single army builder list I've ever seen has had way too much detail, to the point that what should be a single page of clearly listed units and upgrades becomes page after page after page of rules text to dig through to figure out what is in the army.

I have yet to see a hand-written list worthy of the appellation "MUCH more readable."

Even bad handwriting is still readable, and something like:

Veteran squad + 3x plasma ---- X (point cost)
+ Chimera ---- Y

Is much more readable than an entire page detailing every rule the unit has. One tells me at a glance what the unit contains, the other forces me to spend a bunch of extra effort reading through the list to find the information I'm looking for. Of course the same list typed in notepad and printed is going to be even more readable than hand-written, but I'll gladly take even bad handwriting with a high signal-to-noise ratio over the average army builder list.

Army Builder is a great resource. That being said, I find that it is quite often used as a crutch. When you make a pen and paper list it forces you to look up the rules and point values of each upgrade and model you take. Essentially I feel that you learn your army (armies) much better if you physically open the codex and grab some paper. I designed my own spreadsheet for this purpose that is easily editable for different armies. I realize that not everyone can do this or will do this, but I find it a more attractive option then paying for a program that isn't really necessary.

In short: A good resource, but hardly a necessary one and IMHO, not the best option for a newbie trying to learn the rules and their army still.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sounds like you just play with people who don't understand what they're doing. Giving them a program to make their lists just means they're going to spend an hour fiddling with army builder before playing.

(A pen and paper list takes me a few minutes to write, even starting from scratch.)

Add unit, add stuff, take something else, remember you forgot something, go back, add, recalculate, add next thing, oh oops that there wasn't added to the calculation, rewrite, nah not gonna take that one after all, erase, blah blah. Happens often enough. It's far faster to click on things to toggle them on or off than do rewrites, erasing and off-the-head calculations for every change you make.

I can make a paper list relatively fast myself, but it still takes more time and is messier than AB. Mind you, if I'm doing a new list at the LGS, I don't normally have my laptop with me anyway. Though I might, if I had the full version of AB.

And as for AB's print output, it really isn't too detailed unless you insist on printing every bit of info. I reckon I'd probably be able to fit my upcoming 1850-point Black Templars tournament list into a single page with AB. Heck, if you want you can even just copy-paste the text output into Word or whatever and trim it further and then print it from there, but that's just overkill as it is especially given the extra work for little gain. Here's an example of how you can print a BT Crusader Squad with not too much text by choosing "Save Text Summary" rather than "Print Roster" (the latter which indeed includes just about every bit of info, though can be configured):

Troops: Crusader Squad (10#, 176 pts)
..1 Crusader Squad, 176 pts, ((C:BT, pg. 37); Infantry)
....8 Initiate with Bolt Pistol and CCW (Bolt Pistol; Close Combat Weapon)
....1 Initiate with Flamer (Flamer)
....1 initiate with Bolt Pistol & Power Axe (Bolt Pistol; Power Axe)

Sure there's a bit of redundancy with the weapon listing, but it's still a single line per model or group of identical models. By comparison my hand-written (or keyboard-written if doing a text file) could say:
Crusader Squad (8x BP+CCW, Flamer, BP+PAxe) 176p
... which certainly gets the job done too.

However, having a line per model can be quite beneficial with more complicated units where just about every model can have different stuff, like Ork Nob Bikers:

Elite: Nob Bikers (6#, 400 pts)
..1 Nob Bikers, 400 pts ((C:Orks, pp. 34 & 98); Bike; Warbike; Twin-Linked Dakkagun; Feel No Pain; Furious Charge; Hammer of Wrath; Jink; Mob Rule; Relentless; Waaagh!)
....1 Painboy ((C:Orks, pp. 40 & 100); Dok's Tools; Warbike; 'Urty Syringe; Twin-Linked Dakkagun)
....1 Nobz (Warbike, Bosspole, Twin-Linked Dakkagun; Power Klaw, Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-Weapon)
....1 Nobz (Warbike, Bosspole, Waaagh! Banner; Twin-linked Dakkagun; Power Klaw; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon)
....2 Nobz (Warbike, Twin-linked Dakkagun, Big Choppa; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-Weapon)
....1 Nobz (Warbike; Choppa; Slugga, Twin-linked Dakkagun)

Could it be further condensed? Sure. Is there so much that it's a bother? Heck no. Handwritten this would probably be:
Nob Bikers (Painboy, Nob Bosspole+Klaw+Shoota-Skorcha, Nob Bosspole+Banner+Klaw+Shoota-Skorcha, 2x Nob Big Choppa+Shoota-Skorcha, Nob Choppa+Slugga)
... which, while shorter, isn't actually any easier to read and "digest", at least for me. The best option in this case would be model type per line, but without repetition of the Warbike and Dakkagun every time. But most importantly, no manual calculations needed with the AB version.

The full print version takes up two or three lines per uniquely configured model type depending on how much stuff it has, plus extra for various roster summaries etc that can be turned off.

And in fact the print/text output depends on the Codex or even the specific unit you're using too, in other words how it's been designed by the AB list creator. As an example, rather than how the Crusader squad above is formatted, a mob of Ork Boyz doesn't specify on a model-type basis, but simply says:

Troop: Boyz (30#, 195 pts)
..30 Boyz, 195 pts ((C:Orks, pp. 40 & 100); Infantry; Shootas; Big Shoota x3; Furious Charge; Mob Rule; Waaagh!)

Upgrades are Shootas and 3 Big Shootas, all in a single line of text, and that's that.

Listing the special rules is actually good for non-veteran players, because too often people have to dig out their codices to check for the presence of this or that special rule. Not everyone has played the game for years. Plus if you're checking out your opponent's list and are not familiar with the army, it's nice to be able to see the special rules. I mean really, a veteran player doesn't even need to see the army list after having written it, but his opponent could well appreciate the extra info without having to ask for it.