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I'm still fairly new to 40k I was thinking of buying army builder. I was wondering people's opinions on it and if its worth it. Thanks guys

It has worked well for me. It is a good time saver and a way to compare armies/builds quickly.

You do pay a reoccurring fee.

Thanks, what's the fee and how often do you pay it?

I forget the exact cost, I think it is not far off the original purchase price.

I think the reoccurring fee is yearly with an option for multiple years. Mine is good until Sep 2014.

You could always go with Battlescribe - same thing, but free. Just a tad unreliable at times due to the catalogues being community driven.

 -Loki- wrote:
You could always go with Battlescribe - same thing, but free. Just a tad unreliable at times due to the catalogues being community driven.

It's pretty easy to edit for your needs.

 Pwn'd You wrote:
I'm still fairly new to 40k I was thinking of buying army builder. I was wondering people's opinions on it and if its worth it. Thanks guys

How many armies and models do you have? The biggest utility of Army Builder is making lists quickly and neatly, but if you've only got a small number of models, then you're not going to be having that much variety from list to list. Pen and paper will work just as well in that case.

Pen paper can codex plus laptop have been my method, I always have the FAQ's as well, an always have the right info.

thank guys! i have about an 1800 pt chaos army and will soon have about a 2k pt DA army


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Jur whats the FAQ i know what it stands for but what is it specifically?


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trying out battlescribe on my ipad and im not sure how ti obtain the data files?


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I am trying battle scribe on my ipad, how do you download the "data files"

I'd say that shows one of the big advantages of Army Builder. Battlescribe is a lot less plug and play.

As a noob to the game myself I like Army Builder. It is easy to make your list and add all the things like gift of mutation and chaos stuff way easier. Also when you print your list out it has all of the info right on the paper and on the last page it give you like the AP and strength of the different weapons. It helped me alot since I don't know those things by heart yet.

I dig army builder a lot. I have for years.

I preferred Army Builder, when it had entries added for rules and profiles.
Now though, GW have forced them to remove them, but they do still list the page numbers.

Battlescribe is handy for quick lists, but I prefer AB for full tournament-ready print-outs.

For the data files for Battlescribe, look for links to Randomhit pages. The lists are often hosted there.
Or, find the threads about it, and people's comments of how to get their's.

GW's FAQs are essential for keeping the rules working.
After they've released a rulebook, us players rip the rules apart, and find odd ways to use them. The FAQs list what can and cannot be done with certain rules, and also tidy up some of the wording.

 Pwn'd You wrote:
I'm still fairly new to 40k I was thinking of buying army builder. I was wondering people's opinions on it and if its worth it. Thanks guys

Absolute waste of money. It doesn't make the list building any easier than just doing on a piece of paper. A buddy uses it and I can't understand why anyone would pay for something that's so easy to do without the purchase.

Army builder is a solution in search of a problem.

I use Battlescribe and it seems to do well, but I always check the math. It is also unable to add the BT Frag Grenade tax on. How is Army Builder? Worth a try?

Just as important IMO, it has all the rules (if not the wording) for all the units in every codex, so not only can I play with prospective lists, but I can check if someone is pulling a swifty on me.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Pwn'd You wrote:
I'm still fairly new to 40k I was thinking of buying army builder. I was wondering people's opinions on it and if its worth it. Thanks guys

Absolute waste of money. It doesn't make the list building any easier than just doing on a piece of paper.

It makes building a list a lot easier.

You could always go with Battlescribe - same thing, but free. Just a tad unreliable at times due to the catalogues being community driven.

Agreed.

Used to love AB but support for it/legal hokum got the better.
Battlescribe is solid if slightly unreliable at times.

After AB went, I found myself doing the old pen, paper and a calculator thing (despite thinking it would be pure hell!) it was ok.

Stick to the basics if you can, unless you're on the move a lot

And it does help the old basic math skills!

Battlescribe was terrible. Lists full of errors and in general not even close the AB in functionality and usability. AB's been pretty nice, hoping to upgrade it to full version soon, been only messing around with the demo version for several months.

 Griddlelol wrote:
Absolute waste of money. It doesn't make the list building any easier than just doing on a piece of paper. A buddy uses it and I can't understand why anyone would pay for something that's so easy to do without the purchase.

Army builder is a solution in search of a problem.

Uh. I guess you prefer graph paper and a pen to Excel for spreadsheets too, then? Because even at minimum that's the level of difference in quickness and easiness when comparing pen and paper and AB.

AB's been pretty nice, hoping to upgrade it to full version soon,

Havent looked at AB in a good while.

Does it still support 40k 6th?
Do you need the wolfslair full license to run the above? (cost?)
Are the 6th ed files up to date and easily available?
is it still stable and reliable?

thanks

 Ratius wrote:
Havent looked at AB in a good while.

Does it still support 40k 6th?
Do you need the wolfslair full license to run the above? (cost?)
Are the 6th ed files up to date and easily available?
is it still stable and reliable?

Yes, it supports 40k 6th edition, what would be the point in using it otherwise The files come with the software and the software lets you know if updates to files are available, so yes, that's easily taken care of.

You need to buy it for $39.99 if you want to have more than 3 army list entries and if you want to save/load/print your lists, as the demo version has those limits.

I've never had the program crash or anything, so I suppose that counts as reliable!

I'm a new user and I like it a lot.

However, I'm not sure how long it will take them to include the new DA codex?

tvih wrote:

Uh. I guess you prefer graph paper and a pen to Excel for spreadsheets too, then? Because even at minimum that's the level of difference in quickness and easiness when comparing pen and paper and AB.

No, I prefer plain paper and a codex.

 Byte wrote:
I'm a new user and I like it a lot.

However, I'm not sure how long it will take them to include the new DA codex?

There's usually a one month lag between codex release and army file update.

 Bookwrack wrote:

 Byte wrote:
I'm a new user and I like it a lot.

However, I'm not sure how long it will take them to include the new DA codex?

There's usually a one month lag between codex release and army file update.

Thanks!

 Griddlelol wrote:

tvih wrote:

Uh. I guess you prefer graph paper and a pen to Excel for spreadsheets too, then? Because even at minimum that's the level of difference in quickness and easiness when comparing pen and paper and AB.

No, I prefer plain paper and a codex.

For spreadsheet calculations? As in, anything and everything one might ever use Excel for? Now to figure out how a 40k codex is handy in that...

But in all seriousness, it's just far simpler and less error-prone to use AB. Sure, it's far from impossible or even difficult to do it with pen and paper, but when designing a list it's far easier to do selections via checkboxes and get immediate updates on your point totals. And no erasing and messing around or even entirely rewriting lists required if you want to go back and change things up a bit. Plus while factoring in the costs of extra weapons for a SM Tactical Squad might be really straightforward, adding up a group of Nob bikers where basically every model is carrying different things is more of a hassle.

It's all about convenience in the end. But I guess some people might well prefer smoke signals to telephones even in this day and age

Text file on my computer > pen and paper > writing one of my generic lists entirely from memory > special list-writing software. Once you've been playing for a while you'll find that you have all of your army's point costs memorized and a general idea of what goes into your typical list, so it's very easy to write one by hand. The closest I ever come to using a special tool is adding up all of my points with a calculator.

tvih wrote:

It's all about convenience in the end. But I guess some people might well prefer smoke signals to telephones even in this day and age

Some people have put hundreds of dollars into a hobby and don't see the point in spending more on something that can be done by hand.

If you struggle with simple math, than I guess AB is for you. I'm fine with my dollar store calculator to check up on potential mistakes.

 Griddlelol wrote:
Some people have put hundreds of dollars into a hobby and don't see the point in spending more on something that can be done by hand.

If you struggle with simple math, than I guess AB is for you. I'm fine with my dollar store calculator to check up on potential mistakes.

It's more along the lines that if you've put in hundreds or even thousands of dollars, what's a few more? Again, it's not about struggling with math, it's about quickness and convenience.

As mentioned I haven't bought the full version yet either due to overspending on miniatures, but frankly I'm tired of fiddling around with paper and text files by now.

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), but 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.

Battlescribe army lists are easily correctable if there are any (rare). One of the advantages of BS is my tau data files include the forgeworld options and i can easily add my own entries if i want.

Also a big plus for me is that BS has a cellphone app you can create, view, share your army lists.

BS also prints out your army list with all the rules your army uses with model and weapon profiles, special rules and page numbers for references (like if in BRB or codex or FAQ or forgeworld book).

This is coming from a person using tau data files, your mileage might vary

I noticed a number of errors (with both of the BT lists that I could find) in a matter of minutes. Combined with some other quite annoying things about the basic usability of that software, I'd rather pay for a nice piece of software like AB than use a crappy one for free.

But again it's to each their own, BS has a lot of happy users and just because I don't like BS, doesn't mean others shouldn't try it out to see for themselves whether they like it or not.