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I'm trying to go through and put together forces of different sizes based on typical game sizes and I was immediately frustrated by the fact that point costs weren't with all the other info on the index cards. Nooooooooooo you had to flip to the back of the index and find the unit/weapon for the point cost then flip back to your army to find the next unit. And with SM chapters it's even worse since some stuff will be in the chapter section and other stuff will be in the generic SM section for even more flipping back and forth.

What a huge PITA

Where have you been the past few months?

Try some small post-it notes for bookmarks.

Download Battlescribe

virus646 wrote:
Where have you been the past few months?

I'm so far behind, it's still 2001.

Seriously, I haven't played a game since 2001 LOL
and that was my 1 and only game of 3rd ed as I was trying to re-learn the rules.

Then I lost all my stuff and had to start collecting all over again somewhere around 5th ed (of which I never did get the rules or a game)

Then I had to focus on my career.

Now I am once again trying to get back in since I found a FLGS (but have yet to visit).

Oh no! flipping through paper?!

Honestly just put a tab on it or better yet chuck it all into an excel and never worry about it again.

 Desubot wrote:
Oh no! flipping through paper?!

Honestly just put a tab on it or better yet chuck it all into an excel and never worry about it again.

A little harder to do with epub on a laptop :(

They did that so they can adjust points values over time without changing the main rules for the units and having to reprint books. A simple download page or Chapter Approved book can adjust the codex/index without calling for a reprint.

 Ratius wrote:
Download Battlescribe

I used battlescribe before. It was ok, but there were things that were wrong and other things that couldn't be done so I was never completely confident in it.

They wanted money. Glad I didn't pay as I would have gotten double stung. Bad rules and then codices super close to launch anyways making them redundant.

I just have a list of what units I use cost and add that. It's now slightly less of a pain and badly designed.

Can you do digital bookmarks?

Excel file idea still works. Ctrl+F will help a bit. Is there a clickable table of contents you can utilize? My Imperial Armour epub (on phone) lets me open the table of contents and just click on a unit to go right to it.

 Desubot wrote:
Oh no! flipping through paper?!

Honestly just put a tab on it or better yet chuck it all into an excel and never worry about it again.

To be fair it is pretty annoying when older codexes had most/all of their points costs on the unit entry/datasheet page.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Oh no! flipping through paper?!

Honestly just put a tab on it or better yet chuck it all into an excel and never worry about it again.

To be fair it is pretty annoying when older codexes had most/all of their points costs on the unit entry/datasheet page.

Not to mention I have to check every piece of wargear for a pointless cost so I don't take a unit for 40 odd points below its cost.

I just typed all of the points into a spreadsheet and then setup lookups. I type lascannon or whatever and it just fills in the points for me.

Then when the points get updated I just type the new points into the points page and all of my lists get updated.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
I just typed all of the points into a spreadsheet and then setup lookups. I type lascannon or whatever and it just fills in the points for me.

Then when the points get updated I just type the new points into the points page and all of my lists get updated.

Its what i do. that way i can list build while at work

I plan on getting a pack of 3x5 index cards and putting all information each unit I have on an index card.
Then when I go to maybe finally play a game I just have to sift through the cards and pull out the units I want to use (adding up as I go)

But I wanted to get an idea of what I had in my collection and after a couple units and having to scroll back and forth finding pages and everything, I gave up.

When I pick up the index cards, I'm going to have to print out just the pages I need for my army.

Well, I think the release of the indices has been a good idea.
We were always complaining that with the release of a new edition, GW was lacking to release ALL codices as well.
I think they have learned from the past and seem to listen partly to the customer base.

The separation of unit listings and points is definately very cumbersome to work with, but it makes it far easier to rebalance the game continously, as you can easily rebalance an entire codex in a FAQ or a TO can easily publish alternative point costs for a single tournament and so on. It decouples the slow evolution of the rules from the fast-paced evolution of game balance.

I write it in pen on the unit entry. Codexes are disposable, and Indexes doubly so. May as well maximize their usefulness while they're relevant.

 Asmodai wrote:
I write it in pen on the unit entry. Codexes are disposable, and Indexes doubly so. May as well maximize their usefulness while they're relevant.

A neat trick is to use a.... drumroll ... pencil.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
I just typed all of the points into a spreadsheet and then setup lookups. I type lascannon or whatever and it just fills in the points for me.

Then when the points get updated I just type the new points into the points page and all of my lists get updated.

Yeah but that doesn't help when you've just bought the codex and you're wanting to play it that day, or youre throwing together a quick army list at the store because you showed up with 1500 points but some random guy wants to play a 1,000pts instead. Or your laptop/phone dies, or you're bad with computers, or any other number of excuses for why I'd need to use the book

Basically what I'm saying is I don't like having to rely on computers or a Jerry rigged notecard system.

I get why they did it that way, all the points on one/two pages makes it way easier to tweak and doesn't require you to mess with 20 something pages, but it can still be annoying when you're trying to make an army list. I just like the costs being in the unit entry because if I need to slap a list together at the store it's nice just flipping to say a Leman Russ, saying "cool it's 152pts the way I have it" then moving onto the next entry. As it is now you look up your unit and it's wargear, then bookmark the entry page as you flip to the back to look up the base unit cost and then look up how much it costs to arm it with it's wargear, which leads to you bookmarking like 3 pages with your fingers as you flip back and forth between them checking units.

pismakron wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:
I write it in pen on the unit entry. Codexes are disposable, and Indexes doubly so. May as well maximize their usefulness while they're relevant.

A neat trick is to use a.... drumroll ... pencil.

Unfortunately pencils don't work with the electronic format.
It's hard to get the pencil to show up against the screen, and when it finally does it doesn't scroll with the page :(

Sure, it can be annoying. Bookmark the point cost pages for your pdf files to make it easier on yourself. The excel option isn't bad either. I made one for my army lists that include tabs for the equipment and another for special rules - my turns normally take half as long as the people I play against, and having everything on a spreadsheet helps a ton!

pismakron wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:
I write it in pen on the unit entry. Codexes are disposable, and Indexes doubly so. May as well maximize their usefulness while they're relevant.

A neat trick is to use a.... drumroll ... pencil.

+1

I penciled in points costs on the data sheets.

It's annoying. It's not HARD, it's just a minor frustration, especially when they had it good before.

We all thought it was like that so they could do monthly updates to points to keep the game balanced. Turns out this was just oir hope and dreams talking.

It makes sense that it would be easier to update points cost, but that's all it's easier for. any changing of stats or wargear options or anything else will still have to be done on the unit cards anyway.

*edit*
but from what I've seen in the past, they won't touch these indexes again anyway. They'll just FAQ things here and there

Doesn't really matter, just use battlescribe and GW will be releasing their own army building app soon, I think. Their painting app was of generally good quality so I have decent hope for their army builder too

Battlescribe is cumbersome, to me, in a number of ways.

First, if you think there's an error then you have to register your info to tell them. So it's not easy to get corrections without giving up privacy.

Second, from what I can tell the print out of an army can get quite long in terms of page count. I tried a 2000 point GK army with info and it was over 10 pages. If I were to take that to an event then I'd need to print 30+ pages just for that day.

I'm sorry but battlescribe is not the answer as far as I'm concerned. It is a nice toy to use at home but not for taking an army out to play.