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Physical. If I had an iPad that was stolen or lost with several codexes on it, I will have lost them all. On the other hand, buying physical may make people less likely to want to steal it and if I lost one, there's always a second one lying around somewhere.

SkavenLord wrote:
If I had an iPad that was stolen or lost with several codexes on it, I will have lost them all.

Not true. The history of your purchase always exists on the iBookstore. You can always re-download. Of course you have to replace the iPad.

Loborocket wrote:

SkavenLord wrote:
If I had an iPad that was stolen or lost with several codexes on it, I will have lost them all.

Not true. The history of your purchase always exists on the iBookstore. You can always re-download. Of course you have to replace the iPad.

Ah, right. I always forget that.

Then again, iPads are still quite expensive right? So it would be kind like losing them all temporarily but for a long time right?

i prefer books because 1) i dont have to worry about my craplet's battery dying on me after a few hours of gaming and 2) i can search the book faster than most tablets can load the damn page to search for something.

Its obsurred they charge full price for an otherwise hardback codex. The point of electronic books is to save on not only space, but paper too. Not to mention the machinery involved.

 Super Ready wrote:
Physical. If I have the book in my hands, *I have the book in my hands*. If I had an e-book instead, it's a nebulous entity that is only available because I have the device instead. That device can have all kinds of oddities stop me from getting to the book:

Battery problems
Screen fault
Updates bricking the thing
Physical damage (ok the book can have this too, but it's a good deal harder to accidentally damage it beyond use)
Theft (iPads appear valuable to many, whereas the only real risk of a Codex being nicked is other players)

Every problem you list is inherent to the tablet itself, not the digital codex. If you have a tablet then you've already accepted all these things so can't be included in the cons of the digital dex. These however, can be some similar consequences from the physical books:
Each use will degrade the physical copy. Each use will not degrade the digital version in the slightest.
Wet books ruin them. (cases protect tablets from this)
The binding can fall apart.
They *can't* be updated so you need to keep all the FAQs on hand too.
They can still be stolen, and when they are - they're completely lost. The version on your ipad you can just redownloaded. If someone rips off your big bag of 40k rulebooks (at least at Aus prices) you're out about as much as a tablet.

I have seen *many* more damaged or ruined gaming books than I have seen damaged tablets - and none of them have been damaged due to gaming - a generally more technologically literate crowd than average. A case can prevent the vast majority of damage to a tablet. Tablets are valuable and small enough that you keep it in sight at all times, and unlike a large stack of books you're *able* to keep it in sight at all times so they won't be stolen.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
i prefer books because 1) i dont have to worry about my craplet's battery dying on me after a few hours of gaming and 2) i can search the book faster than most tablets can load the damn page to search for something.

Its obsurred they charge full price for an otherwise hardback codex. The point of electronic books is to save on not only space, but paper too. Not to mention the machinery involved.

I have a 1st gen ipad so it's pretty much the slowest. It can keep 5 dexes + rulebook loaded easily, and there's no way you can get to the right page in a book from a pile of books quicker than I can click on the book selection tab and then the bookmark on my ipad. Not to mention the back/forward ability so you can instantly jump between say the unit entry and the rules list to keep comparing, and keep multiple books open at the same time which would cover half the table with physical copies.

Not to mention in my case, as they're format shifted pdfs from the physical copies, I have a directory full of the books so I can have all of them open on my PC at once - a far superior medium than the tablet or physical books.

Well, the iPad version is so expensive because Apple is a terrible distribution platform. I'm surprised the e-book version isn't MORE expensive due to the hack and slash fees and profit "sharing" that takes place. GW probably makes less money on its e-books than their actual codex (which is probably why they're still so keen on pushing paper).

And don't forget the DRM problems. It might be fine to rent the license to an electronic copy of a codex now, but it's at the total discretion of GW, what with you not owning it. If you get a copy of a codex now, and the new codex comes out, what's the odds that GW stops offering access to the old codex in order to make you buy the new one?

At least when I buy a book, I actually own the book. I can always let people borrow it, or sell it at some point, and it won't magically disappear from my bookshelf because the company who printed it doesn't support it anymore.

For $60 you should get BOTH.

Let's get real here, it's a fething book. With rules in it. Any more than $30 is highway robbery.

I wonder... if I buy the digital copy and rock up to a tournament with my flat ipad and a printed copies of the rules, how quickly would I be kicked out?

Backups are for the... lose?

I'm using the iPad version of the SM codex and i have to say it is more than worth it's cost.

Both definitely have their upsides. As it is I mostly use paper as I don't have a tablet, and I don't usually bring my netbook with me when I go play. Then again now I have the bigger hardcover books rather than the slim BT softcover. But paying for the electronic version again once having bought the book? Meh. I suppose I will need to buy the elecronic Adepta Sororitas Codex in any case, though.

I understand the point of an electronic codex, but not all of us have the income to blow on iPads/Phones. Especially after buying hundreds of dollars of models. At least if they were PDF's, you could put them on cheaper tablets. It's like GW is getting paid to be a advertisement for iProducts.

I go physical copy all the way, because it's already expensive to buy everything to play the game, before you even think about buying something to put electronic rules onto.

And having certain things being electronic-only is just a slap in the face.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
i prefer books because 1) i dont have to worry about my craplet's battery dying on me after a few hours of gaming and 2) i can search the book faster than most tablets can load the damn page to search for something.

Its obsurred they charge full price for an otherwise hardback codex. The point of electronic books is to save on not only space, but paper too. Not to mention the machinery involved.

get an ebook reader, the battery lasts weeks not hours.

Paper all the way - besides these new Codexs have nice hardcovers, and I don't really want another gadget that can get wrecked, stolen or lost.

Besides it'll eventually be an old codex and we all love reading old codexs...

 Yonan wrote:
Every problem you list is inherent to the tablet itself, not the digital codex. If you have a tablet then you've already accepted all these things so can't be included in the cons of the digital dex.

Very, very true. Worth noting though - I do *NOT* have a tablet, nor even a laptop, because I *don't* accept that kind of risk attached to that kind of price. I do see and accept your other counter-points, though.

Yep definitely wouldn't buy a tablet just for the dexes. If format shifting is legal in the UK, I'd still recommend getting pdfs of your physical dexes since using them on your PC is great. Maybe it's just Aussies are all crims still and don't care about IP and ToS ; p

I prefer a book. If I'm going to pay 30+ euros for something like that, I want it to be something with actual substance.

I own an Ipad but I haven't considered the digital codexes for a second. IIRC when they became available I already had a hard copy CSM dex and the BRB. So there was no real point in me getting digital copies, and paying double for the same item.

I also kind of agree with Nuggztheninja. I mean if this pre 6th ed, and you were told that the books were going to be all hard copies for $50 and the digital one for $50, with special edition dust covers doubling the price, and adding in supplements for rules that should have been included in the codex costing another $50. People would probably have freaked out back then, but now it's just accepted.

 Talarn Blackshard wrote:
Since I am prone to migraines, I prefer paper books.

My wife got the iPad retina. Payed more, but found it so worth it. I don't get headaches as much. Still wouldn't have got it, if my wife didn't want it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I understand the point of an electronic codex, but not all of us have the income to blow on iPads/Phones. Especially after buying hundreds of dollars of models. At least if they were PDF's, you could put them on cheaper tablets. It's like GW is getting paid to be a advertisement for iProducts.

The Ebook Editions versions are PDFs.

I prefer electronic versions over paper books, as long as the electronic versions are done properly (i.e. they're not poorly compiled so they take ages to render a page, they don't have enormous blank margins and tables and the like aren't fuzzy images instead of text, for example). I don't think I'd buy a tablet just to read rulebooks on, but since I have one, I'll make use of it. I've got nearly forty assorted game rulebooks and sourcebooks on my iPad, which is smaller and lighter than any single one of those. That's not including things like FAQs, quick reference sheets, army lists, data cards and all the other novels, comics and the like on there too.

I still buy Forge World's Imperial Armour and Horus Heresy books, but that's because the physical presence of those books is part of their appeal. The same is not true (for me) of an ordinary game rulebook.

Another part of the problem here as well is that there's no subtantive benefit to e-books.

Imagine, for a moment, that you had a system wherein everyone had an electronic copy, and the game designers were constantly making little changes - patches, if you will - that update and balance everything in small, incremental changes over time. In that world, e-books would make sense, as you'd be able to have a game where the rules constantly changed, and everyone would always have the same copy of the same rules, as they would update automatically. A paper system would be more of a nightmare, because you'd have to have your codex, and then a huge binder of every week's erratas and FAQs.

But instead of taking advantage of the kinds of things you could do with an electronic system, instead, the e-book is literally nothing more than a PDF of a real book.

 Ailaros wrote:
But instead of taking advantage of the kinds of things you could do with an electronic system, instead, the e-book is literally nothing more than a PDF of a real book.

Apart from the fact that's not true of the iPad versions, even what you say there is an improvement to me.

 Ailaros wrote:
Another part of the problem here as well is that there's no subtantive benefit to e-books.

Imagine, for a moment, that you had a system wherein everyone had an electronic copy, and the game designers were constantly making little changes - patches, if you will - that update and balance everything in small, incremental changes over time. In that world, e-books would make sense, as you'd be able to have a game where the rules constantly changed, and everyone would always have the same copy of the same rules, as they would update automatically. A paper system would be more of a nightmare, because you'd have to have your codex, and then a huge binder of every week's erratas and FAQs.

But instead of taking advantage of the kinds of things you could do with an electronic system, instead, the e-book is literally nothing more than a PDF of a real book.

Since the ebooks are a relatively new thing for GW, perhaps if they become widely adopted enough, it could become a thing for GW to do finally. If they can get the profit margins on the ebooks high enough by cutting out the middlemen and removing the cost of physical book creation from the equation, they could very well move to fully digital. "We're moving to fully digital to make the product better for our players, we'll be able to update the rules and fix problems much more easily. It will however require a subscription fee to GW Online". Many things are moving to service platforms. 40K rules could very well be one of them imo.

Having just switched over all my books to the iPad I can tell you a few things:

1) It is slower, load times bog down where as a book you can bust out a page in two seconds. However the search function is amazing. and the rule pop ups do save time here and there.

2) 20 to 50% discount, seriously, look for iTunes card deals, you can get them for stupid cheap from time to time which translates into getting massive discounts on GW books, because really f*** GWs prices.

3) When you need to check with the main rule book and the codex at the same time is a pain in the ass.

4) The FAQ auto updates is pretty awesome.

5) You can screen shot everything, yaaaaaaaaaaar

I like that feature in the space marine codex where you can plot out armies in the app. If every digital codex had that I would look into it.

I've been debating this myself for quite a while.

Having a physical copy of the book has always been my preference - its nice to flip through it and easy to memorize where everything is after a while.

However, recently I've switched sides and am now in favour of the digital codex for the following reasons:

- Value: The digital codices are significantly cheaper - yes you are paying for a pdf file vs owning a physical copy, but the physical copies value is overrated. How many people honestly can get good money for last edition's codex. I don't see anyone looking for tau's 4th edition dex lol. After shelling out $50-60 for a codex, you feel obligated to keep it on your shelf forever since it has zero resale value once the new edition drops and you don't want to get rid of it. (I'd rather save my money and my shelf space)

- Easy of transport: A tablet or e-reader can be quite small and take of roughly the same amount of weight and space as a codex. The plus is that the tablet can also hold the rulebook. I don't own a dark vengeance rulebook so I'm stuck with the standard fully size one. Like hell am I going to carry that with me on the subway after work with my army and whatever else to play a few games.

- Cost: A standard codex costs me $60 CAD, the electronic version costs $38. This is quite a significant savings considering the advantages to the e-book (searching the document for keywords vs flipping through glossary, etc).

Hmm and reading the comments there seems to be some inaccurate info floating around:

- You don't get just one download of the book, it is saved to your itunes account or android account so you can download it again if it gets deleted or you lose the device.
- Yes your tablet can run out of batteries if you forget to charge it, but you can also forget your paper codex at home. Tablets can be on standby for days and offer 10+ hours of reading.
- You can't sell your digital codex like you can a physical. This is true, but most people don't sell their codices - this is further offset by the fact that you could technically just torrent all the books for free if you wanted..... (although you shouldn't )

I just have to settle on a tablet now

Physical. Preferably paperback, and preferably cheap.

Buy the physical codex and torrent the pdf version of it.

IP law allows you to make personal copies of books and such if you do not intend to sell them, so storing a pdf copy on your tablet is not illegal if you buy the codex first.

Physcal definitely, an IPad version never feels the smae as holding a real book, plus the hastle of low battery, dropping it etc.