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A Poll to get a sense of use per Army Management System

There has been a nice discussion on Army Management Systems in another thread. Perhaps someone more talented in Forums can link that thread to this poll.

I use QuartMaster and a Spreadsheet. But from the other thread, it seem I am in the minority.

Thanks for participating...
Cheers!

MS Word.

Pen and paper, it never crashes or runs out of power. Also alot easyer to look stuff up and forces you to know your codex....tablets and word lolol

A peice of paper, a texas instruments ti84+ silver edition, my codex, and a pencil. Old system is best system.

Other - pencil and paper
changes are coming too fast to rely on someone else updating the specific data file needed for a specialized application

Battlescribe, mostly because it is cross-platform and synchronizes across devices using dropbox. It's pretty nice to be able to work on my lists at my computer at home, and have them automatically show up on my phone and tablet.

Good 'ole fashion pencil and notebook paper.

At the moment, I'm using Battlescribe. Not my favourite AB interface, but it's free and does the job.

I've also used MS Word quite a bit.

Notepad and a calculator most of the time, but occasionally Battlescribe.

My brain. Back in 6th, when my opponents were sitting there with their books, pencils, and paper, I stood around watching, mentally calculating, since I had point values down to memory with set pre-built costs for most units, with several variants for some of the more popular ones, depending on my mood.

I had a nice little 750-1000 point game this one time against a Black Templar player. I gave him about 10 minutes while he and the rest of the group were building lists to use on the boards. I sat back and just watched, periodically asking what he was bringing, and building to match. Took me all of roughly 30 seconds from start to finish, once the majority was set.

I write out all my lists and then type them up on MSWord and print them out later on. After I print them they go into a binder with my other army lists so i have a bunch of prepared army lists at various point values with me at any time.

Battlescribe.

However, I've learnt it's not always accurate and as such am falling back to pen, paper and a codex.

Some of the SoB pricing is off (too much) and the Daemon one lets you take too many points of rewards.

It's a great tool for making draft army lists whilst sat upon the throne.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xerics wrote:
I write out all my lists and then type them up on MSWord and print them out later on. After I print them they go into a binder with my other army lists so i have a bunch of prepared army lists at various point values with me at any time.

I like this idea. I might do it and chart my W/D/L and against which army on each relevant army list.

I'm lazy, and wait for Army Builder to update before using armies.
I also use Battlescribe, as it's on my phone and updates armies quicker than AB.

 Ribon Fox wrote:
Pen and paper, it never crashes or runs out of power.

Same. It's quite easy to edit as well.

Though lately I've used a spreadsheet a few times as well.

iPad mini for building, than I type it up and print it beforehand so my opponent doesn't think I'm list tailoring

I keep a list of my complete eldar army, including number of units, in Excel and then use dropdown lists and vlookups to pull through basic unit costs. I then manually work out add-on costs with a codex, however now I've done this a few times it's easy to copy a tab and tweak it from game to game, or use it as a core for a bigger battle.

Quartermaster is beast. I can build a list on the spot with my phone in a minute. Save hundreds of lists. There is absolutely no advantage in list building with pen and paper. Old school is not always better.

notepad.

Or pencil and paper.

I loathe every one of the "proper" army managers with a burning passion. Next time I see someone with a list made in battlescribe I'm going to pull out a sharpie marker and blot over every piece of unnecessary detail so that I can actually read his list.

... and then I'll hand him back a sheet of paper 95% covered in sharpie marker.

.50 cent A5 books. I have had many, filled with lists and scramblings. Used to use refill, but refill paper is a rip off.

 Ailaros wrote:
so that I can actually read his list.

95% covered in sharpie marker.

I'm not sure that would make it better.
My Battlescribe prints are always clean, readable and minimalistic.
-One page with my army.
-Another page with the relevant profiles.
-And a page with relevant rules.
Only the first one is really needed, the others are for my own convenience.

 Chootum wrote:
Quartermaster is beast. I can build a list on the spot with my phone in a minute. Save hundreds of lists. There is absolutely no advantage in list building with pen and paper. Old school is not always better.

I have the same with Battlescribe.
Sure, programs can make a mistake. Authors might make a typo.
But I have more trust in the calculations of a program that is reviewed by a lot of players than the "let's do this out of my head" from many players.

I put Army Builder, but I'm been leaning more toward Battlescribe lately. AB files seem to take forever to get updated, and I've tried to do my own maintenance... can't make heads of tails of it for the life of me.

Google drive.


Can list build at work home or on the fly

has all my personal scans for 24hr book access

Can use it at work and look like im working

Army Builder updates depressingly slow because it's user-supported and the people who bothered learning how to do 40k simply do not give a gak.

There was an update the other day for 40k, I said to myself "Finally they've added 7th or a new codex!"

It wasn't. It just changed some things. Space Marine Sgts can finally take power swords with plasma pistols now. The whole experience has made me switch to Battlescribe.

I think Quartermaster is by far the best one I've tried, at least for Ipad. It's quick and accurate and if something seems fishy with the army template or I want to add something from FW books I can easily go access the templates from my Ipad and edit them.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
My brain. Back in 6th, when my opponents were sitting there with their books, pencils, and paper, I stood around watching, mentally calculating, since I had point values down to memory with set pre-built costs for most units, with several variants for some of the more popular ones, depending on my mood.

I had a nice little 750-1000 point game this one time against a Black Templar player. I gave him about 10 minutes while he and the rest of the group were building lists to use on the boards. I sat back and just watched, periodically asking what he was bringing, and building to match. Took me all of roughly 30 seconds from start to finish, once the majority was set.

So basically you play without a list and rely on your opponents to trust that your tactical squad was carrying flamers when they got charged rather than the modeled meltaguns?

I use battlescribe because it's easy and fast and accurate. I've heard it can be wrong about some things, but I know my codex back to front and I've not come across a flaw in the CSM data yet. I don't use all the bells and whistles detachment shenanigans, which is probably where these discrepancies are.

Maybe his army is WYSIWYG?

Though it WILL be a problem in armies like tau who has tons of invisible equipment (CSM can fall into that too with marks.)

Battlescribe was updated with the new SW codex info within 48 hours of the codex being available. I made a bunch of different lists and double checked point values with the codex, they were all correct. How long has 7th been out now and army builder is still on 6th? Yea, I know which one I prefer.

Pen and Paper. AND MY BRAINPOWER. No calculators needed here!

The Battlescribe data files for the current Codex: Space Marines are annoyingly incomplete. One claims to include Forge World units, but then doesn't allow me to take Huron or Valthex in a non-Tyrant's Legion army No two data files implement upgrade options in the same way.

Still, it's the least bad electronic option. My armies are all as WYSIWYG as possible anyway, so it's only the odd bit of non-visible equipment that I need to remind myself of.

If it's a sudden match I didn't prepare for, I work it out in my head using my phone's calculator. If I want to quickly write a list or I have an idea for it, I use notepad. For lists I can prepare and in advance (and ones that I know I'll use often) I tried out hq-builder.com and cmdctr.net. I might give Battlescribe a try since a lot of people seem to be very happy with it.