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I don;t use it - but friends do - just be careful and donlt assume everything is correct - especially if its only recently been released.

kaotkbliss wrote:
Not easier for me. See, on my index cards, the troops+wargear+characters for that unit are already added up. So making a new list on the fly is as simple as flipping through the cards pulling units I want to take. Where-as in BS, I either need to start from scratch, reading all the wargear (trying to remember what it was my models had equipped) or going back through trying to add/remove units from an already made list trusting that whoever made the army list had the most recent rules and didn't mistype anything.

To each their own

OK - what are you even talking about?

Battlescribe has catalogues that basically just digitize the Codex/Index of your army. YOU then create your army list off of that. It's not a framework that has you manually enter each unit. You pick from a catalogue of units, where there are rules and point costs and the like. You can't have a 5 man Tactical Squad with both a Lascannon and a Multimelta because the catalogue knows that that's wrong. Now the definition in the catalog is wrong sometimes, mostly when a new codex comes out and the catalogue for that codex is pretty much still a work in progress and frequently updated. If you spot something being actually wrong you can report that to the catalog maintainers and they'll fix it.

Army Builder > Battlescribe. So, I hope the AB guys are hard at work on converting to 8th. I mainly use battlescribe to total my points for me then I transcribe my list into my custom excel sheet for colorful 1 page printing. The BS printed output is so awful. So, so, so awful.

nekooni wrote:

kaotkbliss wrote:
Not easier for me. See, on my index cards, the troops+wargear+characters for that unit are already added up. So making a new list on the fly is as simple as flipping through the cards pulling units I want to take. Where-as in BS, I either need to start from scratch, reading all the wargear (trying to remember what it was my models had equipped) or going back through trying to add/remove units from an already made list trusting that whoever made the army list had the most recent rules and didn't mistype anything.

To each their own

OK - what are you even talking about?

Battlescribe has catalogues that basically just digitize the Codex/Index of your army. YOU then create your army list off of that. It's not a framework that has you manually enter each unit. You pick from a catalogue of units, where there are rules and point costs and the like. You can't have a 5 man Tactical Squad with both a Lascannon and a Multimelta because the catalogue knows that that's wrong. Now the definition in the catalog is wrong sometimes, mostly when a new codex comes out and the catalogue for that codex is pretty much still a work in progress and frequently updated. If you spot something being actually wrong you can report that to the catalog maintainers and they'll fix it.

Right but you still have to tell it "I want a 10 man TAC, 1 is carrying a plasma pistol, the leader is upgraded and has a PF and storm bolter" or whatever
But I also have to remember, of my models, did my unit with the PF have a plasma pistol in that unit, or was that the Melta?

With the index card, I just pull it out, see that it's 165 points for that unit and all wargear is properly added up and accounted for. As I said, for me it's easier this way. Doesn't mean it is for everyone.

Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

I like Battlescribe and stumbled onto it because ArmyBuilder is so slow in getting 40k files updated. The user interface takes some getting used to, not being able to change your detachment type is annoying as hell, and the print output is absolutely terrible. Having a unit split over a couple pages makes it almost useless. If they could fix those couple of things, it would be a perfect tool.

Battlescribe is pretty great. It's much easier to use on a phone than excel.

It has some minor errors, occasionally, but they are usually fixed quickly. That being said you need to know enough about the codex so that you know when battlescribe has errors and rules omissions.

Unfortunately, about 50% of the people I play use battlescribe instead of buying codexes, which irks me slightly.

I swear, not one of the ~5 space marine players in my group actually have the marine codex. Just index + battlescribe. I've had to explain to at least 3 of them that chapter tactics don't apply to vehicles, which none of them knew because........they don't have the codex.

And my pet gaming peeve is people trying to look up rules on a phone instead of a codex.

Anyways. Battlescribe is excellent.

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I disagree with this. It is prone to human error because it shifts the responsibility of that error to someone else. Unless you are flipping back and forth and checking things in battlescribe you are trusting that someone else has not made errors. IME with battlescribe this is not a safe assumption, I would much rather do things myself, and it is really no easier to use than a spreadsheet. I only use it because I don't always have my books with me when I want to make a list

It's not easier to use than an excel spreadsheet, but it certainly is easier to get ready for use than an excel spreadsheet if you want that excel spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe - e.g. have a dropdown menu, pick a unit, have more dropdown menus appear on that line, then choose all of those options and have the entire thing a) check if your choices are legal and b) calculate all the points.

If you use your Excel just to write down the points manually, that's not really "using a spreadsheet" - that's just doing it manually (which is fine, but takes work and is prone to errors).

Not true at all, you can use excel to add up the points, add drop models and upgrades etc easily without programing it to have drop downs. Now sure if you want to build a spreadsheet with a ton of functionality that is fine. But I'm talking about using the book, and having the spreadsheet do the math, no more work than using battlescribe honestly and no more prone to errors (and any made are user made not from the sheet itself) I don't need the spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe to be easier to use for building lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is a bad idea because there are plenty of rules not in BS, in addition points are wrong pretty frequently.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is a bad idea because there are plenty of rules not in BS, in addition points are wrong pretty frequently.

Since I do not play in tournaments this is not a big deal. What I think is a bad idea is to pay into this money grab extravaganza:

Rule Book $60 (worse rule book value of any game I have ever played)
Index $25
Codex $40
Chapter Approved $?
Next Chapter Approved $?
Yet Another Chapter...

This is especially true if you are playing Orks or Necrons who will not even get Codex until this edition is 1/3 over.

Breng77 wrote:

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I disagree with this. It is prone to human error because it shifts the responsibility of that error to someone else. Unless you are flipping back and forth and checking things in battlescribe you are trusting that someone else has not made errors. IME with battlescribe this is not a safe assumption, I would much rather do things myself, and it is really no easier to use than a spreadsheet. I only use it because I don't always have my books with me when I want to make a list

It's not easier to use than an excel spreadsheet, but it certainly is easier to get ready for use than an excel spreadsheet if you want that excel spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe - e.g. have a dropdown menu, pick a unit, have more dropdown menus appear on that line, then choose all of those options and have the entire thing a) check if your choices are legal and b) calculate all the points.

If you use your Excel just to write down the points manually, that's not really "using a spreadsheet" - that's just doing it manually (which is fine, but takes work and is prone to errors).

Not true at all, you can use excel to add up the points, add drop models and upgrades etc easily without programing it to have drop downs. Now sure if you want to build a spreadsheet with a ton of functionality that is fine. But I'm talking about using the book, and having the spreadsheet do the math, no more work than using battlescribe honestly and no more prone to errors (and any made are user made not from the sheet itself) I don't need the spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe to be easier to use for building lists.

Exactly what I said though - you can just use it as a slightly smarter piece of paper that adds up points for you. it's literally just a more comfortable calculator then, you still have to tell it which cells to add up. that's fine, but you can't really compare it to what BS does.

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I disagree with this. It is prone to human error because it shifts the responsibility of that error to someone else. Unless you are flipping back and forth and checking things in battlescribe you are trusting that someone else has not made errors. IME with battlescribe this is not a safe assumption, I would much rather do things myself, and it is really no easier to use than a spreadsheet. I only use it because I don't always have my books with me when I want to make a list

It's not easier to use than an excel spreadsheet, but it certainly is easier to get ready for use than an excel spreadsheet if you want that excel spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe - e.g. have a dropdown menu, pick a unit, have more dropdown menus appear on that line, then choose all of those options and have the entire thing a) check if your choices are legal and b) calculate all the points.

If you use your Excel just to write down the points manually, that's not really "using a spreadsheet" - that's just doing it manually (which is fine, but takes work and is prone to errors).

Not true at all, you can use excel to add up the points, add drop models and upgrades etc easily without programing it to have drop downs. Now sure if you want to build a spreadsheet with a ton of functionality that is fine. But I'm talking about using the book, and having the spreadsheet do the math, no more work than using battlescribe honestly and no more prone to errors (and any made are user made not from the sheet itself) I don't need the spreadsheet to be as smart as battlescribe to be easier to use for building lists.

Exactly what I said though - you can just use it as a slightly smarter piece of paper that adds up points for you. it's literally just a more comfortable calculator then, you still have to tell it which cells to add up. that's fine, but you can't really compare it to what BS does.

Sure I can both are being used to create armies, both of them if I want accuracy require me to have a book on hand. It is a fair comparison when discussing how I prefer to build army lists. I would rather do all the entry myself because then I know if I've made an error, I can easily switch up detachments, and units. I would never use battlescribe on a PC, I use it on my phone to build lists when I don't have books on hand, but otherwise use a spreadsheet for accuracy and easy to view output.

Battlescribe is decent for making lists on the fly, but I have spreadsheets set up to easily add things up much quicker than a calculator. So sure I need to type unit names and points costs, and number of models and upgrades. Not a big deal, the big difference with battle scribe is it has the unit names and points built in, but the assumption that they are correct is not one I make because I have frequently been burned. Essentially I am not looking for it to be as smart as battlescribe, though if I did I could make a spreadsheet that was, it just isn't worth the time investment for me to do so because building lists isn't hard.

I like the idea of writing out everything a squad has on index cards and then having that as your "prefab" version of the unit. It's really kind of like Malifaux or Warmachine where you just have one version of Unit X and everyone's Unit X is otherwise identical.

I used to really prefer the customization that 40k has, but recently it's kind of occurred to me that there's not really any of that I do. I just pick the one configuration of the unit I want, which is usually the only one that makes sense, and then I repeat until I have enough of that unit.

I mean, realistically, I'm never going to have a scion squad with anything but those two plasmaguns and a plasma pistol in it. Or an infantry squad with something other than a plasma pistol, power sword, and plasmagun. So why do I need something where I need to tick off those two check boxes every time? Just spend 30 minutes writing out the index cards, shove them in a binder or an army bag pocket, and then add them up as needed.

I'd be far more inclined to do things by hand if I didn't have to flip back and forth to get points values for things.

Also, I like that BattleScribe whines at me when I'm doing it wrong.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
While the first one is true, the 2nd isn't. You pick an "unbound" detachment.

AH! I must have overlooked that. Thanks!

M.

 Infantryman wrote:
I'd be far more inclined to do things by hand if I didn't have to flip back and forth to get points values for things.

Also, I like that BattleScribe whines at me when I'm doing it wrong.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
While the first one is true, the 2nd isn't. You pick an "unbound" detachment.

AH! I must have overlooked that. Thanks!

M.

That is why I have copied out the points list, so I don't have to flip back and forth.

So making a list using excel or a pen and paper is so much better? I dont see it.

I have seen more mistakes with someone adding up their points manually than in Battlescribe. Making a list in BS and then checking it against a codex is also an option, you know?

Also at least BS updates regularly unlike books.....Index points/rules, now FAQ points/rules....now codex points/rules.....more FAQ points/rules.....oh chapter approved coming now too.

The dude that puts his lists on index cards better have a good eraser.

Face it....books get outdated. After a (short) while they are not 100% accurate. Especially at the speed GW has been shooting these out.

I just feel people that are complaining about digital lists and devices running out of battery are kind of stuck in the past. Dont want to trying something new.....because "I always wrote my list". At the same time they have 4 books, index cards, post it notes, and color coded page arrows, yet shy away from a digital list because "Its sooooooooo confusing" LOL.

 Tokhuah wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is a bad idea because there are plenty of rules not in BS, in addition points are wrong pretty frequently.

Since I do not play in tournaments this is not a big deal. What I think is a bad idea is to pay into this money grab extravaganza:

Rule Book $60 (worse rule book value of any game I have ever played)
Index $25
Codex $40
Chapter Approved $?
Next Chapter Approved $?
Yet Another Chapter...

This is especially true if you are playing Orks or Necrons who will not even get Codex until this edition is 1/3 over.

Given your opinion on the matter' isn't foolish to pursue this hobby at all?

Vaxx wrote:
So making a list using excel or a pen and paper is so much better? I dont see it.

I have seen more mistakes with someone adding up their points manually than in Battlescribe. Making a list in BS and then checking it against a codex is also an option, you know?

Also at least BS updates regularly unlike books.....Index points/rules, now FAQ points/rules....now codex points/rules.....more FAQ points/rules.....oh chapter approved coming now too.

The dude that puts his lists on index cards better have a good eraser.

Face it....books get outdated. After a (short) while they are not 100% accurate. Especially at the speed GW has been shooting these out.

I just feel people that are complaining about digital lists and devices running out of battery are kind of stuck in the past. Dont want to trying something new.....because "I always wrote my list". At the same time they have 4 books, index cards, post it notes, and color coded page arrows, yet shy away from a digital list because "Its sooooooooo confusing" LOL.

Sure using a book to check my BS list is an option. It is just a slower option to using the book to make the list in the first place. I've seen mistakes both ways, but far more often for me with battlescribe than on my own. As for changes, easy enough if you have a print out to write in the new points value. Further the more points are updated the more likely battlescribe is to have mistakes. I'm not suggesting that it is bad for people to use, just bad for them to trust as an alternative to a codex, and not my preferred method of list writing both because I find it slower and I don't like the way the list looks when printed vs the format of my own lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is a bad idea because there are plenty of rules not in BS, in addition points are wrong pretty frequently.

Since I do not play in tournaments this is not a big deal. What I think is a bad idea is to pay into this money grab extravaganza:

Rule Book $60 (worse rule book value of any game I have ever played)
Index $25
Codex $40
Chapter Approved $?
Next Chapter Approved $?
Yet Another Chapter...

This is especially true if you are playing Orks or Necrons who will not even get Codex until this edition is 1/3 over.

Because you know the shelf life of this edition? Paying $20 per year for Chapter approved seems fine to me, and even not in tournament I like to have my rules correct, have access to all the strategems etc.

Vaxx wrote:
So making a list using excel or a pen and paper is so much better? I dont see it.

I have seen more mistakes with someone adding up their points manually than in Battlescribe. Making a list in BS and then checking it against a codex is also an option, you know?

Also at least BS updates regularly unlike books.....Index points/rules, now FAQ points/rules....now codex points/rules.....more FAQ points/rules.....oh chapter approved coming now too.

The dude that puts his lists on index cards better have a good eraser.

Face it....books get outdated. After a (short) while they are not 100% accurate. Especially at the speed GW has been shooting these out.

I just feel people that are complaining about digital lists and devices running out of battery are kind of stuck in the past. Dont want to trying something new.....because "I always wrote my list". At the same time they have 4 books, index cards, post it notes, and color coded page arrows, yet shy away from a digital list because "Its sooooooooo confusing" LOL.

The nice thing about the index card idea is that once you have them right, they're right until the books change. Next time battlescribe, or army builder, or ANY of those programs has an update, you don't know what exactly changed, you have to spot check everything.

Guy who writes out the index cards has to doublecheck them and make sure he did the math the first time. Pretty easy to tell if they've been changed each time though. They go out of date? Replace the ones that aren't relevant anymore. Done deal.

Final table at SCO was a forfeit I believe because one of the players miscalculated their points.

BS may screw up the points occasionally, but it's certainly right a lot more often than it's wrong. I like BS, I think for what is essentially freeware, they make a good product.

My opponent having a printed BS list fills me with a lot more confidence than some random showing up with his hand-written list, regardless of how pretty the formatting is.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's the best thing available. I also found this cool online list builder called HQbuilder but they are REALLY slow to update - plus it requires a internet connection. It's the next best thing though.

Yeah, I'm trying it right now and this is much better and more intuitive. Like the AoS one that is in the Community Page (A little more complicated because 40k listbuilding is more complex)

Just trying a random Tau army to test it, and how it blocks you the options after you have already select alt the possibilities with the Tau Commander, really, really nice.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Final table at SCO was a forfeit I believe because one of the players miscalculated their points.

BS may screw up the points occasionally, but it's certainly right a lot more often than it's wrong. I like BS, I think for what is essentially freeware, they make a good product.

My opponent having a printed BS list fills me with a lot more confidence than some random showing up with his hand-written list, regardless of how pretty the formatting is.

I've seen much the opposite, so to each their own. Just in my own lists this edition I have had battlescribe have noticeable errors at least 10 times. It fills me with no more confidence than the guy with the computer print out list (chicken scratch on paper is worse). Especially when I have run into a number of players with no books relying on battle scribe for their rules.

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is the one gripe I have with BattleScribe. I wish they did not enable this behavior as it is likely to get them pulled down.

I don’t care that people may be getting away without buying the books, mind you. Go for it! But I dislike when it impacts legitimate use of a tool.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

My opponent having a printed BS list fills me with a lot more confidence than some random showing up with his hand-written list, regardless of how pretty the formatting is.

It's also a lot easier to cheat on, simply because you're so willing to give it a pass. I've never come across anyone who would deliberately do so, but remember that those files aren't validated by the program in any meaningful way.

...not that'd I'd be that worried about someone trying to cheat me at toy soldiers. But I'm not going to say something's authentic simply because it's on a computer.

I'm really more worried about people's bad handwriting than I am people's paper math being off.

 deviantduck wrote:
Army Builder > Battlescribe. So, I hope the AB guys are hard at work on converting to 8th. I mainly use battlescribe to total my points for me then I transcribe my list into my custom excel sheet for colorful 1 page printing. The BS printed output is so awful. So, so, so awful.

Just NO. As a user of AB all the way back to the 90's, I will NEVER go back to AB. And while I'm pretty proficient at Excel (I've built two work apps out of excel and have done a ton of Access programming), I use BS as a shortcut to hand-entering all the stuff myself.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 Tokhuah wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tokhuah wrote:
Because of Battlescribe I will never pay for any books published by GW ever again.

This is a bad idea because there are plenty of rules not in BS, in addition points are wrong pretty frequently.

Since I do not play in tournaments this is not a big deal. What I think is a bad idea is to pay into this money grab extravaganza:

Rule Book $60 (worse rule book value of any game I have ever played)
Index $25
Codex $40
Chapter Approved $?
Next Chapter Approved $?
Yet Another Chapter...

This is especially true if you are playing Orks or Necrons who will not even get Codex until this edition is 1/3 over.

Given your opinion on the matter' isn't foolish to pursue this hobby at all?

Idea of the day!
Although I love the hobby I believe It's foolish to spend the type of money they demand to keep up. But if things keep selling they going to keep doing it and rake it in$$$ of course. Rule updates should be free imo.

Edit to answer the OP yes battle scribe is a great tool but should not be used alone

 daedalus wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

My opponent having a printed BS list fills me with a lot more confidence than some random showing up with his hand-written list, regardless of how pretty the formatting is.

It's also a lot easier to cheat on, simply because you're so willing to give it a pass. I've never come across anyone who would deliberately do so, but remember that those files aren't validated by the program in any meaningful way.

...not that'd I'd be that worried about someone trying to cheat me at toy soldiers. But I'm not going to say something's authentic simply because it's on a computer.

I'm really more worried about people's bad handwriting than I am people's paper math being off.

I think the point here is that while you're writing a list by hand it's literally zero additional effort to cheat. Just "forget" to calculate those plasma guns, or "forget" to use the BS3+ price for them. If you're using battlescribe or ANY tool you have to actually put effort into cheating.

nekooni wrote:

I think the point here is that while you're writing a list by hand it's literally zero additional effort to cheat. Just "forget" to calculate those plasma guns, or "forget" to use the BS3+ price for them. If you're using battlescribe or ANY tool you have to actually put effort into cheating.

In the time it took me to read your comment, I've already given myself 7 point plasmaguns across the board in my version of the datafiles. And I'd never looked at them before.

I mean, it's deliberate effort, but you're also probably less inclined to notice.

Breng77 wrote:
I've seen much the opposite, so to each their own. Just in my own lists this edition I have had battlescribe have noticeable errors at least 10 times. It fills me with no more confidence than the guy with the computer print out list (chicken scratch on paper is worse). Especially when I have run into a number of players with no books relying on battle scribe for their rules.

I play most of the Imperium factions (well, and Tyranids now), and while there are always mistakes right after a new book comes out, those mistakes are usually straightened out within a few weeks. FAQs and errata are usually incorporated within a few weeks, too. After that they're pretty much free of errors.

So just
a) wait until a catalogue is finished and had a few weeks to mature before you trust it without double-checking
b) never assume that BS is perfect

If something seems odd in BS, check your book.

I should probably change that back now, before I forget.

 daedalus wrote:

nekooni wrote:

I think the point here is that while you're writing a list by hand it's literally zero additional effort to cheat. Just "forget" to calculate those plasma guns, or "forget" to use the BS3+ price for them. If you're using battlescribe or ANY tool you have to actually put effort into cheating.

In the time it took me to read your comment, I've already given myself 7 point plasmaguns across the board in my version of the datafiles. And I'd never looked at them before.

I mean, it's deliberate effort, but you're also probably less inclined to notice.

I don't validate lists tbh, so it's a moot point - I'm not a tournament player, and outside of "what, how is this thing so cheap, are you serious?" I don't ask anything about the other players point costs.
But all I'm saying is that it took you some effort. You had to know how to change your data files which I'm confident is only a minority, and you had to actually do it, and then build your list. That's obviously more effort than just not adding the plasmagun properly on your sheet of paper, isn't it?

And yeah, I'm gonna guess those files are XML structures and pretty easy to feth with if you're familiar with those.