Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So what do we know about the app?

"On the same day that the Warhammer 40,000 pre-orders go live, a new app will be launched alongside it, providing several cool features to help you, including a full matched play army builder. The new app will do a number of things to assist players with their games, but one of the most useful will be the ability to build army lists using the updated points values and Detachments. "

What i really wanna know is, can i use it on my PC? I don't making list on the phone.

Moved elsewhere as this is neither news nor a rumour.

The AoS app / Azyr is different from the the Warscroll Builder web site, but who knows?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/09/the-app-all-you-need-to-know/
Hm i am not impressed i see no reason to switch to the app.

This is one of the big things that were missing from 40k for me personally.
And if I go by memory something a lot of people mentioned last year during discussions.

Now it does not matter how many books you would need to play, because you can just search relevant information in the app and don't have to carry them with you.
I love that you get a code with your purchase to unlock the respective book in your account.

I'm not sure if the paid features are worth it for me to pay the subscription fee, but I will definitely pick up the free version.

Welcome to the 21st century, GW

I posted this in the N&R thread, but I’ll repost here:

I was excited about the app, but I think it’s a bit pricey for me. I understand that they are a company and need to make a profit, but an app that costs almost as much as a Netflix subscription, with little functionality unless you buy physical copies of the rules sources just doesn’t appeal to me.

It would be like paying a Netflix subscription but still needing to buy the DVD boxset before you could watch a tv show.

On top of that, it doesn’t work on a laptop, only a mobile device. I was really hoping that it would be a paired account where I could read the rules and do my list building on my computer and then access it on my phone when I’m at my FLGS.

Oh well, I guess not. I expect I’ll download the app to see what it’s like, but that’s about it.

The price is ridiculous. They've way, way overshot the mark with that and are rightly receiving quite a lot of flak pretty much everywhere online right now.

To answer one of the OP's questions, they confirmed on their FB page that there is no PC/Mac version of this, it's purely a mobile app.

Slipspace wrote:
The price is ridiculous. They've way, way overshot the mark with that and are rightly receiving quite a lot of flak pretty much everywhere online right now.

To answer one of the OP's questions, they confirmed on their FB page that there is no PC/Mac version of this, it's purely a mobile app.

If it was a web page I'd be reverse engineering it to try and make calls to their database.

Way overpriced.

Competitive pricing would have been:

- free sub : core rules + army builder
- basic sub : full rulebook + army builder : 2£/month
- chapter approved : buy the book or +1£ sub per month. New CA includes last year CA for free.
- 1 codex = +1£ "rental" /month or buy the codex

Not paying for this as is.

I'm not paying that much for the app and honestly I don't why I'd pay any subscription model for it. I could see myself paying £3 for it but with a subscription that just adds up to silly prices.

As per it's a good idea executed terribly.

close to 50 £, and you have to buy a tablet or phone first. Not for me for sure. But if it helps other people I am sure they are going to be happy.

Yup, that's disappointing. I was hoping it'd be more like DnD Beyond, with which I've had great experiences. The DM can create a game lobby, which every player can join and save a character. You still have to pay more for access to expansion rules, but it totally facilitates regular gameplay for free.

The app at the very least needs army building for free. It definitely also needs a Crusade manager. Bonus points if you could register a match with another player on the app, or create leagues.

I love that "access to codexes and supplements with codes" is listed as free, like the other option is to charge you again to input the code you already paid for.

So basically, if I'm using the app for free it... provides a PDF of the basic rules already freely available on their website? Or hell, even if I add my book codes, I have to pay money to "reference them fast"? Does that mean I don't get a keyword search function or bookmarks or anything? I might as well scan the pages and add bookmarks and put them on my phone myself.

I will probably sub for the first few months to get access to all of the 8th codexes.

Once the armies I am interested in become obsolete I will just get the codex for my army and use battlescribe.

Pretty underwhelmed by what has been described, and I think they've made a mistake with the pricing.

a_typical_hero wrote:
This is one of the big things that were missing from 40k for me personally.
And if I go by memory something a lot of people mentioned last year during discussions.

Now it does not matter how many books you would need to play, because you can just search relevant information in the app and don't have to carry them with you.
I love that you get a code with your purchase to unlock the respective book in your account.

I'm not sure if the paid features are worth it for me to pay the subscription fee, but I will definitely pick up the free version.

Welcome to the 21st century, GW

You never considered switching to buying their PDFs instead of the physical books ?

You guys keep mentioning a price for the app beyond the subscription. Where was that stated? I can't find something about it online either.

The way I understood it is either completely free with limited functionality or paid subscription.

dhallnet wrote:
You never considered switching to buying their PDFs instead of the physical books ?

I don't mind the few books I have to bring to a game. In fact I was using the print out from Battlescribe and the core rulebook only so far and never had issues. I was more talking about the people on Dakka who mentioned in the past that they don't like to carry several books and handouts with them to every game.

I did buy the 6th edition Guard codex as PDF back then and was not convinced. Didn't feel right to me. I do prefer physical copies, but as an added bonus I take the PDF in the app.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
The price is ridiculous. They've way, way overshot the mark with that and are rightly receiving quite a lot of flak pretty much everywhere online right now.

To answer one of the OP's questions, they confirmed on their FB page that there is no PC/Mac version of this, it's purely a mobile app.

If it was a web page I'd be reverse engineering it to try and make calls to their database.

There is nothing stopping you doing it with the app.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:
The way I understood it is either completely free with limited functionality or paid subscription.

And it's exactly how it works.
The limited functionality being able to retrieve an electronic version of your physical books for 9th ed.

Bummer about the no PC version.

The free codex though from 8th. The release for 9th are going to have to go ultra fast.

I'll still sub since it's dirt cheap

They'll probably have a cracked one you can toss over to a tablet

dhallnet wrote:

There is nothing stopping you doing it with the app.

It takes a bit more effort. Harder for the average Joe in any case. Not impossible, but there are other guards available to them even if I can see traffic on Fiddler.

Karol wrote:
Bummer about the no PC version.

The free codex though from 8th. The release for 9th are going to have to go ultra fast.

Depending on what the system requirements will be you could just download an Android emulator on your PC later and use the app in this way.

Last time I checked emulators were stuck with version 5.0 of Android, but they are free to use.

I think the free part could be pretty great, as long as it's organized in a useful enough way. As it stand now, if you want to go digital, PDF navigation is just not great compared to having a book.
So it's, at least, an improvement to me that way: I already prefer paper for an army list/unit's rules but now I'll have have Core rules and Codex rules in an app, instead of books to lug around, if I need to look something up.


But the subscription is pretty pricey for the Army Builder and...I guess the Big Rule Book? (The BRB then, doesn't have a code?)
I get that there's a cost associated to maintaining the app but I don't think you're getting much value here.

If I try to download anything on my moms laptop form work. I am going to start looking for where my arms and legs went. But if it works it, then it would be a nice option for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stevefamine wrote:
I'll still sub since it's dirt cheap

They'll probably have a cracked one you can toss over to a tablet

My sister got a tablet with her confirmation money. And the stupid me got a w40k army. I hope that maybe later on they are going to make a free PC version. Or maybe some sort of army builder like the one for AoS.

What kind of design team makes something worse than their competitors who give something away for free and at the same time they charge excessively for it? They are literally wasting money developing it because no one will buy it.

In order to justify this cost the app would need to keep the game score and link with your mates app and update live based on game results...actually...WHY Doesn't it do that?

GW...if you want to hire me I will work for cheap...just give me models actually...

 Xenomancers wrote:
WHY Doesn't it do that?

Unless they use something like bluetooth to match people, it's a bit more complicated (a few more bit of software, nothing hard though), add to their server load and you probably need to deal with personal data protection & privacy stuff.

It should literally be as easy as asking your opponent for their usename and looking them. It doesn't need to track any personal information. It is slightly more intensive on the their servers, but only by a tiny margin.

Or failing that, just have a game tracking feature so you can mark victory points and CP as the game progresses.

There's an awful lot of book keeping that this app should be able to eliminate.

What is kind of funny is that subscribers will LOSE access over time. Initially, subscribers will essentially have access to every codex, but as new ones come out, you have to buy the codex to get access to the information.

So near the start of this, you can check anybody's codex if your a subscriber. As 9E progresses, you'll lose access to that information unless you pay (a lot) extra.

I really think subscribers should retain access to the datasheets of other codexes they haven't purchased at the very least. Codex purchasers who aren't subscribers would only get access to the books they bought.

And what about the Forgeworld indexes/codexes/whatever? Are they included in all this?

 Stormonu wrote:
What is kind of funny is that subscribers will LOSE access over time. Initially, subscribers will essentially have access to every codex, but as new ones come out, you have to buy the codex to get access to the information.

So near the start of this, you can check anybody's codex if your a subscriber. As 9E progresses, you'll lose access to that information unless you pay (a lot) extra.

I really think subscribers should retain access to the datasheets of other codexes they haven't purchased at the very least. Codex purchasers who aren't subscribers would only get access to the books they bought.

And what about the Forgeworld indexes/codexes/whatever? Are they included in all this?

Tin foil hat time.

I think this is a strategy. They are gauging whats the most amount of codexes they can get away with not giving players before they decide its not worth it the money.

The only value the app actually adds is getting all the errata in one place instead of needing the week-one hot-patch .pdf file and the annual Big FAQ and Chapter Approved ... which is something they shouldn't have to do and definitely shouldn't be charging for in the first place.

I award it zero points, and may G-d have mercy on their souls.

 Xenomancers wrote:
What kind of design team makes something worse than their competitors who give something away for free and at the same time they charge excessively for it? They are literally wasting money developing it because no one will buy it.

In order to justify this cost the app would need to keep the game score and link with your mates app and update live based on game results...actually...WHY Doesn't it do that?

GW...if you want to hire me I will work for cheap...just give me models actually...

Battle scribe is not giving it away for free, you're paying for it via ads or a subscription. If GW decided to launch all services without a subscription, and paid for the app development/maintenance cost with third party ads you guys would gaking all over them, and I'd be right there with you. GW is a premium brand, that comes with a higher cost and higher consumer expectations. If they released a product that worked exactly like battle scribe, we'd all be aghast at such a bare bones and uneven offering. We would be saying things like; Why does this have ads, whats with this third party data source, why do I have to wait for updates, why are there so many nested menus, why isn't there any consistency between codexes.

The 40k app will reflect on the brand, and GW would much rather have an app that fails because it wasn't at the right price point, than an app that fails because it doesn't meet the standards of their customers. I'm not saying the price is a guarantee that the app will be good, but offering a premium product is GWs goal. We are probably looking at a $60 per year if you pay in advance, or $6 a month for month to month.

With that said, I'm a touch concerned about the app. When you're a software dev you learn to identify deathmarches as a self defense mechanism, and they are obviously hip deep into one right now. Notice how they didn't give any dates in this press release, but gave the week before launch in prior announcements? That's a sure sign of a slipping schedule, and this close to launch that is terrible news.