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Army Builder


Firbrand

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I have been using Army Builder for a little over one year, and I have no qualms with it. I particularly enjoy the ability to design a list on the computer without having to write it all down and do the math! Of course as stated already, it sometimes is not the most reliable program, as it has flaws. And it does cost money, which for some of us I realize can be problematic.

 

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I don't know if its better than it used to be, I stopped using it when they ended the policy that if you had bought a CD you could upgrade for free to the new version. But back then there were lots of errors, costs illegal options.

 

Always check a list by hand to know its legal.

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so whats wrong with paper and pencil? Do it often enough and you'll memorise your army points cost, then the real fun begins...

 

illegible hand writing? Bad math skills? Not saying that you need to use army builder, but I am of the opinion that (at least for trounaments) everyone should have typed lists.

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I think he means for calculating, rather than submitting to a tournament. Spend time on the transferable skill of designing an excel spread sheet? It's the kind of hobby where it seems difficult to get far without an ability to crunch numbers and retain them in your head. I'd rather spend the money on more models.
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I think he means for calculating, rather than submitting to a tournament. Spend time on the transferable skill of designing an excel spread sheet? It's the kind of hobby where it seems difficult to get far without an ability to crunch numbers and retain them in your head. I'd rather spend the money on more models.

 

By all means, learn to calculate on your own, it is a good skill to have. That said, I have seen quite alot of people in this game that are not very good at math, or remember the point cost for an item wrong. I have designed an excel sheet, and I have army builder. The part of army builder that is nice is that for new players it puts all of the info on an easy reference sheet, with page numbers of where to find info in the codicies or BRB. That is not to say that everyone should own it, but if you teach a lot of new players (which I do), it is a nice tool to have, and well worth the money.

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Its not just about doing the math for you tho, Army builder gives you relivant rules locations and quick displays for weapon and dude stats. While you may say you should be able to remember all this and I agree, it certainly cuts down on time to look something up when a opponent wants verification on a rule or stat. I find it especially helpful against newer players who only really know there own armies stats/rules.

 

Nothing more frustrating than knowing a rule, but not remebering where to find it in order to convince someone that they should never doubt that you are always right!

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I always had this problem of never having a decent army builder/printable list. I tried the payed application on a friend's computer, didn't have any qualms. It was nice, but expensive. So I sat down and figured I'd make my own in Microsoft Word one day. I did like Army Builder's quick rules ability. But looking them up and writing them down, simplified versions sometimes, made it a lot easier to save on Ink and paper when printing. Here's the result!

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp159/DarkLegionnare/40k/ArmyListSample.jpg?t=1292946993

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so whats wrong with paper and pencil? Do it often enough and you'll memorise your army points cost, then the real fun begins...

 

Nothing wrong with it, When you play less then once a month, you don't tend to memorize the point costs of everything, even better when you don't play often and have several armies.

 

I use army builder to keep track of what minis i own:) It also lets me build a list (because i don't have a set list that i always take, i change up dependent on how i feel like playing) one the fly if we are playing without notice, or even if i realize that i didn't take some of the minis i thought i did (happens on occasion where I'll remove a unit out of it's place for some reason, like a broken mini, and forger to put it back in when i thought i did)

 

basically, AB is easy, nothing wrong with easy

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I love Army Builder. I think the cost is very reasonable for what you get (2 licenses and a years worth of upgrades). The rules summaries and weapon stats etc mean I don't have to carry codex's and rulebooks around all the time - just my minis and the printout.

 

My personal view... a great product !

 

G

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It looks good.

 

What I don't like is that the BA Codex catalogue has errors, but those are fixed easily. Just check the point values before you blindly use the program.

Unfortunately due to GW's Copyright policy there are no rules on the printable sheet.

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Just check the point values before you blindly use the program.

 

This is wise advice, no matter what program (or method) you use. As has been noted here before, army builder has some bugs and nuances, that take getting used to. A few problems I know that I have seen are for BA if you add a special weapon to an assault squad it adds another man to the squad with said weapon, so if you only want a 5 man squad you need to go back and remove one of the generic assault marines. Also, for squads where each model can have individual equipment (wolf guard, or Ork Nobz) you need to go back and add members separately, if you use the + feature to add models to the squad, it adds them with the same wargear as the previous model. For example if you selected Wolf guard and added a terminator with a cyclone ML, if you use the + button it adds another Cyclone termi, not another standart termi.

 

My biggest qualm if any with Army builder is that some people have a difficult time reading the output, with all the information that is included.

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