Army Builder Tyranny?

[Sgt John Keel]

Excel lost some lustre when it lost Visual Basic Macros on MacOs, but it still works for me.

IIRC, Office 2011 restored Visual Basic for Applications to the Mac OS X Office.

As for the topic, I find it far more effective to learn the codex by heart and use a basic text editor. Army Builder's output is ridiculously cluttered and hard to parse.

[Weazel]

I too use ArmyBuilder solely because I rather spend my time on something else than scribbling on a piece of paper or sorting out an excel-sheet. It's so fast and easy to use that no other alternative comes close. I do not care for their licencing schemes, though. Haven't been forced to re-buy just yet but who knows when that happens. Anyway, their customer support was friendly and unlocked my licence for reactivation on request (had to reinstall my OS twice in quick succession), which was nice.

[Charax]

Emperor only knows why GW don't do a proper army building program.

The IAL (Interactive Army List, GW's Army Builder alternative before they split it into two) was actually a decent program, nice interface (not quite as nice as AB), accepted user-created datafiles, some of which GW hosted, and it outputted a nice-looking list.

then someone thought "This is too good, we'll remove the ability to make your own datafiles, split it into two parts and then never update it"

[Ebon]

The IAL (Interactive Army List, GW's Army Builder alternative before they split it into two) was actually a decent program, nice interface (not quite as nice as AB), accepted user-created datafiles, some of which GW hosted, and it outputted a nice-looking list.

then someone thought "This is too good, we'll remove the ability to make your own datafiles, split it into two parts and then never update it"

That must have been before I had regular net access, the first version I remember was the one that put out in stores. Nice to know that GW shooting themselves in the foot isn't a recent thing though!

[LegioDestructor]

I fully understood all the qualities Army Builder had to offer. What I never understood was paying for it.

The free version doesn't update, or let you save files, or even let you have more than 3 units at once. What it does have is Imperial Armour. Forge World's books are fantastic, don't get me wrong, but will you pay over $100 and wait weeks for shipping just to find out what the "Imperial Armour version" of a Manticore's missiles do? Or, out of curiosity, how much a Heavy Quad Launcher costs? Your opponent is bragging about their new Trygon or Malanthrope, and you have no idea how to tackle them in your next game because you don't even know what they can do. A few clicks in AB will solve that in a jiffy.

As far as making army lists goes, just use the trial's 3-unit-max to build a list three units at a time, and save them in a Word Processing program until your army is built. Simple, effective, and free. I've been doing it for years. The last time I exported an AB file the formatting was hideous so I just stopped using that function. I never understood writing out lists by hand. The backspace key is a lot handier than erasing, and I don't know many people whose handwriting can keep up with their WPM. I save all my paper for drawing.

[MyNameDidntFit]

I used to use a whiteboard with four different coloured markers that I thought was an awesome way to write lists. Now, though, I use Army Builder because it makes playing around with lists fast and easy... and I can put any and all of my lists into PDF form and throw them on my iPad which makes for the best possible method I've found so far.

... all I need now is to find somewhere that sells a 40k 'dataslate' style case for my iPad

[Askari]

Army Builder validates your choices

So does Battlescribe. I don't know about iPhone but the output list looks pretty nice on my Android phone too.

[Konovalev]

What's the deal with people using army builder to see how much units cost in books they don't have? Why not just download the book in question off the net and look directly at the source. This way you see the points cost you were looking for AND actually get the rules for it in case you think your opponent's D12 large blast Hypermagnifico Beam was a bit suspicious.

And before anyone tries to take the moral highground: Finding point costs for items from a book you do not own is no more or less acceptable wether you got those point costs from a downloaded book or some program.

[Chapters Unwritten]

To give an update, my pet project of creating a functional, distributable version of AB has succeeded. I now have Army Builder working on a virtual machine, which I can bring to any computer I please and use it on, under one license.

I will be using this to give my entire gaming club (roughly 60 people) access to the program as part of their membership. Hopefully some rogue, uncouth member of my group doesn't upload this file to any torrent websites without my prior knowledge or consent...

AB has too many advantages not to use. Its smartphone output is very clean; it hides all of your list choices under the unit names and point costs, making a nice simple list that you can look deeper into if you are in a hurry. That's how I print all my lists.

[DEADMARSH]

I used ArmyBuilder when I first started 40k back in 2004. I liked it if for no other reason it kept me from making invalid/ illegal choices. After I built a new PC back in 2006 and attempted to move the AB license and entered into the whole snafu, I called it a day on ArmyBuilder and just used Calc in OpenOffice for years.

Currently, I only use GDocs for any non-work Office type stuff as it's easier to keep everything straight on multiple computers and multiple OS platforms. I've not actually used them, but there are a number of 40k GDoc templates out there.

[AlphariusOmegon20]

You know, I'm somewhat amazed no one has thought to write a program that does the exact same thing as AB, but is free shareware, much like the situation with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.

Gamers would jump on it like ticks to a dog.

[Chapters Unwritten]

The fact is, without a group of people willing to do slave labor and create the datafiles to a meticulous level, like AB has, the task is daunting.

[Clarkson]

The fact is, without a group of people willing to do slave labor and create the datafiles to a meticulous level, like AB has, the task is daunting.

is there no way to just use the datafiles already available... they are upto date.. it shouldnt be too hard to make a program that uses whats already there... and when an update comes out... they will keep making updates.. as people will still have army builder... ie.. those who have already paid.. or are fanboys..

so it seems that a free program or at least one that is cheaper and easier than ab.. is fool proof?

as far as i can tell.. i can get all the files i need off ab40k (right spelling??), just need a program to input them too...

[Marshal]

I'm really confused as to why people say typing it out in Excel takes a long time. I mean, seriously? I was able to point out my entire Tau force of about 3000 points in a matter of 5 minutes maybe. It was something similar when I typed out my 5500 points of Templars. Formulas are simple to type out. (=x*y - where x is the number in the unit, and y is the point cost of each model and blam-o-, it fills it out for you). It adds everything up nicely with a simple =SUM function and away you go. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people on here have no problem typing, as seems to be the norm these days, so I'm really really lost as to where people seem to take a long time at it. Most people should know their codex enough to relatively know what their points should be. Sure there are the odd units that people don't use that often that they might need to have the codex in hand for, but even then, one should know where to look (I never play my Tau, so I had to look at almost every entry in the codex for their points, and they still have an armoury system, one that was even more messed than most that did before with separate lists for suits, infantry and vehicles over something like 5 pages...)

[Orthodox]

The IAL (Interactive Army List, GW's Army Builder alternative before they split it into two) was actually a decent program, nice interface (not quite as nice as AB), accepted user-created datafiles, some of which GW hosted, and it outputted a nice-looking list.

then someone thought "This is too good, we'll remove the ability to make your own datafiles, split it into two parts and then never update it"

Also when it built units it would yell "this unit meets all requirements" at you, and you'd know that you had met all requirements.

On the other hand, it was completely superfluous because I learned how to do simple arithmetic.

[Chapters Unwritten]

I'm really confused as to why people say typing it out in Excel takes a long time. I mean, seriously? I was able to point out my entire Tau force of about 3000 points in a matter of 5 minutes maybe. It was something similar when I typed out my 5500 points of Templars. Formulas are simple to type out. (=x*y - where x is the number in the unit, and y is the point cost of each model and blam-o-, it fills it out for you). It adds everything up nicely with a simple =SUM function and away you go. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people on here have no problem typing, as seems to be the norm these days, so I'm really really lost as to where people seem to take a long time at it. Most people should know their codex enough to relatively know what their points should be. Sure there are the odd units that people don't use that often that they might need to have the codex in hand for, but even then, one should know where to look (I never play my Tau, so I had to look at almost every entry in the codex for their points, and they still have an armoury system, one that was even more messed than most that did before with separate lists for suits, infantry and vehicles over something like 5 pages...)

There are several reasons why Excel is not ideal.

1.) You are responsible for all legality. Murphy's Law says that people will make mistakes.

2.) You have to type at all. Not everyone can type. Murphy's Law also again comes into play. Oops, I left that extra zero off my 300 point unit's total...

3.) Not all spreadsheets are created equal, and not everyone is comfortable using one. I imagine there will be errors in the calculation just as there might be in the typing.

4.) Look above: three rather large parts of the usage where mistakes are possible in Excel, but literally not even a concern in Army Builder.

5.) Excel costs money too. Quite a bit more than Army Builder in most cases. Of course, people can use Calc instead for free.

6.) You are not going to list everything about your unit in Excel. People are lazy. It will be shorthand. ("10x GH / Lasplaz" as opposed to "10-Man Grey Hunter Squad w/ Razorback w/ Lascannon+Twin-linked Plasma Gun"). Not everyone in the 40k world is savvy to the internet era of abbreviation and this isn't always going to make sense, especially when some of the abbrevations are the same as others.

7.) I work professionally in the computer industry and even in an office full of other tech-savvy computer experts, most of them do not know how to make Excel look how they want. So while you and I may be able to make a great single page printout that lists everything efficiently, it's something that is not a given for even people who use Excel as part of their daily work.

8.) Army Builder's output contains much more information than your list does. I can ask to see your list and you can show it to me and I can know that, Mr. Guy Whose Stats Seem a Little Too Awesome does in fact have Toughness 99 or what have you. Otherwise, you are going to be taking out your book, and a lot of guys do not like to do that (for bad reasons, too...I've played too many people who are like "No, yeah, this guy definitely has [rule X]" and then you are like "Can you show me?" and the other guy is like "Oh, no need man, I'm sure." Half the time this is because the dude didn't even bring the codex).

9.) Army Builder is universal. As a user of AB I am aware of glitches or things that they are working on because it tells you when it updates, so when I play another AB person and see their list is from AB and that they aren't using one of the armies "in progress," I can say with a large degree of certainty that it is correct without wasting valuable game time double checking.

10.) Superior output options. You can make a great web page, you can tell AB what to output on the printouts, you can make it a PDF, you can alter the layout from portrait to landscape very easily, you can even print index cards and save favored unit configurations. While I'm aware you can do all of this with Excel, it is much easier to do in AB.

11.) AB contains information for every army, which means that when a new army comes out, you can readily make lists for it, without having to prepare an Excel spreadsheet which may or may not be correct, and also which you may or may not ever realize and fix.

As to the point of Army Builder files being opened by other programs, they have gone out of their way to make them not so easy to read. The sensible method for a project of this sort would be to make the list data in XML, and I'm sure AB's list data *is* something similar, but it is designed to be interpreted by AB and AB alone. You would have to reverse engineer some things to make that idea feasible.

[Askari]

Point 1-3 are valid problems with AB also (datafiles do have the rules wrong - quite often back when I used it). 4 isn't a point. 5 as you say, is only a problem for Excel and not OpenOffice, 6-8 is a result of lazy users (The Lazplaz example, or not including that information) or just lack of knowledge how to use something. 11 is trying to get out of buying a codex/army book.

So you have point no. 10, which I find truly valid, the output does certainly look nicer.

If you really think Army Builder has that much over it's alternatives, then you'd be alright with paying the price for it.

[Chapters Unwritten]

You can write it off all you want. They're all realities that Army Builder addresses that Excel doesn't, particularly the list being comprehenvise. Do you note every model's wargear or just what you pay for? It's not laziness, it's a matter of making the work manageable to be done quickly.

Army Builder is a great product and it isn't as if I haven't bought it. I have. Several times. Here is the problem I have: It is not that they make you pay for every revision they make. It is that they purposefully invalidate the previous version. I got the newest version when I got a widescreen monitor and an iPad, because it had those features, but the developers of the product have intentionally made it so that they force their users to re-purchase it. The 3.2 change to the data files was entirely superfluous. I wouldn't be surprised if the ab40k people got told to make datafiles only for post 3.2 setups, after all for the first span after AB got updated they were able to make files that worked for both 3.1 and 3.2 just fine. Also do not forget that you pay a subscription fee for literally nothing; the files that you get in the updater are made and maintained by outside groups to AB and I'm sure they don't see a cut of the money even though they are the only reason everyone uses the thing.

I'm not sick of paying for it; I'm sick of them forcing me to pay for it. I have paid for this product for years. My reward for being a loyal customer is to not be able to reinstall the product when I upgrade my equipment, and to have all my previous definitions and lists invalidated each update...and to have me pay Army Builder a "subscription fee" to obtain definitions they do not even produce and that are otherwise available for free.

Constantly invalidating software that otherwise fits my needs and works fine, and strictly relegating me to being able to install the program twice a year. All draconian restrictions that are unnecessary and serve only to inconvenience and bully customers. How would you like it if, when Windows 8 comes out, your Windows 7 computer refuses to let you do anything until you upgrade? You can't do that. It's monopolistic and probably actually illegal on that scale.

It's morally bankrupt and isn't even working out all that well for them; I'd pay a subscription fee yearly without a second thought for this great product if it meant that I could install it on all my computers, could continue using it if I didn't want the new features, etc.

Take a look at the thread. How many replies are there that are along the lines of "I used to use Army Builder until they did X"? I'm obviously not alone in my frustration.

[Konovalev]

Someone should make a project on github or source forge to create an open source list building program. You can set coding goals and people can submit modules or sections of code to contribute towards building it.

I've looked into writing a free listbuilder program before and it wouldn't be a difficult process, but it would be time consuming. Really the hard part of it isn't the build program itself but the datafiles made from the codicis that would have to be organized and compiled in a meaningful way. But this is why I would suggest one of the above sites(admittedly I have never hosted a project on them, only downloaded things from them) because the work could be broken up and completed piecemeal. There would be administrative overhead of course as someone(s) would have to make sure everything comes together uniformly and isn't a hodge podge of random code segments mashed together.

[Chapters Unwritten]

Some friends who are as into computers as I am have taken the initiative and we are in the planning phase. One of them will be the project lead and he is a professional programmer (as in, like, that is his job), so I am hoping we will be able to come up with something solid.

If we can manage it, the program will be subscription based and less expensive than AB.