GW Army Building Program is live!

[Bojazz]

Games Workshop Combat Roster is now live on their website! It has a web browser interface, so no installations needed, and as of right now only covers Power Levels. There will be a 40k App coming out in the near future that includes points values for matched play. The Combat Roster app seems VERY basic so far.
- No or info on unit selections - Just name, number of models, and power level.
- No method of Detachment organization, just one big army list. Battle-Forged armies are used in narrative and Open Play as well, so this is annoying.
- Can't select specific numbers of models in a unit, only the preset numbers for jumps in power level (i.e. Can select 5 or 10 Dire Avengers, but not 7).
- No Forgeworld Entries.

Article - https://www.warhammer-community.com/201 ... ge-post-1/
Combat Roster - https://www.warhammer-community.com/combat-roster/

All in all it seems pretty lackluster, but a VERY good step in the correct direction for making their game more newbie friendly and easier to get into a game. I'm looking forward to seeing what features the App has.

[Mach-Ten]

VERY basic so far.

can't really see it ever progressing past that stage at any speed with ONE dev and 20+ codexes to implement

- No or info on unit selections - Just name, number of models, and power level.
- No method of Detachment organization, just one big army list.
- Can't select specific numbers of models in a unit, only the preset numbers for jumps in power level
- No Forgeworld Entries.

It looks pretty and is easy to navigate, but just imagine the years that say, BattleScribe has had to mature and that has maybe 15 fully engaged maintainers looking at the codexes

yeah, sometimes it's a bit of a pain as there's no 'standard' implementation across armies .. but honestly that's on GW rules writers 90% of the time

Like I say, I doubt ONE guy will churn out a working alternative for Matched play points in detachments in his lifetime.

All in all it seems pretty lackluster, but a VERY good step in the correct direction for making their game more newbie friendly and easier to get into a game. I'm looking forward to seeing what features the App has.

I am calling it now .. it'll never get past Power Levels and simple Open play ... Matched play detachments are just too complicated and the rules interactions break at the logic level ... that's before we even get to look at the miasma that is UX when it comes to 40K players and

"The GW App let me take 5 heavy weapons teams in this list so it MUST be legal"

and the units that are index only vs codex wargear and vice versa.

[mrazek22]

Hey that totally useless thing that helps nobody and arrived over a year late, even though anyone with a single year of C++ could have built it in a week, is here. WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Mecha82]

I would say that Combat Roster is lackluster. It only has power points, it hasn't been made for matched play detachments and you need to which around to get all options. For example if you want to make Blood Angels army you need to switch around Blood Angels and Space Marines as Blood Angels part only shows they exclusive units and not shared units that they can take.

[Jeffers]

Its a decent step since battlescribe relies on the community to flag up mistakes.

Im guessing gw are getting it out there and are looking for feedback. Got to start somewhere

[mrazek22]

No, we started when as a community we gave them millions of dollars. This likely took under 5k. This is crap. 15 people on their own with zero funding made a gorgeous platform that cost nothing and only relies on donations. It has all the chapters, and is consistently updated. It boggles my mind why people always defend big corporations like EA, GW, and Konami.

[Ronin]

Battlescribe had a lot of flaws when it came out and the second edition of it was absolutely terrible and unoptimized with even adding a single model took time to load. Even now, the entries still have issues especially if you look at other game systems that aren't as widely supported as 40k. There's still mistakes time to time which is why battlescribe is never accepted as a valid army list at any tournament whether it's the RTT level or majors. Sure GW is a corporation, but software development is not their thing and they're getting 0 return on this investment. It's like asking a pharma company to also make a good fast food chain.

[Mach-Ten]

Battlescribe had a lot of flaws when it came out and the second edition of it was absolutely terrible and unoptimized with even adding a single model took time to load. Even now, the entries still have issues especially if you look at other game systems that aren't as widely supported as 40k.

and folk are STILL to this day applying that wonky paradigm to the sleekest implementation of a massive dataset you will get FOR FREE!!

There's still mistakes time to time which is why battlescribe is never accepted as a valid army list at any tournament whether it's the RTT level or majors.

sorry but that's rubbish, there are Tournament staffers on the BSData team and BS is used for easy validation across some tournaments.

Sure GW is a corporation, but software development is not their thing and they're getting 0 return on this investment. It's like asking a pharma company to also make a good fast food chain.

No it's like asking a pharma company to list the specifications of their products in an easy to access fashion and list interactions across their products with doctors recommendations and etc.

No one asked GW to make this thing .. yet they are making it in a half assed way that does us no favours for competitive play and does them no favours with clients that hold them to a higher standard.

if you're going to do something ... at least do it RIGHT! -please GW

[mrazek22]

Battlescribe had a lot of flaws when it came out and the second edition of it was absolutely terrible and unoptimized with even adding a single model took time to load. Even now, the entries still have issues especially if you look at other game systems that aren't as widely supported as 40k. There's still mistakes time to time which is why battlescribe is never accepted as a valid army list at any tournament whether it's the RTT level or majors. Sure GW is a corporation, but software development is not their thing and they're getting 0 return on this investment. It's like asking a pharma company to also make a good fast food chain.

Again, why are you defending poor put upon GW, with an argument that uses poor put upon pharma companies? Really? Look, at the MINIMUM, their version of BS will CHARGE FOR THE CODEXES. If you think they are doing this for free, you're bonkers. They will charge for the ability to make more than a set number of lists, they will charge for the different armies, they will charge for the ability to make soup lists (two codexes there!), they will charge for yearly subscription, they will charge for the rulebook, etc. This is the exact same as the Character builder crap that Pathfinder and now DND/WotWC did. They charge 30 for the app, and then charge you for the rule books, monster manuals, etc. Then you had to pay to make over 3 characters. Then they put a subscription on it.

But sure, GW is doing this for free because they hate money and don't want to see us buying their product....

[Signet-Powers]

I was under the impression that they're also making a matched play app similar to age of Sigmar's, which is a pretty good app.

[Ronin]

Then don't use it? Nothing down to the miniatures is forced upon you to use. If you dislike the company so much, why keep supporting the game? Privateer Press and Steamforged Games are that way. Anyways, my point is the a lot of software and apps have a rough initial release no matter how big or small the company is and they improve and build it up from there.

[Koonitz]

No one asked GW to make this thing .. yet they are making it in a half assed way that does us no favours for competitive play and does them no favours with clients that hold them to a higher standard.

Au contraire, mon ami.

Just as much as you seem to think we are defending GW, I'm going to tell you to dial back the attacks. There are no needs for such.

People have been asking for GW to produce an army building app for AGES (years, decades, centuries, millennia, since the age of the dinosaurs). The only thing wrong here is that they, and you, were under the assumption that competitive and matched play were the only methods of playing, and thus building lists, that mattered.

Bluntly, you're wrong. People asked for an army list creator, this is the start of them getting exactly that.

GW supports multiple methods of playing their game, including Open and Narrative play. They have chosen to start here, with a simple, bare bones, power points list creator. As Ronin stated, they will most likely build upon and expand it, from here (and very likely use their knowledge from it to make the Matched Play version better). At least they released something to show us what they're up to. Instead, they could have just said and did nothing, keeping it in the background until it was done. This release ONLY benefits us by letting us see what they're doing, how they're going, and allows us to provide feedback as they do.

GW has also IN THE VERY ARTICLE LINKED IN THE ORIGINAL POST HERE, promised a matched play app to come later, so it's not like you're going to get ignored because of this. If it comes out costing money, fine. Don't pay for it. Continue to use Battlescribe. THAT IS YOUR CHOICE. Literally nothing is stopping you from doing so. There is literally no harm to you for doing such a thing that, clearly, you seem to intend and want to do anyway.

If all of this is "defending the defenseless", then I counter with "you're attacking the innocent" whose actions in context to this thread deserve none of it.

[blippityblip]

honestly i really like it, its simple and easy to use, i only really play power level and this does exactly what i want it to, it doesnt matter if i cant put the exact amount of guys i have in a squad (as someone earlier complained about) because power level doesnt work out its points on a per model basis. it also allows me to figure out a list before ive bought a codex, i recently invested in a grey knights army and i already know how much power it is just from clicking a few boxes, it also lets me get an idea about what another person can bring against me if i have a rough idea of a few units their bringing, plus it lists things in its correct unit type so if im building a detachment i can scroll through the fast attack, heavy support etc part and figure out what options i have. if you dont use power levels then honestly whats the point in complaining about it? because this wasnt made for you, it was made for the people that do, they have already said their making a matched play one, just wait for that and then get that. i dont complain that motorbikes have no space to put my shopping when i only drive a car