List building apps

I will start this post with a promise. I promise not to let this post turn into a rambling whine about how crappy all the various list building tools are. Now that's out the way, let's get on with the rambling whine about all the crappy list building tools!

On a more serious note, there are several list building tools out there, some are game specific and some are very generic and I doubt that I will cover even a fraction of them on here but I hope I've covered the main ones. For me, the list breaks down in 3 ways; list building apps, computer programs and manual systems. Now, I am aware that apps are computer programs but for this list, apps will be programs specifically designed for list building and computer programs will refer to programs adapted for list building.

Let's start by listing out the various options;

List building apps;

Battlescribe
Kill team companion
Kill team manager
Kill Team command roster
Army builder
Codex Commander

Computer program;

Various Excel spreadsheet

Manual systems;

Pen and paper

As you can see there are lots of apps and not many other options, although I probably could find dozens of Excel based list building tools if I really wanted to and I suppose that for fairness I probably should have but I haven't and as such I'll be pretty general when talking about them.

Personally I use list building apps partly to actually build lists to play with but partly to brain storm options and possibilities or to just play around with list for the fun of it, such as how many infantryman or how many command points I could manage in 2000 points ( 42 if I remember right).

When I started using specific programs for list building, I started with the Lone Wolf Army Builder. While I haven't used this program in a long time, it still seems to be a very good program. I always found it clear and easy to use, with all the options and relatively few errors. However, it had and still has one big issue for me, you can't get it on Android. I do pretty much all my hobby on my phone, so not being able to get the program on my phone instantly dumps in on the "no use pile".

The led me to Battlescribe, as it solver that particular problem but I have found the program not to be as good and quite often having wrong or incomplete information. In addition I have found that it can be very slow to load and use and can suck the life out of your battery. While it is a good program to use, these issue mean that I get frustrated with it and quite often end up having to double check my lists with other sources.

With the release of Kill Team, I sought out apps that could help here and while Battlescribe does have kill Team, I decided to try other apps and came across Kill Team Manager. This was a brilliant app. It had everything I needed in one package, which was easy to use and accurate. I loved it from the first time I used it and all things Kill Team went on Kill Team Manager. That was until Elite's can out, and since then it's been rubbish. Crashing all the time, units you can't use or delete, as it causes the program to crash and with the latest update, it's now even less usable as it's removed some of the previews for units, so you can't see what there equipped with with out clicking on them, which can be very tedious when planning new teams or rosters. It annoys me so much now, especially as it was so good.

So with Kill Team Manager going weird I was on the hunt for another app to use and I came across two, codex Commander and Kill Team Companion. Now Codex Commander looked interesting but it doesn't have a Kill Team option, so it wasn't any good for that but I thought I'd give it a go for 40k proper and to be honest, I wasn't very impressed. It was not very intuitive or simple to use, maybe if I spent more time on it I would have got a better understanding of how it all worked but it really didn't grab me at all, so the app got deleted and I moved on. Kill team Companion on the other had looks very good and lots of people seem to be very impressed by it. It's not a stand alone app, as it requires information to be imported from Battlescribe, so you still need that app as well but once the information is in there it's very simple to use and you can even assign pictures to the various entries. The only downside seems to be that one the information is in you can't edit it. So if you don't set your specialist at the beginning you can't change things around later. There may well be a way, I might just not have figured it out yet but apart from this it's a pretty good app to have.

Lastly, the is GW's very own Kill Team Command Roster. Now I'll included this in the apps list but it could just as easily fit in the computer programs list, as it's an online program accessed only via the companies website. Now I know that there are a lot of people out there who do not like this program, I have found it to be pretty good but not perfect. For starters there is a lot of information on there, such as the campaign resources counters and arena objective options. Now you could just ignore all these quite easily but it's still distracting. Other than that it does have some good features, namely the ability to name your men, without having to type it all in and all the squad info as well. However, it is let down by the fact that you need to have the internet to use it and as I write often play around with lists when out and about, including placed with poor or no signal, this is a bit of an issue. The other issue that I have found in the past and the main reason I have not used this in a while, is that I've often had trouble saving, loading and exporting the rosters. When I did use it I found that most of the time the process just froze and caused the page to crash, needing to reload and loose all of the data I'd entered. The other issue Ive found is that some of the data seems to be missing or incomplete, such as names for custodian guard or for several guard options. If  the program was available off line in app form, I would probably use this as my first choice but as it is, I don't use it at all.

While I was trying to find suitable apps for kill team, I have also tried other methods, all of which I have tried have been Excel based spreadsheet systems. Now, I have tried several over the years, over half a dozen and I have not found any that I liked very much. Most of the had issues, ranging from corrupt pathways or menus, wrong or inconsistent data and poor navigation. They also all suffer from the fact that you cannot easily update the information when FAQ's and Erratas come out. That being said, I have recently acquired a sheet for kill team, titled Elite Kill Team Command Roster, which I found through Reddit. I've had a little play around and from what I've seen so far, it looks quite good, although I've only been looking through my phone and think that it would be significantly easier to use on a computer. I am hoping to get a chance to play around properly one day soon but with all the kids around, finding a quite 5 minutes to play on the computer isn't easy! There still seems to be the usual issues, as in there, are actually several versions of the sheet, as new updates and expansions become available.

Lastly, we have the old classic, pen and paper. This seems to be one of the lost arts these days, actually getting a pen, piece of paper and the rule book or codex and writing a list out in long or short hand. I still do this on occasion, usually after I've played around with a list on one app or another and am modelling up any additionally required units, so I don't have to keep going back though the whole list again and again. Most of the time I don't bother with this, as it's too long winded and I keep changing my mind. It's a shame really, as its nice to look at when your all finished, that is until you notice a mistake and then it just becomes a page of squiggles.

So, after all this, where am I? Honestly I don't really know, I really thought I had it sussed with Kill Team Manager but now I'm left flicking back and forth from one app to another. Does anyone else have any alternative suggestions or tips for things I'm missing?