whoooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

[andalucien]

About Army Builder:  as far as I know, we're not requiring that everybody has an Army Builder license... right?  I use BattleScribe myself (which is much better than army builder, comes out with new armies a few days after codex release, and has a usable free version).  BattleScribe can print out tons of info too, but there are other methods of army list creation that probably don't. 

I don't know how you get army builder printouts that include all the rules and weapons to come out on a single page.  Mine would go to 3 pages when I did that.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I use AB, but I've turned off the wargear printout -- It's often 3 pages by itself, and almost anything that isn't a simple weapons says "ref to page xx" so it's not like it's even going to help your opponent much. 

[keithb]

About Army Builder:  as far as I know, we're not requiring that everybody has an Army Builder license... right?  I use BattleScribe myself (which is much better than army builder, comes out with new armies a few days after codex release, and has a usable free version).  BattleScribe can print out tons of info too, but there are other methods of army list creation that probably don't. 

I don't know how you get army builder printouts that include all the rules and weapons to come out on a single page.  Mine would go to 3 pages when I did that.

My list is one page, the equipment is 1 page.

[keithb]

Yeah, I don't think it makes any difference to my point whether the codex is hardcover or digital.
   
What is making this "15 minute explanation period" more necessary than it used to be is

- codexes (counting supplements) are coming out 5 times as fast as they used to
- There are many MORE legal codexes and variants than there used to be (especially if ForgeWorld becomes universally acceptable)
- many codexes aren't sold through game stores, aren't sitting there on the shelves, so it's more likely that the person will have never seen it before
- since the store isn't selling the codex, it's much more likely that there is no one else in the store (including employees) who knows the codex's rules.  I guess this one is less related, but it just enhances the sense of "being thrown into the river and asked to swim" when playing against a heretofore unknown unit.

I would suggest a few things.

1)If the store wants to host events and be the rule arbiter for disputes(which is ideal), then they have a vested interest in knowing the rules(to improve said rule calls).  It is worth the investment for the store to have a copy of all books, digital or no.

2) I've bought 1 codex since the previous Tyranid one came out, and it was eldar this year.  I've never had issues with what is in other people's armies, because I actually ask about stuff before hand.  Shit you can even do this DURING deployment.

3) even the hard cover books are sealed in plastic now, so you can't just "browse" them while at the store, or use them to look up a rule.   This has been true for all of 2013, yet no one has made any issue of this until they are digital only?  Bullshit.   BG does not keep store copies on hand, and it hasn't been an issue yet.  This is not a change suddenly when it is digital.

[the_trooper]

The component to the digital is the additional investment.

"Here, buy this $600 device for this $50 codex."

[Ian Mulligan]

The component to the digital is the additional investment.

"Here, buy this $600 device for this $50 codex."

To be fair, this is a bit of an exaggeration. The digital products are no longer bound to Apple products, so any Kindle or Android reader would work fine; some are free. There are still accessibility issues, but any financial ones are less severe than you stated.

[andalucien]

Keith, yeah, I think that there is some unjustified conflation of concerns going on here.

To me, the fax that the new codexes are digital-only is beside the point.   The bigger changes are that a lot more of them, they change faster, and they're direct-order only.  So this drastically increases the investment (in terms of both time and money) that a store needs to put into it in order to make authoritative rules decisions during events they would run.

Selfishly, of course I think it's worth it for BG to make that additional investment   BUt can't pretend it's not there.

About FW specifically.... let's take my favorite FW unit, the Blight Drone.  This poor thing has literally had 3 new version of its rules come out in the past 2 years.  The only way for BG staff to keep current with this type of thing would be to buy (at retail price) & read every FW publication.

[bradpowers]

The component to the digital is the additional investment.

"Here, buy this $600 device for this $50 codex."

To be fair, this is a bit of an exaggeration. The digital products are no longer bound to Apple products, so any Kindle or Android reader would work fine; some are free. There are still accessibility issues, but any financial ones are less severe than you stated.

To be even more fair, the Android equivalents are TERRIBLE.  Formatting issues abound.

[Ian Mulligan]

Unsurprising. Definitely one of the problems, just not a $600 one.

[the_trooper]

Unsurprising. Definitely one of the problems, just not a $600 one.

A $150 problem then.

[the_trooper]

So something about this conversation confuses me:

GW codexes / Supplements:

Death From the Skies
Blood Angels
Chaos Space Marines
Dark Angels
Dark Eldar
Iyanden
Eldar
Chaos Daemons
Grey Knights
Imperial Guard
Necrons
Orks
Space Marines
Space Wolves
Tau
Farsight Enclaves
Tyranids

Black Library Codexes / Supplements:
Sentinels of Terra
Adepta Sororitas
Black Legion
electronic versions of SM/Tau/Eldar

Forgeworld:
Imperial Armor Supplements


So, until it is published under GW main, doesn't that make it unofficial? While all three are GW, only GW main is seen as official, the rest are seen as optional supplements.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Hey, look, people choose what rules they want to use.  Not a lot of people use planetstrike, etc, because frankly the rules are unbalanced and nonsensical.  But some people do, and if my buddy, really, really wanted to I could be convinced to do so for a laugh. 

Forgeworld?  I'm more inclined to pick by the unit whether it's "ok" or no. 

Tournaments are just the same thing, except it's a group larger than two people voting on whether it's OK or not. 

All the supplements so far, seem relatively balanced, at least the 2 pages or so of rules meant for "normal" 40k. 

[andalucien]

So, until it is published under GW main, doesn't that make it unofficial? While all three are GW, only GW main is seen as official, the rest are seen as optional supplements.

I've never seen anyone make a distinction in the "officiality" of GW vs. Black Library Digital publications.  Maybe because many of the digital publications are just the same as some of GW's printed books, only digitized   Anyway, yeah... there's lots of debate about whether ForgeWorld should be considered "as official" as GW but not really about Black Library Digital.

[Benjamin]

That is fine, but I suspect many people will take exception to not being able to use legal army books.  this is not like the FW situation.

My concerns for what is "legal" regards only what the store says is legal for store events, in order to make the best event possible. The community is paramount to me. Digital releases are an invitation to invite misunderstandings at best, and truly bad blood at worst. That's by far my largest concern. I've played in competitive games in which I asked many questions before deployment, but lost the game because of the one question I didn't ask. Competitive games do not invite a full disclosure of the army rules.

What Games Workshop says matters less to me by the day, a direct result of their treatment toward the brick-and-mortar stores.

My solution would be that the digital releases be given a far greater buffer before being allowed. BG normally gives two weeks buffer on new print codices. How about two months (or more) for digital releases?

[andalucien]

By the same token, there is a benefit to this new flood of digital releases.  Namely, the releases have cool stuff in them that let people build more unique armies. 

15 codexes is better than 3 because it allows for more variety and adds depth to the universe.  For the same reason, in a sense, 30 codexes is better than 15.