"Army Builder 3.2 Preview Available!" Topic

Army Builder – the Point-and-Click Army Construction software – is adding many cool new features! These features include mobile device roster viewing, model list generation, PDF output, major user interface refinements, and much more! Officially releasing later this month, you can get a sneak peak of Army Builder 3.2 now by visiting our website at

link

The coolest new feature I could ever imagine them doing would be making it work on Macs!

I like the packing list concept but I didn't see the inventory option I was looking for. Hopefully I just missed it.

I hope there will be a discount for those of us who already own the last version…

I second the mac request. With more and more people picking up macs these days it would defintely be a welcome addition.

First, as mentioned in the initial post, existing AB users with an active license will gain access to V3.2 as a free update.

Second, with regard to Macs, there is no native Mac version yet. Our data indicates that a majority of *gamers* that possess Macs also run a variety of Windows programs on their Macs – typically games. Consequently, they have the ability to run Windows via Bootcamp or an emulator like Parallels or Fusion. While we would love to develop a native Mac version, doing so is a huge investment of time and energy for a tiny company like us, and we haven't been able to dedicate the necessary resources yet.

Now to the question about the inventory. The new model list feature can be used to manage inventory, albeit without the flexibility that some users are going to want. There are some major issues with adding full-blown "inventory management".

For the hardcore player, we would need to track everything at the SKU level. Each individual model would need to be tracked. Then we would have to map each model to the specifically equipped units that it could be fielded within. This is a detail that the data file authors would need to adjudicate and maintain, which would add a *lot* of work to their plate.

More than likely, the classifications made by authors would become a source of disagreement due to the subjective nature of how some models can be classified in some games (e.g. 40K). That would entail that we provide a complex interface that allows users to override the default classifications with their own preferences. At that point, the simplicity of using AB disappears.

Then there is the question of how to handle conversions, for which there are no SKUs. However, the player is absolutely going to want to track those models within his inventory.

Now look at the casual players. For the casual player, lots of models can readily fill in for other models. While they generally strive to be WYSIWYG, there is a fair amount of "fudging" that goes on. And that's perfectly reasonable for their play needs.

The complexity of having something that works appropriately for all these different player needs is staggering. Not only would it be lots of work to implement, it would also make the product very complex to *use*. At that point, inventory management would only be truly useful to a very small subset of our users. Until we can figure out a way to handle all of the above competing requirements with a simple interface that makes it readily accessible to that vast majority of our users, a "complete" inventory mechanism just isn't practical. So we're still working out how best to solve this issue.

LWD … this is excellent news. Always a fan of FREE upgrades for current users of anything, and Lone Wold does not disappoint.

It was also nice to read your well reasoned explanation as to why a detailed (and thorough) inventory system would be very hard to implement well. I think having a "models to pack" feature is just right myself.

Will there be any need to upgrade ore revise existing army files? To me, this is THE biggest heartache when using Army Builder. These files are complex, making them hard to build. The entire program relies on volunteers to build (and then maintain) these files, troubleshoot bugs, etc. Anything you can do to make their jobs easier is a big plus in my book.

Again, well done Lone Wolf Development.

We've done our best to ensure that the V3.2 update is 100% backwards-compatible with V3.1 data files. Users should be able to load old data files into V3.2 without any problems. We've verified virtually all the data files ourselves during our testing, so it's possible there will be an exception, but we don't think that will happen.

All of the data file authors that we know about (i.e. that have authoring accounts with us to distribute files via the Updates mechanism) have been given access to the V3.2 Beta. There are a bunch of new features to make their lives easier, so it's likely that most data files that are being developed on an ongoing basis will begin leveraging these new features. At that point, users will need to switch to V3.2 to make use of the new data files. Until that point, though, the old data files should simply work within both V3.1 and V3.2.

Note: There is an important exception to the above. AB provides two "modes" of operation. In addition to the default "user" mode, there is the option to turn on "developer" mode, which enables all sorts of debugging capabilities for data file authors. If anyone has turned on this mode, they will be assumed to be authors and the backwards compatibility will *not* work. In general, this should only affect authors that already have the Beta and know about this limitation. However, there will probably be a few users who turned on the mode to experiment a little and then never turned it off. Those users will run into problems loading V3.1 data files until they turn off developer mode. Once they do that, though, they should be good to go.

I see your point about the inventory issue. While SKU would be the ultimate, I can't imaging it would be maintainable or easy to use. Keeping it simple to code and use would be more important than adding new features. Especially if it made the job of writing data files harder.

The new model list feature used with a master army list seems reasonably close as it is. I look forward to the release.

If the preview screenshots we showed off earlier this month weren't enough, doremicom has put together a video preview of AB3.2. This preview shows off many of the new features in AB3.2 in a short video, including the new user interface, model list output, and more!

You can find the video here:

YouTube link

Is there a list of what rule systems are currently available for download. I'm not computer savy enough to build my own.

Not a comprehensive list, but there are files to support the following "top 20" (and that means I stopped typing up the list once I had 20 titles down that I recognize or play myself):

40K
Bloodbowl
Battlefleet Gothic
Epic Armageddon
Lord of the Ring
Mordheim
Necromunda
Warmaster
Warmaster Ancients
WFB

Anima Tactics
Bab 5: Call to Arms
Chronopia
Flames of War
Helldorado
Hordes
Starship Troopers
Victory at Sea
Wargods of Aegyptus
Warmachine

A quick count of the list when I opened up the program a few minutes ago showed about 50 game systems. That is a little misleading, since a couple of the systems are different language versions of the same rules (so WFB in English and WFB in French is an option – but that's not really two different games).

If you have a specific game in mind, I'd be happy to confirm or deny that game is supported.

I gave it a look, and what I saw was very nice. The only reasion I will not buy it is I don't need it. I did buy AB# for one year, but found AB2 still works for me. Also the games I play there are no data files for.

Oh more thing IT WORKS UNDER UBUNTU LINUX!!!!

Noel