'Appy Thoughts

Do you see what I did there? Do you? Do you? Did you see? It was ever so clever. Really it was.

Anyways.

I'm here to sing the praises of the Age of Sigmar App, and how it interacts with the General's Compendium.

First up - what is the App?

Well, for those of us with iPads and what-not, it's frankly a god send. Without paying a penny, you can download every single unit Warscroll onto your device. Even Forgeworld one. Even ones for armies no longer made (Bretts and Tomb Kings). Even for units no longer produced (commonly referred to as 'Legacy' units). All for free.

And once you've downloaded them? A simple click on the crossed hammers icon on their entry adds them to 'My Battle'.

And the way the Warscrolls are organised is pretty straight forward - provided you know which of the four factions they're found in (possibly problematic for total newcomers, and a bit of a pain for the FW gribblies), you can then view them by sub-factions. So say I just want to see the rules for Bonesplitterz? Tap 'Destruction', tap 'Selected Faction', and choose from the drop down menu. Easy peasy!

But, for me, the true gold here is when you buy the General's Handbook via the App (found under Books, sub-heading 'Gaming Aids'). It's a mere £10 and all, which is nice. Soon as you've done that, you gain a new option under the 'My Battle' tab. And that option is to view the points value for the unit.

Now - it's not perfect. You can only add one of each scroll to My Battle, so there needs to be some extrapolation if you wanted say, three units of 10 Ironjaw Brutes - and the points displayed are the basic building block points (so 180 for Bruters), and there's not currently a way to go further.

But what is handy about that, is it combines quite beautifully with a written army list - your opponent can easily check your 'building block points' are correct, and thus be confident there's no short counting shenanigans going on!

But there's more to enjoy. Oh yes.

If you've bought all your books via the App (I haven't, I went paper copies. More on that in a bit), you can access the Battleplans, Time of Wars and Allegiance Abilities contained therein, and add them to 'My Battle' - so all the rules you need for the game are right there on a single tab page. Simple and elegant, and saves faffing about desperately trying to find the right book, only to remember the Battleplan you wanted is in the book you didn't bring.....

Again, only downside here is that for fans of the physical like myself, there's currently no method or means to 'unlock' the associated Battleplans etc without buying them via the App (the various plans and that can be bought separately to the books as well, if that's your thing)

So say I wanted to add the Beastrider's 'Olwyr Alfrostun', but didn't want to buy the rest of the book? Save your £20.00, and just pay £1.49 for that Batallion Scroll.

But.....I'm hopeful GW are genuinely looking into this. Even if it involves an in-store 'purchase verification' thing, or a one-off code for the App, I'm sure it's doable

If you've got the right techytoy to make use of this app, I heartily recommend it!

I've found the APP to be pretty much essential and I've bought the electronic version of the physical books I've bought because it's just so damn useful to have it all on the app.

I 'd also add that Warscrolls are added to it as soon as a unit/book goes up for preorder so it's good to get the info early (unless you're one of the people who get hold of rediculously early White Dwarfs).

Indeed - though the Scrolls aren't always 'Battletome Accurate' until the books out - found that with the Ogres.

I will agree that the AoS app is indeed very handy. I am pretty impressed at the quality. Are there improvements to be made, you betcha'. But for their first go around it is surprisingly good. About the only thing I'm peeved about is the text in my Fyreslayers Battletom is formatted badly (ipad Air2). Not so much to be unreadable, just takes you out of the moment.

For gameplay it'd be nice if there was a way to switch between books. I find going from the general's handbook into something else (the base rules) and back and it drops my spot. Again not a huge issue yet distracting. Still better than dragging a ton of books around. I'm soooo glad I don't have to do that anymore.

I've been experiencing the same with the General's Handbook in the App which is an issue, it's quite easy to use the contents tabs to get back but it isn't as slick as it should be.