Army Builder: Yes or no?

[C'Thulhu]

Army Buildertends to become a crutch. I know a guy who has it and he hardly ever knows what he's talking about because he doesn't read the codex. I say nay

[Aldramelech]

Honestly, I don't know how anyone does without it. Even at $30-$50 it is worth it. Especially if you have more than one army. Two things to watch out for:
1) When a codex is updated, it usually takes about a month for a new datafile reflecting the changes to come out.
2) As David5th says, sometimes an update can invalidate old files. However, you can get around this a little by saving them in html format.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away the people of a magical land invented a special kind of magic that let you write down things you wanted to remember, they called this magic "Paper and Pen" and it was wonderous to behold............

As to everyone with the "If you write your list it will have 20 gazillion mistakes" view point, I cannot agree.

I always write down my lists and I can honestly say they are 100% accurate because I MAKE SURE they are.

[erwos]

I always write down my lists and I can honestly say they are 100% accurate because I MAKE SURE they are.

Good for you, but most people are not so careful. Put it this way: if the entire 40k community used AB for their lists, it would be a net positive.

[Gop]

I use it and love it. It's so quick to make multiple experimental lists. I find I only use my codexes to check accuracy - human error has occured before believe it or not. I'd recommend you get it and will be happy with it.

[Mal]

I use army builder, i've had it for about 3 years now... I only had the sub for 1 year, after that it becomes free if you don't mind manually doing your updates (which isn't really an issue).

That being said I have yet to have an AB datefile that wasn't full of minor mistakes, so my advice to you all would be this:

AB is a very useful tool to have, it allows you to rework armylists without the tedium of writing everything out, however, never take it as gospel. Always check the final lists against your codex and always take your codex with you to games, AB is a suppliment to your codex, not a replacement.

[Lordgimpet]

Lol if i used the lists I wrote on pen and paper, an archeologist woulds have a better time reading glyphs on an old tomb then my chook scratchings. That said its a case of each to their own as far as choice goes.
I use AB but prior to that I generally scribble stuff down on post-its or my arm while I flick through a codex
then slap it all together in AB. Ive got the other free builder but that lacks detailed unit info you can get in AB by right clicking which also tells where in the codex its found and AB also includes info for Apoc and planetstrike etc.
AB40k.org is a must site for anyone who has AB, and to complain about bugs and such is fine just remember its a site that is made by fans for fans. if you see a bug or error report it, it is usally fixed by the next build.

But in the end just go with what suits you