Hard Copy vs. Electronic

[Sleboda]

Hi folks,

I'm currently participating in a weekend of tournaments (Best Appearance Team yesterday, 2-1 today on day one of five game singles event so far ...) and I've noticed something.

More people are using phones with the AoS app to look up warscrolls than I've seen before. In two days I've faced six opponents, and I think four, maybe three, of them used the app instead of paper. It really stood out to me.

I don't know that a poll is needed (but maybe), but I'm interested in a general discussion of hard copy versus app for finding rules.

Me, personally, as an old, old man with bad eyes and I love of the smell of paper, just can't make the switch to digital. That said, I know lots of people feel differently.

What are your thoughts? Paper? Digital?

Key question: Does the setting make a difference? If you are playing basement games as opposed to tournaments, does that impact your choice?

Just curious.

[Kramer]

Paper at home and digital on the road. That’s been my ‘strategy’ in AoS so far. Edit: and looking up Rules specifics always digital as to use the search function. 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Kramer

[AaronWilson]

I like having the digital copy so I can read the book whereever I want I like having the physical copy with me when I go to play events.

[JPjr]

I imagine it’ll be exactly like comics. For years I would have said I’d rather have pushed my arm into a wood chipper than give up physical copies, and then I tried comixology and didn’t look back. Now a few years later, in terms of weeklies anyway, I have thousands of digital comics and limit my physical floppy purchases to noteworthy issues and indie comics.

pretty sure with battletomes and the like it will be the same hence I’m going to pigheadedly avoid crossing that particular rubicon as long as I possibly can.

which in a way is particularly dumb in this game as You could easily make a case that the physical books are a massive stumbling block to updating/fixing armies in a more meaningful way than just buying-annual points changes.

Saying that there will always be a place in my heart for nicely designed physical products and it’s interesting seeing publishers rise to that challenge. In the RPG world I have hundreds of cheap, shonky looking PDFs but I just gaze adoringly at the likes of ALIEN, Ultraviolet Grasslands or Mörk Borg, and you’ll have to prise the physical editions of these out of my cold, dead hands before I’d part with them.

I would be gutted to not have physical BTs, I guess you could make a case maybe to split them in 2, a bit like the Generals handbook, big book with all the fluff/lore then a separate soft cover supplement with all the warscrolls, points, battalions, abilities etc. Would be easier to just update that section then (& of course carry to games) but then would the fluff bit be big enough to merit a nice hardback? And if people could just buy the rules section separately when it was updated would cannibalise sales? Questions, questions!

Edited November 10, 2019 by JPjr

[JackStreicher]

I am using my phone mostly though I dislike it (I don‘t have all them Warscroll cards). It annoys that you have to take it out of your pocket, and look at a tiny screen and afterwards unlock it again to look at the same rules.

this is different with allegiance abilities and other non-warscroll rules: the AoS Battletomes have the weirdest and worst Order of rules so I prefer the digital copy for easy and quickly was of use.

[Panzer]

Physical copies to have at home in my shelf, digital copies for practical use.

[KK9T]

I like both. I like sitting on the couch with a physical battletomb and appreciating the art and stories. I also see the benefits of having some sort of tablet or iPad with a digital copy for when playing at events. It's very much the same way I appreciate spotify for having music in my car or at work, while I enjoy the sound and artwork of a good vinyl record in my own home.

[Pariah]

I'm young and I mostly play pick up games at the local gaming store so I have to transport everything, but I far prefer physical copies. I love how non-digital this hobby can be, and it feels way more authentic to me. 

[Bufkin]

I started with warhammer in the 80s, Ill choose digital any day over physical copy so its not just an "old guy" thing.

[Bufkin]

14 hours ago, JPjr said:

I imagine it’ll be exactly like comics. For years I would have said I’d rather have pushed my arm into a wood chipper than give up physical copies, and then I tried comixology and didn’t look back. Now a few years later, in terms of weeklies anyway, I have thousands of digital comics and limit my physical floppy purchases to noteworthy issues and indie comics.

Same. I bought my first Ipad to read comics, my plan was just to get stuff that was out of print... Im almost 100% digital today

[Thostos]

 The digital Battletomes are pretty much half the price of the Hard copy when purchased in the Azyr app.

 Been playing from day one and been using Azyr since it came out,,its probably the main reason why I cant get back into 40k or any other army building minis game,,..too many books to fiddle through while trying to play a game:)
 

[Eevika]

I use the app for warscrolls but always have a physical book for other rules 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Eevika

[Inquisitorsz]

I do both... I print out a bunch of stuff for a tournament but that's also because I have lots of extra things. 
I'll put the rules for artifacts, spells, battalions, real effects as well as scenario pages and any other reminders for may army. 
An app that just shows the army or individual warscrolls doesn't do that. 
I  print all this out into a little plastic pocket book. I don't carry around the 3-4 rule books and battletomes necessary to play the game. That's super annoying. 
I also don't like paying for a battletome twice (physical and digital) so I don't have the battalions and realm items on my app. 

The app is great for building and a quick check of warscrolls. But it's missing too many things. Even if you do pay for the extra unlocks, I don't think you can easily view spells or items in the app. 

You could use something else like Battlescribe but then that's community driven so can have errors too. 

That being said, I generally prefer the digital options if they're done right. But that's mainly due to the ability to keep them updated and issue FAQ and balance updates in a quicker and easier manner. I don't think GW utilizes it's digital platforms as well as it could. 

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Inquisitorsz said:

But that's mainly due to the ability to keep them updated and issue FAQ and balance updates in a quicker and easier manner. I don't think GW utilizes it's digital platforms as well as it could. 

I think this is indeed a very important point to make. If hey did update the digital versions with every faq, points change and maybe even new links in the painting section if there’s a new warhammerTV tutorial for that faction... they would worth so much more to me. 

[RuneBrush]

I'm quite old school and would much rather have a physical copy - warscroll cards are ideal size for me and I personally think are a bit quicker.  Downside is that they take up space on the table and make any photo's you take look nowhere near as pretty as they should do.

Digital wise my issue is that as good as the app is, I don't think there's an easy way to have access to everything in one hit - adding an artefact to a hero doesn't display it on the digital warscroll, so you end up with additional faff too.  I also think that phones are just too small, something like a small tablet works a lot better, but there isn't a quick way to jump between warscrolls and such like.

[Naem]

On 11/10/2019 at 8:20 AM, Kramer said:

Paper at home and digital on the road. That’s been my ‘strategy’ in AoS so far. Edit: and looking up Rules specifics always digital as to use the search function. 

Would be my strategy as well, but I do not feel like barring the costs of paying double for every book. If you would get a code to download the digital version with every book you buy in print, that would be a sweet deal. But paying 2x 30€ for the same Battletome for example is just to much.

So to answer the topic's question. I switched to digital and use the books with my Ipad. Especially the gaming book is a good product as it contains all the rules you need including realm rules and endless spells in just one document (which is searchable making it way easier to find a specific passage when needed). 

But I miss the paperbacks of course. The feel and smell are uncomfortable - but its just not worth it for me, unfortunately. 

[Beastmaster]

I use the app for reading through warscrolls of armies I am not playing. Of course, warscroll builder for experimenting with possible builds. Everything else has to be paper for me. Just personal preference.

[Spears]

I use paper but after every event I tell myself I'm going to take some scissors to the books. Why GW insist on putting path to glory etc in amongst the more commonly required rules baffles me.

[Overread]

At least the AoS armies aren't too bad. The 40K ones where prices are far more broken up and complex you've got pages for unit profiles then separate pages for weapon profiles then separate pages for points and then separate pages for upgrades for those models - GAH! Whilst in theory they've put all the same type of information together it can make putting together something like a Tyranid army a nightmare as many units share the same weapons and upgrades so your'e always flicking around the book like crazy. 

 

 

Personally I prefer books and hard copies for reference of rules. I find it far faster to flip through a book than a digital document and have always preferred my reference material in book form for that reason. 
Warscroll cards also take a lot of flipping back and forth out as all the info you need is pretty much on the card itself. Add to that a written army list with a notation of artifacts and such or some handy tokens etc... 

Honestly with regard to printed material the only issues tend to be when you have to lug the BIG RULE BOOK anywhere; which these days is pretty much not needed with the new mini-book that GW has printed and all the rules copies that they've put into the twin boxes (which you can easily get off ebay for not too much if you never get a twin box )

 

If I were to use digital books I'd use a tablet, no squinting at a phone screen at the least. Though I'd likely still take the books because books don't run out of battery; have sudden hissy fits at nothing or decide to suddenly need an update of something because its got some wifi

 

[XReN]

I really like having a hard copy of the book and after I buy it I don't see the point of buying digital as well. 

I use the App or battletome to look up the rules, I use AoS Reminders for stuff I haven't memorised yet and I buy warscroll cards mostly for tokens but usually use only old 1st ed SCE objective tokens in my games. It's much faster to memorise and my opponents haven't complained about forgeting some important effect that I used and vice-versa. 

I'd gladly start using digital books if GW would print an unlock code in physical copies to gain a digital one for free and if they would update those digital copies with FAQs and Erratas.

[Naem]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

At least the AoS armies aren't too bad. The 40K ones where prices are far more broken up and complex you've got pages for unit profiles then separate pages for weapon profiles then separate pages for points and then separate pages for upgrades for those models - GAH! Whilst in theory they've put all the same type of information together it can make putting together something like a Tyranid army a nightmare as many units share the same weapons and upgrades so your'e always flicking around the book like crazy. 

 

You are so right! And I can not really understand why GW is not doing anything about it. Why is there no warscroll builder for 40k for example? It is so terribly complicated to build an army in 40k with all the separate point costs and the beloved Battlescribe is the best thing we have, but it is not a good app in my eyes. There is plenty of more room to make a user friendly and easily accessible app which would give GW some additional moneys for a relatively low effort. 

 

If I were to use digital books I'd use a tablet, no squinting at a phone screen at the least. Though I'd likely still take the books because books don't run out of battery; have sudden hissy fits at nothing or decide to suddenly need an update of something because its got some wifi

 

I agree again, a tablet is a must for this kind of use - at least for me. It is so much nicer to read the books on a high res big screen, a phone doesn't do it for me at all. And I actually never had problems of the kind you mention. I switched to ipad and digital a few months ago and since then never had a single issue. 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Naem

[TheCovenLord]

For lore reading hard copy all the way. 

 

For every other use an electronic copy on tablet is ideal, easy to carry and can hold not only the tome but also downloaded copies of FAQs and other rulebooks which are very easy to look through with the "find" function. 

[Gorsameth]

52 minutes ago, Naem said:

You are so right! And I can not really understand why GW is not doing anything about it. Why is there no warscroll builder for 40k for example? It is so terribly complicated to build an army in 40k with all the separate point costs and the beloved Battlescribe is the best thing we have, but it is not a good app in my eyes. There is plenty of more room to make a user friendly and easily accessible app which would give GW some additional moneys for a relatively low effort. 

I believe GW at some point said they were working on a 40k version, and then never spoke of it again. So my theory is they tried, then discovered how much more annoying all the separate rules for 40k are and they just said "to much work" and gave up...

 

As for the OP. Digital all the way, not needing to carry a bunch of books is a big plus when travelling to a tournament.

[Panzer]

1 hour ago, Naem said:

You are so right! And I can not really understand why GW is not doing anything about it. Why is there no warscroll builder for 40k for example? It is so terribly complicated to build an army in 40k with all the separate point costs and the beloved Battlescribe is the best thing we have, but it is not a good app in my eyes. There is plenty of more room to make a user friendly and easily accessible app which would give GW some additional moneys for a relatively low effort. 

 

 

 

GW said quite some time ago that they're working on a similar app for 40k. Reality is that they bought a half-arsed webapp from an independent guy and ever since then nothing happened. In that time I could have coded my own app thrice from scratch to finish.

At least we got Battlescribe to help out with writing lists, even though it's not as hard as many people try to make it once you know your army well enough.

[Ryan Taylor]

I use the Azyr App on my ipad. Using the my battle portion allows me to quickly go between the rules quicker than leafing through a book. 

 

I cna understand the frustrations of a phone but the iPad works well.