Warhammer 40k: GW App Required for Competitive Play?
The Games Workshop Army Builder app is up and running, but should 40K tournaments make it mandatory?
Some exciting stuff coming out of Games Workshop. We are finally getting a non Space Marine codex in a few weeks. But of course, it is offset by all the Space Marine White Dwarf Index armies. Once things settle down, hopefully, we can get the release schedule going again and get updated rules to compete against all the marine codexes out there.
One other thing that Games Workshop released was their 40k app. More importantly, they finally released the long-promised army-building aspect of the app. This week I want to talk about the future of this app, and others in a sense, and how it will relate to tournaments in the future. Specifically, I want to talk about whether tournaments should require a player to submit their army list using the Games Workshop app and no other. This makes the assumption that the app has reached a point where it is fairly stable and as accurate as other list building apps.
Argument Against
There is no reason to restrict list submission to just one app. Many tournament organizers can already use other list-building apps to submit army lists and many of them have already made the adjustment to already include the list output from Games Workshop’s app. These other apps are just as good as the Games Workshop app but at a much cheaper cost. You are not required to buy anything in addition to the cost of the app, if there is a cost at all, and you have everything you need right there.
Sure you won’t have your codex in the app but you easily have the rulebooks you are using nearby and easily accessible if they are needed for some reason. There are also some people who will not use Games Workshop’s app at all due to brand loyalty, so why punish them? The best way to get the maximum amount of people to attend an event is to allow them the freedom to choose which app they want to use to build their army and submit it to the tournament in the approved format. If you put a restriction on what tools to use to build your lists it will just cause division in the community.
Argument For
The requirement to only being able to use the Games Workshop app is not really that big of a deal. The Age of Sigmar army builder, which the 40K app is based on, is used in a large number of events and has very few, if any, issues. The 40K version will easily be the same standard. Cost isn’t really a factor. Currently, the app is under $2.00 a month and if that is causing a problem for you then you have other issues. You are buying your army’s codex anyway so you are spending the money whether you use the code for the codex or not, so you may as well use it. Unlike some army builders, the list output that Games Workshop app produces doesn’t waste as much space and you don’t even need to play with the settings to get that.
One of the big bonuses to having the Games Workshop app handy is that the app can be considered an official source when there are rules disputes. Many tournaments do not consider other apps as official rules when there is a rules issues. In addition, many times players won’t even bring their codex because their rules are in the app they are using. The downside to this is that the judge will usually not consider that app as official and penalize the player for not having their codex. If you are bringing the Games Workshop app you also have the rules right there. Since the app is an official product of the company then any rules that are in the app would be considered official by the tournament, which means that you can safely leave your codex at home because all your reading material is on your phone or tablet.
Final Thoughts
I personally would prefer that players use the official app of the company that makes the game, no matter the game system. Now, this assumes that most of the bugs in the app will have been worked out enough that using the app is viable. There is also the question of what the big tournaments will do. We have already seen Games Workshop exert their influence in regards to the models and armies that are allowed onto the stream games at these big events so we will have to see what happens on that front. in any case, I look forward to seeing how it develops.
~That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. let me know what you think, and what you really think of the Games Workshop app and whether you plan to use it if it gets better, in the comments section below.
