Saturday Product of the Day: The Forge (and alternative methods of building lists)

I used to use the well-known Army Builder by Lone Wolf Development, but recently I have had issue paying 40 bucks for a program they will not support as soon as the next version comes out. So, I delved into the realm of free; buildings lists in programs such as MS Excel and Word. This worked for a while, but I found it still involved a lot of page flipping. So I did an internet search and came up with a nice, free little program named "The Forge".

It is freeware made by a guy named Peter-Anthony Pappas, and you can download the program at his website: http://www.thedigitalfoundry.com/forge/ . He also offers a "Pocket Forge", which will run on most palms and pocket pcs, but this is not freeware. I believe it is shareware, and the full version can be purchased for a small fee. Go to his website to learn more about Pocket Forge, as I do not personally have any experience with it.

As for the Forge: you have to download army lists from a yahoo-based group, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forge-files/ , which requires membership. Not a big deal, because membership to yahoo is free.

Only certain army lists are currently supported, but ambitious and intelligent fellows have the ability to create their own army lists using the built-in editor of the program. Some current Codexes that are most current include:
Space Marines 5th Ed
Orks 5th Ed
Blood Angels 5th Ed
Tau 5th Ed
Tyranids 4th Ed
Eldar 4th Ed
Dark Eldar 4th Ed
Necron 4th Ed
Daemonhunters 4th Ed
Witchhunters 4th Ed
Imperial Guard 4th Ed
Chaos Space Marines 4th Ed

In other words, for 4th edition players there is no problem at all. All the 4th edition codexes are in there, including some neat stuff like a Creature Feature from White Dwarf, as well as alternative languages in some codexes (Only German for CSM and Daemonhunters / Witchhunters, I believe.)

The program is easy to use, and has no limitations on army lists. Meaning: it will not validate your lists and tell you if it is legal. This requires you to have your codex, and know how many of what can go where, but it does do the math for you. It has some rudimentary stats for each model in an army, but it does not include stats for standard equipment they come with. When you print it, for example, it will include the stats for a Missile Launcher in a Tactical Squad, but not the Bolters. Most players have that stuff memorized anyway, and just need a program to quickly calculate point options. That is what this is perfect for, and it's FREE!

Some other small features add to the usability of the program to this end, such as a feature to add up the selected options only. This can tell you how much points you have delegated to wargear, or how many points worth of vehicles you have, for example. It also includes an integrated dice roller, but I have not found this to be as useful. I imagine it might be useful to somebody.

In short, The Forge is a free and easy way to build some army lists without having to fork out the major dough for the AB suite. Also, it keeps players honest by requiring them to have a copy of their codex, which I support fully. I highly suggest checking this program out at:

http://www.thedigitalfoundry.com/forge/

Thanks for reading!