Easy Army Returns!

Oof. After posting the other day, I got all excited for hobbying this week, only for there to be snow on the ground the following day, and rain and low or even freezing temps for the near future. No priming then...

One bright spot has been the return of Easy Army, which can now be found here:

http://mantic.easyarmy.com/

Easy Army was fantastic for me in Second Edition. I cannot overstate how fabulous a tool it was, and I am glad to see it return.

List building for war games can be tedious. Being based on units (not individual models, like WHFB, for example), Kings of War is different, and a little less tedious, but it can still be a bit of a chore. Do I have enough unlocks? Did I run too many monster slots? Did I run too many duplicate choices? Did my basic math add up? There are a lot of potential pitfalls! Easy Army tackled each and every one wonderfully in Second.

The cherry on top was that in addition to calculating and enforcing your unlocks, and doing all the math, all the rules your list needed were automatically tacked on at the end. This was awesome for me, where basically every game I got in doubled as a teaching/intro game, as I don't have a local community. Forget what Blast does? Right there, same with Phalanx, Individual... you name it. Kings of War has wonderfully accessible general rules, so to put all the applicable minutia and only the applicable minutia in one spot was amazing for running games.

I've only explored a little bit so far, but am very happy. All the old functionality exists, as well as a few quality of life inclusions, like Height of the unit in the list. All great stuff. 

The only downsides are.. you do need an account, and I think you actually need to pay this time. (I set myself up and didn't check the functionality w/o paying, sorry.) Previously, it was freely accessible, funded by ads and donations, but this is fine by me. I like exploring rulebooks, and have "dabbled" in a number of other systems, and nothing comes close to this level of support. This is great. I did the $20/year option as I'm an optimist, but you can dip your toes in for as little as $2.

Truth be told, I've been waiting anxiously for this. Third Edition dropped months ago, and I haven't gotten in a game because of life, but also because it's a ton of extra work for me, being the only one reading the rules and building the lists, and bringing the models to throw down. Folks like the game, but no one seems crazy enough to bite one buy their own rule book and play even semi-regularly. It is what is is. Easy Army and all it's functionality will definitely help me when the stars align and a random game manifests. It's great. Go check it out!