O_o

[Stelek]

So, Generic Units make Army Builder 'hackable' by anyone and worthless for tournaments as I cannot even trust the basic mode of AB.

Why are you guys insisting on doing this?

Who asked for this 'Generic Unit' crap?

Doesn't even throw up any kind of flag.

Way to totally drop the ball.

[Spack]

Generic Units have been in there for as long as I can remember - they're there to allow the addition of custom units for playing groups that allow them, or stuff that is missing from the files (such as when new Apoc datasheets come out), rather than having players need to write extra things on their sheets. It's pretty clear when it's being used, as it writes Generic Unit into the list - and if someone is going to edit the HTML or text outputs to rename this unit so it's less obvious, they can edit those anyway to add/remove/change units.

You should know better than anyone that the AB system itself is not hack proof - if someone wants to change things they will do, no matter what steps are taken by the AB40k maintainers. At least doing it this way it means there's less chance of people trying to modify the race files so they can put in their own units which might also tempt them to tweak a few other units while they're in there.

EDIT: just checked the old AB3 files and it looks like this was added in 40k4v1p14b.ab which is almost 3.5 years old.

[Stelek]

Spack,

This was never available as part of a standard Codex entry before, and you know that.

Or you should, if you actually use AB.

Come on now.

[Homer_S]

Spack,

This was never available as part of a standard Codex entry before, and you know that.

Or you should, if you actually use AB.

Come on now.

The file 40k3v3p45.ab for Army Builder 2.x, which I believe was the last officially supported version, has in every single race an entry marked "Other" that can be used as this one can, to dial up points for some item not handled by the current set of files.

I always used it to show points for a formation that was not yet implemented under Apocalypse, or perhaps is implemented to not show a named character. It could also be used to keep track of some special gear or model in a narrative type campaign.

Since you cannot give the "Generic Unit" stats, isn't that a giveaway that it might not be standard? If someone tried to pass it off as Commissar Yarrick at 20 points less than the codex, it would have all zeroes for stats and no equipment listed. Also the roster options in the footnote show an entry "Generic Unit". As we have discussed before, if tourney organizers want to accept AB output, they should stipulate that the list must be printed with the validation option intact.

Homer

[jlong05]

Any tourney organizer using AB armies unchecked by themselves is asking for trouble. The files are fully open and NOTHING stops someone from changing them, NOTHING stops someone from creating their own units in the current file, and finally NOTHING stops someone from actually creating a complete new datafile themselves. In fact i routinely recommend that to anyone complaining that the xyz codex isn't available yet. We will get to it when we do, if that isnt fast enough, you are free to create it yourself.

Again, Spack did clearly update hi post to indicate the Generic unit is not a new item, but has been a hold over unit since the AB 2.x files. As such, continuing to complain about that unit will get you no where. This thread is closed.