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Having to start record my games with friends, what do people look for in battle reports? Obviously being cool funny people, yeah. Personality is a plus. But what do people do more often than they should, that they don't? Not being a veteran of table top, could you guys help me out? What should I do, or not do to please the board? And dakka in itself.

There's a wealth of information on how to write battle reports compiled in this thread. Check it out.


How to write Batreps - some tips and tricks

Thank you based jy2

Check out Jy2's, they're the best here, IMO. If you like more of a narrative feel, their are some brilliant Bat Reps that create a story, too.

We make a lot of Video Bat Reps, those require some software and video editing skills, but they're faster to produce.

Good luck with it! Always nice to have some new stuff to watch!

Fully painted miniatures and nice terrain have to be the baseline, IMO. I won't waste my time reading a batrep with grey plastic minis playing on a card table with shoebox hills, no matter how witty or well-written the commentary may be. I also prefer in-focus, cropped pictures over Vassal or video batreps. A basic overview pic of each player turn and some close-in action shots of pivotal moments or story-telling vignettes. Unless you're a fair writer, I would also skip the narrative style and simply do a good job of explaining the action in the pics. My favs on Dakka tend to be from Gordy2000 and ArbitorIan.

I love the many different styles of bat reps here on dakka. My personal favourites are less competitive and more fluffy.
And I echo pretty much everything the_Armyman has to say.

Tactically speaking, I need to know what's going on. You really don't need much to achieve this, but you'd be surprised how often this gets screwed up. Big offenders are people who never take a zoomed out picture of the table, people who never provide concise summaries of what's going on and, nearly worst of all, people who cram their reports with endless reams of unnecessary detail. I don't need to know what exactly went where and a roll call of who shot at which exact units, and what the exact die rolls are. Too much information detracts from understanding.

On a side note, another thing that bugs me is reports that get bogged down in tactics and refuse to talk about big-picture strategic stuff. Also, people who put their breakdown of the game interspersed between giant blocks of useless detail. I'd rather have all of the actually useful information and reflection all in one place so that I can skip the rest of the junk.

Aesthetically speaking, I'm also not the biggest fan of video battle reports either. Usually they break the above rule on trying to figure out what is going on, and take a lot longer to take in all the content than a written report. Also, they tend to be filled with inane chatter intermixed with awkward pauses (or worse, tacky heavy metal music) and tend not to be well-edited. They also tend to lack any narrative things at all. Any semblance of story tends to be in the form of a story about the players, not a story that was created by in-game events.

Nice, close-in pictures are always a big plus, if not always easy to pull off given the limitation of cameras, especially in low light, and if the camera is also a phone. I'm not that big of a stickler for having two painted armies and beautiful terrain. Perhaps that's due to an entire gaming career of playing against grey armies on whatever terrain happened to be lying around. Kind of used to it, I guess.

As for narrative writing, that's a wildcard for me. Most fiction writing in battle reports is really shabbily done warporn that lacks really any literary quality whatsoever. That said, when it's done nicely (you know, where you have things like believable dialogue and characters, etc.), it's a real treat. It's definitely the thing I work hardest on with my battle reports, especially now that I've split the report into a tactical and narrative work as separate pieces.

Even if the person isn't a novel writer, a little bit of tastefully done fluff at the beginning is always a nice touch. Better than "So, this game was an 1850 point game between the current most powerful codex and the second most powerful codex.... again..."

I agree with Allaros on the use of video batreps. A battle is a big thing to take in and I like the idea of being able to take it at my own pace. I also agree that they tend to be about the players rather than the game. You might find that useful, but I prefer to concentrate on cool images of models and avoiding anything unneccesary in the shots so as not to distract.

The biggest thing we get comments on in our battle reports is the overhead shots, taken on a well-lit, clutter-free table at the end of every player turn. Having a good 'overview shot' each turn which is always from the same POV is essential, I think. People need to be able to see the big picture. Recently, we've been experimenting with clear markers to show movement and little white skulls to show dead models.



In general, we stick to these rules when making reports, which keep them consistent and (more importantly) quick to make.

- Only painted models on painted terrain. We make big glossy photo reports, and so we want the photos to look good. We realise that half the reason people read reports is to look at the armies in action. We occasionally break this rule, but only with one or two new toys.

- Well lit table. If you can, turn on all the lights in the room, pointed at a white ceiling to bounce down on the table. Don't rely on a single big window, as it will only cause directional shadow. We usually draw the curtains to avoid this.

- Pictures of the armies beforehand. It helps people to understand what you've got, and link the unit in the list to what your version looks like.

- Picture of deployment, explanation of the mission, etc.

- Keep the table clear. No dead models, dice, templates, books, lists, drinks etc on the table (as much as possible). The exception is one really big dice as a turn marker - it will be handy later when writing the report...

- Keep a good routine for taking photos. Usually, at the end of each player turn, we'll clear all dice, books etc from the table, take photos of the three or four important things that happened, then take the overhead. The advantage of this is that, when it comes to write the report, you don't need to have any notes - the photos will be in numbered order, and the overhead shots provide handy turn markers, all of which will allow you to remember what happened.

- Keep the text minimal. Just explain the important things (you'll know what these are because of the photos). 'Sum up' the turn in the overhead shot. Try and write neutrally, even if you lost!

Check out miniwargaming.com for great video battle reports. They are the best on the net in my opinion.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Having a good 'overview shot' each turn which is always from the same POV is essential, I think.

If you've got this, along with both sides' lists, I will read your report. Good terrain density and terrain is a plus as well.

Things I THE CONSUMER don't care about at all:
-unpainted models
-counts as models as long as they're explained
-picture quality as long as you can see what's what

Things that turn me off:
-kill points
-games under 1k or over 2k
-no pictures (maybe I have ADD)
-everything is a narrative
-tables with nearly no terrain
-"this is roughly my opponent's list"

Probably my favourite batrep in a long time: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/482827.page

Good lighting
Terrain heavy table
Camera w/ Macro
Army lists explained
Painted armies
Players explaining some but not all moves
Showing where objectives are clearly

I watch batreps all the time to learn how to play different armies so when I do face them I have some tape on them.

I watch BTP, Ardvark85, BOLS, freshcoat40k, Jawaballs, Reecius, and Skaredcast out of Canada. I occasionally watch Miniwargaming but imo they show a lil' too much dice.

A wide table view is a plus too.

Best of luck!!

ArbitorIan wrote:Keep the text minimal. Just explain the important things (you'll know what these are because of the photos).

Right, and that's, I think, the cause of a lot of problems. People who present their content in pictures and then go point by point and write everything down are just as bad as people who make a powerpoint presentation where all of the slides are giant blocks of text, and the presentation is them reading verbatim off of the slides.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Don't repeat yourself. If there's something that can be quickly communicated by a visual image, going back and explaining it again isn't useful, it just makes things cluttered.

The only thing worse is when people don't have any pictures at all, and have to communicate what happened the hard way, through giant blocks of text.

Oh, and there's something I've gone back and forth with about battle reports, and that's how you title them. When I did my first battle report series, I didn't provide any information about it, only the brand (so, "my 32nd public game" would be the title). This was designed so as not to push people away. There are a lot of people with strange biases like "I'll never read a battle report if it's less than 1500 points!" or "I'll never read a battle report if my army isn't in it". If you don't give them that information, you don't give them the excuse to skim over it.

On the other hand, there are people who will just skim over battle reports if the title doesn't include their biases. For example, if someone is only willing to view battle reports about imperial guard at over 1500 points, and I produce a battle report that fits that set of parameters, but don't include this information in the title, then they'll just skip over it anyways.

It's difficult for me to tell what has better marketing. I'm almost getting to the point of titling my battle reports like people put tags on porn. Regardless of the content, you just attach every possible buzzword to it and it will get people's attention.

Perhaps my next report should be "The Hand of the King - Episode XV (PICS! Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Necron, WAAC, 1000 points, 2500 points, Apocalypse, Free boobs!)"

There's only one simple rule in my book when it comes to good battle reports, and that is to have pictures, in particular ones that are big and clear enough to see. After that everyone has their own writing style.

jy2 and ArbitorIan are your best bets to look at on dakka.

i really skim most reports. a photo narrative is great. the way they do it in white dwarf is really good: top down shots, even some "X"ed out models for things that died really helps paint the picture.

lean text, just enough detail to know what happened, but i don't need to know you shuffled your marines 2" to the right and they didn't fire. but if your zerkers charged and wiped out the opposing command squad, that's useful info. any personal flavor or humor is great--if it's well written--which it often isn't. i almost never read fluff. if you have observations about a squad's performance and how it met your expectations, that's always worthwhile knowing if it plays a key part in the battle.

you don't need fancy telephoto/macro lenses, either. most people who try to get fancy with cameras in bat reps usually set the f-stop way too large, photograph their squads way too close, and maybe 1.5 models of 10 are in focus and what could have been an otherwise informative shot of a nicely painted squad or army is ruined. a decent photographer could document a battle with cell phone photos better than a poor photographer with an 800 dollar macro lens.

I've been writing bat reps for some time now, here's a few things which can help:

1. People like reading/looking at bat reps for the pretty pictures. I know when I read other people's reports I just skip through the text and look at the models.

2. Get a shot of the board from the same angle every time. Get close up shots of models, POV pictures are loads better.

3. Before writing the actual report, list the armies, mission and deployment etc.

4. Biggest one of all if you're using pictures is make sure they are well lit. You can upload them here on dakka which makes them look better. The more pictures the better!

It has to have nice clear pictures. I don't like video reports or text reports. Nice clear pictures are key, and I absolutely love reports where pics have been edited with colorful arrows to show movements and kills. Text should be brief and casual, and a quick tactical overview should be spoilered. If you aren't really good at imaginitive narrative, don't do it. I have no intrest in reading your weird fluff intro that makes little sense because i don't know (and don't want to know) your army's personal fluff and you aren't good at writing. If you aren't sure, then ask friends, or do it once, and if no one makes positive comments on the literature, then don't do it again.

Actual battle reports.
No useless guessing games or creating a topic that goes for days without anything other than army lists.

I'm also in the pictures > videos crowd.

 Macok wrote:
Actual battle reports.
No useless guessing games or creating a topic that goes for days without anything other than army lists.

I'm also in the pictures > videos crowd.

Oh god yes.

Just upload the whole fething thing at once. I don't want to guess who is going to win, or have a page of comments in between every turn...

2nded. Everything at once. No "one turn a day" policy.

Yeah,

 Ailaros wrote:
...how you title them. When I did my first battle report series, I didn't provide any information about it, only the brand (so, "my 32nd public game" would be the title). This was designed so as not to push people away. There are a lot of people with strange biases like "I'll never read a battle report if it's less than 1500 points!" or "I'll never read a battle report if my army isn't in it". If you don't give them that information, you don't give them the excuse to skim over it.

On the other hand, there are people who will just skim over battle reports if the title doesn't include their biases. For example, if someone is only willing to view battle reports about imperial guard at over 1500 points, and I produce a battle report that fits that set of parameters, but don't include this information in the title, then they'll just skip over it anyways.

It's difficult for me to tell what has better marketing. I'm almost getting to the point of titling my battle reports like people put tags on porn. Regardless of the content, you just attach every possible buzzword to it and it will get people's attention.

Perhaps my next report should be "The Hand of the King - Episode XV (PICS! Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Necron, WAAC, 1000 points, 2500 points, Apocalypse, Free boobs!)"

Interesting.
I myself skim, I skim the list for a game that looks like it takes my fancy, then i skim the batrep to check for quality before i dedicate time to reading it.
The smart skimer can also spot advertisment ploys 'Bestest ever batrep ever- you must see!!!' ... pass.

So a all encompasing yet bland title of intrigue might be best? I've got it.

"Painted Armies Doing a Sensible Glorious Concise Interesting Battle - Reported For Your Pleasure - XXX"

?

Winning.

Panic...

^add in "Plenty of pics included" and you have yourself a winner.

I do enjoy video battle reports. Here are some things that are big turnoffs:

-complaining endlessly about bad dice rolls. Okay, I get it. you rolled a double one for your charge, or failed all your saves, that sucks. I'm not saying any normal person wouldn't complain but it sucks hearing it over and over again in video format.

-quickly blurbing over who shot at who without any cinematic value whatsoever. If the batrep is more of a tactical analysis, I'd like some insightful commentary and something cool to look at. If it is about the banter, then I'd like some entertaining banter... but it doesn't have to be.

-rules mistakes. I know it's hard but when you watch batreps where they get simple rules wrong over and over again it kind of defeats the purpose, because the game they are playing is different than the game I'm playing... this means going above and beyond what you would with your friends, reading the rulebook several times and being aware of FAQ's, reading threads here on dakka and elsewhere about rules disputes and correct interpretations.

-grey models and crappy terrain... although it's not so bad in a tactical video where the main content is analysis of the game and what is going on in the game.

In a cinematic batrep, I think a good way of treating it is like a small movie. So the armies should be painted and the terrain and it should go together naturally, the big dice rolls should be filmed as the players play it, and the army lists should produce an entertaining battle when they go against each other. (unlike, say, a necron flyer list just flys over everything, the units on the ground run away and take little potshots... nothing happens). Things should die going into battle with another or shooting at one another in epic ways. The forces should be evenly matched as well.

I don't look for pdf files

 CuddlySquig wrote:
I don't look for pdf files

never.

On a similar note, I don't like threads where the OP is basically just a link to the report on someone's website. It's great that people have blogs and the like, but when I click on a thread, I expect to see content, not just hyperlinks.

I mean, how difficult is it really to copy/paste the report from your website and post it as an actual thread on dakka?

Sprotsmanship is good to see.

 Niiai wrote:
Sprotsmanship is good to see.

Unless it's a video, it's a bit tough to spot that in a battle report.

"Painted Armies Doing a Sensible Glorious Concise Interesting Battle - Reported For Your Pleasure" is now online!

Surely we will get snowed under by comments, since this is surely the perfect name for a batrep?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/488935.page

@Arbitorian

Those overhead shots, and skull counters are brilliant! Really cool, man.

What do you do to get those really nice shots? Do you have a frame over the table? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

I want to start doing regular written reports for Frontline and I think that format you've got is really nice.

 Reecius wrote:
@Arbitorian

Those overhead shots, and skull counters are brilliant! Really cool, man.

What do you do to get those really nice shots? Do you have a frame over the table? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

I want to start doing regular written reports for Frontline and I think that format you've got is really nice.

Thanks, Reece! There's not much technique to it, though. Panic stands on a tall stool and takes a photo from above. Lots of light on the table means that the exposure can be quite short, reducing the chance of shake. We use a Ricoh compact camera with a reasonably wide lens. They're usually a bit wonky, but passed through Photoshop to pull the corners of the table into the corners of the frame.

The other photos, in the grid layouts, are done with a handy bit of software I can't remember the name of - best to PM Panic.

Panic wrote a tutorial on the cropping bit - http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/How_to_Make_BattleReport_Map_Photos

The skulls are from Litko - http://www.litko.net/products/Skull-Tokens-%28Casualty-Markers%2C-Set-of-10%29.html#.UKQTsYVQhzc