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As this post doesn't contain a battle report, nor anything similar, it didn't feel right to put this thread there, so I dumped it here. Mods feel free to move.


So, for those who aren't familiar with my work, I write battle reports, and I've done so over the last three editions of 40k. When I started, they were just tactical battle reports, with descriptions of what did what, where and when, with diagrams to show this. Then, as I went, I started adding in little narrative snippets. Then the two parts wound up becoming of equal importance. Then it became about writing long narrations with pictures where the story was based on the game I played, with a tactical breakdown added on as an appendix (with less detailed diagrams).

As I've grown, and played more, just how much 40k isn't a strategy game has become more and more apparent, which is why I've been slowly de-emphasizing it. If only a small number of die rolls or decisions really had a serious impact on the game, then there's no real point in describing everything in nauseating minutia.

But no matter how far I've strayed, I've still been playing book missions, against play-to-win players representing the meta, and have still been talking tactically when the story is done.

Having thought about it for awhile, I think the reason for this is that I've been wanting to stay relevant. Playing the same missions as everybody else, against the same kinds of armies people are coming up against. To have more utility, which would separate my narrative work from being nothing more than yet more fan fiction that no one reads.

I kind of want to complete the transition I've been making, but I'm nervous about it, so I wanted to get input from people. Would you read a battle report if it didn't have a tactical discussion element? Would you read one if it didn't catalogue exact detail about the game? Would you read one if it featured missions the kind which you didn't play, or had special rules that you don't use, or involving armies you're not likely to see (like how people complain about battle reports in WD not representing the average player's reality)? Would it have relevance if it were just a story based on a game with pictures taken of the table top as it progressed?

I wouldn't mind if they were narrative focused but I do want to see what the players did and what they took. It gives me (And probably others) an idea what happened and why it happened. The tactics are also nice for that very same reason. Otherwise, you might as well have have bought a bunch of models, took pictures of them standing around and used random tables to generate the story.

I think what you need to do is focus your narrative style to an ongoing campaign with a single opponent per a variety of story based, interconnecting missions. I admit that I don't read your series but that isn't for lack of trying. Here's why I think it doesn't grab me and why I feel like you should retain your style with the above mentioned refocus;

1: I love narratives in BRs to the point that I feel they are at least a little essential. The issue I find with your stuff is that the reader is sent smack dab right into the narrative with no introductions or reasons for us to care what's going on. Who are these people? What are they fighting for? Why is no one commenting on the fact that guard is fighting imperial fists? It's distracting and hard to latch on to. I feel like a campaign context would help this a thousand times over.

2: we need game references. Not only do they give us a further reason to keep reading, but they help add gravity to the actual narrative. We know it's a game and that the LRBT that just broke the enemy line heroically might take a lucky lascannon shot and die. It destroys plot armour. This also leads into my next point: it actually will help you with narrative. If the worried guardsman rolls a 1 to hit in the trench fight with the ork, you write about how the ork grabbed his weak bayonet thrust by the blade before the choppy comes down. If he rolls a six to wound though, you could describe how that terrified guardsmen eight billion light years from his home world buried the tip of his bayonet ten inches into xeno flesh. Us seeing the connection between hard game data and the narrative. That's what tabletop wargaming is all about and a BR is an opportunity to do it

TheCustomLime wrote: Otherwise, you might as well have have bought a bunch of models, took pictures of them standing around and used random tables to generate the story.

Right, so, this is my fear, of course.

Could you possibly expand on this more? Would it actually appear posed, or just as if it were? If there was still a real game behind it (even if it wasn't explained in non-narrative detail), what would make it feel less "fake"? Just some overhead shots?

I guess I'm more wondering about relevance.

One of the reasons I did my 6th ed reports the way I did was because I scarcely ever re-read my 5th (or especially 4th) edition ones. The problem was that a guard game against what was then the new tyranid codex didn't have much meaning once tyranid got a new codex (or two), and when the meta was different than it is now, and when the rules edition was different. The problem was that all that tactical talk was very relevant at the time, but it has very little relevancy now. Meanwhile, colorful narrative doesn't age. I've actually re-read most of my 6th ed narrative-side reports, some of them more than once.

And the two kind of worked in balance, sort of, with the tactics relevant now and the narrative relevant later. The question is if I got rid of the tactics, would the relevant-later narrative have enough oomph without the relevant-now part.

Las wrote:1: I love narratives in BRs to the point that I feel they are at least a little essential. The issue I find with your stuff is that the reader is sent smack dab right into the narrative with no introductions or reasons for us to care what's going on. Who are these people? What are they fighting for? Why is no one commenting on the fact that guard is fighting imperial fists? It's distracting and hard to latch on to. I feel like a campaign context would help this a thousand times over.

Yeah, that was mostly the result of my playing environment. I sort of had to stitch things together.

There was overarching plots and sub-plots in my last series (they're organized as such on my web page), but they were forced on after the fact. More importantly, though, there wasn't a usual literary flow to it. If you read the reports, you can see how things change because of previous events in previous reports, but there's no nice way to smoothly enter. You just sort of have to jump in. Even starting at the beginning of the series doesn't completely fix this as the characters were already rather fully-formed. There are references to things that happened in my 4th edition reports (what happened to the narrator's arm, for example), but is someone really going to dig through those old 4th ed reports and all their now-useless tactical sections just to go hunting for those gems? Very unlikely.

That's something to consider in any case. One of the reasons I'm bringing this topic up now is that I'm going to be moving somewhere (don't know where, but it will probably be far away) soon, and kind of want to have an idea of how to organize things beforehand, so I can hit the ground running.

Las wrote:2: we need game references. Not only do they give us a further reason to keep reading, but they help add gravity to the actual narrative. We know it's a game and that the LRBT that just broke the enemy line heroically might take a lucky lascannon shot and die. It destroys plot armour. This also leads into my next point: it actually will help you with narrative. If the worried guardsman rolls a 1 to hit in the trench fight with the ork, you write about how the ork grabbed his weak bayonet thrust by the blade before the choppy comes down. If he rolls a six to wound though, you could describe how that terrified guardsmen eight billion light years from his home world buried the tip of his bayonet ten inches into xeno flesh. Us seeing the connection between hard game data and the narrative. That's what tabletop wargaming is all about and a BR is an opportunity to do it

There is a small amount of this in what I've written. Unusually accurate or damaging gunfire being a secret way of saying "was lucky", and writing into the narrative when a character kills another, or a certain number of other dudes, and putting in the him getting wounded when the model took a wound. That kind of stuff.

It's been treated pretty lightly, though. I could certainly add in more.

Warhammer 40,000 is, above all else, a wargame rather than a mass battle RPG. We as gamers want to see what actually transpired to learn from your triumphs and mistakes. Sure, this all may be meaningless since 40k does lack some strategic depth but it's still a nice touch. Of course, if you did just post the narrative batrep and nothing else I am sure you wouldn't get any flak for it. Hell, I don't think many people would even notice they are gone. But adding that BatRep adds... I suppose legitamacy to your narrative.

It's also nice to see the actions that prompted the story in more direct terms. Trying to rationalize a random universe is part of the charm of a narrative batrep series. Some overhead shots would be nice but a brief tactical overview would be a good touch. Plus, you ain't bad at writing tactical batreps.

My own battle reports have started to stray closer to the 'fan fiction based on a game' you mention, and if I knew someone else was jumping into that particular cesspool, I might be willing to jump all the way in as well. Assuming it was well written, it's the only kind of battle report I'd consider reading.

Same, actually. Straight 40k Batreps are a little boring to watch without any narrative to give the violence context. It's a lot more interesting to see the Space Marines defend the holy city of St. Ward from Chaos renegades who seek to defile it than it is to see SM vs. CSM on a table with some ruins on it.

If I may make a suggestion, Ailaros, I would try to do something about the terrain you play on. It really kills the immersion of a batrep to see our finely assembled armies fight over a perfectly grassy field with one or two nice and tidy ruins spread far apart. I am not saying you need Warhammer World level stuff but a little effort into the terrain can go a long way.

Just to chime in with a little text, I checked all of the top five options. I may be a little biased, however, as I have been reading your batreps all along. In particular, I really enjoyed your hand of the king series of 6th ed batreps. Note that this includes the tactical breakdowns, and it would nice to see, at the very least, a toned down version of the tactical breakdowns included, even in a narrative way if that's even possible.

Narrative battle reports are a rare joy in 40k and I treasure them.

Had you posted your stuff on tumblr I'd have probably followed you, reblogged every post, and liked them all.

I would really like to see some batreps about alternative mission types. I also don't need specifics but I would like to know why a leman russ is driving through the opponent's defense line or how a riptide is killed in one turn, at least is a general sense. Overall I would enjoy you getting back into writing batreps whether they have tactical discussion or not.

I'm a big fan of your battle reports and would love to see more of them!

For me missions and "competitiveness" of the armies don't matter at all. I play to get good games and design my armies to that end.

At the table I do play to win though and picking up new builds and tactics is one of the main reasons why I read battle reports. Your last series was a great source of inspiration to me in developing my own guard army and while I usually read your narrative the tacticals are the parts that I have read and sometimes re-read. The thing you did, which not many others do, is to try out non-mainstream builds and explain how they work or why they don't work. It was very refreshing to read someone who has realized that in a game where most games boil down to a few dice rolls, you can easily win games with well designed but not super optimized lists . To me the latest report series, and the tacticals in particular, is still the best online 6th edition imperial guard gaming resource.

So to me the reports would loose relevance if the tactical elements were removed.

Still I think you should write whatever you feel like writing. If it is readers you want I think posting good quality stuff regularly is more important than the focus of the actual content. Especially in a community as big as dakka.

Personally, I think this would be a great idea, for several reasons.

The first being that, if I want to read tactical reports of games, there are dozens of those out there of vary quality, but if I want some game-inspired narrative then there's very little out there (one of the reasons I frequently go back to The Hand of the King). So in my eyes, anything that's less focused on 'must-win-at-toy-soldiers' and more about that much maligned term, Forging A Narrative (something I believe 40k is primarily for), is great.

New and themed mission types would be great to see. Again, it's different, and a batrep for something like the 'endless wave' mission you posted about a few weeks back would be awesome. It would also allow the narrative to go more in the direction you want, rather than being forced by the standard book missions and random opponents. It would allow you 'set the scene' for the narrative before the game, rather than forcing you build story around the game.

I must admit I did find the tactical aspects of your reports interesting, particularly the experiments with lesser-seen Guard builds (The mass-carapace was a particular favourite), but I suppose that could be covered with a simple paragraph or two on 'why I did what I did'. It certainly wouldn't need a separate batrep writeup for tactics a la Hand of the King if you didn't want to do that.

So basically, go for it. It'll be good to see some more of your batreps when you get around to it, whatever form that takes.

I voted:

'I'd read if:
There wasn't a detailed description of lists, unit movement and player decisions;
The games were special missions rather than normal ones;
Players didn't bring cutting-edge armies (or even reasonably powerful ones).'

However, I would actually like to see army lists. Overly detailed reports take too much of my time anyway, but I'm all for some tactical insight. I've enjoyed all your battle reports so far and hope you'll be doing more .

I love the way you already do your battle reports. 40k has little tactical depth, but gorgeous minis and a massive background story, therefore I agree with you, there´s no point in pretending every move was a mixture of rocket science and chess.

Nice to see the support for off-brand missions and off-power armylists.

TheCustomLime wrote:But adding that BatRep adds... I suppose legitamacy to your narrative.

So, bargain with me for a moment. How much do I need for legitimacy? Obviously the more detailed the more legitimacy (right?), but there's probably a value break in there. People noticed when I stopped doing the arrow diagrams (so, big loss), but they were also a pain to do (big cost). What if there was just a tactical sketch? Like, a list of the two lists, a picture of the board, and a couple of sentences of what happened per turn?

I'll also bring this relevance idea back in for a moment. Jy2 and I started writing battle reports for dakka at roughly the same time. The vast popularity of his battle reports are a clear indicator of the fact that what he is doing is very relevant at any given moment, and if I wanted the most possible contemporary relevancy, I'd go back to doing the very detailed tactical stuff. The problem though, well... would you read a Jy2 battle report that was three weeks old? Yeah. Would you read a Jy2 battle report that was three years old? Really? Have you actually gone back and read them?

I mean, I want to provide a good reader experience (or else I wouldn't publish them), which does rather impress upon me to do things that people actually care about, but... I'm also off tactics, and don't want to write stuff no one will read in the future either, and I'm lazy that way.

Jimsolo wrote:and if I knew someone else was jumping into that particular cesspool, I might be willing to jump all the way in as well. Assuming it was well written, it's the only kind of battle report I'd consider reading.

I suppose this is the other side. MAKING a consumer base. Perhaps if there was a reputation for having this kind of work more, then people who otherwise wouldn't even bother checking the battle report boards would actually show up.

You know, if it became a "thing", rather than "those weird ones that aren't like the others".

Jimsolo wrote:My own battle reports have started to stray closer to the 'fan fiction based on a game' you mention

You write battle reports?

I have a nasty habit of getting bored to tears when I read battle reports (a curious character trait for someone who writes so many of them), so I have a nasty tendency of not actually reading them. Which means I don't always check the batrep board as frequently as perhaps I should.

Maybe you me and gordy should start a guild...

TheCustomLime wrote:Ailaros, I would try to do something about the terrain you play on. It really kills the immersion of a batrep to see our finely assembled armies fight over a perfectly grassy field with one or two nice and tidy ruins spread far apart. I am not saying you need Warhammer World level stuff but a little effort into the terrain can go a long way.

You're preaching to the choir here. It's been some time since I've touched a 40k mini with blade or brush. All of my efforts of late have been poured into making terrain. You can see some of what I've been working on here. My ruined cityscape has hit a bit of a speedbump thanks to a nasty gash I gave myself on the ball of my thumb (worst friggin spot), but soon I'll have another couple of terrain pieces up. My hope is to have a whole board worth of terrain by mid-summer.

Barksdale wrote:it would nice to see, at the very least, a toned down version of the tactical breakdowns included, even in a narrative way if that's even possible.

A narrative tactical report? Or weaving tactics more into the narrative report?

zoat wrote:Still I think you should write whatever you feel like writing. If it is readers you want I think posting good quality stuff regularly is more important than the focus of the actual content. Especially in a community as big as dakka.

Sigh... I know... arteest. What's the point of making content if I don't believe in it? It will just be crummy content.

The thing is, though, if I "followed my soul" and just did what I wanted, well, what would be the point in publishing it? The whole point of sharing something is to try and improve the life of the person with whom it's being shared. It's to embetter the lives of as many people as you can to the most amount you can. Otherwise, sharing sort of collapses into a selfish, irrelevant activity, and would make me just another really pretentious artist who is doomed to useless obscurity.

I mean, I SHOULD care about what others think of my work, and if there are ways I can make it better for more people, I should probably do those things... but...

I don't know. There's a MFA in this discussion I'm sure.

I have little interest in seeing book missions with competitive armies. While I like knowing the strategies, tactics, and armies involved in any given battle, you can see highly competitive reports everywhere. It's the interesting, more narrative-driven games that I like. Your reports when you were still new to blob guard are what got me started writing battle reports altogether, and I loved the tactical + narrative format, with really illustrative pictures to define the action.

The thing is, though, if I "followed my soul" and just did what I wanted, well, what would be the point in publishing it?

Others might like what you write even if it isn't a "tailored product"...

Given the effort you put into your batreps and the general quality of your writing I am sure you will get followers regardless of narrative/tactical focus. Different followers depending of focus for sure, but there is definitely a crowd for both flavours at dakka.

Maybe you should get a pseudonym and try out your ideas. Foleran will be a give away for those who know your earlier work, but we won't tell!

lol.

Yes, a new battle report series brought to you by Schmailaros.



If only dakka didn't ban sock puppet accounts.

zoat wrote:

The thing is, though, if I "followed my soul" and just did what I wanted, well, what would be the point in publishing it?

Others might like what you write even if it isn't a "tailored product"...

Given the effort you put into your batreps and the general quality of your writing I am sure you will get followers regardless of narrative/tactical focus. Different followers depending of focus for sure, but there is definitely a crowd for both flavours at dakka.

Pretty much this. I followed the Hand of the King from the start (I was too late to Guard for the previous series, but I do mean to go back and read the narrative side) not because I was looking for a way to get to grip with IG in 6th Edition (although they did help with that) but because I was genuinely interested in the narrative. You write very well, and by the sound of it, these new reports you want to do bring that even more into the limelight. So there's ever chance that 'what you want to do' is also what a lot of people want to see.

I imagine you enjoy writing them, so there's that as well, I write and post a lot of stuff on my blogs I'm sure people don't read, but at the same time, I figure 'why not?' and if someone reads and likes it, so much the better. If you like writing batreps and post them, there's every chance people will read them.

The other thing I'd suggest is maybe try and get some stuff in the Dakka Fiction section that tied into the narrative of the battles. Character pieces and the like rather than just the battle scenes that come up in a batrep. There are some series in there that have a very regular following, if you were to link that and batreps the two audiences would feed into each other. Might be an idea.

But at the end of the day, it's not about pageviews or whatever if you get something out of it. As I always say with my work, 'writers write because they have a story to tell.' If you want to tell the story of the Foleran First, then do it, and people will read it. Build it and they will come, as they say.

Someone mentioned a "narrative tactical report" or something further up? This is how I imagine that:
"Commander Ward ordered the lasguns to train upon the heretic marines. But how many? For he knew that his poorly trained privates hit only half the time, and that the thick skin of the chaos marines would prevent a full two-thirds of those hits from causing damage, along with the 66.7% that were stopped by the gnarled power armour of the traitors. He plugged these numbers into the servitor's logic-machine, and back came the number '180'.
'Damn,' he said. 'That means I'll need 60 men to get within 12yards [pretend yards are inches... idk the scale], and be ordered to fire more often than usual...'"
Pfft

I've always enjoyed your batreps (even though I don't comment, I'll leave a sticky to remind me) in all their permutations. The Hand of the King series was excellent, and I enjoyed the narrative and pictures, but also really liked a separate tactical discussion to get the information not apparent in the narrative.

I agree that 40k isn't exactly a challenging excercise in strategy or tactics, so I'd definitely read reports of alternative missions against weird armies, but even a brief tactical discussion would round out the whole experience on your decisions made and potential lessons learned.

I enjoy themed lists, but I also enjoy tweaking and finding the sweet spot between bone crushingly good and thematically pleasing. I like efficient options and choices, and reading about others' experiences with various units helps me refine that.

Tactical_Genius wrote:
Someone mentioned a "narrative tactical report" or something further up? This is how I imagine that:
"Commander Ward ordered the lasguns to train upon the heretic marines. But how many? For he knew that his poorly trained privates hit only half the time, and that the thick skin of the chaos marines would prevent a full two-thirds of those hits from causing damage, along with the 66.7% that were stopped by the gnarled power armour of the traitors. He plugged these numbers into the servitor's logic-machine, and back came the number '180'.
'Damn,' he said. 'That means I'll need 60 men to get within 12yards [pretend yards are inches... idk the scale], and be ordered to fire more often than usual...'"
Pfft

Hahaha! I think it would be more along the lines of:

(Russ Commander destroyed in one hit by a railgun)- Ward cursed at the sheer luck of the xenos filth as the hull of Old Reliable, the ceramite that had survived a thousand warzones with nary a scratch, was rent in two, the incandescent bolt shearing through it like flak armour. It was not the heat of the explosion that brought moisture to his eyes as the mighty metal warlord was reduced to a flaming wreck.
So you get the idea that it was a lucky shot, that the Russ is tough and that it was the Warlord.

Another one:

(Company Commander beating a Chaos Lord in a challenge)The Heretic towered over him, a hulking figues with baroque and bloody armour. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The Chaotic monster swung, axe cleaving the air where Ward's head had been only moments before A second strike rained down on his power field, which flickered and died, but saved his fragile form, Instinctively, he darted inside the outstretched arm, and thrust his power fist towards the mass of metal and muscle...

The blow fell, and something gave way... had he? Had he really... yes, the armoured fist had punched clean through the Heretic's breastplate and closed around the still-beating heart. He ripped it, roaring with triumph, from the wound, and lingered only long enough to see the hatred die in his opponent's eyes.

So it's a mix between real in-game events and fluff.

Pictures. Pictures are a must.
And the armies must be painted.

Narrative reports are a definite read.

Narrative reports are awesome (because its almost fluff and fluff is sacred!), but for me to hold till the end it must have also the crunch part. Not every action must be written in crunch part ("and he botched both of his invul saves") but when I wonder what really happended on the table, such report lack attractivity. Personaly, I dont need diagrams with precise positioning and movements, but I want to know when some cinematic awesome moment resulted from bizzare mood of dice gods.

On the other hand, I have no problem with non-standard, scenario missions. Sometimes its more fun. And same for armies, give me fluffy, strange armies and I will still like to read it.

 Ailaros wrote:

Barksdale wrote:it would nice to see, at the very least, a toned down version of the tactical breakdowns included, even in a narrative way if that's even possible.

A narrative tactical report? Or weaving tactics more into the narrative report?

I was thinking more weaving some of the tactics into the narrative report. Is there really any difference between those two alternatives anyway? In any case, I'm sure whatever you settle on, tactics or no tactics, will be worth a look.