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Something that I think may not have been brought up on these forums is how to write a good BatRep. I see a lot of reports on here that people put a lot of effort into, pictures, descriptions, tactics, etc... and I see others where people obviously just wanted to share a good game with the community but didn't take any notes, and just wrote a paragraph or so describing it. This thread will focus on those who'd like to put a decent portion of time into making a battle report.

So, I'd like to compile a list of good/bad ideas to use in battle reports to make them interesting to your opponents. If enough ideas get posted, I may even post it as an article. Hopefully the Dakka community would like to help with this?

Some questions I think should be gone over.
1. Should I include pictures? When I should I take these pictures? What should I try and show in them?
2. How much information should I put down about my own army list, and about my opponent's?
3. How long/short should the your descriptions be?
4. Should I split up my report into phases, turns, or something else?
5. If I don't take pictures, what should I do instead to express the battle?

What do you all prefer, and what have you enjoyed reading?

Personally, I will use DashofPepper's Batreps as an example. ( They're easy enough to find.) Not only do they all have similar titles, being easy to locate with very descriptive subject lines, but they also contain some elements I think every batrep poster should include.
1. Short, terse descriptions of your own, and opponent's armies along with the lists to give an initial impression.
2. Initial impression of tactics, the mission, the board itself
3. Good pictures, taken once or twice per turn, showing the key points in the battle.
4. Descriptive explanations, bringing into account tactics as you played, rules you had to remember, distances you checked, etc.
5. Post game thoughts and descriptions

IMO, detail is good. But keep it short and sweet. While fluff can be interesting in a battle report, the report should really focus on the battle itself. You want others to be able to comment on your strategies, but also to understand your thoughts and movements enough that they can learn from you as well.

Feel free to add ideas and thoughts to this thread... its my hope that this can help new users who want to contribute to the community and receive feedback to do so.

There have been several threads about this but I think everyone will agree with the points you've made.

Explaining target priority and why you chose to shoot at certain things is important and some people forget to include it.

If there are so many that pop up, then why isn't there a sticky? Perhaps their should be one.

Anyways, if you're going to do a battle report right, I think that you've got to have something that covers the important aspects of the game:

1.) list building. All battle reports should have a list, and MUST have a points value put somewhere (even if in just the title). Reactions to opponent's lists is helpful.

2.) deployment/movement. Without describing movement (including where it started from), you're basically describing a game of craps or yahtzee, not a tactical wargame. You can not demonstrate movement without pictures.

Furhtermore, even with pictures, it can be hard to keep track of who moved what where. Having a big text block that talks about movement is hard to follow. That's why I draw arrows on my pictures to show where everything went. Also, putting in comments with regard to WHY you move certain things in certain ways is helpful, especially when it's not straightforward why you did what you did (moving closer because you were going to charge them, we can figure out on our own, but other things aren't so clear).

3.) target prioritization. Like with movement, huge text blocks of who shot at what are easy to find yourself skimming over. Some things are obvious, and can be skipped (a unit shooting what it charges at, for example), but some things need to be shown. I've seen people draw little lines on their pictures showing who shot at what. I would do it myself except I have things like long-range weapons that fire indirectly that are harder to depict (and my pictures are already cluttered enough).

Basically, if I'm reading a report seriously, there are two things I need to know: what a player intended to do, and why the game ended the way it did.

With regards to the first, having comments on your opponent's list, and talking about what your strategy was at the beginning, and reinforcing this by making comments on your movement, etc. is very helpful.

With regards to the latter, a reader needs to be able to see things like unit spacing and movement and target prioritization. Seeing mistakes here not only clarify why things went the way they did, but can be educational to the reader. As well, luck can sometimes play a factor in determining the outcome of a game, so while it would be tacky to put down every die roll, it can very much affect how a game turns out if a demon prince whiffs all of his to-hit rolls, for example.

To be honest, I usually skim battle reports that I read. This is because most people include a lot of extraneous information that isn't useful, and because they don't present a lot of information that is crucial to me figuring out what exactly happened and why.

As for fluff, it can be in or out, in my opinion. I like including it in mine for the sake of the little stories. That said, I also always include it in italics so that the reader can skip over it if they don't want to read it.

In a friendly game ask if your opponent will help you by taking notes during your turn. Bring a legal pad divided up like so:

T1
Player #1
Movement
.
.
.
shooting
.
.
.
assault
.
.
.
Player #2
Movement
.
.
.
Shooting
.
.
.
Assault
.
.
.
T2...and so on.

Personally, I always loved the old White Dwarf battle reports. They had a diagram of each player turn with icons representing the models on the table over a graphic representation of the battlefield. Along with each diagram was a staged photo representing the highlight of the turn or something and the text written by the owning player.

That's the template I use for my batreps, but the HOW is more complicated than that.

I always think of writing an article on how I make mine too since I always get asked that. If you want I can add contributions to your article instead. If not, no big deal either.

I figure plot out some good ideas here then make one nice article that everyone contributed too. I feel like this should be less of one person's opinion and more of what people agree on...

I'd love to see more battle reports pop up in here, especially well written ones like Ailaros's (check it!) and Dash's.

One of mine is up too, by the way.

So what are the best pictures to take, you think? Action shots of the highlight of each turn with some sort of larger scale tracker, ie: Vassal to show movement of units? Or just try and take larger scale photos of the game itself and be efficient with your wording?

This is all just my personal preference:

I think the diagram is necessary. I've never used Vassal but from what I've seen it looks like an easy way to make the diagram. As I said before, I appreciate the old White Dwarf icons for infantry as it's too hard for me to tell what's what at that size. I'm also not sure how customizeable Vassal is. As Ailaros wrote above it's important to illustrate the actions taken by the units and the diagram is the easiest way to do it with arrows and whatnot. This can be done with photos too though. Arbotor Ian and Panics reports always include a great bird's eye shot of the actual tabletop at the end of the turn.

I think that it's also important to have actual pictures too. Personally, I prefer a staged shot that shows off the painted minis and terrain. I'm somewhat of a hobby snob myself though, so to me painted minis are the only thing worth photographing. I'm getting over that though. One of the comments on one of my batreps was about how the report could have just been made up. With only the diagrams and a few staged shots the whole thing could have been fiction. It was suggested that a table wide shot be taken and included as well and I think it works (painted minis or not!).

Again, this is all just my personal preference. I don't want to skew this into - "well, my way is the best way to make batreps" kind of thing. I really think it would be cool to have an article that someone could go to for help on making engaging batreps though, so I hope I'm helping!

"...A picture is worth a thousand words..."

Pictures are pretty important to me, they tell half the battle.

"Can a battle report be successful without pictures Inquisitor_Syphonious?"..."Sure, though pictures really help you understand the game, and give you a whole different perspective"

What, I can't talk to myself?

The army lists are quite important too, especially if there are no pictures.

Thoughts and tactical asessments are nice filler.

Glory moments are another thing to be sure to add... "I rolled my terminator's armor saves and... Four out of six came up as ones!"

I think a good title is important, I usually read reports for tactics and a forum title that says "tournament at my local shop" is just pants. I want to know what armys were fighting, so "tournament at my local shop, Dark Eldar vs Imperial Guard 1500pts." Is what I like to see.

Some of this is stuff other people have also said.

Lately I've started putting in my own thoughts before each round. Then I put in what actually happens. This seems to be fairly popular.

In the title it should always have point's value, armies involved (or if a tournament your army type), the points value, and whether or not you have pictures.

I don't think you have to have maps, but if you don't your pictures should be a mix of "end of turn" overhead shots, and pictures of the action.

Blurry pics should be kept to a minimum (yeah yeah, I know I'm guilty of this one).

You should re-create your army list and your opponents to the best of your ability. Fluff is optional, it's nice when people put it in a different text font so others can skip if they want to or read if they don't.

It would be awesome if you could get your opponent to hop on and add their thoughts to the reports, so that you can see what both people are thinking, this one is way harder to do.

Hmm. pictures are the most important thing in our reports. We start with the pictures, then use them to explain what happened. So a turn might go..

Turn 1

I moved this and that and the whole army swept round to the left to deny this thing here. The fast guys moved up to take the flank.

(Picture of fast guys taking the flank)

My tank shot at the other tank, but only glanced it, and the walker hit the other guys with a stick.

(Pictures of either or both of those things)

Then in his turn, he moved a bit further away and shot with this and that

(Picture of these things)

etc etc etc...

And at the end of this turn, I was obviously losing

('MAP' Picture, top down, of the table and units)

Turn 2

etc etc etc...

We're lucky enough to have enough space and tall chairs to actually take a picture from directly above the table and get the whole 6x4' in. We then manipulate it in photoshop to compensate for distortion. A vassal-style map would work just as well, though.

I consider the important thing to show what actually happened, and since battles are a very visual thing, I prefer to use lots of photos. For this reason, we take care to remove dice, drinks, books from the table when taking photos, or to pose the models in a dramatic way. One thing I really hate in battle reports are Photoshopped arrows and labels all over the photos.

Otherwise, I'd consider points value, mission details, picture of deployment, army lists all mandatory. I find it very dull to read 'text-only' reports.

so, I very much understand the reason for including the armies fighting and the points value towards the top of the report, but why is it important to have it in the title? Do you only read battle reports that include your army at your favorite points level?

And as for pictures, having lots of sort of snapshots of the field are nice, but I see those as close-up shots: fluffy pictures to show of models, terrain, and to provide the chance for a narrative. They do not, on the other hand, do much to tell me about movement and shooting. If I've still got to read big text blocks to figure out what's going on, then it's like there aren't any pictures at all.

Honestly, when I come across these kinds of reports, I just skim the pretty pictures and read the result at the end. If those two things seem interesting, only then do I go back in and wade through text blocks of movement descriptions.