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So recently a friend commented that he expected reports to read with
a battle report so that the description comes first and then an image
follows. How do you like to read battle reports?

I like a description of what's going on and then the picture, personally.

I would say its entirely dependent on how many pictures there are in relation to words.

If a battle report is mainly pictures and each picture only has a few words (essentially a caption) associated with it, then its better to have the picture first and then a small caption under it.

This way you get used to looking at the picture first and then reading the quick blurb to see exactly what is going on before moving to the next picture.

jy2 makes great battle reports exactly like this. Lots and lots and lots of pictures, and very few words (after each pic).


However, if you're doing a whole lot more text and very few pictures, then typically its better to have the text first and then the picture after. That way you read all the text, get the idea of what you're supposed to be looking for in the picture and then look at the picture for all the detail.

Fascinating, yak. That does make sense to me...

Pictures of the battle progressing inside of the text.

I rather agree with yakface.

The general convention is that the caption appears below an image. If a battle report has tons of pictures, it ends up being essentially a set of pictures with informative captions. Thus, the text below the image.

If the battle report is mostly text, the images are accessories. You read the battle report as if you were reading a story, and you look at the images when you come to them.


So the preference depends on the point of the battle report. Is it a set of pictures with captions, or is is a story with accessory images?