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I saw a couple of very certain people on dakka over the last few months declaring our preference one way or another about battle reports.

So, Dakka Members - shall we see what people on this forum prefer? I think i covered all the bases.


Caveat; obviously this is by no means a valid test (yes i get the irony/futility/stupidity of this poll) as it only covers the people who bother to go to the general discussion section of the 40k section over one month, but i think that it will be interesting nonetheless.

Multiple options are enabled for the indecisive.

Anything written, but it's getting harder to find reports like that, much less ones of armies I'm interested in.

I haven't found a video report I like. They've always felt awkward, and really, I don't have the patience to sit through 40mins of video of something I can read in 10.

I watch/read battle reports to see what people actually use in their armies and the decisions they make with them. I love it when I see someone use a poor unit in a clever way. This is the main reason I dislike narrative reports.

Please have full army lists is the first post. Net lists make for boring reports. It saves me from wasting my time.

Written with some narration is my preference. I don't need to know, or care to know every single dice roll.

Please make short videos 10-15 minutes max no longer. Each turn should be summarised into 1minutes.

So a 5 turn game should be 10 minutes. A 6 turn game should be 12 minutes. The remaining time should be a quick army listing, game mode detail and the end of game analysis.

I much prefer written battle reports to video ones, I think I've only sat through one video report and that was enough.

I actually tend to skip over any narrative introduction in a report, I know some people put a lot of effort in to it, but it's not something I really enjoy reading.

For my own battle reports, I like to mirror them after the old White Dwarf style reports. I have my army list with a little description of what units I have chosen and why and I talk through the deployment choices.
Each turn has an overview map and plenty of photos of the action. I think the map gives a nice overview of the whole battlefield, something it can be difficult to get in action photos. I cover most events of the turn, I don't go over ever dice roll unless it is particularly unusual or important, I don't think it need that level of detail.

I've found that writing battle reports helps me to spot any tactical or rules errors I made during the game and has actually helped to improve my play over time. I actually find it quite difficult to write battle reports on dakka. It takes me forever to get the photos uploaded and in the right positions. Maybe its cause I'm new to the site and it will get better over time. Does anyone else find this?

(For anyone interested in my written battle reports, the link to my blog is in the sig below).

Written reports are much easier to follow, but I also enjoy listening to video ones (that are in depth) in the background while doing other things.

I actually enjoy watching some video reports. Though 1hr-ish videos are a bit excessive. I do enjoy watching Guerrilla Miniature Games batreps, that Ash is a cool guy! Also MWG has some good batreps, love the banter batreps, and finally flg has some entertaining batreps

I voted for the first option. Full videos FTW. =P

I despise video battle reports. I can read a written report in a fraction of the time it takes to watch the video. I can understand that the video format can be easier to produce with less disruption to the actual game, but most of them are far too long, with terrible camera work, and worse narration. Besides that, I can read a written report on my phone anywhere without disturbing anyone around me.

The best battle reports I've seen here were from jy2.

I love MWG"s batreps, although they never play the factions I like...

Written battle reports are the most informative and pleasurable to read. The writing process lends itself to introspection, which leads to more insightful commentary about the game. The commentary in videos can only capture the player's strategic thinking at the moment.

Videos often give me a better idea of what happening on the table, but only if the cameraman takes the effort to zoom in on areas of interest (along with commentary about what we're looking at, and why it's important). Top-down and overview shots of the table are not very useful, since it's hard to distinguish between individual models even when the video is HD.

Pictures work well (since the minis don't move around anyhow), but it's easy to fall into the same pitfalls as videos. Cool looking pictures are not always the most informative.

End of player turn commentary is important for both formats, to give the audience a sense of the state of the game. I haven't seen too much end of phase commentary, but that seems like it would be clarifying for the audience (the game does in fact happen in discrete phases).

1+ hour length videos are too long to sit through. A good compromise might be to do end of turn commentary as part of the full-length batrep, and then put links in the video description which jump those time stamps. There is some value in seeing every single dice roll on camera, but most watchers will want to skip past most of it and get the the meatier stuff.

I like video batreps, around an hour for me it's like watching tv. I usually go for the MWG ones.
It needs editing though, I think the only things that ruin video reps are sound/video quality. I'll stop watching a batrep that's got loud obnoxious background noise or that has terrible/shaky video. If you haven't mastered playing with one hand use a tripod.