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Hey everyone, we here at Frontline Gaming are very pleased to unveil our first narrative video battle report!



This is something new for us and was a ton of fun to create. We wanted to explore the more light hearted aspects of miniatures gaming where we typically tend to focus on more of the math/tournament aspects of it. The thing is, we love the artistic and narrative aspects of tabletop gaming, too!

In this video, we have the brave forces of the Astra Militarum defending their planet from a Tyranid invasion! Will the hold out against the alien menace or will they be overrun?! Tune in to find out.

Also, please give us your feedback on whether or not you enjoyed the video, what you liked, what you didn’t like, if you could follow what was happening and what you would like to see additionally if anything.

Thanks and we hope you enjoy it!

Awesome times!! loved it!

Also the new mat commercial is great haha

Thanks! Very glad you enjoyed it

Hrm. I think it's cool that you're trying something outside your comfort zone, but I just wasn't entertained. The voice acting is a bit cheesy, and some of the narrative dialog could have benefitted from some better word choices. Also, the color combinations of the two armies, the terrain, and mat were just eye-bleedingly garish.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer. I know batreps take a lot of effort to produce, so I'm not dissing on the work involved.

Well, lol, sorry you think both my armies are ugly and I suck at voice acting, hahaha.

I really liked it as a good first attempt. I can assume voice acting is really difficult to do and will generally improve with time and practice. It just seemed a bit stiff at times but its still far better than a lot of people can do (Frankie in particular did a good job). On occasion it would be nice to have a character that takes the ham factor to 11 to rival that of Dawn of War: Soulstorm

Instead of listing the units in the armies (like you would want to see in a competitive battle report) it would be nice to get a nice sweeping shot of the deployments and seeing the units that way. Seeing the units set up ready for battle gives a more narrative feel then just an army list. I really liked the close up shots of the models on the table during the battle.

Overall though it was a very good first video and I look forward to how things develop. Also please let any Ork narratives be something Gork and Mork would be proud of.

Awesome batrep. Great work, I always love a good narrative batrep.

Might I suggest considering telling the story of the battle through primarily a "model's eye view" from different units, then switching to an overview shot when you need to show things on the table's scale. That way, it becomes a vignette story letting us fill in the blanks.

Thank you guys for the feedback and suggestions, we appreciate it!

Yeah, Frankie did a great job at voice acting, I actually did suck at it, lol. We'll get better with practice, that was literally the first time we have ever done it.

We will certainly work on ways to make it more engaging to watch.

Great job! I was a big fan of this style. Any tidbits as to what's coming next?

Yeah, we will be linking this battle to the next one which will feature some new armies! Hint: it takes place on a space ship!

Very entertaining !!! Looking forward to more.

Thanks, buddy!

I'm not a competitive gamer so i don't follow you guys closely tbh, but I was intrigued to check this out.

Honestly I think it was a solid effort (especially for a first take at a narrative batrep).: filmed well, audio quality good, graphics and music worked. Voice work wasn't obnoxious. No real issues with it really.

I think just a larger sweeping pic of the armies already deployed at the beginning with a voiceover for each along the lines of "Imperial scanners identified the bulk of the advancing tyranids deployed along the tree line to the south. In addition to over 50 lesser xenos the Imperial soldiers could make out the jagged forms of three carnifexes and a swarmlord towering over it's broods...", etc. Cinematic and informative without dragging on.

I'm curious to see what you do with the next installment.

Glad you liked it! And yeah, we immediately all had the same feelings: we need to be able to better tell what is happening with the big picture. It would make it easier to follow everything.

Thanks for sharing your feedback!

It was easy to follow.

Cool! Yeah, it was a new experience for us, we'll get better as we go.

+1, make more please.

I thought it was really great!

What I liked:
- The narrative idea with narrative lists. Not power lists.
- I think more narration from Frankie and new girl (sorry forgot her name) would be great.
- Dramatic lighting, good job.
- Sound effects... more please.
- Cool camera work. More of that. Zooming. Depth of Field switches. All really added great effects and kept me interested.
- I liked the abbreviated opening.
- I thought the armies looked great, BTW. How often do 40k opponents armies "match?"

What could be improved / ideas for future.
- Frankie, if you are trying to squeeze narration into the video It can be difficult and people tend to rush. The reason that its so noticeable is the lack of pauses. Let your thoughts collect and let it flow. I think its a really hard skill to learn, especially after seeing my stepson behind the scenes at a TV newsroom. Take your time. Drop some fluff knowledge on us...
- Our young lass, consider you reading the part for one army and one of the boys for the other. That would work well with you as daemons, nids, sisters (duh), tau maybe even CSM. Not orks or marines. I think you as an omnicient narrator would work well, citing lord of the rings or dune as examples.
- Consider a "top view photo" to punctuate either game turns or player turns replete with arrows showing movements. Symbols for explosions etc. I always liked that stuff.

Awesome as always.

I will continue to hound you on lowering the cost of buzzgobs stompa for the ITC..

Thanks for the great feedback, everyone! Yeah, we will certainly be making more of these.

Yeah, this is something really new for us, so a lot of it is totally outside of anything we've done before. We will certainly work on the voice acting and the pacing and such, that is an art that will come to us over time I am sure.

And we can bring the Buzzgob thing up for the next ITC poll, lol, Orks could use a bone thrown their way, but that is in reference to an IA book that is no longer in production.

I think these kinds of reports will bring in new players more than anything else.

I think you need to go cheesier with it, as in full scale B movie in the style of Birdemic. I'm talking about things like editing Frank's face onto the Commissar whenever he's doing his lines with no editing to his facial expression while he's delivering the lines on the first take.

It's just hard making a static mini game look cinematicly awesome due to its own limitations, so going over the top campy and cheesy can really make it stand out as an experience.

Edit: Can you imagine using one of those old school movie shots of you guys dressed as Guardsmen, then the two of you copy pasted to look like there's a squad, fake dying in a very over acting William Shatner style, spliced in as a scene after a group of Guardsmen get wiped out by Tyranids. It would be epic.

Oh, and don't forget little Tyranid models held super close to the camera so it looks like they're attacking you.

Really enjoyed this style of batrep, excellent work!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

Upping the anty on the cheese I think is a good idea, haha.

Reece

 Reecius wrote:
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

Upping the anty on the cheese I think is a good idea, haha.

Reece

Yay, I'm helping! I'm helping!

But yea the whole thing really lends itself to super cheesy style of cinematography, mostly because a lot of older B movies used really non-realistic models and stuff for sets way back when. Plus, by making it more cheesy, it's more inviting as it doesn't give an air of over seriousness that some people might associate with the mini wargaming franchise as a whole.

Haha so cheesy!

Kudos for writing up the lists in the beginning, you always want to see this regardless of narrative or competitive play.

Yeah, we want these to be lighthearted and fun. Cheesy to the max! That was the game plan.