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Ok, assuming a 2000 pt game, how long should a video batrep on YT be? I've seen them that were over 4 hours long (Seen 'em, not watched 'em.) and seen ones that lasted less than 10 minutes.

When I wants to see a batrep, I want to see a pretty detailed one i admit, with the turn played out in full. Every strategy used and the results shown, every CP spent and how it worked out, etc.

In general I think a good batrep by my standards ban be in the 60-75 minute frame if the players know what they're doing and don;t have to read the rulebook a couple times a turn. These can be edited out by a good video maker. With good tight editing a batrep turn might take 5-7 minutes per side, so maybe 15 minutes per turn. 4 turns would be 1 hour, add in time maybe 3-5 minutes per side for army listing, maybe 5 minutes for introductions and yes, a good, to me, batrep video might come in at 90 mins or less. Even if the batrep goes 5 turns, let's face it, but the 5th turns both armies are usually quite small and the turn goes very quick.

I'm usually disinclined to watch a batrep reaching 2 hours unless it;'s an army i really like and hopefully using units I want to see. If a batrep goes past 2 hours I may only watch a few bits of it as those btrreps, from what I've seen, tend to be made by sycophants toadying up to GW and praising every decision GW made in the new rules or codex, and batreps that long tend to cluster around new releases.

I tend to find myself liking batreps made by IDIC and glacial geek, I would like tabletop tactics more if they didn't insist on doing a near constant monty python style banter. Even MP gets stale after a while. MWG studios is another one i frequently go to.

This is a bit like asking how long a film should be. There will be some general ideas on the shortest and longest times, but by and large it should be as long as it needs to be to convey what it wants to convey.

If you're going for a blow by blow faithful recording then that's different to if your'e doing it for more entertainment or summary purposes. So in a sense you have to decide what kind of battlereport you want to make. Remembering that the shorter the report, the longer it will tend to take to produce.


That's because a long one that just records the game is simple - set the camera up - play the game. Shorter ones where you're editing out content and perhaps using different camera angles to convey specific events through the game etc... These take longer to record whilst playing and also to edit together.

SOOOO subjective.

I like highly edited, high production value 10 - 25 min battle reps... more of a highlight real that dedicates 2-5 min per battle round with a strong focus on the major changes.

However, thats not for everyone... there are so many ways to do them and your choices for timing really changes the audience you will appeal to.

My advice is either A: get it to a level you like watching it and hope others have similar taste or B: see what batreps get the most views on youtube and borrow their formula.

Personally, as long as it's good content I don't care how long it is. I watch Tabletop Titans all the time but it takes me a few days to get through it.

1.5-2hrs if theres banter.

1hr tops without banter

I agree that it is very subjective. Tabletop Tactics do full length videos (usually over two hours long), and a shorter, condensed format of an hour, and I prefer the latter. I particularly like their "Tacticas", where they take time to explain their thinking/strategy between rounds.

For me, it is the very natural banter that separates them from other content producers, and it is what I enjoy most.

It should be 30 seconds or less. That's as long as it would take to read a good battle report, so that's the amount of time I'd be willing to spend watching one.

Depends a lot on who does it(or more specifically how). Tabletop titans are my favourite battle report creators and they show game in full with exception of setting up terrain and deployment. I find this to be far more interesting than edited with 40min total length.

Does mean it needs technical sides be good quality, good chemistry and not just net lists fighting each other.

Albeit helped also by silly questions they get to answer

And their videos are easily 3-4 hour long...Yet I find them more interesting than some edited ones that are just "okay so this and this and that happened" and then some more fast forward and then more explanation what just happened.

If I wanted to watch people throw dice at each other for 2+hrs, I'd play the game myself.
For me, even an hour is too long. I had all but stopped bothering with watching battle reports until GameOn Tabletop came out with their 40k in 40mins series. For me, this hits the spot fine.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It should be 30 seconds or less. That's as long as it would take to read a good battle report, so that's the amount of time I'd be willing to spend watching one.

Lol I would love to see you actually try to read battle report of 2k game and try to actually describe even roughly what happened.

Love to see as it would expose your bs

IMO the two best Channels are Play On Tabletop, which is 40 minutes, and Tabletop Tactics which is usually a couple of hours. If you are starting out, shorter is better.

I like the 1:30 hour ones. I don't watch them in one sitting, normally i spend a whole week watching in 10-15 minutes fragments while dinning.

I have friends that take to the face 4 hours batreps or Critical Role episodes in one gaking but I always find that impossible without going mad or just bored.

 harlokin wrote:
I agree that it is very subjective. Tabletop Tactics do full length videos (usually over two hours long), and a shorter, condensed format of an hour, and I prefer the latter. I particularly like their "Tacticas", where they take time to explain their thinking/strategy between rounds.

For me, it is the very natural banter that separates them from other content producers, and it is what I enjoy most.

Absolutely. I know the production values of play on tabletop are phenomenal but they just take it too seriously. I love the Tabletop Tactics crew, and I find them actually... funny, you know. it showns that they have a background in the arts and interpretation. I know most warhammer players are not comedians or actors but you can see when someone is nervous or just isn't fun or that talkative (And not being fun or talkative isnt a crime but I'm talking entertainment here). And the Tabletop guys are the complete opposite. Their battlereports are normally hour and a half of comedic histeria, specially with spider, chef and Bbone.

I watch stuff that's interesting or entertaining, both intensively or at the background. Length does not matter, if the content itself isn't lagging. In general, I enjoy seeing beautiful tables, narrative takes on what the dice said and having a laugh at the banter. If there's no banter, other aspects have to be extremely well done for me to care longer than half an hour.

I'd probably say half an hour for tactical after action reports, 1-2 hours for normal games with some dice rolling shown and above that either real big games with fancy narrative scenarios or other draws to brighten up the experience.

I've always been a fan of Wargamer Girl's battlereports. https://www.youtube.com/user/WarGamerGirl

Me, I like Tabletop Titans' reports the most, but the length is arguably the worst thing about them - the videos run up to about 4 hours long. However, the actual battle is typically 2 to 2-and-a-half hours, which you can focus down on if you want to.
Some things that explain that runtime, which are a whole boatload of plus points that put the format above others in my opinion:

- the battles are actually broadcast live and simply saved as videos later, which means you get everything. There's a lot of discussion about choices and their consequences which get edited out of shorter reports, along with insight on what went right and what could've gone better with other decisions.
- the first half hour is used to go over the armies in detail (nothing unusual there).
- they're virtually always 2000 point battles.
- the last hour is used for Q&A from the live feed's chat channel, which can be interesting but is very skippable if time is your concern.

Some other bonuses, not really related to the length:
- they have a proper professional camera setup! This is massive for me, having views switch between room view, top-down and rail rig close-ups is soooo much better than handheld cams, which always puts me off. (Do any other battle reports have this? Not found any so far.)
- there's a great deal of banter between the players and a producer off-camera, but also with the audience from the chat channel as well. This makes for a much more inclusive and welcoming atmosphere to the whole thing, at least for me.


I guess I don't see an awful lot of point in watching shorter-format battles without that back and forth discussion, because if that's what you're doing you're just watching a couple of people roll dice and move models without anywhere near as much context. Ok, great, that unit of Orks just straight up deleted that unit of Eldar. But I'm watching the battle because I wanna know how - what stratagems did they use? Why was the Eldar unit in charge range to begin with? All these things are easily missed in a half-hour report.

Priority Orders Discarded are the only BatRep videos I watch. They range from 15 to 20m.

I watch the start of Winters SEO videos for the tables and armies, but not the report itself.

length has less of an impact for me over quality. I don't like top down videos, especially on a busy gaming mat. TTT have a SW vs harlequins right now, took a look, turned it off after 5 seconds, looks terrible.
For me, Tabletop Tactics do it best, because it's more than just the game...you watch them because they are the type of guys you'd sit in a bar after a game having a drink with. Can't say the same for many BR presenters.

I think one big thing you have to decide on as well is are you video recording a game or are you playing for the camera.


If you're just video recording the game then chances are the game will last as long as it will last and you'll mostly have either constant shaky handheld camera or a one or two spot camera on a tripod view

However if you game for the camera then you might well pause at certain points to move the camera. So even if you've only one camera and one tripod you might move it around for different angles; focus on key events etc... Basically the game will take longer because along with the game, you're also using the camera.

You might also take far more game notes in either approach so that when you come to put it all together at the end you've got notes to remind you what happened when. Even noting down results of dice rolls can be important in helping you keep accurate.



Multiple quality cameras does help; you can have one or two on fixed positions such as over the table; over the dice rolling box; then have another for focusing on specific moments within the game itself. It frees you up and means you can do more in editing it all together.

If you've always got one camera on the dice rolls then whenever you want/need to show it you can; as opposed to either having to pause and move the camera there each time or not doing it at the time and then realising you want to show that dice roll in editing.

40 minutes.

The thing that gets me is where battle reports emphasise the *wrong* parts of the experience to my mind. Like, so much depends from deployment and movement, but they're first to get cut, whereas I don't need or want to see the endless dice rolling that serves to bulk out time between actual play decision points.

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't like top down videos, especially on a busy gaming mat. TTT have a SW vs harlequins right now, took a look, turned it off after 5 seconds, looks terrible.

I'd say go back and take another look, maybe 10 seconds this time. The top-down views are used sparingly, most of the game is filmed facing the table. ...of course, if that's not your thing either and you prefer more close-ups, then fair enough!

Catulle wrote:
The thing that gets me is where battle reports emphasise the *wrong* parts of the experience to my mind. Like, so much depends from deployment and movement, but they're first to get cut, whereas I don't need or want to see the endless dice rolling that serves to bulk out time between actual play decision points.

^ this.

I don't mind seeing terrible rolls or amazing rolls, but really, I want to see how things are deployed, moved, elected to shoot/charge etc. and to learn WHY.

I think what is missing from many battle reports is a sort of 'what were you thinking' take-away before or after each player's phase. I know 40k in 40 minutes do it sometimes, but I'd love to see battle reports where they show one player move, then cut to a short scene where the player says something like 'so what I was trying to do here is move XYZ to threaten his left flank, in the hope we would ignore ABC unit so I could use blah blah strat on it and nab the objective'. That would be cool, as it would provide insight into not only what happened (i..e what you see on the video) but also what was *planned*.

Bit of a tangent, but... this was something that I loved about Geek & Sundry's "Tabletop" series, too. That covered more traditional board games and the like rather than wargames, but they'd have cuts to the players talking through their strategies and intentions in a separate room so as not to give the game away while playing (I presume for practicality's sake, they were actually filmed afterwards).

It's depends entirely on what I'm in the mood for. Long battle reports are great for when I'm painting or going housework. Short battle reports are great for when I just want to get an idea of how an army plays.

Any video with TT Tactics Chef will seem too short. I love his point of view.

Make two versions. An in depth version, and one where you both just roll off at the start, with a +6 to the roll if you're playing Space Marines, and whoever rolls highest wins.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Make two versions. An in depth version, and one where you both just roll off at the start, with a +6 to the roll if you're playing Space Marines, and whoever rolls highest wins.

...that's a D3 roll-off, right...?

 Super Ready wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Make two versions. An in depth version, and one where you both just roll off at the start, with a +6 to the roll if you're playing Space Marines, and whoever rolls highest wins.

...that's a D3 roll-off, right...?

Flip a coin: Heads Space Marines win, Tails the opponent loses.

 XeonDragon wrote:
I think what is missing from many battle reports is a sort of 'what were you thinking' take-away before or after each player's phase. I know 40k in 40 minutes do it sometimes, but I'd love to see battle reports where they show one player move, then cut to a short scene where the player says something like 'so what I was trying to do here is move XYZ to threaten his left flank, in the hope we would ignore ABC unit so I could use blah blah strat on it and nab the objective'. That would be cool, as it would provide insight into not only what happened (i..e what you see on the video) but also what was *planned*.

The approach taken by Arcane Assist (Warmahordes content) is about perfect. Commentary by the players voiced over a double-speed video playback. Made for an amazing learning tool.

 Super Ready wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't like top down videos, especially on a busy gaming mat. TTT have a SW vs harlequins right now, took a look, turned it off after 5 seconds, looks terrible.

I'd say go back and take another look, maybe 10 seconds this time. The top-down views are used sparingly, most of the game is filmed facing the table. ...of course, if that's not your thing either and you prefer more close-ups, then fair enough!

ah, I might have to do that then. The top down with that snow table really did my head in, glad to know it's not the only "shot" they use. Thanks for the heads up.

I like to see all the dice rolling and my fav channels for Batreps are Miniwargaming, Tabletoptactics and Strikingscorpion82. All their videos showing batreps last 90-120 min, with 20ish minutes that can be skipped.

Which is basically a real time full game with some additional chat instead of showing the movement phased which is typically completely removed.

TTT games are also amazing but 3-4 hours videos are unbearable to watch.

I don't like 15-30 min recaps of batreps, I prefer reading them on some article at that point.