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I would like to make my battle reports more appealing/interesting, so I have some question:


What makes a good battle write-up?
What makes a bad one?
What would you like to see more of?
What have you seen enough of?

The absolute most important thing by far is that it must, MUST, be easy to follow.

I do not enjoy scrolling up and down to figure out what is going on. I also don't enjoy scrolling between the one deployment picture and the text describing it and trying to figure out what is where. For video battle reports I should know what you are referring to all the time, Please edit the picture with labels.

After that, do it in a way that you enjoy.
I find that enthusiasm translates into how well anything for entertainment is written.

As DarkBlack said, it should be easy to follow.

Labelling units with easy codes should be used when necessary. If you have 6 identical Guardsmen squads it should be easy to tell who's doing what.

Overhead shots with labels showing movement or charges are nice to see. Might need some photoshop skills but I can't imagine it's being too difficult.

Maps are very helpful.

I do NOT like video battle reports. I much prefer written battle reports. I know, old fashioned.

Video usually has bad voice, shaky-cam, and takes too much time by focusing on the wrong stuff. Half the time I completely tune out what is happening, and have to spend too much time re-focusing.

Reading a battle report, I do not have that issue. Plus, you can go into some decision making detail as needed or wanted.

Lots of pictures, close up and some bigger shots. Great terrain and fully painted armies. I'd rather see a backdrop than someone's home as that always feels a little invasive to me, but it's only a small preference that I'll ignore if everything else looks good.

I generally don't read the text, I'd rather more pictures.

 Easy E wrote:
I do NOT like video battle reports. I much prefer written battle reports. I know, old fashioned.

Video usually has bad voice, shaky-cam, and takes too much time by focusing on the wrong stuff. Half the time I completely tune out what is happening, and have to spend too much time re-focusing.

Reading a battle report, I do not have that issue. Plus, you can go into some decision making detail as needed or wanted.

Very much this and also very much the reasons why I dislike video bat-reps. They're not all bad mind, Midwinter does some great ones, but not everybody has what it takes, or takes the time to set things up properly and practice their verbal presentation of things. Nothing quite so annoying as someone smacking their gobs and getting side-tracked all the time.

 Easy E wrote:


Video usually has bad voice, shaky-cam, and takes too much time by focusing on the wrong stuff. Half the time I completely tune out what is happening, and have to spend too much time re-focusing.

All of the most important sources of video battle report don't have any of this issues. The real problem with video bat reps is that they take 90-120 minutes to watch, like a movie. Tabletop Titans' channel provides battle reports that last 3 hrs and a half or even 4+ hours.

A well written battle report with a couple of large pictures per turn should require 30-45 min of reading tops.

Lots of pictures! In-action shots close up are also good for highlighting momentous events.

However, I will skip pictures if they look like repeats - if, for example, not much happens on one flank of a fight, I'll check back in when something happens.

Blackie wrote:Tabletop Titans' channel provides battle reports that last 3 hrs and a half or even 4+ hours.

I watched one of their recent ones (Ultramarines vs DG) and it was nearly 5 hours. I really enjoyed it but in the time I watched it, I painted the dining room (which forms part of the pile of shame in terms of non-gaming painting, lol), put up a pair of Roman blinds, and cooked two dinners. And that was in installments. That said, their production is great and they are interesting to listen to over that length of time.

As for written battle reports, I love them once their written well and have decent maps. I think it's Tyranid Horde on here that did some good battle reports about bringing his Tyranids to a local tournament. Nice balance of detail and laid back recounting of what happened.

Reading this made me go back and update my first battle report with pictures in between turns haha. Hopefully people like it more! Narratives are my favorite though - I love to be immersed in the pictures and imagine how it looked like - ESPECIALLY if you give your figures names! Reading how Shield Captain Tribune Horatio leapt across the broken masonry, leveling his spear into a downward thrust to penetrate the carapace of the hormogaunt warrior is amazing! All i read was some spear custodes maced a gaunt, who cares - but that just sounded so much more epic lol.

Pictures and text with a good narrative overlaid.


Generally not a fan of video batreps, or more accurately, recorded games. Instructional videos aside, I've not yet seen a full length video batrep that was worth my time.

 Blackie wrote:
Tabletop Titans' channel provides battle reports that last 3 hrs and a half or even 4+ hours.

Though their "The Thing" is they live stream it so there's zero editing. Also they are answering questions live which slows down and at the end it's 1-2h of them answering questions(does give you nice insight even to how playtesting went etc). So in practice it's more like 2-3h actual game and part of that is pre-game army introduction.

This live communal approach is what they are aiming to go for. Shorter edited ones wouldn't work for them.

(and seeing they make like 10000$+ per month minus running expenses obviously working great for them!)

For written reports -
Full army shot before the game with a description of what is what.
Nice pictures, possibly with arrows or annotations, to show the important parts of the battle. A map is also nice, but if I had to choose I would choose pictures with arrows.
Nice terrain on the board to give a proper spectacle aspect to it.
Any narrative parts are an addition to a crisp description of what happened (with jokes or comments as you like). Narrative stuff can be cool, but I prefer to have what is going on described and then read a brief narrative bit than read entire narrative battle reports.

For video reports:
Visually has to look nice. Nice armies, fully painted, nice table and terrain set up.
No shaky cam! Please god no, not the shaky cam. I would rather have just static shots, or a slide show with voice over honestly!
Edit the crap out of it. Most of the time can be cut out. Preferred length is like 30ish minutes.
Write a proper script and deliver your audio properly. Definitely don't want to listen to someone wheezing and making mouth sounds into the mic. We all do it, but it isn't nice if I am gonna be listening to your stuff and I will probably turn it off if there is a lot of that. A nicely edited audio track goes miles in making me more interested in watching your video.

Watch Wyloch’s video reports for grim dark future for an example of well done. Relatively tight editing (many/most reports are an hour or less including brief overview of the forces), focusing on the important stuff, narration that sounds natural and engaging, amazing armies and terrain. He’s currently on indefinite hiatus but I loved to watch his batreps.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uyfBcJoGupc

I think pictures and good labeling are important for a text battle report.

For a video battle report. Just mimic Play on Tabletop for incredibly tight, well-edited, and well-commentated battle reports.

I've just always found Tabletop Tactics to be the best for video reports. They maintain a balance between the game and casual banter between them.

Tabletop Titans are just too long IMO, but as said that's their unique layout of being live. Have also tried GMG only as they do Titanicus but found his editing skills below average, and Miniwargaming are just too "meme-y" for my tastes.

 Korvessa wrote:

What makes a good battle write-up?
What makes a bad one?
What would you like to see more of?
What have you seen enough of?

Where can I find your battlereports? I'd like to read more. Mine are on my blog but I always feel I should be doing them better.

I know adding arrows and label's would make things much clearer on what's what doing what, but the extra time to edit the photo's seems to outweigh the time. I don't recall seeing many that DO have labels, and I actually find them more distracting to the picture itself. Does anyone have some good examples to share of what you like to see?

What makes a good battle write-up - a description of the armies, some pictures of the units, the actual army list, lots of pictures.A map of the battlefield (if an overhead picture can't be provided). Some 3rd person story is fine at the start and end (and as captions for photos) but I'd rather read the battle report without story time coming into the middle of it. An initial plan or strategy guide. A description of the battle - it does not need every turn or combat, but I should be able to follow it based on pictures, text or map. Most of the pictures should be showing the table or units, with some action shots of dramatic occurrences and characters. A final conclusion, and some analysis of the army list (what was worth it, what was not), how the strategy worked (or did not) and lessons learnt by both sides. A final story time from the perspective of the armies or characters if you want.

What makes a bad one - nearly every video battle I try to watch :(. I understand the idea of them, but they nearly all seem to be shaky cam showing me dice and telling me how many hits/saves happened. I don't care! I want to know if that unit of tactical marine's succeeded at stopping that Ork unit coming across, not the individual rolls or distance moved. Don't show me someone moving figures either, it takes forever. Ideally some computer graphics with arrows or a before and after shot will do it. The best video one I've seen was a slide show with a voice over of the battle. Also, the analysis is either missing completely or devolves to the level of a sports event- "We I rolled better on the day and my opponent did not, so I won". I want some conclusions. No talking heads except at the beginning (as an introduction) and end. And they need to be less than 30 minutes for me to have the time to read them. And I understand completely the amount of editing this all requires makes it just a dream, it would be a huge investment of someone's time.

What would you like to see more of - slide show video's with voice over. More historical battles with background on the armies and people involved. More written blog battle reports. More comments on my own battle reports

What have you seen enough of - too many battle reports on Youtube I can't stand watching.

Maybe it's the casual tone of the writing or my seeking out Ganesha Games session resports, but I've always liked the Chicago Skirmish Wargames reports.

Not sure why, but I like the comic book style session reports the least.

I don't have the patience to watch gaming videos, so don't have an opinion.

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2017/05/aar-going-back-to-our-roots-song-of-blades-and-heroes/

I like to see captions, labels, and if needed movement arrows added to the pictures themselves. Additional text can be added between pictures to add extra detail, but I think the pictures should tell the story.

Here's one of mine: https://adventuresinminiaturegaming.blogspot.com/2017/08/black-powder-american-civil-war-battle.html