Best Battle Reports Ever!

[Ryjak]

While reading a battle report, it occured to me that most battle reports are pretty boring, and ultimately, not very useful. So, I was thinking we should look at really good battle reports and figure out what makes them so useful.

 

Of the top of my head, I think the following elements are important to a good battle report.

 

1) Entertaining: It's very easy to make a boring battle report, simply by listing dice roll results. Stating 10 Tactical Marines rapid-fired their bolters, scored 16 hits, caused 8 wounds, of which 6 were saved by the Chaos Marines... might be completely accurate, but it's also pretty boring.

 

2) Game-Changers: Often, knowing where units go and what they kill is only marginally useful compared to knowing why the player moved his units the way he did. Sometimes a player will be torn between Option A or Option B, and this choice will often have an impact on the entire game.

 

3) Exceptional Events: Reading about predictable results doesn't create an exciting battle, but highlighting exceptional events will. No one is particularly surprised when a Venerable Dreadnought crushes a lone Tactical Terminator contesting an objective, but when that Terminator not only survives, but utterly destroys this Dread, readers are bound to take notice.

 

4) Graphics and Pictures: Most people don't get into 40k to push around half-assembled models amongst a sea of books and coke cans; they want to see nicely-painted armies crushing each other on fantastic battlefields. A battle report should include some images, and can often use them to quickly communicate the boring stuff as well.

 

5) Conclusions: Once a player has decidedly won, or been utterly crushed, it's great to hear what they thought about the game once it's all said and done. Often, this is where various mistakes are realized, and potential solutions are presented. This is perhaps the most useful information for someone trying to improve their game.

 

6) Army List Plans: It's one thing to see an army list, it's another to get an idea of WHY that army is built that way. Sometimes this isn't readily apparent; occasionally, it's quite novel.

[Natanael]

Good round-up, tough I think that #3, 5 and 6 is not really something you have to have in a good report. For me, #1, 2 and 4 (pictures, not graphics) is the most fun to read/look at. At Warseer there are a couple of guys (redrivertears and kildash) who are awesome at writing reports. Check them out. They both got links to their reports in their signatures.

 

- Natanael

[Ryjak]

For the search-impared:

 

Redrivertear's Battle Reports:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153826

 

Kildash's Battle Reports:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181390

 

And here's a link to Orcboy's Battle Reports, which I enjoy, because a lot of it discusses ways to improve your game:

http://fabulousorcboy.blogspot.com/

[Uncooked]

What I believe is a great example of what people should aspire to present: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=122957

 

Being totally biased as thats my eldar army, but I have tried to follow the same formula for writing my own battle reports. (Mine: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...owtopic=196652)

 

I have recently invested in a tripod which has helped me no doubt with trying to get better quality pictures which I also believe is the key to getting a good battle report through to the person reading it on the other end. I haven't taken my camera out recently as with the new release of warhammer doesn't allow me to play many 40k people at my local store.

 

Wait until about a months time before I start playing 40k a lot as fantasy is all the rage atm, but finding people who have fully painted their 40k armies nicely is also very difficult! Reading through and seeing many of the battle reports on here makes me cringe at poor photography and with boring to read paragraph blocks of writing, it makes my mind start to wonder weather a grizzly bear could beat a kung fu master and what style of fighting he would have to use in order to succeed... i think the bears shear weight and fuzziness will prevail in the end.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel as John West can beat grizzlies for salmon:

 

BACK ON TOPIC - sorry for going off on a tangent!

[Dark Scipio]

There were once a site (perhaps still lost link) where you could find 2 flash animated Battlereports. That were the best I ever seen. Very nice.

[WarbossBigBadJim]

I've always like the scenarios from 'the war for arcadia'... nicely written and well present bat reps, and plenty of other stuff in the blog too;

http://wfarcadia.blogspot.com/

 

In particular, the Assault on Morkandy Beach is a cracker!

http://wfarcadia.home.comcast.net/~wfarcad...p056-intro.html

[kiwitexansfan]

I always enjoy Black Matt's Black Legion Blog battle reports.