Do you wonder how honest YT batreps are?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I’ve often wondered how honest batreps on YouTube are.

especially on channels where the newest codex seems to always win.

 

am I the only one who has questioned this?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I’m sure some have rigged games. There’s one where the hosts actually cheat quite often. There’s a lot of excellent legit channels though like Tabletop Tactics and SN+.

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by BLACK BLΠFLY

[Emperor Ming]

Well the newest codex generally has the most bonkers/broken rules, so that would make sense that they win early on

[Reskin]

Most show the dice rolls and walk through the buffs and stuff

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Well the newest codex generally has the most bonkers/broken rules, so that would make sense that they win early on

However the person playing the new codex has the disadvantage of not knowing the best way to play the army.

23 minutes ago, Reskin said:

Most show the dice rolls and walk through the buffs and stuff

Most(I have seen) have a lot of cut shots and don’t have continuous cams, meaning it’s plenty easy for them to roll dice until they get a roll they like and edit out all of the other ones.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m not really sure why anyone but GW would have any reason to fake them, especially in favour of the newest codex. It’s not like they’re trying to push sales of a particular army or codex. 
 

I agree with Emperor Ming that the reason the newest books win is because of the power creep. Not having much experience of a new army is not that great a handicap for people who have extensive experience of the game itself, they know what works and what will be a good unit after a simple read through of the dex. The best way to play the army, or at least a good way, is often evident very quickly.

 

I’m not saying absolutely none of the batreps you see have been fixed or choreographed but I doubt it’s a wide spread problem. The most extensive ‘fixing’ is probably that the players may coordinate lists to some degree to ensure it’s not over in one turn or that it makes a good batrep but even then I don’t think the fixing extends to the game itself, what would be the point?

 

Now GW’s batreps on the other hand, they’ve very much got a vested interest in showing (and indeed not showing) certain things that I could well believe theirs are less than honest. However I have no proof of that, I can just see they would have a motive that others wouldn’t.

 

[Emperor Ming]

Gw battle reps are a joke at this point

 

They cant even get the rules right

 

and the lack of terrain on some of them, its just like a shooting gallery

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Typically I enjoy the batreps on WH+. I know they made some mistakes for the mission to introduce AoO but the development team could have helped them and prolly should have.

[LameBeard]

GW have been open in the past that some battle reports for White Dwarf had to be redone - ie re-fought - because the original was too one-sided to be interesting. It’s also a reason they have a “practice” to get the players ready for a more even contest. It’s an editorial choice which leaves some kinds of games never in the magazine. They aren’t claiming to be representative.

 

So it would be no surprise to me if YouTubers make some editing decisions on the fly to make a more interesting report. Why would they not? 

[Schurge]

As a devoted Khorne and World Eaters player a certain cheesy chaos player from the Great White North used to annoy me to no end for seemingly cheating. He constantly got his rules wrong, always in his favor.

[RWJP]

On 2/5/2023 at 4:33 PM, LameBeard said:

GW have been open in the past that some battle reports for White Dwarf had to be redone - ie re-fought - because the original was too one-sided to be interesting. It’s also a reason they have a “practice” to get the players ready for a more even contest. It’s an editorial choice which leaves some kinds of games never in the magazine. They aren’t claiming to be representative.

 

So it would be no surprise to me if YouTubers make some editing decisions on the fly to make a more interesting report. Why would they not? 

I vaguely remember the hosts of the WH+ Batreps saying something similar when they filmed one of the first Batreps with the new Guard. Essentially one of the games ended up being incredibly one-sided and wouldn't have been fun to watch so they played again and got a more balanced game.

In the end on this topic: I watch these video batreps for entertainment. If the people making them decided to fudge a roll, or just replay an entire section of the game to get a more fun and entertaining result, that's fine by me. If I wanted to watch a perfect example of 40k being played, I'd watch livestreams of battles from tournaments.

[Cyrox]

If i did a battle report for my channel it would have to be edited during dice rolls anyway - the amount of 1s i roll means there'd have to be some editing to remove all the swearing! 

[Pacific81]

There always used to be a running joke back in the day that the new codex or army book would win in the pages of WD. Of course, the new army tended to go to Andy Chambers so not sure if that was part of it...

 

 

[Rik Lightstar]

I don't think the question here is about "honesty" at all, it's about understanding the goal of a "Battle Report" either as a video or as an article. The goal is to showcase the armies being used with the new rules, abilities and units getting a moment where they have an impact. 

 

Think of them more like the adverts for new computer games, especially the new Space Marine title that's due soon. The promotional video shows the variety of backgrounds, opponents and abilities. It shows you shooting, fighting in melee and taking off with a Jump Pack. That doesn't mean you should EXPECT to see all of the things in the trailer every time you play the game.

 

Most Battle Reports are intended as promotion, entertainment and information not as a live stream of a competitive game.

 

Rik

[Warhead01]

Back in the day GW's battle reports in the WD were said to be edited. GW said, if I recall, they wanted exciting games so they would fudge some things a bit. 
So why not edit a video battle report to produce an exciting game to watch. Obviously that would be different than watch a tournament game live. But where's the harm if it delivers a good narrative and you become invested in how it ends.  Would you even care if you had enjoyed what you watched and found out they weren't strictly honest? 

[2PlusEasy]

Countless billions have been invested into the human attention span and how to captivate engagement in everything from social media, advertisements, music, television, podcasts and batreps.

 

Social media videos and podcasts have demonstrated that you have the first 15 seconds to engage the average viewer, and those 15 seconds are critical because most of your audience loss is at the 15 second mark (which is why most  reels on insta / tiktok / twitter and ads on youtube go for 15 seconds). The next spike is 4 minutes (which is why pop / top 40 music often stops at this point), then the next is 40 minutes where most videos and podcasts will either stop or have an intermission around that 40 minute mark.

 

When you're battling the human attention span for views, and maintaining a respectable production value in the process, batreps need to be edited and planned. Very few people will want to watch Bob neckbeard and their monotone voice tabling their opponent in the first turn with a shaky phone camera and poor lighting for 40 minutes. And we know that GW stage their batreps to encourage sales.

 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by 2PlusEasy

[Evil Eye]

There's been a few GW batreps where they've openly stated they played fast and loose with the rules a little for a more interesting game, which is a healthy attitude to have IMO. Two that spring to mind are the Skaven batrep where the funny doomsday device would have been destroyed in the second turn, but they decided to roll on the table for it instead (with the rationale that the Dwarf cannon knocked it into action) because that's just more fun, and the other one was a more recent report featuring Knights where one of them had a technically illegal loadout, which they called out with "This isn't actually a Codex-approved loadout but it was such a cool conversion and it wasn't exactly overpowered, so we had to put it in!". I think not strictly playing by the rules is fine as long as they're honest and upfront about it and it's done for entertainment (theirs and the reader's/viewer's) rather than just to promote the new shiny thing.

[Vanger]

Sometimes I feel that even in the "competitive" batreps some of the players make suboptimal plays just to showcase a units (especially with new releases) killy-ness or ability. Narrative channels do it constantly, just to make it more interesting.

 

Don't know if that's honest in your book or not.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

The main channel I watch is Miniwargaming, and while I don’t have the attention span for when a game gets obviously one-sided, I don’t think they’ve ever fudged their Matched Play games (though sometimes players will make a rules mistake that makes you go huh?). Now, the narrative campaigns when Matt is GMing things? Oh yeah, they tweak and fudge, I’d be almost certain of it. Because those are intended to be fun and chaotic, and Matt is a fantastic GM who knows how to get everyone invested and goes above and beyond in essentially all parts of the games (on a semi-related note, Matt is primarily the reason I collect Necrons—back when 5th was the name of the game and their batreps were upside turn by turn to YouTube). I’m sure your GMs in DnD/pathfinder/Dark Heresy/what have you have done the same a time or two to keep things from going overtly sideways. 

[phandaal]

On 2/5/2023 at 10:33 AM, LameBeard said:

GW have been open in the past that some battle reports for White Dwarf had to be redone - ie re-fought - because the original was too one-sided to be interesting. It’s also a reason they have a “practice” to get the players ready for a more even contest. It’s an editorial choice which leaves some kinds of games never in the magazine. They aren’t claiming to be representative.

 

So it would be no surprise to me if YouTubers make some editing decisions on the fly to make a more interesting report. Why would they not? 

 

Some do, but I think most will just play the game. Would not be surprised if some end up recording new battles from time to time though.

 

I remember one channel posting a "rejected" batrep on one of their alt channels one time.

[gideon stargreave]

On 2/18/2023 at 6:37 AM, Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch said:

I’m sure your GMs in DnD/pathfinder/Dark Heresy/what have you have done the same a time or two to keep things from going overtly sideways

I'm from the school of thought that would Never fudge a roll in an RPG. It's up to the players to survive not me. This is an interesting cross thought with the ongoing narrative thread... 

[Emurian]

I remember a specific bat rep of Tau vs DE in 4th edition. The DE player used jetbikes and raiders in the open vs Tau.

 

I was very active back then on another forum and the DE player from the bat rep poked his head in. (He got chewed up by all DE players for not playing a WWP list and massacre his opponent.)

 

The dude mentioned that they played MULTIPLE battles and GW choose one out of 4 orso they played.

 

So yes, it's rigged. Wouldn't surprise me if they had told the DE player not to run a WWP list as this would most likely be a one sided game.

 

In terms of YT, any channel that signed a NDA with GW is disregarded as a trustworthy source by me. There are some that to obviously stick feathers in GW their ass even while the community as a whole is upset. 

[Closet Skeleton]

On 3/9/2023 at 3:44 PM, Emurian said:

 

In terms of YT, any channel that signed a NDA with GW is disregarded as a trustworthy source by me. There are some that to obviously stick feathers in GW their ass even while the community as a whole is upset. 

 

The idea that anyone has the ability to tell what 'the community as a whole' is feeling or considers an individual opinion's trustworthiness to be valued by how much it conforms to such an imagined consensus is laughable. Even when 80% of customers are upset that doesn't mean they agree at all on what's actually supposedly wrong.

 

If you have an opinion stand by it yourself.

[Warhead01]

On 3/9/2023 at 10:44 AM, Emurian said:

I remember a specific bat rep of Tau vs DE in 4th edition. The DE player used jetbikes and raiders in the open vs Tau.

 

I was very active back then on another forum and the DE player from the bat rep poked his head in. (He got chewed up by all DE players for not playing a WWP list and massacre his opponent.)

 

The dude mentioned that they played MULTIPLE battles and GW choose one out of 4 orso they played.

 

So yes, it's rigged. Wouldn't surprise me if they had told the DE player not to run a WWP list as this would most likely be a one sided game.

 

 

You just made me remember a weird game of Tau vs  DE. I played the Tau a game store kid played his more op DE list. ( Might have been witch cult ) The game was so backwards that if it had been a bat rep everyone would have thought it was rigged.

short story, 4th ed -( must have been.) Tau defending a lot of woods assaulted in cc by DE and win DE commander od's on combat drugs Tau victory. Never should have played out that way. Who would think that wasn't rigged.