As the title says, what makes a good battle report?
I write battle reports all the time for my games and games I have at my club or with family at home, but are they good battle reports?
What do you consider a good battle report?
What does it need to contain to make it interesting and enjoyable to read, is it tons of facts and figures or is it a blow-by-blow account of the turns or a basic overview of each turn?
Does it need loads and loads of photos?
I have seen many battle reports on forums and Facebook groups that maybe get one or two reply posts saying “that was great” or “that seemed like a good game” etc. etc. but then I see loads that have no comments at all ( including some battle reports of mine ) these reports often have hundreds of views, so what is going wrong?
Are battle reports wanted any more or are people wasting their time writing them?
I enjoy reading battle reports done by Bloggers and most are enjoyable to read, and normally have some pictures to show the action, they don’t need to be written by a novelist to be enjoyable so I am confused as to what the gaming community wants from a battle report.
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My thoughts on how I go about writing a battle report:
I try to make the battle report easy to follow with clear language, with a clear outline of objectives etc…
I am not a novelist but I try to make the report engaging / interesting.
I try to be as accurate as possible to what actually happened during the game.
I try and give some mention of strategies and tactics from possibly both sides ( I play a lot of games solo so that is sometimes easy to do )
I like to add photos or images of the game table and models, also some photos of the action during the turns.
I try to add narrative elements to the battle report and I also try and add a little humour as well.
I always try and do an outcome / analysis, if sometimes only briefly.
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Well not a lot there that is unique or world shattering and most have probably been thought of before by many bloggers when writing their battle reports, but it is what I try and do each time I write a battle report.
So what am I missing or doing wrong?
What makes a wargaming battle report great?
Hi Mac
Long time No see!
What I enjoy about your reports are the reactions of the players especially you’re dice roll’s.
I didn’t think novel type narrative you tryed a while back worked, when writing a report its a game not a story.
A little fluff around the edges is fine but only to give context to the Maine narrative.
Picture’s are always nice to see eye candy is always nice.
But i find that in your battle reports they don’t move the narrative forward they seem disjointed.
For example with your last drifters games I forget who’s in which car.
Or in a stars and laser game I don’t know which ship type is which or where it is on the table.
Try varying the shots sometimes an overall view sometimes close up.
Maybe a little decriton of what’s going on or what the picture is represents.
Have a look at comics try to see how the tell stories.
Hi Zac,
Yeah I keep missing you in the shop, I normally finish before you get there.
You have made some good comments apart from the one about my dice rolling!!! ☹️
The narrative report was just a trial and I don’t think I will try that again.
You hate my pictures!!! I am hurt… no seriously I get what you mean, I do try and take pictures during the game and add the pictures to the turn description / text, I do try and let people know who is who and what is what at the beginning of the report, I will have to look at the way other people do their photo’s in their reports to see if I can learn anything from them.
I will definitely try adding captions to the pictures in the future that may help.
Some other comments I got on TMP and Facebook also suggest that video battle reports are getting more popular so maybe the written battle report is a dying thing.
Mac