- Bought a 40k Army — Check
- Assembled 40k Army — Check
- Grabbed a friend– Check
- Have a camcorder — Check
- Record Battles — Check
- Find Forum to post Batreps — Check
- Painted Models–Epic Fail!
Warhammer 40k is a hobby not a sport. So please when you post battle reports have the decency to paint your god damn army! Make sure your opponent has his army painted as well. I am tired of seeing half ass paint jobs ruin an otherwise exciting battle report. Instead, I have to squint playing guess what is that model. I can forgive crappy terrain, but show some respect for the game.
Then I see armies that are not even fully assembled posted. I read three battle reports in the last day that had unfinished Preds or Rhinos. I understand the desire to get games in, but take the same time filming your latest exploit and put together the fucking model. Honestly I would rather see proxy Dixie cups and poker chips for your entire army, than grey plastic blights that fill many reports. Think of all the time it takes to edit a video plus filming it and if you are a person of means, send your army and pay to get it finished
I also do not get, is popular websites posting battle reports with unpainted stuff like Miniwargaming. A site that prides itself as being a great wargaming resource for modeling and painting. Here is an example…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnubMP960lY
and
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yyoj9FbFIc
There is many more. So how do you do it the right way? Well BoLS is on the right track.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4zrijL-MrA
Besides having models painted there is the issue of format. Often we see video battle reports that do absolutely nothing in improving the reader gaming ability. We get film of dice rolls without context and people not telling why they do the things they are doing and then there is bad camera angles. The best way seems to be the top down look. Here is a good example from Way of Saim-Hann blog.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMz67u_d0gU
It is a pain in the ass to film on the ground, but you get a good view of the battlefield, which makes it easier for Fritz to go over battle plans. The ideal would be an overhead camera attached to the ceiling, but who has the time and money for that? Also, the Way of the Saim-Hann video shows another problem Youtube caps you at 10min, that is not enough time to give us a truly good battle report so he is forced to show it in three parts.
All this has made me very wary, when I think of doing battle reports. It seems video just cannot do them proper justice. Battle reports are better as a slide show, with either voice or written commentary. That way you can show key points of the battle for emphasis. It is also a lot easier to edit, then film for damn sure.
As a reminder the universal constant still must be PAINT YOUR MODELS!