Do you write up battle reports?

[Otto Schmidt]

Don Featherstone in “Solo War Games” encouraged his readers to write up their battles in permanent records. Do you do this? I do. I find it one of the great benefits of the hobbies. Also monstrously great fun!  As I do almost entirely Imagi-Nations it allows me great freedom in style. I also usually do it two ways. I will write an analytical battle report which talks about how the rules work and a second version which is the “Purple Prose” version.

[Angel Barracks]

Yes.
However were it not for the fact they are also a way to showcase/promote my models I suspect I probably would not, and as such probably play more games!

My 15mm ones are listed HERE

[kyoteblue]

Sometimes. However, I love reading them.

[PaintingLittleSoldiers]

I don’t usually as my gaming partner (when we play)  is fantastic at it !

[irishserb]

Yes, sort of, but didn’t start until more than 25 years after I started gaming, about three years before I started my blog.  I tend to do it in the form of a story, rather than formal reports, sharing the battle through the eyes of participants.

It started with a Soviet Afghan mini-campaign, and centered around a trials of a Soviet soldier, who was eventually captured.  It was my first experience in creating a story from my games, and provided the basis of what I did with my African imagi-nations.  Initially, I was apprehensive about sharing them, but after playing several African battles, decided to post the first one, and see how it was received.  To my surprise, feedback  was very positive, so I posted more.

When I started doing it for the Soviet-Afghan thing, I quickly found that it added another area of enjoyment to my gaming, and now, I can’t imagine not doing it.

[Private Snafu]

Not all but definitely some.

Here is one of my favorites.

US 3rd Infantry Division dismantle Gustav Line – a FoW AAR

___________________
http://moveshootassault.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/miniaturemachinations

[MartinR]

Yes, these days I blog them, but back in the day I used to write up battle reports, often in a campaign context. It helped bring the whole thing to life.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[A man without minis]

Yes, on my blog. It has become one of my favorite parts of wargaming.

[Cameronian]

Now and again and publish them on the blogs but I find the process too time consuming.  What I need is a short-form method; reporting by exception than narrative perhaps?

'The time has come" The walrus said. "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings."

[Phil Dutré]

Yes, quite extensively. For one of our campaigns, I always ask players to write up from their point-of-view what happened, in-character. It adds greatly to the campaign.

I would even say that writing up battle reports and constructing a narrative in this manner is a core aspect of hobby wargaming.

[Private Snafu]

Cameronian wrote:

Now and again and publish them on the blogs but I find the process too time consuming. What I need is a short-form method; reporting by exception than narrative perhaps?

I agree. I find turn by turn move by move AAR’s sometimes tedious and boring.  There was a time I did like all the details but my preference has changed to a more narrative style.  If you can tell a story of what happened and capture some nice images of the progress that is enjoyable for me.

___________________
http://moveshootassault.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/miniaturemachinations

[Thuseld]

Yes I post them on my blog. I find they bring my games to life and make them more interesting. I like telling a narrative and my games are story centered.

Experiments here: http://inexperiencedmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Tranquil Stars updates: https://tranquilstars.wordpress.com

[Phil Dutré]

However, I do think there’s a difference between a battle report written from the point-of-view of the player (with an emphasis on mechanics and game system), and written from the point-of-view of the alter ego, i.e. the commander on the field (with an emphasis on story and narrative). The first one I find rather boring, the 2nd one much more entertaining. But I do realize there is a continuous spectrum of possibilities rather than two extremes.

[Cameronian]

Phil Dutré wrote:

However, I do think there’s a difference between a battle report written from the point-of-view of the player (with an emphasis on mechanics and game system), and written from the point-of-view of the alter ego, i.e. the commander on the field (with an emphasis on story and narrative). The first one I find rather boring, the 2nd one much more entertaining. But I do realize there is a continuous spectrum of possibilities rather than two extremes.

 

Lots of food for thought there.

'The time has come" The walrus said. "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings."

[Phil Dutré]

One of my favourite personal anecdotes:

When I was a young teenager (I must have een 12 or 13, late seventies), I once saw a demo-day of a wargaming club in a shopping mall. Of course, when you’re that young, you don’t have any money and your action radius is limited to places where you can go to on your bike and what your mom allows you to do (at least, that’s how it worked back then). In other words, the wargaming club was not (yet) for me.

So, we invented our own game, using a large gridded map of Europe, and borrowing a lot of plastic tanks, boats, soldiers from other games and toy boxes. One day, when I arrived at my friend’s house to continue our ongoing game (we played the game in the basement of his house), he announced: “You know what, since this is a war all over Europe, we should start writing as if we were journalists working for a newspaper!” And indeed, we started writing the story of our wargame, and pasted in photographs showing tanks etc. we took from the real newspapers and magazines (this was before photoshop!).

Of course, I threw out these reports when we grew older and started doing “serious” AH wargames.

Just to say that writing a story about a wargame must be a natural thing …

(100% true story!)

[Author]

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