Competitive battle reports on youtube?

[Dongilles]

I have been looking for some good battle reports on youtube but I always find the more casual fun list. Like with MiniWargaming.

 

anyone with good recommendations?

[tripchimeras]

I have never been able to find much in the way of competitive reports, so I would be interested to hear of more as well.  There were tons in 8th edition, but pretty much all of them did not carry over to AoS. 

The only one I know of is a newish youtube channel that has some decent competitive reports called Dimensional Cascade.  They have a couple tournament streams on their channel as well, and are active in the US tourney scene as I understand it.  I know one of them personally, and he was one of the top tourney players in the US during 8th edition and has won several AoS tourney's as well, using Tzeentch no less, so I suspect he is just as good with AoS as he was with 8th.   Not familiar with the others in the club, but from what I have seen its a pretty good channel to follow if you are interested in competitive.  I've learned quite a bit, particularly watching their tourney feeds.

Edited June 25, 2019 by tripchimeras

[gjnoronh]

Masterpiece Miniatures does some good stuff. Worth checking out. 

[PlasticCraic]

@Doom & Darkness does some good batreps.  They generally give a lot of insight into the thought process and decision-making in the voice overs, so it's adding  value in that way.

Also they are condensed into a short format, so you can digest them pretty quickly.

[Seraphage]

@Doom & Darkness best reps with great advice. Hands down 👊

[Verminlord]

Rerolling ones has a good mix of competitive and casual batt reps

[Pitloze]

Lets face it. The real competitive lists and games are boring to watch. So it's no surprise that you don't see them much on youtube.

[Xasz]

2 minutes ago, Pitloze said:

Lets face it. The real competitive lists and games are boring to watch. So it's no surprise that you don't see them much on youtube.

 

[tripchimeras]

2 minutes ago, Pitloze said:

Lets face it. The real competitive lists and games are boring to watch. So it's no surprise that you don't see them much on youtube.

Ummm... I think you may be thinking of round one of a tourney when a top tier player draws a fluff list...  We are talking about 2 competitive players bringing 2 competitive lists; there is nothing boring about that imo.  Also, great contribution to the topic at hand 🙄.

[Pitloze]

3 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

Ummm... I think you may be thinking of round one of a tourney when a top tier player draws a fluff list...  We are talking about 2 competitive players bringing 2 competitive lists; there is nothing boring about that imo.  Also, great contribution to the topic at hand 🙄.

There are many battlereps in which "but we took these units because we want to have it be fun" has been said. You really want to watch 4 Ballista's deepstrike and take 40% of the board without the enemy being able to do anything about it? Or watch a FEC player dictate all of the combat unless he's facing another FEC player?

Also there is a difference between strong lists and competitive lists. Strong lists have units or strategies that are fun but also good. Competitive lists will sacrifice fun for value.

[Xasz]

6 minutes ago, Pitloze said:

There are many battlereps in which "but we took these units because we want to have it be fun" has been said. You really want to watch 4 Ballista's deepstrike and take 40% of the board without the enemy being able to do anything about it? Or watch a FEC player dictate all of the combat unless he's facing another FEC player?

Also there is a difference between strong lists and competitive lists. Strong lists have units or strategies that are fun but also good. Competitive lists will sacrifice fun for value.

And?

For tabletops, there is certainly more than one aspect to derive enjoyment from.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Xasz

[tripchimeras]

6 minutes ago, Pitloze said:

There are many battlereps in which "but we took these units because we want to have it be fun" has been said. You really want to watch 4 Ballista's deepstrike and take 40% of the board without the enemy being able to do anything about it? Or watch a FEC player dictate all of the combat unless he's facing another FEC player?

Also there is a difference between strong lists and competitive lists. Strong lists have units or strategies that are fun but also good. Competitive lists will sacrifice fun for value.

Again, you clearly don't believe in competitive play so why did you come to a topic asking for competitive reports to push your agenda?  This is not the place for a competitive vs casual discussion.  But I want to point out, it again sounds like you are refering to games where one guy is bringing a competitive list and one person is not.  Or you are talking about kryptonite matchups.  In either case for those of us who want to become good competitive players:

A. understanding what to do in a kryptonite matchup is extremely important for a competitive player. 

B. The 2 examples you gave me give me a very strong impression that you like to take "balanced" lists and have been burned multiple times by scew lists.  That really sucks for you, but neither of those situations need be so dire if strong competitive players taking competitive lists are playing those games.

C. Competitive lists usually involve skill, they just do.

Edited June 26, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Pitloze]

3 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

Again, you clearly don't believe in competitive play so why did you come to a topic asking for competitive reports to push your agenda?  This is not the place for a competitive vs casual discussion.  But I want to point out, it again sounds like you are refering to games where one guy is bringing a competitive list and one person is not.  Or you are talking about kryptonite matchups.  In either case for those of us who want to become good competitive players:

A. understanding what to do in a kryptonite matchup is extremely important for a competitive player. 

B. The 2 examples you gave me give me a very strong impression that you like to take "balanced" lists and have been burned multiple times by scew lists.  That really sucks for you, but neither of those situations need be so dire if strong competitive players taking competitive lists are playing those games.

C. Competitive lists usually involve skill, they just do.

I did not create this topic lol. I just stated the reason why most battlerep youtube channels play balanced games.

[Scurvydog]

Keeping an eye on this topic, I really enjoyed the newer more competetive games from rerolling ones, they do very fun and fluffy things and are now showcasing highly competitive vs competitive lists. A recent one was an Ironjawz tournament player bringing an impressive turn 1 bomb vs a stomrcast shoot list, which was a slaughter in the start, but ended far more even with few models left standing all in all, very interesting to watch.

Watching a very casual narrative game is an entirely different experience than watching a well thought out matched play battle, and as the OP mentions, these are hard to come by. I often look for games with some of my factions (Ironjawz, seraphon), and often see completely nonsensical lists and the player forgetting half the rules, which makes it even more painful to watch.

A channel with experienced players who actually know what units are named and do not have to look up warscrolls every single time, will be highly appreciated, especially if recorded with a half decent video camera, which seems to be an issue for many wargaming youtubers unfortunately (I don't blame them for this, but many batreps are very poorly recorded).

[Dead Scribe]

Most battle reports are not worth the time watching unfortunately, there is a deluge of them and most are of poor quality.

[Battlefury]

Therefore, pointing to Miniwargaming, we can also see a lot of batreps, that are just kind of advertisement and not fleshed out lists. That's what buggs me.

I am absolutely fine with all the batreps, containing good lists, or just fluffy lists. But those poorly designed batreps, where you can clearly say who is gonna win it right from the beginning, are just not worth watching imo.

Who does good batreps:

Rerolling Ones
Guerilla Miniature Gaming ( most of them )

Edited June 26, 2019 by Battlefury

[Easytyger]

1 hour ago, Pitloze said:

There are many battlereps in which "but we took these units because we want to have it be fun" has been said. You really want to watch 4 Ballista's deepstrike and take 40% of the board without the enemy being able to do anything about it? Or watch a FEC player dictate all of the combat unless he's facing another FEC player?

Also there is a difference between strong lists and competitive lists. Strong lists have units or strategies that are fun but also good. Competitive lists will sacrifice fun for value.

Well if the opponents are a relatively equal skill there is still a lot to learned from these scenarios. There are ways to mitigate their losses and effectively counter. Seeing this in batreps would be very interesting. for me anyway.  But to each their own!

[Scurvydog]

I am very on the fence with GMG, maybe I am unlucky with the ones I want to watch, but the games I see from them are with extremely poor lists, especially every single nighthaunt game on their channel can in no way be used for inspiration for anything, and they can hardly name any models correctly and get half the rules wrong.

They get their hands on pretty models and battlefields and decent recording quality, but like MWG you have to endure a lot of facepalms when they keep forgetting critical allegiance abilities for example. Even Ironjawz they got wrong and they have like 1 rule to keep track of and 3 different units. When a game ends with statements like "Yea the outcome might have been different if I remembered these 7-9 critical rules then..." you can't really use it for much and I will have closed it down long before that.

It is fine casual content, and it i always nice with content creators for the hobby, but it is a breath of fresh air when you see a guest who just knows what they are doing.

[Aelven supremacy]

2 hours ago, Pitloze said:

Lets face it. The real competitive lists and games are boring to watch. So it's no surprise that you don't see them much on youtube.

I personally much prefer just watching competitive lists in top down camera tournament coverage.   The Honest Wargamer’s events coverage is the obvious one but on YouTube you can find others from other tournaments (plus Warhammer TV’sown).    It’s only here that you see expert placement, movement, synergies, combinations, reactive play etc.      

 

Each to their own but seeing battle reports of players playing poorly thought through lists of armies they clearly have barely read the book for, playing basic rules wrong and making stupid tactical choices is not enjoyable for me (thinking of some of the other channels people have named, these guys play this game every single day, how do they get it continually so wrong?!).   If the original poster is more of my mindset then tournament cams are the way to go.   If they like something else then others will give better recommendations 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Aelven supremacy

[Pitloze]

3 minutes ago, Aelven supremacy said:

I personally much prefer just watching competitive lists in top down camera tournament coverage.   The Honest Wargamer’s events coverage is the obvious one but on YouTube you can find others from other tournaments (plus Warhammer TV’sown).    It’s only here that you see expert placement, movement, synergies, combinations, reactive play etc.      Each to their own but seeing battle reports of players playing poorly thought through lists of armies they clearly have barely read the book for, playing basic rules wrong and making stupid tactical choices is not enjoyable for me.   If the original poster is more of my mindset then above are the channels they can try.   If they like something else then others will give better recommendations 

Yeah I think the top down footage is not doing it for me. So that might be a strike against it for me. I think Tabletop Tactics (40k channel) still has the best balance of gameplay, hosts, and production. But I agree with your stance. To each their own!

[sal4m4nd3r]

This would obviously require some professional level involvement, but top down would be fine with on screen graphics to help keep track of which units are what. So you can follow along with the movement, charges and such. Other then that, I vastly prefer the hand held "go-pro" style of battle report.  I also VASTLY prefer the participants to be "mic'd up" so we can get an insight how the game is going, rather then just commentators trying to explain what is going on. Without someone saying "I'm rolling to do X" or my unit of suck jobs is going to swing against your unit of douche canoes.. dice rolls seem inconsequential. 

There is room for both competitive battle reports, and casual battle reports.  Just as there is room for competitive vs casual EVERYTHING from bowling to baking. Some people enjoy the best of the best competing against one another. Some people like laid back roll some dice battle reports.  One side is not better then the other. I think the reason you don't see many competitive battle reports, is it generally, is a smaller sub set of the already niche community we are a part of. MOST people, I THINK, are more laid back about this game. Not studying the intricacies of list building, the relative strengths of each sub faction within a battletome, or even considering specific builds vs other specific builds. I enjoy the feth out of that.. but most dont. And usually content goes where the views, clicks, and subscribers go. 

I'm part of a very competitive gaming scene in DC area and we are talking about starting up some battle reports in our lead up to tournaments. ANY game we play is in prep for some tournament. I don't play games anymore where I'm NOT tweaking my list or evaluating the performance of units, weapons, artefacts etc. But that's different then being a good producer, editor. It takes a lot of time, money and effort. So unless there is a way to monetize it.. most dont put in additional effort to produced content because we already are spending time and money into just playing this incredibly time consuming hobby. 

Edited June 26, 2019 by sal4m4nd3r

[scrubyandwells]

Check out Sound the War Plums for competitive AoS coverage: 

YouTube channel

The channel streamed the Flying Monkey AoS GT this past weekend. 

It's new and still working out the kinks, but it's off to a solid start.

Edited June 26, 2019 by scrubyandwells

[Dracan]

I think a big factor in why there arent many truly competitive battle reports available especially the hand held ones (hate the top down ones myself), are that the players are to busy you know, being competitive gamers.

Anyone that has played in a tournament where they wanted to win ,or at least aimed to do well, can tell you there isn't much room for focusing on other things but your and the opponents armies together with the psychology of the opponent.

Miniweargaming is for background entertainment while painting, seeing decently painted armies going at it with the familiar sound of rolling dice and wtf moments.

Quite enjoy GMG and their lists are decent but they do get some rules wrong which is prob because he plays like 10 games systems on his channel and with only 1-3 AoS reports a month.

Doom and Darkness is very good for competitive and insightful at that but doesn't include the production values of above two.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Dracan

[Gaz Taylor]

38 minutes ago, Dracan said:

 

I think a big factor in why there arent many truly competitive battle reports available especially the hand held ones (hate the top down ones myself), are that the players are to busy you know, being competitive gamers.

 

It’s this. Doing a battle report is a lot of effort and you need to have the skill set to be able to pull it off. Majority of the good ones are sponsored or do it as a job, but because of this they have to cater for all viewers. The problem is, really competitive games aren’t that fun to watch unless you are really into that type of game. Not everybody gets what is happening and you also have to either pause the game to commentate on what is happening or have commentators during the game which can be mixed.

[Aelven supremacy]

11 hours ago, sal4m4nd3r said:

This would obviously require some professional level involvement, but top down would be fine with on screen graphics to help keep track of which units are what. So you can follow along with the movement, charges and such. Other then that, I vastly prefer the hand held "go-pro" style of battle report.  I also VASTLY prefer the participants to be "mic'd up" so we can get an insight how the game is going, rather then just commentators trying to explain what is going on. Without someone saying "I'm rolling to do X" or my unit of suck jobs is going to swing against your unit of douche canoes.. dice rolls seem inconsequential. 

There is room for both competitive battle reports, and casual battle reports.  Just as there is room for competitive vs casual EVERYTHING from bowling to baking. Some people enjoy the best of the best competing against one another. Some people like laid back roll some dice battle reports.  One side is not better then the other. I think the reason you don't see many competitive battle reports, is it generally, is a smaller sub set of the already niche community we are a part of. MOST people, I THINK, are more laid back about this game. Not studying the intricacies of list building, the relative strengths of each sub faction within a battletome, or even considering specific builds vs other specific builds. I enjoy the feth out of that.. but most dont. And usually content goes where the views, clicks, and subscribers go. 

I'm part of a very competitive gaming scene in DC area and we are talking about starting up some battle reports in our lead up to tournaments. ANY game we play is in prep for some tournament. I don't play games anymore where I'm NOT tweaking my list or evaluating the performance of units, weapons, artefacts etc. But that's different then being a good producer, editor. It takes a lot of time, money and effort. So unless there is a way to monetize it.. most dont put in additional effort to produced content because we already are spending time and money into just playing this incredibly time consuming hobby. 

I was rewatching the Angelcore 2018 finals on the Magic Madhouse YouTube channel the other day and I liked that they had the players mic’d up.  The 4th round especially was good for this as they just had the sound focused on the players near the entire game so you could really follow what was going on.