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VLOG: 40K Battle Reports & Bolt Action Plans!
January 14, 2015 by dignity
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Looks fantastic with what you guys are doing for the 40K stuff, could see a narrative weekend of a BoW event on it 😉
Wink wink nudge nudge
I’ve just ordered my first Bolt Action stuff and it’s all BoW’s fault 😀 can’t wait to delve into it. Good job guys!
I was initially underwhelmed when first hearing the idea explained. On reflection, I think that’s in large part because I have no interest in 40K, so I tried to project the idea onto a different game and think of it in terms of Gotham City. If it’s simply a case of using a name instead of saying “hill”, then I’m not sure I’d find that very interesting. If the landmarks were used narratively then that would more interesting, as long as it wasn’t just a scenario in which you “capture mount X” instead of “capture the mountain”.
I think with most things what you tend to find is the more that they are used as a location they will develop more and more as they gain a reputation. Such as crime alley in Gotham makes you think of the previous things that have been on there so seeing battles happening around the same land marks should really build a history of the table rather than the spot 2 armies happened to meet in.
In the case of crime alley, one very specific and narrative thing happened there. It’s exactly the type of interesting narrative that makes a landmark engaging and you can return to it to build on the narrative. If it’s Mount X which was captured by the Blood Angels in the second battle and then by the Dark Eldar in the fourth battle then not so much. At least for me, anyway.
I don’t think we (or at least I) are far from your position on this, the landmarks have to be meaningful and in my opinion even potentially have some impact on the game, either through their physical design/location or by inclusion of some map specific landmark rules.
At least in my mind, they are not just names…
Yeah absolutely, a name doesn’t mean much, i could imagine some really cool rules around the corpse of the hyrophant, the imagination can run wild. That having something that actually impacts what is happening around that area of a map is a key factor.
Scenario-specific rules are nice, but the on-going narrative is more important. Otherwise it just all gets a bit Hamburger Hill. The corpse is potential goldmine of story ideas. Why is it dead? What happens as it decays?
So this is nothing for nothing, but my 2p – I agree with Ben completely.
I’m excited for terrain based games – recognizable locations and set maps is a great idea and brings a depth to the entertainment of watching.
I think you’re firing the right caliber, at the right target, but… and I hate to say this… I think your aim is a little off.
I get the idea that video games are a bit of an inspiration as they constantly use set maps (as you mentioned) and they do play reports that get lots of hits compared to most batreps. However, I think they are popular because everyone who plays the game has the same map. And that’s really the draw for a lot of people and bat reps – how do I take best advantage of the ‘constants’ of the game (in video games, the maps).
So for war gaming, there is no inherent advantage to a player watching the same map, over and over again because they are unlikely to replicate it for their use and part of the table-top variable is to have fun with different terrain.
However
That isn’t to say that there’s no inherent benefit to same-maps repeated – it’s just not a game play one. Narrative, that’s awesome. Historically, battles take place over and over again in the same places because often geography dictates tactics. No one invades modern Switzerland, everyone invades ancient Israel, only the foolish attack 2nd millenium Russia.. etc.
So! I think the key, as Redben pointed out, is narrative connection. I, personally, don’t want to see every faction under the sun combined together to see how they fight on the tyranid board – if I don’t build a tyranid board, it’s not useful information for me and it’s not stimulating. But, if it was a land-mark, like the Bridge at Trechetiton or something, a bridge that must be crossed in order to ensure the safe passage to the under-mountain vault… and then that board is tied into several other boards…. now I’m engaged in the battle of XYZ – tyranids vs blood angels – fight through the forest, to get to the bridge, through the tryranid cave entrance, at the vault door and into the flooded vault.
Now with this, it’s a running story of the vault and, what’s more, it’s a living place where stories can be created – there will be an initial campaign of two armies and afterward you can use different armies to continue the stories. If I may be bold – I would recommend starting with Tyrannids as defenders and send marines in to wipe them out and reclaim something. The second or third time the marines loose, have them stop – that’s as far as they got – it’s up to you if they were decimated, retreated or held what they already possessed. The thing they were trying to re-claim is valuable – enough so, that the orks and necrons show up to do battle over it. Fight them on the first board, have the winner fight marines on the 2nd board and have the winner of that continue the invasion of the tyrannid territory. In this fashion, you get to see different armies on the same boards, there is a thematic story being told (I would name your special characters and commanders as well as the terrain) and you buy yourself some time to build the ‘deeper’ map locations. You can run this campaign over and over with different factions trying to take control and making it varying degrees into the ‘map’.
I think this might be the way to go for you. Then next year, you can do a new story. I personally like the idea of several factions fighting over a massive space hulk with varied environments ‘the green house’, ‘the engine room’, ‘the coolant towers’, the ‘mineral storage areas’ (which lend to forrest, industrial, semi-aquatic and desert within a ship setting)
again, just 2p.
Would be interesting to see the maps actually change, to represent damage to the scenery itself, few dead bodies about, buildings gradually getting toppled, repaired, and toppled again.
The first thing that came to mind when you were explaining your concept was historical battles and how the major landmarks and locations are always named. This allows people to easily follow what’s going on in the battles once they familiarize themselves with the places where to battles take place.
All in all this sounds like a great idea and I can’t wait to see how it actually works when all is said and done.
Looking good, always nice to hear the progression thats happening behind the scene. Hope you put some audience participation elements into the Bolt Action serie. Alot of us have chosen to make 2015 a BA year and is starting our armies. Would love to be able to build and create that together with you guys infront of the camera.
yes to that!
for me BA is Blood Angels but will be following along in spirit as so far I have resisted Bolt Action though have been tempted several times.
then we must try harder 🙂
found myself a couple of times on the Warlord website 😉
I looked, but I couldn’t see any space Marines 😉
Awesome. Definitely looking forward to the upgraded gallery content / functionality. 😀
Woooo!! 40k!!! 😀
Father Grimnar arrived on his Sleigh very early indeed 😀
Don’t mean to come across too sarcy, but on what basis was the decision “in the whole world of table-top miniature gaming, what the internet needs most are more Warhammer 40k Batreps!” reached?
I know you’ll do a much better job than most if not all alternatives out there; but there are plenty of other systems that could benefit from more exposure. I personally don’t watch batreps as some sort of “Match of the Day highlights”, to me they’re an excellent means of assessing a game before I invest a shedload of hobby cash in ot.
…
I think one of the big problems with the stuff online is that majority of it is poorly filmed, poorly produced and is usually from a competitive viewpoint. Seeing more narrative battles in a popular system done at the quality that the BoW team achieve will be fantastic. The Bolt Action and 40k areas that will be covered will be great for the pulling power of the site and may help continue to grow the community here. Focusing on smaller less popular games means your never cover the mainstream stuff. The best aspect for the team is to keep going for the balance of stuff that the have been doing and finding that perfect balance. I wouldn’t want them to stop doing Infinity coverage or Bolt Action coverage as they are becoming more popular because people in the community already play it. The site is for the wider community for us all in the different systems rather than an advertising service for start ups. Though there needs to be a balance and I think that’s something that BoW does very well.
Agreed mate, the production quality that BoW puts out is going to take these reports to the next level, I’m really looking forward to these.
Because awesome sauce.
i am hoping you will have a jungle board with swamp etc, a real challenge that affects both movement and shooting. you could also have certain areas populated with the local nasties which make an automatic attack each turn when troops are in a part of the board where they live, failing that each player must roll each turn on a d6 based event table to simulate the unexpected on new ground whilst hunting the enemy.
lots of ideas potential unlimited lol
As for site developments i think that when one of you guys first venture into a new game or system it would be both beneficial if a vblog showed the transition warts and all to that game, what to look at when deciding on the game, what faction, army or force generation is like (simple hard etc), to actual gameplay. Also a number of recommended stockists, any discounts or deals available and what core models to get to learn the gameplay without doing the usual trick of buying a mini you cant use during lower pointed skirmishes just because it looks pretty.
An idiots guide if you will.
I’m loving the amount of thought you are putting into these battle reports guys, the fact that you are play testing them before filming as you would for a tournament shows the level of commitment you have to making sure they’ll come out looking professional and that hopefully the narratives and maps work well. That board also looks varied enough that hopefully multiple plays won’t turn out the same.
This got me really excited for some 40k content even though i dont really play it. The ideas you have regarding maps are great!
I very much hope you’re not going down the ‘this group moved forward and shot at that mob and killed 3’ route that so many other use. It’s an absolute borefest and doesn’t involve you in the action at all.
Idea for dice rolling: I recently picked up a circular casino dice rolling “tray” that is lined with green felt. The idea I have is to place a tray like this to the side of the game table on a pedestal with a dedicated camera pointing down at the tray. This camera would effectively be called the “Dice Cam”. This would be a constant video feed located in the bottom right of the screen during a battle report to show all of the rolls. This will also prevent the dice from shooting off of the table and also knocking down models (the reason I purchased one). Just a thought. Cheers guys and I am glad I purchase a Backstage Pass!
Great idea!
Like it!
Just a suggestion here why don’t you make a downloadable fictitious continent map with a grid so other people can follow the action / tide of battle so battles can be fought on each section and over time one or other side win’s control of the continent/planet. With the Nid section being exchanged to be the Chaos section for Warhammer battles?
I like the idea other players can play the same battles to see if they can claim the planet then as well.
Beasts of War: The only gaming site that dares to use a heirophant model as terrain!
I have to say that I quite like the idea of having named landmarks on a reusable board – definitely gives it that Halo map feel.
Cool approach to the landmarks. It really will add a lot to the narrative and make the board feel like a real place with history. And cannot wait to see the BOLT Action series.
I’m pretty new to the website… and so far love everything about Beasts of War… I’ve been working through old weekenders and XLBS and all that…. Have there been any battle reports yet? I watched a video a while back where Warren showed off that oil rig deep sea platform and I was excited to see the game he mentioned… but I haven’t seen it anywhere? Am I just not aware of were battle reports are or have there just not been any yet? (Also a while back there was Justin playing Wild West Exodus… is there going to be a video of that?)
Anyway really love the site and the news and just spending my weekends listening to you guys talk. Thanks.
I recommend the flames of war vids, they are pretty good!
So far no 40K battle reps. There have been some demo games of other systems but no proper battle rep. That deep sea platform was for a 40K campaign that they have been talking about for a long time. Maybe now we will see some of that come to life.
I’m not going to vote against batreps but they do not interest me at all, moreover a 40k batrep. I can’t envision why naming your terrain will help change that but I’ll give it a try. I hope you can make it interesting. Maybe downplay the batrep and do discussions or interviews over the game? Maybe do a comparative batrep that show how turns would differ with different rule sets(ie Here’s what happens if we use 40k, now Warpath, now Dust, etc…)
I don’t know, just trying to help.
Looking forward to some battle reports, and like the idea of reusable maps. On this specific one I suggest that the fallen biotitan is moved in a bit… It’s crying out for people to fight around it, but it’s poked up against the board edge, so likely to get ignored.
Having said that, I’d also like to see the special locations spread out a bit _less_ evenly. Real locations aren’t generally evenly distributed around an area, and at the moment it looks like most of yours are on the centre line of the board. Just spreading them out a bit more would probably help.
One final thought on this map. It does look pretty cool, but it also looks fairly open. I haven’t played 40K in a while, but I would have a bit of a think about whether you need more cover on it. A couple of games on an open board can be thematic and/or a nice change, but you don’t want to finish the board to then find that every battle plays out the same way because there’s only a very few places you can hide your troops.
And studio armies? You don’t have Necrons, do you?
The key to unique (and good) battle reports is painted armies, evocative terrain and good pacing. Most battle reports have below par terrain. I think you’ll be fine on all three points.
Naming the sections of the board would give them a history and maybe troops would come to fear certain areas! This could come in useful for narrative battles and campaigns.
I like Lloyds idea about special rules affecting the terrain… Death worlds spring to mind!
I’m very excited to see where you go with this and as always I look forward to the excellent terrain you guys make.
well that was kick in nuts…..really ashamed at myself and embarrassed seeing that Biotitan all i say is sorry warren…as for the Batreps really looking forward to it and love the ideas coming from you guys i for one am very keen to see what you come up with
loft should be called mesa
I’m really looking forward to this. Can’t wait to see where it goes.
I am very interested to see what you come up with the 40K battle reports.
I’d be interested to know what level these reports will be aimed at? As someone who hasn’t played 40k for around 15 years I have no idea about the current state of the game or rules but it still interests me.
Why don’t you have a painting weekend and invite some viewers to come along and help paint all of that lovely 40k kit.
Back in the Golden Age of GW (early to mid 90’s) White Dwarf battle reports were magnificent accounts which didn’t just depict “this space marine shot the gretchin and killed it” but had pages full of detailed commentary regarding army composition, tactics etc. This was even before the actual battle proper! Then a post-battle reflection on what might have been, and lessons learnt. Detailed “birds eye-vew” maps of the main force movements always accompanied.
I think if the 40k video series were to follow this kind of recipe, BoW would be onto a winner.
i thinks you guys will do great batreps………….100% for that……….
…….map campaigns another good idea….but then you showed the board and called that your map?……(or did i miss something) …..in my view when ever i’ve taken part in or seen a mapped campaign the board has always represented a ‘section of the map’ not the the ‘whole map’ itself? example, many…..many years ago i took part in a WW2 campaign where we used a map of the isle of wight using ordnance survey maps of the island for reference and then the table was layed out to represent a section of that map thus each battle would lead onto another section of the map and a new table set up with events from the last area affecting the new battle? and that way the campaign developed, would it not be better to develop a ‘planet’ wide campaign and use the board to represent sections of that planet? i don’t see how with the way your going (but love the idea of a mapped campaign ) the board has ‘the map’ really works?……………just my pennies worth….sorry!….
AL
They are not meaning the sort of map that we as wargamers would expect, they are going for what the video gamers call a map, which is what we would normally call a board. They did mention it like that but it didn’t explain fully what they were referring to.
For example when you play call of duty or battlefield etc, there are a serious of maps that you play on in multiplayer or skirmish. Those maps are not random generated they are predesigned and crafted to player on giving different options and ways to play, bow are going for that same sort of vibe.
I like the idea of landmarks on the gamboards. I don’t, however, understand why you call the gameboars ‘maps’. When I heard maps I thought you were going to go with a campaign-map that had reoccuring gameboards and that the entire gameboards would have names on the campaign-map. Maybe the whole naming of maps becomes strange to me since english isn’t my first language.
I am however looking forward to narrative games 🙂
I think it’s perhaps a little bit of ‘language’ but also that we’re looking at the possibility of bringing ‘words and phrases’ across from Video Gaming, not many, but just enough that someone with an interest in video gaming that thinks 40K, or Bolt Action or Infinity looks cool, might get a feel for what’s going on. 🙂
I had no idea that’s what was meant. I thought the same thing as @peacefulwarrior.
don’y worry @peacefulwarrior English is my language and i still didn’t get it! lol
cheers @hedgemongary that explains it, i’m not video gamer so that makes a lot of sense now……cheers……
…..oh well a ‘wargaming map’ campaign would of be nice! but i’m old school (or grumpy! )
@lloyd i see where your coming from and its good to see BOW trying to cross mediums, maybe you can teach a ‘old grumpy’ a ‘new language’………..
sorry! meant @hegemongary ………….somebody pass me my specks…..and sleepers!
Looking forward to the Bolt Action program. Keep up the good work,
I like the basic premise of the maps however my thought is maybe the map should be say the equivalent area of 9 lots of 8×4 boards…..more of a cross between your idea of video game map and open world…..these boards could be then gridded up and your actual 8×4 for the game could be a grid reference of the overall map……this could either be randomly decided before play and scenario or a scenario could be picked and one of the players decide what grid reference they want to play this scenario over.
Anything that highlights terrain is good in my book, go for it Lloyd!
Agree with what Lloyd said about the speeding up. Would be interesting to see a report in 30 minutes or so where you actually see what happens and get the narrative and the action without the all the measuring and bookkeeping. Interested to see where you take this. (Fingers crossed you end up doing the same for a skirmish game ;))
This is a classy way of reminding the community that there is so much more in 40K than GW’s business decisions and the sometimes uber-competitive tournament scene. It is a shame that my 40K train just went too far to ever catch on it again :sigh:
I’ve no intrest in 40K anymore personally so I’m not gonna get frothy about that system, other systems on the other had you should consider covering would be….
Warzone
Relics
KOW
Deadzone
Bolt Action
Gates of Antares
Check your 6
Warmahordes
Firestorm
Dystopian Wars/Legions
Saga/Cresent & Cross
WWX
Malifaux
You have a huge amount of systems out in the market place that is screaming out for quailty battle reports which you guys can produce, Leave the 40K behind and move onto the systems that actually deserve the coverage.
Yeah, like 30k.
The second part of the video is talking about the Bolt Action series they’re working on, Justin filmed WWX stuff before xmas (yet to be shown). This is the first 40k content in over a year, so it’s not like the other systems are being ignored! I like the variety available on the site already, but just because you don’t like 40k doesn’t mean you speak for everyone
Personally I think there is a balance to be found, no one is expected to enjoy everything 🙂
Minotaurs – tick!
Bolt Action – tick!
Am a happy man 🙂
Combine the two and what have you got, bolthammer 40,000!!!
Now just need to add some 30k and we can have bolthammer 40000 heresy! 😀
Landmarks are a good idea. Longer is better for me for battle reports but I agree seeing every die roll and every move is not necessary or even desirable.
Man… I found my dream job. I wish I can work in Bow for my day job.. *LoL*
Love the idea of naming the areas of the map, that’ll be very interesting to see.
Interesting idea for a map-based campaign. I don’t think all the locations need special rules, as long as they have a well-defined tactical advantage/disadvantage.
The current names are good as signifiers, but they lack same narrative sexiness. Hopefully that get’s improved along with the paintjob.
“The idea I have is to place a tray like this to the side of the game table on a pedestal with a dedicated camera pointing down at the tray.”
Wargaming For Fun do this on their battle reports and it works. Gets you a bit more involved.
I like the idea of making the terrain a specific location. Part of the reason why I don’t like watching battle reports is that they just focus on dice rolls and what units moved and what they killed. I want to see a battle that’s about something that takes place in a particular environment which affects the game.
You could have things like the Bog of Eternal Stench that blocks the path to an objective that could change the whole game and must be crossed in order to win, but at the cost of choking your troops to death, for example.
Something like that; an incentive; a narrative that pulls the viewer into the story to see what’s going to happen next.
Get to the essence of what the game’s about, use the background of the minis and the game’s universe to tell a story of high adventure! Crom! 😀