There are few things I enjoy more than battle reports online. I usually like more the way and the how than the actual battles. For example, I don’t play (nor plan to play) Warhammer 40K, but Miniwargaming’s video reports I find extremely fun to watch. When it comes to Warmahordes things get even better.

But… I don’t really enjoy written battreps as much as video. And then most make the “recap” style. Play a turn, get camera rolling, say what happened, stop rolling, and so on. They are interesting, but not as much as others.

Then there’s the extremely sporadically Miniwargaming’s WM/H battreps. They are great in the way they are made, fun to watch, but as a hardcore Warmahordes player I want more than just a “friendly” game. Don’t get me wrong, I mean hardcore as someone who loves the game, who basically stopped playing anything else because WM is THAT great, and who thinks, reads, and talks (or types) about the game a good bunch of time a week. Means I want more than just a recap. I want the players’ imput on lists, and advanced tactics whenever possible.

Enter Chain Attack podcast. I have listened to Warmahordes podcasts before but I stopped a few months ago. They are too long for the most part, and they talk a ton of time about armies/models/events I don’t really have much interest (although as a hardcore player I do like to know as much as possible about all factions). But these guys have found an amazing sweet spot in the podcast/battle report mix.

Two of them play a game. They document it throughly. They start talking about the lists, describe the feats, and go on to deployment. Most of the time it’s clear they have played several games with the lists or caster/locks (against each other) before the actual battle from the report, to get a decent hang of it all.

They go on a turn per turn basis, and on the site you get a link to a forum post with the pictures. One for deployment, and one for each player’s turn. Good old bird’s eye picture with the whole table. They retell the game move by move in a conversational manner with other players, usually 4 or 5 on the chat. It’s extremely agile and entertaining and the pictures are spot on. They talk of the hows and whys and whens of everything that happens, and you get an idea of everything even if you barely know what one or both of the factions playing do.

In the end they go about ranking the caster/lock on different categories. I don’t share that and usually don’t like that. I was a Warmahordes newbie not too long ago, and finding ratings like these do nothing, specially for a game such as this where every model simply works, just with different combinations and playstyles. It probably does something for the tournament player, but for new gamers it’s not great to find a few of the options available marked with a C, a B, and so on, twisting the view of the models before even playing them.

On the other hand, the discussion while putting these scores is smart and informative, full of gamer passion as well as thought after many games.

They really hit the sweet spot for battreps, with a mix of audio and pictures, and a pace that couldn’t be accomplished on video. Go check them out and follow them weekly. You will learn a lot about your favorite game.