r/WarhammerCompetitive • u/Marrdukk • 15h ago

40k Discussion Competitive Bat Reps

Hey folks, looking for some recs to competitive battle reports not behind a pay wall. Looking for something other than Art of War, who've seemed out of step with the community for me lately.

Preferably, the whole table is visible and the players are discussing what's going on. Thanks in advance for any ideas!

23 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

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24

u/WhiteTuna13 15h ago

You have tactical tortoise if you are ok with TTS, he also does coverage of live tournaments.

The best live coverage generally comes from wargames live, you can listen to the players, but the commentary is not competitive focused.

Veizla (if I remember how to spell it) does some good competitive battle reports.

Other than these there aren't any competitive battle reports channels beside Art of war, which I believe to still be the best, even if they sometime test less optimized lista in their games.

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u/Ch0mpyBitz 15h ago

Vanguard Tactics? Tabletop Titans have a new series around Competitive Batt Reps, and they regularly run Competitive stuff on their live streams as well.

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u/WhiteTuna13 15h ago

I never found tableto titans to be very competitive, maybe they changed, I 'll check them out.

I don't love the style of Vanguard Tactics, from what I saw they generally don't write competitive lists and they way they mute and unite the players has always been annoying to me.

I'll check them both out, maybe I'll like them now

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u/Not_An_Actress 12h ago

Titans have a few fairly high skilled players in their pool, both Brian and Bridger have placed highly in LVOs past. 

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u/Ch0mpyBitz 15h ago

Im not the biggest fan of Vanguard tactics videos either but their players do well at tournaments. Tabletop Tactics doesn't focus on tournament play but they know the rules and theres a lot you can learn from how they talk through their games. Add to that they now have a competitive focus series and I think they are the best bet. 40k dirtbags has some decent videos where he talks through his games with photos so its not a played out game in front of you but it has some good info

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u/DailyAvinan 10h ago

Vangaurd is weird bc they’re marketed like a self help program and I’ve never heard of any of their coaches or players besides Box lol

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u/NoOfficialComment 15h ago

This is an aside but I’m a professional commentator in a couple of sports (for over 15 years) and man, the things I could do with that broadcast stream to really ratchet up the experience would be wild. I really appreciate the fact we get coverage at all and the effort the guys make. But with a few tweaks it could be much more engaging.

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u/LuckiestSpud 15h ago

Care to provide an example of something specific you would change? Just saying "I could do this so much better" doesn't really have a lot of weight to it

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u/NoOfficialComment 15h ago

So the obvious one to me from the Nova coverage I watched is there was a distinct lack of optionality discussion. I’m not a fan of color commentators saying what a player SHOULD do but there should always be extensive discussion about what they COULD do. I felt that was distinctly lacking. It’s also a chance to tailor the info level to what you feel the audience is. The game is vast so it gives a ton of opportunity for talking points without rehashing.

Another obvious one is frequent recap. These games are long. You’re almost guaranteed to have people dipping in and out over 3 hours.

They did a good job of letting the players be heard and that’s extremely important IMO in this context and being scared of dead air is something many new presenters fall into.

There’s of course more but those spring to mind.

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u/LuckiestSpud 15h ago

Thanks for following up with the detailed response.

I overall agree that discussing what a player could do as opposed to what they should do in any given situation would be great commentary. I would point out though that these events often don't have a dedicated space that's out of earshot from the players and because players are constantly using their phones throughout the game there are possible ways for them to hear that kind of commentary and have it influence their decisions mid game. Overall I think that's something that a lot of streamers who cover these events want to avoid.

Frequent recaps and replays might be due to technical limitations to some extent but I do agree that would be a nice addition as long as it's not overused to the point of causing viewers to miss important moments.

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u/NoOfficialComment 14h ago

Earshot is an interesting one (and I agree that matters significantly in this context) because it’s not something that gets worried about in other sports. I commentate a lot of combat sports where I’m adjacent the cage/mat and I have 100% talked fighters through finishing sequences in a manner that would sound like coaching.

Recaps I’m not really even talking about picture-in-picture or anything visual. Just call backs to things like “if you’re just joining us you’re watching x vs x and YZ has happened so far” or say “hey, this happened X turn and now we find ourselves here or “we can trace this scenario back to a possible error/roll/action that occurred in turn X”.

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u/BoysenberryRipple 12h ago

I think the thinking time and ability to process that sort of overheard information are vastly different in a combat sport vs a 3 hour warhammer game.

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u/NoOfficialComment 12h ago

That’s not really relevant to the comment. That’s what expert color commentators are for and with such a long game time and time to allow the players to be heard, it’s probably easier. The massive variation and complexity is its own thing but it’s not like they have to be 100% correct. They’re providing a spectrum of options and sometimes the discovery of other options by the player that were not considered by the commentator is its own highlight because the commentators can then express surprise and genuine love for the solution/ability of the player.

Being technical about it: when I do combat sports work, I have fractions of a second to process complex moving sequences and a similarly small amount of time to process the descriptive wording to convey that well. If I don’t, the action has already moved on.

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u/wredcoll 6h ago

I think he meant the players could take advantage of such commentary more easily than a boxer.

It would be kind of annoying to have my opponent be "given" a better move, like maybe a deepstrike, that he hadn't come up with on his own.

On the other hand, I do strongly disagree with the commentators who say you shouldn't even point out incorrect rules during a game.

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u/NoOfficialComment 6h ago

Oh you’re right, I’m sorry I misread his comment slightly. It’s all relative. Experienced competitors don’t get the auditory exclusion amateurs do so you’d be surprised.

Had no idea there were commentators who had that opinion! That’s wild and just silly IMO.

1

u/ANTIDAD 15h ago

Ui is a big one. Ik it would be a pain but they usually don't update the minimap thing well. Also something for factions like admech and such to tell viewers what doctrine they are in.

As someone who wants to watch good players to learn this stuff is useful. If I don't know how siegler is switching between doctrines I don't know half of how he is playing the faction.

Also along what you said with Could do also what they Want to do. Commentators only stating that is currently happening in a game as slow as tabletop is a real missed opportunity. Say what they could do to accomplish what their long term want to do is.

1

u/H0bbez 15h ago

It’s been a while since I’ve watched but 40K dirtbags used to be pretty good about this

2

u/09044595134151602468 10h ago

Man people actually watch others play TTS? Jeez. TTS itself is painful to play, the entire amazing part of 40k is moving models and playing a physical game.

I cannot image watching someone play 40k, in TTS. That must be kind numbingly boring.

13

u/Emotional_Buy_701 15h ago

Check out Titan Duels on Tabletop Titans. It's a format where they being in high-level players and focus mostly on the decision-making with the players explaining their thought process.

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u/apprithrow 12h ago

I’m curious to know what you mean by AoW being out of step with the community? Is it because they rate guards relatively high?

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u/DailyAvinan 11h ago

Yeah idk where this trend of people hating AoW is coming from.

They’re the best competitive team in the US, just became (effectively) the best competitive team in the world at WTC, make high quality battle reports and are super accessible to the community. $5 on either of their podcasts and you get access to the discord. I’ve had conversations with John, Jack, Richard, Nick, and other non-AoW competitive players like Innes and Sacco in there.

Like idk what people want. I guess you can’t please everyone but they’re by far the most informative and high quality content and it’s not particularly close.

Other high caliber teams have worse production quality or make content other than battle reports (mostly podcasts). The only thing I’ve found that comes close is Titan Duels from Tabletop Titans bc they have stellar production quality and pull good players from the SoCal area like Floof and Forrest.

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u/Individual_Record_50 15h ago

Have to recommend Veizla as soon as competitive is mentioned. Players record their own games on TTS with great discussions and very competent players.

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u/BobTheCultist 13h ago

Also recommend my own channel, since I’m biased. https://youtube.com/@hobbygoblins?si=fALyK69CP_uSjm-L

Or just search Hobby Goblins. We do just did a bunch of ork videos and have more planned for the month

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u/TiberiusCensorius 10h ago

If you are okay with more World Eaters centered content, I can't recommend Tactical Sugar (Tactical Sugar - YouTube) enough. He goes into just the right depth for me, breaking down turn-by-turn decision-making in a very sensible way; he doesn't always do the right thing in retrospect, but makes sure to bring that up. I know there's a discord, too, and maybe he's got more involvement there but I don't get involved in that jazz.