On battle reports and the appreciation thereof.

I don't know about other people out there in the wargame blogging world but one of the great pleasures for me in following other people's blogs is being able to see when they've posted a battle report, and then being able to read it. 

I will read pretty much any battle report that I see.  I'm not really much of a sci-fi man, but I'll even read sci-fi reports on occasion, which might give you some idea of how much I enjoy them and appreciate the effort that goes into making them.

I enjoy them for many reasons. It might be a good story, it might be lovely figures and / or terrain, it might be written in a style that grabs me, it might use a rules set I play or am interested in, it might explore a period I know, or a period that is new to me.  It might be that I like the blogger personally (or as well as you can virtually) and am glad to see them writing; it could be for any number of other reasons I have not yet had occasion to think of.  

But one thing that I do not like is any attempt to prescribe a format that battle reports must follow.  There have been a couple of articles posted on various sites over the years - most recently on theminiaturespage.com* - about what the authors expect from a battle report and I must say that while I respect their right to a point of view I don't think that what one fellow likes needs to be turned into a list of commandments for others to follow.

It's hard enough to write a battle report as it is without someone creating a list of things that are supposed to be ticked off before a battle report can deserve the name.  You put a bit of yourself into any report you write, and I think that needs to be appreciated and respected.  It's all very well for someone with 100 followers and lots of mates down at the club to feel that they have a handle on what a report should be, but they don't have a mortgage on it, and everyone with 100 followers starts out at zero, and that can be a daunting place to be.  Why make it harder?

Wargaming is a big hobby and there is room for all of us.  I would not like to see the wonderful variety of individual approaches to after action reports being stilted by some kind of imaginary consensus on what makes a 'good' or 'bad' report.

So, write what you like, enjoy writing it, don't follow anyone else's idea of what a report should or should not be, and don't be afraid to share what you've written.  If people don't like it they'll stop reading; if they do like it they'll carry on and, if you're lucky, leave a comment telling you so.  Either way, all that really matters is that you've enjoyed yourself in the process. 

*Edit: the chap on TMP has since said that he was not intending to lay down any hard and fast rules and was only saying what he likes to see in a report. I may therefore have been wrong in my impression he was being prescriptive.