Castles are lovely. I remember being thrilled when I saw the first preview pictures of them. They certainly add a sense of majesty and even authenticity to the Heroscape brand.

But Castles are also tricky for the cartographer. A single tower is immediately the most dominant feature of the map, since few of us are willing to invest the tiles to create other levels of greater height. So while everyone wants to see two castles sally troops from their gates to meet in the midfield and lay siege, unfortunately that doesn't make for a very good game of Heroscape. On the other hand, our favorite game is modular. While the name of the set inclines us to build fortresses and walled structures for units to cower behind, the tiles of the set themselves offer the most variety of dominant features of any set. What follows are just a few examples of ways to use this set without building two castles across from each other.

The first dominant map feature I call "Central...