Cincinnati Draft Pool Tournament 1/15/11

[Mooseman]

Zach likes the looks of Geothermal, so I added it to the map list.

Petition to remove geothermal from the map list:

Mooseman
Mooseman's Brother


I don't want to sound rude here, but honestly, Geothermal Battlefield is a horrible map for tournament play. The starting zones are elevated, the shadow tiles are all sunken and almost useless. The map is fairly wide, but there is nothing to draw players to the wings, meaning all the action will be around the central height, which is slightly closer to one starting zone. Half of the map is low level lava field, which is suicide to attempt to cross. The smattering of LOS blockers are in out of the way position and sunken to minimize their profile. The center, where the only tactically advantegous position lies, is a massive choke point.

Basically, it completely screws melee and really isn't that fun to play on.

Your tourney though.

[Johnnylama]

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Petition to remove geothermal from the map list

Thanks for the insight! We haven't had a chance to play test it yet. He just thought it looked cool.

How about...

Jack of Spades

or...

Shadow and Brimstone

I only have left 1 D&D, 1 VW, 1 TJ, 1 Marvel, and 1 Road, so that limits things. Wookie said he'd bring a few others too.

[Mooseman]

Just looking at them Shadow and Brimstone looks like it could be interesting in the draft format. It's positvley tiny, so I wouldn't suggest it for the standard tourney, but since (I'm assuming) we're drafting knowing the map, it could have a big impact on the unit choices. Its fairley open, but its also small, so melee should fair well. I'd imagine most of the tactical decisions on this map would come from the draft.

Jack of Spades is harder to see from the pic. I think it was nominated for the BoV, so I'll go dig up what the judges said.

[Johnnylama]

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

Jack of Spades by Gamebear

When you see a map by Gamebear you know it will be a good map.

Jack of Spades has a pretty unique terrain set. It requires 1 DnD, 1 Marvel, and 1 TJ. That alone makes it pretty unique. The map is laid out so that there is a small 7 hex hill near your start zone and a few 2 hexers as well. The middle of the map is filled with jungle, shadow and concrete. There are 2 concrete hills in the center of the map. On the edges of the map there is a small water area where the glyphs are.

The jungle terrain and Shadow tiles together surely help the melee units get going when facing range. In many spots they can have +2 defense. This really helped with the first initial surge of melee. However once they started pushing over the hill they tended to get slowed down a bit. 6 move units seemed to do much better than 5 move units when trying to climb the hills. The outside edges with the glyphs didn’t seem to get as much action as I would have liked. Most of the battle seemed to either take place on the hills or in the opposing start zones. The map played very well and melee seemed to be able to take on the onslaught of ranged units most of the time.

I vote YES to induct into the BoV.

This is all they've said so far. I don't think anyone else has reviewed it. I'll try to find some time to build it and take it for a spin.

[jschild]

Hate to have to miss this one, but Jan is just terrible for me. Have four birthdays that month, including mine and Josh's.

Hope to catch your next one though!

[Johnnylama]

Originally Posted by jschild

Hate to have to miss this one, but Jan is just terrible for me. Have four birthdays that month, including mine and Josh's.

Hope to catch your next one though!

That's too bad. If everything goes well, I hope we can do another one later. I wonder if the store would still let us do it if Heroscape is no longer available to sell down the road?


On a brighter note, I actually got a good deal off ebay.
Probably a couple more maps to come!

[wdgrant]

Put me down. I've never played a draft tournament and I can't wait for this event. I'll try to talk to some of the Indy folks and see if we can't get a few of us down that way.

[ravenwolf64]

Count me in! I have never drafted, in fact never played tournament outside of friends, so I am really looking forward to this
Peace!

[ravenwolf64]

Speaking of... anyone interested in one-on-one before then feel free to send me a PM. I definitely need the experience since I have only played with friends and we are all learning together (We mostly play D&D on the tiles lol)
Peace

[Johnnylama]

Merry Christmas!

Jack of Spades seems to be pretty good, so I went ahead and added it.

I'm also considering one or both of the following. Let me know if you have any feeling about them:

Ticalla Sunrise


Trailblazer

[wdgrant]

I should be bringing Hahnarama with me. I'll just apologize in advance for anything he says or does.

Just wondering, is the store open after the event if we want to hang out and play a board game after?

[Johnnylama]

Originally Posted by wdgrant

I should be bringing Hahnarama with me. I'll just apologize in advance for anything he says or does.

Just wondering, is the store open after the event if we want to hang out and play a board game after?

The store (and the mall) is open until 9, so I don't think sticking around will be a problem!