Heroscape without Hexes?

[LMB]

Been away from HS for a while, the whole WotC pulls the plug was pretty depressing, but lately I've been thinking about playing again.

Anyway, the idea that I've been mulling over is playing HS on a completely homemade map without any hexes. I figured I'd make a measuring device to figure out movement and range, but there are a couple potential problems and I thought I'd raise them here and see what others think.

The problems arise (no pun intended) from height issues. Namely, changes in height would not be incremental like they are when using the plastic hexes. A hill would be just that, a hill. So calculating the move up a hill wouldn't be easy/possible. The other issue is height advantage. Sure, up close it would be easy enough to see who was higher, but across a distance a dispute could result.

So, I'm thinking that the way to make it play fairly is to have no additional movement needed to climb a hill, and no attack advantage from height (since the reason you use precious movement to go up is often to gain the attack advantage).

Do you think this would play well?

Can you think of any other issues that could result from a hexless game?

[SirGalahad]

Line of Sight, clear sight, overhangs, falling damage.

Plus, you would lose a lot of strategic decision-making if you were to remove the additional move needed for melee figures to obtain height, making all figures essentially have Flying.

Height advantage is one of the hallmarks of this game--without it, I think you would lose a lot of the fun and strategy.

[LMB]

I don't see there being any LoS issues, except the regular arguments that arise. I could make overhangs as well, though I don't plan on it.

Falling damage is something I hadn't thought of, but I honestly can't remember the last time that came up in a game so I'm not sure it's such a big deal, for me anyway.

I agree that the decision making about trying to gain height does add an interesting element to the game, but I've also seen it devolve into, what seems to me like, silliness when a single hex figure prevents a double hex figure from advancing because of the move value of the larger figure and the availability of hexes.

I'm not really planning any sharp, vertical rises, more like gentle hills

An added bonus of creating the other board which I didn't mention is it would give me a more interesting, exciting surface on which to play other games like AT-43 and Confrontation. I had thought about perhaps Heroscapizing it with hexes and marking off elevation like a topographical map but I think that would detract from the "feel" that I'm seeking.