Yet another insidious idea from my ingenious mind. I’ve created a monster! [Maniacal Laughter]

Here’s the concept: Four armies wage war, not with each other, but on a monstrous worm burrowing just below the surface of the ground. The conqueror gains the glory and honor of ridding the land of Valhalla from this hideous worm.


As you can see from the concept battlefield, a twelve-segmented worm lurks in the low plain in the middle of the arena. The segments are made from single-hex grass tiles and represent the worm just below the ground. Up to four players can attempt to destroy the beast.

At the beginning of each round, the winner of initiative can move the worm by taking a hex from one end of the worm and placing it on the other end. The player can do this 3 or 4 times depending on how fast you want the worm...

Retlaw has recently written a great thread about a slippery-ice rule variant in which the figure slides until it is stopped by something. This got the little gears in my head turning. Here are the rules I’ve come up with:

Slick-Ice Rules:
If a figure moves onto a Slick-Ice tile, the figure must continue to move in its current heading until: A) Its path is blocked by some object, enemy figure, or engaged friendly figure; B) It encounters an increase in elevation, a water tile, or the edge of the board; or C) The figure’s maximum move number is reached. When the figure has been stopped, its movement is over. The figure will take any disengagement attacks as it slides past enemy figures.

I’m currently putting together plans for a frozen lake battlefield in which the figures slide around like ice-skaters. Most of the map will be the icy lake with a few strategically placed blocks of ice and snow floating in it. I’ve also considered putting a few water...

I like levels with a lot of height to them. Vast changes in elevation are appealing to the eyes and make for more interesting battles. Unfortunately, I only own two Master Sets (one Rise of the Valkyrie and one Swarm of the Marro) so building tall maps proved difficult.

I did have one tool in my arsenal to use in my battle for scale – the Fortress of the Archkyrie expansion set. I started working on designs that used the castle pieces, not as fortresses or strongholds, but as supporting columns. This way I could achieve the height I wanted without sacrificing my precious terrain tiles.

My first map to use this concept was the Long Bridge Battlefield. This one remains one of my favorite maps mainly because of the scale and playability on various levels. I wasn’t sure if the bottom part of the board would see any play at all, but with the strategic placement of...

I used to play only official battlefield scenarios produced by Hasbro, and that kept me satisfied for a long time. At the time, I figured I didn’t have what it took to design and write great scenarios, so I didn’t even bother. When I started looking online for more battlefield/scenarios, I found a great number of player-created battlefields. There were a couple of issues I had with most of the custom battlefields:

1) They were just that – battlefields. No scenarios, just build instructions. You had to just build it and then figure out what you were going to do with it.

2) The quality was poor. They didn’t look or read like the official scenarios. I really liked how the official scenarios fit into the world of Valhalla and had a story behind them.

3) The battlefields were unbalanced, unfair, and/or boring. Either the terrain gave unfair advantage to one side or the maps were insipidly symmetrical and without purpose.

I sought...