Awesome to see you sharing maps with the community Flash! They look really good for your first few; I'm impressed!
Jandar's Summoning Circle:
In response to Sir H's question, there's no special rule for building with rock outcrops, so your use of them as standalones is more than fine.
Looks like a solid and intriguing build overall. I am going to disagree about the Summoning glyph, though. I don't feel like it's a good glyph for tournament use. One concern is, as you mention, Q9. The problem here is that in two turns you can have Q9 on the highest ground surrounded by Rats on turn 2. Normally it will take Q9 three turns to get up there, on top of the turns used to screen with Rats. Even with the map using road and LoS blockers to try to mitigate that strength, that's a huge strength I would take any day. Another concern is using Greenscales and a Dragon to claim the high ground and summon Raelin to back them up. One of the few weaknesses of these pod armies is the time it takes for them to get set up, and the Summong glyph is going to get rid of that.
Another mark against the Summoning glyph in my book is how it can screw up an opponent's army. You can use it to summon their Spartacus, Kato, Kurrok, Raelin, Kantono, Master Lao Xin, etc. and completely wreck their army. So while I like the glyph thematically and think it would make for great casual/scenario play, I would advocate against its use competitively with only very rare exceptions, if any.
But beyond that, the build is really good. LoS blockers are being used really well to protect glyphs and advancing units to keep that central high ground from being the only focal point of the map. Action will be spread out and there is ample opportunity for skirmishing in addition to a tough fight for the top. I like it!
One more concern I noticed: it looks like a lot of the terrain available to you in the sets you've included is going unused, especially from the BftU. While not a huge deal, it's always nice from a tournament director's stance if the terrain is used efficiently when they're putting things together. If possible, I would look at changing the BftU into a different set and seeing if you can't get better mileage out of it, since all you need are some LoS blockers and supporting hexes. TT could work, and I think Jandar's stuff is pretty close to Thaelenk anyway IIRC, or possibly even RttFF if you can use road underneath the top layers to free up hexes to replace those that will be lost in the Start Zone. Even if you don't use all the trees/glaciers if you go that way, I feel like it will feel like a better use of the sets than just a fraction of BftU.
Ruins of Rennoc:
I really like this one. It's got some interesting pathing going on and it looks like a fun skirmish. LoS blockers are again doing a good job of segregating the map into "zones" for the action to happen in.
Like Sir H said, Jalgard is just way too good, and the lava won't balance that enough. Giving Raelin to your whole army is really strong. Gerda should be fine there in the middle.
The road is intriguing. I'm not convinced that it's being put to its best use, but the map is small enough from Start Zone to Start Zone that you don't really need its bonus there. It's definitely something I'm willing to try out.
Aesthetically it just looks great. Good job on creating this landmark from the compendium!
Side note for the maps: technically according to our
by-laws, when you submit maps to the contest they need to use different master sets, and both of these use RotV, meaning they both can't be submitted together (right
@
Sir Heroscape
?). Which is rough because they're both really good and I'd be excited to play on both.