Resubmission of
Pure Gold by
@
superfrog
First off, thanks for the resubmission, superfrog! I was happy to see this map come back for consideration. On to the review:
The bridge is more powerful in this version of Pure Gold (though Wannok still offers a good counter). It can be difficult for a melee based army to take control of the bridge from a ranged army, and the most effective way to do it from my experience wasn’t intuitive at first. I found that moving melee figures up onto level three shadow from the Wannok side (with the cover of the central trees), then rushing sideways across the map was often more effective at contesting the bridge position than the alternative - making the hard decision of rushing the bridge using the road, or putting trust in the shadow tiles running adjacent to the bridge to help you weather the attacks from range on height. The latter allowed for range to kite pretty effectively, and get multiple attacks down on approaching units before they were able to engage.
All the elements that I liked with the first version are still present in this version - including the crispness of the start zones, the retention of the middle start zone spaces, and the placement of LOS blockers (the trees in the middle). And most of the negative aspects of the map have been effectively mitigated (7-hex hills, the power of dragons like Nilfheim, and less effective shadow placement specifically). My games on this map were no longer merely a rush to see who could establish position to control the 7-hex hills and Wannok, but were much more strategic and utilized the whole map.
Overall, this version of the map is better, and I believe the changes are sufficient to merit a
