My first attempt at a 1x SotM map came out kinda bland, so I spiced it up a bit by adding a different dynamic: swamp water on high ground... a lot of it. All of those turrets are - you guessed it - within at most 5 spaces of each other, allowing the Drudge to Swamp Water Tunnel all over the place AND get their +1/+1 bonus on the high ground. If the Drudge don't excel on this map, I don't think they ever will. This would also be a great map for Microcorp Agents, Water Elementals and Marro Warriors. I'm pretty excited about this as my first 1x SotM map, and I can't wait to try the Drudge on it!
This map tries to do everything to deny commons the ability to replenish their ranks quickly, with both a water barrier and a steep height change in the middle of the map. I think this could be a pretty solid 1x RotV tourney map.
This is yet another road + trees map relying on the trees to block sightlines and roads to help melee make it to the fight. I like the look the bridge over the middle gives to the map. It should be high enough for most Small and Medium figures to fit under it, except the really tall ones. That bridge might give Large and Huge non-Fliers some fits with a ranged figure on the other side. There are definitely some issues with double-hex figures and ranged figures on the bridge, but hey, life ain't fair. Don't draft double-hexers on this map unless you plan to have more Points worth of figures than your opponent at the end of the game when it matters.
4/27/2010
The Fire Swamp:
Spoiler Alert!
Watching the Cavs in my new recliner, inspiration hit me to put a map together. I haven't seen a lot of Swamp/Lava maps, so I reached into one of my favorite movies:
This is another map, similar to Elien's Magma Cave and Decline of Sight, that should favor Hero armies over squads. There are some really tough choices to make when moving through the swamp (hey, no one has ever made it through alive, except Westley and Buttercup), and not a lot of safe hexes (and nearly all of the safe hexes are on low ground). The Flame Spurts (molten lava spaces) are strategically (or evilly, I guess) placed to force the action up onto the lava fields and Lightning Sand. Plus, those 4 Treasures out there (the Glyphs of Thorian are again face-down, random Treasure glyphs) are just screaming to be picked up by some heroes, if they can shake off the Rodents of Unusual Size:
Rodents of Unusual Size
When your figure springs the trap of Rodents of Unusual Size, choose an opponent. That opponent may attack your figure with 4 attack dice. You may roll defense dice normally. The attack is considered to come from a Large figure.
Also, there is, of course, a special rule for the sand spaces, which are the Lightning Sand:
Lightning Sand
When your Small or Medium figure without either the Flying or Stealth Flying Special Power moves onto a sand space from a non-sand space, roll the twenty-sided die. If you roll a 1, that figure is destroyed. If you roll a 2-5, that figure receives one wound and must end its movement on that sand space. If you roll a 6 or higher, nothing happens.
I'm considering moving those 2-hex lava pieces on top of the sand next to the Treasures closest to the Starting Zones back adjacent to the 7-hex lava tiles, so that a non-flier that wants the Treasure has to go through the Lightning Sand or way around over the lava, since you have to go through Lightning Sand to get the other 2. I'll decide after some playtesting (either by me or others) is done on it. I definitely think lava is my favorite terrain to use - I have to find a way to get my hands on some more.
4/20/2010
Dune Buggy:
Spoiler Alert!
Dune Buggy (1x Marvel, 1x RotV, 1x RttFF, a bunch of extra Sand tiles)
This map and Decline of Sight were made for my upcoming tournament (just as Underground Oasis was). I found that, after I seperated out the terrain for the first 7 maps I needed to make, I had quite a bit left over, including a ton of sand and rock 2-hexers from buying expansions. Using my 50 (!) extra sand 2-hexers, I came up with Dune Buggy. The materials needed listed here are estimated - you can see exactly what you need to build this map in the download. For instance, all of the Marvel set used is covered over, so that could be substituted with anything. The glyph on the road is Gerda, in an attempt to get some players using that part of the map (and because my tournament requires each map to have one glyph equidistant from each starting zone).
Decline of Sight:
Spoiler Alert!
Decline of Sight (1x Marvel, 1x SotM, 1x RttFF (trees only), a bunch of extra Rock, Grass and Sand tiles)
After I made Dune Buggy, I found that I still had a bunch of extra stuff, including ruins, trees, the Marvel Wall and a Hive, so I decided to try and take advantage of all those LOS blockers. That's how Decline of Sight was born. Using basically all of the rest of my extra terrain (except snow - I still have a ton of that left over),I came up with this narrow, frustrating map. It's symmetrical (except for the Marvel Wall - the other side has a makeshift wall built out of 2-hexers and a road wall at the top, with 2 molten lava tiles covering half of the hexes, since the Marvel Wall only has 2 accessible hexes on top), so this look down the corridor is what you should see from the other side as well. Squad-based armies should find it pretty difficult to maneuver here, and ranged squads should be especially frustrated since they can't see much. Hero-based armies would, in theory, be better equipped to traverse this obstacle course of randomness. Deathreavers might pose a problem here with all the chokepoints, though I think it would be tough for what's behind them to get off clean shots. Raelin obviously loves the perches on the 2 walls.
3/28/2010
Oldin's Hall:
Spoiler Alert!
Oldin's Hall(1x RotV [only uses about 2/3 of the terrain, and none of the 24-Hex Grass], 2x FotA, 1x RttFF [I didn't count, but I probably didn't need this])
Here's Oldin's Hall, which uses about half an RotV and 2 Castle sets (mostly for the 2 doors). The map is meant to be played without the doors on. I forgot to mark the starting zones here, but they're the obvious 24-hex Rock tiles. The Glyph of Brandar is a custom glyph - the Glyph of Stone Melding, which reads:
Stone Melding
When you control this glyph, all figures you control not standing on a glyph that are on a Rock hex or adjacent to a Castle Wall may roll up to 2 additional defense dice.
I envisioned this map to be played with normal snow and slippery ice, allowing fairly easy access to the movement glyphs on each side while making traveling through the center of the map slow, but protected from view, and rewarding by finding a Wound glyph that has some nice cover around it. If used in a tournament, I might suggest making the ice normal (and maybe the snow heavy) as I could see this much slippery ice and that much cover taking quite a bit of time to play through. I haven't played any games on it yet though, so maybe I'm wrong and the 2 movement glyphs make up for it.
Now that I've made Elien's and Oldin's maps, I might change the map to Heavy Snow and Slippery Ice, and change the glyphs so that the middle glyph is a Brandar that acts as the glyph of Winter Speed, which reads:
Snow and Ice Enhanced Movement
When you control this glyph, all figures you control count Heavy Snow and Slippery ice hexes as 1 Movement instead of 2.
Thanks to pauldragon's input, I've made a couple modifications that should improve the map. I made the glyph in the middle of the oasis a static Astrid glyph. I think that glyph is strong enough to move some play onto the oasis. Also, the 2 shadow tiles that used to be on level 0 adjacent to the starting zones have now been moved up onto the cave plateau area. I think I need to make another small revision, as the red side seems to have easier access to the Shadow tiles and high ground. That might unbalance it a little - I'll see what I can do to fix that. It's probably just a matter of flipping the 3-hexer on the Blue side around.
Original:
I started experimenting with 2x BtfU maps because I needed one for my May, 2010 tournament. I came up with these 2 quickly, and am using Underground Oasis:
Durgueth Swamps (1 SotM and 2 TJ) This is a remake of the RotV Master set map using swamp and jungle terrain. Works well as a race-to-the-glyph scenario (like it is in the RotV rulebook).
March 12th, 2010, 10:22 PM
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