Using 2 Player Maps with 4 Players?

[claw1892]

I have a group of friends that I've recently gotten into Heroscape. We don't have a lot of space to set up multiple maps, so the 4 of us prefer to play in teams of 2, especially since they are still figuring out the game.

Is there a way to effectively use the tournament-ready maps with 4 players instead of 2? I know that some will work better than others, but I'd like to know some general guidelines for army sizes when playing with 4. For example, will maps designed for 2 armies at 500 points each usually handle 4 armies of the same size pretty well, or should we play with 4 armies at 350 points each? Or is it best to add more tiles to the starting zone? Just curious on what you guys think before I set up a map; the ones we play are typically pretty large.

[obfuscatedhippo]

There are some good maps there for 2 or 4 players that might help:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ad.php?t=45561

[claw1892]

Very nice! Thank you!

[Oman1666]

The first obvious thing you could try is halving the army size each player gets (or making it that the two allied players don't exceed the (for example) 500pt limit between them), the only difference here would be that more units would move and act in a given round, so you might want to be careful with any recommendation for round limits.

If you want to stick very closely to the original map, but still play in teams, why not split into two teams of two, but draft only one army between you. Before each round, discuss tactics with your partner to place round markers, then decide together where to move and what to attack. That way it's still the same army sizes, starting zones and even the same number of units activated per round - but you've got two heads commanding each side

[lefton4ya]

I like the idea adding extra spaces to the start zone, maybe like one or two 7-hexers and a couple singles to add no more than 16 spaces to each start zone then have 2 500-point armies, one will be squad heavy, and another squad-light, as otherwise if you had two 24-hex armies it would be way too much clogging on a map designed for 2 players, not to mention take too much time. Probably even 8 extra hexes if fine, as I think 32 hexes is enough for 2 armies and forces at least one if not both to not get more than 5 squads of anything. BTW, self-promotion, but if you Have AotP:SOI, check out Herosape and Magic:AotP Cryptolith Map Contest and try playing a game one one of those maps with a 16 hex max Heroscape army and 8 hex max AotP army in a 2v2 team game - Heroscape and AotP.