NHSD: SoCal Slaughter! 2018

[superfrog]

It took me a second, too.

Xoti has just mapped out the edge pieces in those files, I think.

[Xotli]

Ahh! Feedback! Loving it, guys ... keep it coming.

Originally Posted by hivelord

The pop can make it!

Excellent! Top post updated. We're at 10 so far; I would love it if we could get to 12. I think I've only got a shot at one more from my side, realistically. But I'm still encouraging as enthusiastically as I can.

Originally Posted by superfrog

That combo looks like it works great. I'm definitely in favor of them not joining up instantaneously.

Yeah, too close together, and there's no challenge to cross maps. OTOH ...

Originally Posted by hivelord

I'm slightly concerned about the one-hex bridges being too much of a choke-point ...

Right, exactly. So I'm trying to make every pair of maps touch in 2 or 3 hexes, then add the bridge pieces for a few more hexes. So, taking April Puddles as an example, April is on the left and A Couple Puddles is on the right; on level 3, 2 hexes of Puddles connect to 3 hexes of April. On level 2, there's another hex of April which connects to 2 more hexes of Puddles. And, on level 1, there's 6 hexes of bridging pieces between the 2 maps. So there should be plenty of room to cross.

Originally Posted by hivelord

I'm having a bit of trouble visualizing the combo maps.

Originally Posted by superfrog

It took me a second, too.

Xoti has just mapped out the edge pieces in those files, I think.

Yes, those aren't the entire maps; I figured it would take too much time to recreate the entirety of all the maps in VS. But, I dunno ... maybe I'll find some extra time at some point. But, for now, it's just the center—i.e. the places where the maps actually touch each other. The maps will continue on to both the left and the right (and, occasionally, upward).

Now, building may be somewhat of a challenge. But I'm thinking that each combo map will have 3 sets of instructions: one for the left-hand map, one for the right-hand map, and one that shows how they fit together and any additional pieces. That's the primary reason I made the bridge pieces pink—so it's obvious that these are "extra" pieces that fit into blank spots on the other 2 sets of instructions. Now, I'm hoping that each combo map, including bridge pieces, will be contributed by a single map-maker. However, I think it's still doable to have the two sides provided by two different attendees, especially if we're careful to make the bridge pieces super-obvious ... by which I mean, use the same terrain type for every bridge piece on a given map, and make it something that nothing else on either side is using. Asphalt and concrete will be the obvious choices, but swamp could work in certain cases, and maybe even sand or rock sometimes (like if you're bridging an ice map to a dungeon map or a lava map to a swamp map or something). Road and lava field are out, obviously, and none of the half-height tiles are usable; grass is probably too common, and snow just doesn't provide enough different shapes. Dungeon seems tempting, but there are powers tied to it, so it's not really feasible.

But you see what I'm saying: if it's super-obvious where the bridge pieces are, then it should be fairly obvious where the maps break apart, and then it's not hard to make sure everybody gets their own pieces back. I want to be really careful about making sure everybody gets their stuff back, as there will be a lot of mixing in this format, and we've already had issues with that before (as D-man's sig attests ).

Originally Posted by hivelord

As for the format, wouldn't everyone have to bring a second army so as to guarantee that there will be a pool to choose from for those playing alone?

An excellent question! Well, my thinking on this was, I will probably just bring a huge batch of armies, since I have a pretty wide variety. Certain armies (wolfpack, elf wizard pod, 'crons, Nakitas + primadons, Nicky & the thralls, ninjacore, etc) are just no-brainers, and I put them together every year anyway, JIC someone shows up and needs an extra army. The only thing special I want to do for this year is to throw in some terrain-specific armies: a good snow army would be fun, or a lava army ... this really gives us the opportunity to see some units we never see in the tourneys, like yetis, obsidians, eilan sidhe ... hell, maybe even some Marro drudges! So I was expecting to be providing the bulk of the pool myself, and hoping to be pleasantly surprised if everyone also brought an extra army.

Originally Posted by hivelord

You keep wanting Marvel, and I'm not opposed to it per-se but the A and A- ones should absolutely be on the restricted list if so.

Oh, are there power rankings for the Marvel guys? I had no idea ... I just always assumed they were all sub-par. I mean, Cap is pretty sweet if you run him with minutemen, sure, but otherwise, enh. Spidey and Iron Man have always been distinctly "meh" every time I've played them with Classic. The Hulk is exactly like a dragon: super-awesome, right up until he dies, then you're just hosed, because he was the bulk of your army. I feel like Surfer or Thanos are the only ones who might be problematic, and even then, it needs to be someone who really knows how to use them, and even then you're likely to get trounced by squadscape.

But, hey: I have zero problems with throwing a few supers onto the restricted list. Point me at the power rankings and I'll make that change in a heartbeat.


Last thing: I've done another combo: Stygian Rift + Highways and Dieways == Stygian Dieways. Check it out. This one goes up to level 3, and they fit together so beautifully that I only had to add a double and a triple ... and mainly that was just to have a place to put the treasure glyphs. It's weird to me how sweetly some of these just flow right into each other.

And feel free to tell me if you need me to expand these a bit so you can see how they're going to fit together. I know rotating them around in your head can be a PITA; I usually have to take at least one of the maps and suck it into the Gimp and do a rotate on it just to see how to orient it even to recreate the edges myself ...