The Scroll of Grounds of Ashra

[Sir Heroscape]

COMPETITIVE MAP
By JaesShurrig

Download, (Download)
Required sets:SotM, RttFF, FotA

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Map Bio -

Below the twisting maze of walkways in the Waylan trees of Ashra lies a bustling hub of life. Winding pathways throughout the forest grounds take those to the bases of several trees these elves of Ashra call home. While the Grounds of Ashra are not as lively as the community above, we can still find an abundance of activity here. In the center stands the Home Tree, the giant tree which Ullar's general flag was carved from by the great elf wizard, Acolarh. This tree is a powerful symbol to the elves of Feylund, and they will protect it at any cost.

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Reviews-
•Nomad
I was enjoyably surprised by Grounds of Ashra. This map is much more pleasing to the eye than the image reveals and promotes a different style of play. Once built and before armies are placed in their start zones, the mind starts whirling through various potential strategies. Movement across the map flows fluidly without any major chokepoints. Although I feared that the height in the middle of the map would encourage ranged armies to pod-up and fire away, I found that that region is easily approached from numerous directions and melee armies were quite able to prevent that strategy. The battles were fast paced with quick flanking attacks which utilized all areas of the map. After five playtests in a tournament setting, all who played on this map indicated that it was fair, fun, promoted aggressive engagement, and would be eager to play on it again. I vote to include this map as tournament worthy in the ARV canon.

•Sir Heroscape
This map surprised me. I'll be honest it wasn't my favorite, but there weren't too many things that kept me from voting this down. The road is incredibly helpful and well-placed for armies, especially melee, and there really are no places for range to hide. The road moves fast enough to route, and you can always jump down into the swamp just to engage a position on the road or reposition. The single hexes in the middle are great raelin perches for a little while, but I usually lost Raelin due to the fact that there were multiple ways to reach her and it actually took a little bit to set up a screen for that spot. I also liked how she could only really see left and right and the big tree kept her from seeing units advancing further down the path. Games on this were fun, well-played and really no concern. I see this as a good map that people will enjoy playing in tournaments.

to induct.

•Biggabullfrog
Despite only using a small variety of terrain (swamp and road), this map is one of my pet favorites as far as looks go. It’s likely just a me thing, but the look of raised roadways over swamp with the remaining columns of some civilization looks really neat and makes for an exciting map to play through. The road also allows you to run wherever you want to be quickly, making action that consists of fast skirmishes.

Initially, my primary concern was the power that ranged armies (especially podding/turtling armies) would have by taking the high ground in the center. Only a few columns are utilized as Line of Sight blockers which leaves the map pretty open to long-range sniping (I did wish more LoS blockers were used). The glyphs in particular are vulnerable to range in the center, which means that taking and holding them can be a chore. However, I did find the fight to be a lot more balanced than I expected. Running to the middle will often leave your forward forces exposed, and opponent figures can use the road to engage those figures and cut them off from reinforcements. This is especially dangerous if you try to move a cheerleader to the middle — a wrong move can result in losing that cheerleader fast, creating an interesting risk/reward dynamic to the map.

Road on the high ground, while aesthetic here, is also a worrying factor, as it allows range to shoot from anywhere on the map they want, and allows screening units (curse you, Rats!) to run in and tie down figures while limiting same-height (not to mention higher) attacks back on them. However, I did find that the amount of road on this map allows for armies to utilize flanking strategies effectively, which lets an army that may struggle against Rats/Range to run around them, cut off reinforcements, take glyphs while they’re distracted, and generally take them toe-to-toe. The single-hex roadways does mean that it’s easy to block off figures with a screen, but being able to avoid those figures (or spread them out if they’re trying to turtle in Raelin’s aura) provides enough counter play that my games felt interactive and dynamic. It made games exciting in a way that isn’t usually seen with competitive maps.

This map is very different from most tournament maps that are seen. It’s open, consists of height that is mostly road with only a couple of height pockets in the middle, and has a lot of easily-congested single-hex roadways. At the same time, it sports enough roadways for action to be fast-paced, allows armies to keep up with each other by routing, flanking, and capturing advanced figures, and taking glyphs becomes a more strategic decision than on most maps. The narrow roadways makes games with large armies seem to be easily congested, but the rings of road mean figures can engage on multiple points, and often discourages turtling. This map is very close for me, right on the edge of the point between an up and a down vote, as there are a lot of points for and against it, and I won’t be surprised if the other judges vote up or down on it. Usually I downvote maps like this, as I often feel that the map shouldn’t have me questioning its competitive value, but I’m convinced here. While unorthodox for the usual competitive map pool, I felt that its quirks were well-used and made for balanced, dynamic play that will feel fresh to players.

I vote to induct Grounds of Ashra

[Scapemage]

Really interesting map! Swarm of the Marro and Road to the Forgotten Forest are not used together enough. The pillars thrown in as well give it a really unique look.

[Shurrig]

I’m truly honored to have a map of mine deemed tournament worthy by the ARV, so I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. I’ve only been playing heroscape for a little over a year now, but it has certainly been a big part of my past year, as it has been one of my biggest hobbies and quite easily my favorite game to play when I can. Thank you for your support and and thank you for being a part of what makes this community amazing