Battlefields of Valhalla Discussion Thread

[UranusPChicago]

Wow, funrun, I think you killed out thread...

Thank you for the nomination for perusal and a personal thank you for thinking that one of my maps is worthy enough to be nominated. I will respectfully bow out of any discussions involving Arctic Divide. I will add, however, that Heavy Snow and/or Heavy Ice is not determined on the map itself. My personal preference was for both to be Heavy, but the Heavy/Light factor is ultimately left up to the user of the map. Tundra, so far, is the only terrain whose effects can change upon the decision of the map user.

Now, back to the task at hand. I was able to get in a couple more games last night on Mole Hill. Again, I feel it is a tournament worthy map. I love the ease of the set up, literally 5 minutes was all it took to set up.

We played a 1v1 (500 per) and a 2v2 (300 per) (I am trying to bring 2 more people to the dark side; new Heroscapers) and the games flowed fairly well.

[Eclipse]

I got in a little bit of both maps this weekend so I thought I'd post my thoughts:

Mole Hill -
Honestly, I'm a bit on the fence with this one. It's not particularly pretty and it tends to create shooting gallery matches over the pond in the middle. There are a lot of neat tactical options though and the space is used really well. Honestly, as long as it's already using a RTTFF expansion for the trees, it might be nice to have some road put in to help melee units get around the lake faster.

I do love the single water space in the middle that makes for some interesting diving options for melee units to cross the water in the center. I did notice the left side has a bit of an advantage on this, as it's much easier to defend and harder to climb up the other side there. That said, we had a lot of fun on it, I'm just not sure if that was because I liked the map or because I simply like Heroscape though. I could use a few more runs on it before I can say whether it's worthy of being "best of the best".

Arctic Divide -
If I was choosing between this and Mole Hill, this would win hands down. When I first built it I was a bit afraid of the same shooting gallery concept across the snow, but the glacier's do a fantastic job of blocking LOS for the most part. Rather, it creates a ying-yang effect, where people move in a swirl motion to get LOS. In order to move into this position, ranged units really need to get close enough where the can't kite over the snow very well. This combined with the fact that there aren't a lot of perches really helps to balance the advantage snow gives to ranged units.

My one complaint with the map is that it makes it nearly impossible to use non-flying double spaced units. On one side there's a drop and raise portion that takes too many movement points to cross in a single turn. The only option is to take a few winding paths that simply take too long for them to get in on any of the action. It's not too breaking for most of the double spaced units, but there are a couple who really struggle with it. An interesting map making note I learned is that it requires a minimum move of 7 for a double spaced figure to cross a single hex drop in snow terrain.

Glyph placement proved quite good. They look somewhat lopsided, but for the most part they proved to be hotly contested areas and nothing more. All in all I really liked this map, definitely better than Mole Hill in my opinion. It should also be made clear on what kind of snow and ice you're using on it. We used both heavy snow and slippery ice when we played.

[Rÿchean]

Arctic Divide:

The moment I built this map a few months ago I immediately appreciated the design that went into making it. It is an extremely balanced map and an excellent representation of Tundra set in a tourney map. I find the game play to be excellent and often the entire map to be used in a game. I have played close to 10 games on this map and I give it an EMPHATIC YES!!!!

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Ok update......

Mole Hills: YES = 2 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 4

Arctic Divide: YES = 1 ; NO = 0; Pending = 4 (UPC is excluded from voting his own creation)

[funrun]

I got "stuck" played on Arctic Divide at my own tourney three times in a row. It is by far the most challenging map I have played on. Of the 4 maps in my tourney I think this one got played on for 60 min. more than any other map. The reason why it is so challenging is because each hex movement needs to be carefully considered. I can't think of any other map where people spend so much time having to consider all the different not-so-ideal places they can move in one turn. Visually, this is a great map too because there is no visible ugly brown tiles under the white snow.

[Riggler]

This is in replay to UPC's private message to all of us. I'll quote here for reference.

CornPuff, Eclipse, Revdyer, Riggler, and Rÿchean,

I am beginning to have some concerns about whether we should even move forward with this. We spent weeks bantering back and forth about rules minutia and have fallen completely on our collective faces when it came to doing what we spent weeks defining what it was we were accomplishing to do.

How should we proceed? Any momentum that we had weeks ago is gone. I am confident that we are completely off of anyone's radar as not a single person has posted on the thread about the hold up.

I would really like to move forward. I have wanted to provide this service to the community ever since Logrey brought us his gem of an app in LandScape.

So I ask you, with no hard feelings held against any of you one way or another, do you desire to move forward or do we need to search out new help? Or, do you honestly feel that a Hall of Valhalla simply won't work? Is it simply a pipe dream on my part?

Please be honest with your answers.

I do understand the business of the Thanksgiving/Christmas season, but I have seen most of you involved in other parts of the HS site. Its not like you haven't had time to simply post a "still testing" message on our thread.

UPC

Let me give you the lowdown on my slowdown. At the beginning of November I moved to a different city and am trying to find a job. That doesn't mean I haven't got time for an occasional game of HS and can occassionally post. What I can't do is be on the net as often as I was before November. I was one of the cheerleaders who finally got us some guidelines going if you remember. I'm still as much a fan and cheerleader of this ideas as anyone. I don't yet have "at-home" Internet service so am having to use the public library to post.

Also, I'm having to form a new network of Heroscapers. In other words, spread to HS love to the uninitiated. Part of that means not playing the same map too often.

I want one more competative game on Mole Hills before I give it the OK.

As for Artic Divide, I'm getting the Tundra set for X-mas, which means it will be then before I can do a test.

When we began this, we said that testing a map would "take as long as it takes." Its in the guidelines even. We said we wanted to be sure and not be hasty. I appologize for not giving a more full update sooner.

I am curious as to why some members of the HoV board have not posted in some time. The way I read the guidelines they could be bordering on replacement.

We'll consider this post the one week notice for those who haven't posted in this thread in the last month, as per the guidelines.

After I get employment and after the holidays are over (probably Feburary or March timeframe) I'll be able to be much more active in my Scaping and my posting.

Thanks for the wake-up call UPC.

[Kahrma]

Originally Posted by UPC

I am confident that we are completely off of anyone's radar as not a single person has posted on the thread about the hold up.

Just thought I'd let you know that I, for one, check this thread whenever there are new posts. I'm sure there must be other "lurkers" out there who do the same.

I'm not surprised at the speed of judging/reviewing/posting - coordinating decisions and discussions online between 4-5 separate parties can be cumbersome, but I believe the result will be worth it. I'd rather see in-depth discussion and playtesting of each of the reviewed maps, than hasty voting and loads of "rubber stamped" battlefields.

Carry on, we'll be patient.

[UranusPChicago]

Kahrma, your vote of confidence is greatly appreciated.

[Supergeek]

Originally Posted by Kahrma

Just thought I'd let you know that I, for one, check this thread whenever there are new posts. I'm sure there must be other "lurkers" out there who do the same.

I'm not surprised at the speed of judging/reviewing/posting - coordinating decisions and discussions online between 4-5 separate parties can be cumbersome, but I believe the result will be worth it. I'd rather see in-depth discussion and playtesting of each of the reviewed maps, than hasty voting and loads of "rubber stamped" battlefields.

Carry on, we'll be patient.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Satyr]

In the past I went through all of the HQ 1 MS maps looking for ones that could be used for tournament play ... based on observation only. Yours is a useful service. Play testing takes time.

I've linked to the thread in a coupla places and have requested all of the maps for the NorCal January tournament follow the Battlefields of Valhalla guidelines. Hell, I've even been making 1 MS maps again.

Keep at it.

On a side note. I think Mole Hills needs a bit of tweaking. Too many single hex perches and not enough balance.

[UranusPChicago]

Wow, I get all ***** and now the floodgates are opening...

Supergeek, thank you for the support.

Satyr, keep the feedback coming. This service will only be as valuable as the community makes it.

[Khanbob42]

I too have been watching this thread for a while now waiting in anticipation of the great things that will come of this.

Yours is definitely a good idea. One that I think would greatly strengthen the tournament side of heroscape. Having tried and true playtested maps will certainly help in my gaming group. There have been many a time when a game felt it was won more due to inbalance in a map than in actual tactics.

Thank you for your work so far. I may be able to lend some assistance as needed as well in terms of playtesting ect. I have a large (4-8 player) group that plays at least once a week. We have 4ms, 4Rtff, 2TT, 2 Lava, and 3 Castle sets so we can build most any map.

Don't give up on this!! It's a great idea!!!

[Eclipse]

Good to see people are still interested in this. I had a string of travelling that kept me away from playing for a while, but I was rather sad to see nobody replied after my posts on the maps that have been considered so far and had my worries.

I mentioned this to UPC already, but I really think we need to have a tournament or something as a kick start event. Something to open the floodgates and formally start the deluge of maps that people want to tested. It's really just a question of whether or not we're ready for any kind of real event for the project.