Wargrounds of Scape (WoS) - discussion thread

[Dad_Scaper]

I'd give it a 0.5/11.

[Foudzing]

Wyrmwalk by Panopticon

Design - Aesthetic
Not an "owmygawd" map but still very nice. The trees can look weird at first glance because they are next to lava and on rock tiles, but hey this is Heroscape, who cares about realism? These trees do look nice both in real and Online play so no problem at all.

Balance
Usually I'm not fan of the lava on heights+lots of LoS blockers +road wombo combo which I think is too much for melee.
But here range have definitely room to work with, the middle hill is good if you want a hill no matter what, and if you want no lava you have the sides or a rush to the middle.
Overall a perfect range vs melee balance.
Other usual balance problems like fly, AE drop, map too narrow, too bad for double hexes etc.. are not present here.
Also no figure "breaks" the map.

Playability
Can't really explain why but the games on this map were always extremly enjoyable.
I guess this map reward more the player who place OMs and figures better than the player who have the best strategy at the beginning of the game. Because in the big majority of the games on this map you'll not have a strategy that will give you the win 100% sure if you apply it decently, I really like this.
Almost all the map is used in every game, both treasure glyphs and classic glyphs are well placed.
The range vs range machup is more enjoyable than usual because of the melee-friendly stuff on the map.
I just love this map.

Adaptatation for Online play
No problem.

Quality/Sets needed ratio
Yes not everyone have 2 D&Ds, and yes 4 sets is a lot. But I do believe it's worth it.

100% Yes to induct.

[kevindola]

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by mad_wookiee

The bones of the forgotten town rise from the wilderness, an apparition from another time. The wind whistles through the shells of decaying buildings, the only sound in an otherwise ominous silence. Dusty goods stare out at silent streets from their vantage points behind dirty windows. Whatever life once filled these streets seems to have vanished quickly, as though sudden tragedy forced hurried abandonment. Broken walkways frame streets that have begun to sink into the earth. Scattered across the town, you notice large areas of blackened earth and charred pavement, as though searing flames were allowed to burn unchecked – the only immediate clue to the town's demise. Whatever power this town awoke still broods over it, a hidden malevolence watching from the shadows. The ruins, however, could also hide objects of power that might give you an advantage in this never-ending war.

You survey the landscape in silence. A vague sense of foreboding haunts you, along with a certainty that this place will not willingly relinquish its secrets...

Noone quite knows why Mayberry was picked as a potential site to be summoned into Valhalla. Perhaps it was Einar’s nostalgia or Vydar’s love of Opie’s directorial products. Some say Jandar just couldn’t get that whistling tune out of his head. Whatever the reason, the small, once proud, town of Mayberry finds itself a candidate for the Wargrounds of Scape.

1) Andy Glyphith
Glyphs are 6 spots away from the SZ (as the Shade flies), but unless you have a flier it’s 7 walking distance. However, both glyphs are reachable in 7 from the SZ, putting a little more influence to your speedy units, which isn’t a great crime, but could be a bad time if strong glyphs are used. Try to stay away from using the Glyph of Endless Playing (your figures gain scatter), and the Glyph of Maarden Viagra (stinger denial possible up to 3 hexes). They glyphs are not easy to hold though, so that’s great, but they are pretty accessible and a big boost to whoever wins initiative. I wouldn’t recommend using any during round active permanent glyphs.


2) King of the Hill
This map boils down to the quickness and accessibility of the level 3 grounds right outside the startzone. Too easy to grab, and too hard to take. There is plenty of road, but there are some unnecessary 2 heights out of the gate that counteract its use. If you are to charge those hills you either typically have to take two turns under fire to do it, because of the road stopping at the 3 level and then having to hop up there (if there is any space to do that). If it’s range on range, there isn’t much incentive to hop off the hill to charge the gap. The LOS blockers don’t provide enough cover as you ‘d like. I really think the big trees would have been more valuable in the center providing more cover for anyone wanting to challenge the opponent’s hills, but typically any road spaces you would want to stay on in order to make a charge aren’t covered by trees.

3) Can the Empress bring you to your knees?
As the gold standard for Kyrie boosters, you have to look at a map and how easy it is to set Empress Kiova up and just sit her there for the entire game. Nobody wants to play a game where they continually throw attack dice at Einar Imperium and watch them whiff only to see Kiova allow your opponent to reroll all those dice into shields. (I mean EVERYONE has one of those stories of futility they can rehash :/ ) One of the most frustrating aspects of the game. We accept that we can’t just ban the Empress and have to live with Imperium dominance, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take her into account when looking at maps. I find the easily reachable max height on this map too easy for Einar’s Lady. Not only that, but there are multiple locations she can get to and stay well protected. Even Barney Fife’s Imperium could win with the Gift of the Empress on this map.


Summary: The aesthetics of the map are nice and I had some very fun melee battles on this map, but anytime I played a game with a significant amount of range, the playability stalled. The ease of which to setup on the height is too easy to pull off and defend. I think if the outer edges near the glyphs went up to level 4 it would help a lot or if the front line of the pavement was road it would go a long way. As is though, I have to vote NO on induction of Mayberry into the Wargrounds of Scape.

[superfrog]

I'd like to nominate my map Calida for WoS. It uses RoTV, RttFF, and VW, 1 of each.



PDF

.hsc file

topdown(not the highest resolution, but certainly workable).

[dok]

I vote NO on Calida, by superfrog.

I like the use of roads and the restraint on elevantion changes on this map. My main concerns are as follows:

• Unless the glyphs are particularly powerful (defense, relevant attack, or Wannok, I guess) a ranged army has little incentive to direct the battle towards anywhere but the sand bluff outside its startzone. This offers the best position to fire on an advancing melee force, since they will be forced to move off the road to engage most of the figures on sand, and those ranged figures don't have to move at the end of the round to avoid lava damage.
• While the walking distances to each glyph are balanced, flyers are much closer to the left hand glyph, and more significantly, ranged armies will have a much easier time attacking glyph-holders there.
• The glyphs can be reached by 6-move figures (cough rats cough) in 2 moves, but 4 and 5 move figures need 3 turns. I don't generally like giving that advantage by layout.
• While the central tree offers significant coverage, the other four trees don't do quite as much. The ruins were left off the map, so there are relatively few places for units to hide while moving forward.
• The jutting out startzone and odd shape is a little off-putting to me. This is a very minor point and wouldn't sink the map if I liked it otherwise, but it works against it for me.

Thank you for the nomination, superfrog. I don't think it's a bad map, just not quite what I'm looking for.

[Foudzing]

Hi Superfrog and thank you for your nomination.

Unfortunately "added to my collection" does not equal "WoS serious candidate right there", I have a lot of maps in my collection and some are not balanced at all.

I said your map is solid because I love the basic design and shape: ring around the big tree, lava on heigt + road but not so much LoS blockers so good potential in range vs melee balance.
But I didn't look really into the map to see if it was balance and stuff.
Let's do that now.

Now I'll give my opinion on the issue dok pointed out, and because I am a hipster, I'll do it backwards:

#4: Not an issue for me here, even and good thing. A jutting out startzone is cool because it diminize armies with a lot of common squad power a bit while changing basically nothing to the rest of the map.

#3: I don't see any problem here. Of course 6 moves have to be faster to grab a glyph, because they are.. you know... faster.
Pointing out a roblem just because of one unit is not for me. It's just not how I judge a map.

#2: For the flyers thing I don't think it's a problem because the only decent flyers glyph holders are the Sentinels and Phantoms Knights. Phantoms Knights take two truns for both glyph anyway and Sentinels, who the hell cares about sentinels. And for marcu, the turn-1-grab-a-glyph strategy doesn't seem good to me here, you lose a turn and Marcu dies on 17+ and even if you grab the glyph, the lost turn is huge because the glyph deny is really easy. So no fly problem here to me.
Now into the range "problem":
I don't agree with dok. The double road hexes next to the glyphs are great to help the melee squads to deny glyph holding as they're on height.
All I see in this dok's point is the Running Hot's creator that he is (don't ever try to nominate this map as long as I am a judge dok ).

#1: Unfortunately I agree too much with dok on this to accept the map. A good single-hexed gunner between the trees is too hard to deal with, the trees help hm more than doing something else because they prevent melee from engaging him.

So I'll give a NO to induct from now on but once the sand thing is changed, I would be happy to review it in more details.

[Foudzing]

Calida received 2 NO which is too much to reach the 75% needed and therefore is removed from the process.

Looking forward a new version Superfrog.

[superfrog]

Thanks for your thoughts, gents (and in impressive detail, too). The sand is definitely a strong point on the map, although the center grass can be even stronger if you get your opponent in the right position.

I have a few edits in mind given your thoughts. I'll be back in my thread with a revised version soon.

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by superfrog

Thanks for your thoughts, gents (and in impressive detail, too). The sand is definitely a strong point on the map, although the center grass can be even stronger if you get your opponent in the right position.

I have a few edits in mind given your thoughts. I'll be back in my thread with a revised version soon.

Looking forward to seeing the changes.

[superfrog]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

Looking forward to seeing the changes.

Well my computer lost my changes, so that was a bit of a setback. We'll see how soon I can finish recreating them.

[Kinseth]

Wyrmwalk by Panopticon

Design - Aesthetic
Not the most visually appealing map. But one of the few maps that is willing to go out there and utilize many of the different tile sets that heroscape has to offer. At first glance, I often feel like this map was just "Thrown" together, but don't let that fool you.

Balance
The startzones really encourage you to utilize the full board. The middle is treacherous but usually worth fighting over. The glyph placements on the outside are well designed. They are easily accessible by melee. The high grounds near the glyphs discourage camping. There are enough line of sight lockers on this map to give Melee a good chance, and the road tiles keep the board nicely balanced.


Playability
Gameplay on Wyrmwalk is fast! There is little in the way that prevents you from getting into the action quickly. From a ranged standpoint, the best spots are near the middle on lava fields with molten lava that offers some protection from melee. It also acts as a doubled edge sword as it can pin your ranged figures down as melee encircles. Melee can move around quickly and freely, with the high zones easily access by road. Whenever playing on this map the endgame always gravitates to the middle of the map. I feel like this map does a real good job of driving the action. You always feel like you need to keep moving, keep driving towards the enemy.


SUMMARY
A roller-coaster of a ride, fast paced, keep moving or die kind of map. Balanced nicely, Wyrmwalk is everything you want in a map. High Grounds, places to hide, danger around each corner!


Yes to induct.

[Typhon2222]

REMAINS OF CLIONESIA by tannergx

This will be a short review; dok and kevindola have already articulated the positives clearly (and humorously), and there's little I can add to what they've said. It is a solid solid map; and being someone who is particularly fascinated by exploring what can be done with very limited terrain, I think what tannergx has done here with a mere two sets is absolutely marvelous.

If I have one minor objection, it's that I don't always find the map especially fun. But then again, that's probably because I never win on it.

I vote YES to induct Remains of Clionesia.