Battlefields of Valhalla Discussion Thread

[Riggler]

Updated 3/8/10
Logged Yes vote by Riggler and 1Mmirg and Kahrma to review Slash and Burn
Slash and Burn will be moved to being reviewed in the next update

Maps pending acceptance for review:

Slash and Burn by Dignan
YES = 3 (1Mmirg, Riggler, Kahrma); NO = 0 ; Pending = 2 (nyys, Matthias Maccabeus) *Dignan removed from process per being map creator


Maps currently being reviewed:

Elswin Plateau by Mooseman
YES = 4 (Dignan, Matthias Maccabeus, nyys, Riggler) ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 2 (1Mmirg, Kahrma)

Fossil by Rÿchean
YES = 3 (Matthias Maccabeus, Riggler, Dignan); NO = 0 ; Pending = 3 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys)

Striking Distance by Dignan
YES = 0 ; NO = 1 (Matthias Maccabeus); Pending = 4 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler) *Dignan removed from process per being map creator

The Frozen Cavern by tom
YES = 0 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignin)

Noctis by Mad_Wookie
YES = 0 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignan)

Jungle of the Ancients by Angear
YES = 0); NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 ( 1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignan)

Viper Valley by nyys
(YES = 0 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 5 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , Dignan, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus) *nyys removed from process per being map creator

[1Mmirg]

Elswin Plateau by Mooseman

I enjoy the sense of a rough and varied battlefield that this map offers. It doesn’t feel like you’re playing on a hex-inspired chess board, but an actual piece of contested land. I love that.

I like that the map is unorthodox in a number of smart ways. The mini sand dunes surrounding two separated glyphs, the nice water piece that breaks up this area and allows a double-spaced unit to occupy the second glyph, the sad but wise burying of my two favorite maps tiles in the game (the two large castlewalk pieces—lost treasures under the map ), the not quite congruent but nicely spread out jungle pieces, the random sprinkling of disconnected road pieces, etc. I really want to see more maps like this. It is an example of smart non-symmetric building.

That said, the map has issues that bother me (I’ll admit upfront that I can be a picky person): the not so well supported 7-hex rock piece just outside of red’s start zone (one more hex under it, such as the lone green one at the map’s level 2 stage, and this would have been much more stable), the glimpse of visible table under the mountain and through the water hex on the orange side, the perhaps a little bit too varied water space placement, the largest jungle tree being near red’s side instead of at the center of the map (yeah, okay, that is just my own OCD creeping in, it’s true). But none of these issues bothered me too much (well, when I was taking my meds anyhow …)

I had a lot of great games on this map and definitely like it. I saw all of the map get use, saw melee armies able to use the jungle very effectively, love the dynamic of the low and high ground with split but interrelated battlefields, enjoyed the feel of the battles on this map. This is a clever, exciting build.

Nevertheless, I found a few things problematic. One factor is that red has a more Raelin-friendly start zone--more and much safer places to land a Raelin on the first turn (without being on the road and clogging your own units and without being next to spaces where adjacent units can attack her from height). Given how much of a factor Raelin remains in Heroscape, this advantage makes me nervous. I also feel like the red side has a slightly rougher start in terms of water (water felt much more in the way when I played on that side) and the red side also has a better shooting perch down the road and into the center of the map (because of the way the RotV wall pieces just aren’t congruent—the bane of all map builders). Most of the rest of the slightly uneven aspects of the map are flexible and seem to balance out, but I can definitely see someone asking for a roll to choose sides or someone blaming one of these factors on a lost game or an extra rough uphill battle.

This is the closest thing to a truly balanced asymmetrical map that I’ve played on, but I’m leery about the way the map (for me) becomes a bit unbalanced at level 3 of its build stage (with the additional 3-hex rock piece on red’s side--a Raelin perch, among other things--that has no comparable place on orange’s side, or, to my eyes, anything else comparable to balance the map more precisely overall).

I want to vote yes--I really enjoyed this map This is an excellent battlefield; I think it is the best of its kind I’ve seen, but for the reasons explained above I’m going to vote NO to it being inducted into the BOV.

I absolutely encourage this kind of map and if this map doesn’t get through this time on its clear excellent merits and its many already garnered positive votes, I’d love to see it revisited. This is a very fun map and a great direction for more BOV maps. It doesn't get my vote by the most narrow of margins.

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Viper Valley by nyys

Viper Valley requires RotV + 2 TJ. It's a very hilly map with jungle brush and trees throughout the map. There's a small central pond with a glyph smack dab in the middle. The ruins provide LOS blockers as does the jungle terrain.

The first thing that I noticed was that it was very, very unfriendly to double-spaced units. Even Nerak and MBS with 8 move had difficulty getting anywhere. Nilf was almost impossible to get places because of his sculpt (toning down Nilf may be a good thing actually).

The ranged units had a difficult time gaining LOS on other units. There's jungle brush everywhere. There were even a few "disagreements" on whether or not a unit had LOS on another unit. Even with the difficulty of gaining LOS, I still think this map is more range friendly than melee. The steep terrain and constant elevation change made it difficult for melee to gain height on an opponent. Range units could still almost always maneuver around to get a shot. The middle area over-looking the pond had some clearing and was a good sniping position if you could get there.

This map was a lot of fun, but with the unfriendliness to double spacers and the constant elevation change slowing it down for melee, I'm voting NO to induct it into the BoV.

[Riggler]

Striking Distance by Dignan

The tough decisions to be made on this map start long before the first order marker is placed and keeps on going throughout. This is a symmetrical split start zone map.

One thing I noticed right off, that the way me and my friends are competative, you either need to shield the initial placement of figures or roll the d20 to decide who places their army first. Because placing figures while seeing your oppenent do it results in so many adjustmants that you'll never start the game. That's how important initial placement is on this map. And that depth of strategy in placing figures is something missing from most competative maps. Sure it's always important and needs to be thought out, but it reaches the critical stage on this one. Either roll or shield placement.

That to me is a good thing. Another good thing is in testing with Raelin, there are big decisions to be made with this monster of a unit. Start zones are so spread out that if you bring this beast to this map you are going to have to make a decision. Either she protects units on one side of the map or the other, or you bum rush the middle where she protets everyone. However, rushing the middle of the maps makes Raelin very vulnerable as it does the units that can be protected by her. In other words not a wise decision.

Ironically, in two test games we had mostly melee against mostly ranged. Me and my opponent on different sides of melee and ranged both times. And melee won both times.

There's decisions about staying on the road for the road bonus to gain quicker access to start zones or get supreme height? Do you risk some very snipery ground to check out the glyph? If it's a good one, good luck holding it.

With the start zones split as they are this map is guaranteed to play different ways many times. I would say the longevity of playing on this map exceeds most if not all of the maps currently in the BOV. And it has the opportunity to change the dynamic of a lot of competative play. At least if more like it are used in a tournament.

I was excited about testing this map. My expectations were high. Which usually with me leads to disappointment. My expectations were not only met, they were even exceeded. I've never given this high of a praise to a map before, but there shouldn't be a tournament where this one is not in the mix. It is very innovative.

If there is an advantage to this map it might be to flyers. That's not a bad thing. I don't know of any maps in the BOV that really favor flyers. And that's a shame, because flying eats up some points. But this map manages to favor flyers but not put double-space flyers over the top. One reason is there's just not a lot of good ground for dragon sculpts to fit on it. Single-space flyers are in good shape, but not in TOO good of shape. Spread out start zones allow relatively quick access to any part of the map if you play your order markers right and you've placed units correctly. In other words, this truely tests your strategy from when you first sit down until the end of the game. Be careful what you commit to on this map, because make the wrong committment and it can be hard to recover. But still it CAN be recovered from.

Fantastic map. Not only one of the best maps, but maybe the best of the best. A YES to induct.

[dok]

I've decided to nominate Vesuvian for BoV consideration:



The requirements are RotV and VW. It's another small footprint map, although it exceeds the Gencon map contest dimensions by a little under an inch.

While I didn't provide explicit glyph assignments for this map, and I accept that this map will therefore be at the mercy of tournament glyph pools, I feel this map works best with rather strong glyphs, such as Gerda (which I rarely suggest using) or Astrid. This makes risking staying on the lava fields at the end of the round worth considering.

long-winded blather about my map:

Concept/Development:

Spoiler Alert!

The "lava-on-castle walls" concept has been tried out a few times, including by myself, and Gamebear's Dvalin's Furnace actually got a BoV nomination. But I wanted to try the same concept without using FotA; just putting molten lava on stacked terrain tiles to create additional LoS blockers. Sort of like Nooblar's Melee Mixer, only in a way that doesn't allow those columns to serve as perches for ranged figures.

Initially, I tried a D&D/Marvel/VW mix, but Lava Fountains didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. While those three sets look great together (as mad_wookiee's Vulcan illustrates), there just wasn't enough material left over after the columns to create the gameplay I was looking for. So, I turned to RotV.

I haven't felt the need to tweak this map nearly as much as my earlier nominee. I did shift around the terrain a bit to get the central LoS blocker high enough, but once that was settled I haven't changed anything else. I had considered moving the ruins from their current spots, but I ultimately decided that the middle of the map doesn't need anything else in the way.

The map received positive feedback at the local tournament, and nothing anyone said is really pushing me back to the drawing board on this.

Gameplay theory:

Spoiler Alert!

One of the primary things I'm trying to do with this map layout is produce a map that is hard to clog up, while still having LoS blockers. Obviously, it's a difficult balance to strike. There are 7 big LoS blocking features, but there is at least a 2-hex gap between all of them, and a 3-hex radius of open (mostly hot) space around the central lava column. This open space means that there are still angles for shots across the map, but I'm comfortable with a bit of ranged-friendliness, particularly given the fact that the only height is in the middle.

As far as I can tell, dragons are the only "ranged" figures that can see over the central LoS blocker and hit medium figures that are on the other side. Even the Majors and the Deathwalkers can't quite see over.

The lava-fields on height and on the glyphs make this an extremely dynamic map. While no map is ratproof, rats do have trouble on this map, because of the lack of choke points and because the glyphs kill the rats. It's also tough to keep melee armies from rolling over the top of the hot ground without posting your figures there at the end of the round.

The glyphs are 8 flying and 9 walking move from each start zone. By making it 8 in stead of 7, I hopefully keep Marcu from being a ridiculously good glyph-grabber on this map. By making the level 3 non-hot ground 7 hexes from the start zone, I hopefully make it a little harder to find a good perch for Raelin.

Thank you to the BoV judges in advance for your consideration of this map.

[Dignan]

Vesuvian looks interesting. I'm willing to give it a go. Yes to review.

[Riggler]

Originally Posted by Dignan

Vesuvian looks interesting. I'm willing to give it a go. Yes to review.

I'll give it a Yes to review also. if for no other reason than to get some Hot Lava Death on my table.

[Riggler]

Updated 3/13/10
Moved Slash and Burn to being reviewed
Logged No vote by 1Mmirg on Elswin Plateau
Logged No vote by Matthias on Viper Valley
Logged Yes vote by Riggler on Striking Distance
Logged Yes votes by Riggler and Dignan to review Vesuvian

Maps pending acceptance for review:

Vesuvian by dok
YES = 2 (Dignan, Riggler) ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 4 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Matthias Maccabeus)

Maps currently being reviewed:


Elswin Plateau by Mooseman
YES = 4 (Dignan, Matthias Maccabeus, nyys, Riggler) ; NO = 1 (1Mmirg) ; Pending = 1 (Kahrma)

Fossil by Rÿchean
YES = 3 (Matthias Maccabeus, Riggler, Dignan); NO = 0 ; Pending = 3 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys)

Striking Distance by Dignan
YES = 1 (Riggler) ; NO = 1 (Matthias Maccabeus); Pending = 3 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys) *Dignan removed from process per being map creator

The Frozen Cavern by tom
YES = 0 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignin)

Noctis by Mad_Wookie
YES = 0 ; NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignan)

Jungle of the Ancients by Angear
YES = 0); NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 ( 1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus, Dignan)

Viper Valley by nyys
YES = 0 ; NO = 1 (Matthias Maccabeus) ; Pending = 4 (1Mmirg, Kahrma , Dignan, Riggler) *nyys removed from process per being map creator

Slash and Burn by Dignan
YES = 0; NO = 0 ; Pending = 6 ( 1Mmirg, Kahrma , nyys, Riggler, Matthias Maccabeus)* Dignan removed from process per being map creator.

[nyys]

Yes to review Vesuvian.

[Kahrma]

Maps currently being reviewed:

Elswin Plateau by Mooseman

This is a great looking battlefield. “Elswin Plateau” is clearly not a chess board or basketball court on which to hold a contest – it is a landscape to be analyzed and exploited in battle! The varying topography on either end of this map gives it an organic look and feel that I believe is lacking in many submissions.

The start zones are wide and shallow, rewarding forethought regarding what path each figure will take en route to engagement. This seemed to benefit smaller armies - large swarms are instantly spread thin, making it tricky to bring might to bear on their preferred objective.

Each end of the battlefield is unique, but I felt well-balanced. The palms and jungle brush are more condensed on the Orange side, making this end of the field a bit easier to screen. Mobility is balanced by the water tiles, which are more condensed on the Red side of the map. To make up for the increased jungle cover near the Orange start zone, the ruin on this side is smaller, allowing more sight lines from high ground to the jungle-protected low ground. The large ruin near the Red start zone helps block shots to this “less protected” end of the map.

Access to glyphs is nearly equal, with distances from either start zone varying by a single hex. Both are on low ground and can be simultaneously contested by a single melee figure from two different adjacent hexes. Sniping glyph holders from high ground is made a bit more difficult by effective placement of LoS-blocking ruins and jungle cover, and figures attempting such shots were often within striking distance of melee fighters. Nice!

Jungle cover defense bonuses are restricted to low-ground, and there is ample cover for figures attempting to cross the battlefield via this avenue. Between jungle cover and glyph opportunities, there is ample motivation to contest the low-lying areas. Regardless of the glyphs used, it seemed that battles nearly always involved the muddy, brush-choked valley. Overall, I’d say the jungle pieces are especially well used.

The ruins do a good job of separating the map into two zones – one high and one low. Their orientation limits the efficacy of long-range strikers situated on the very highest perches. There is one two-hex “dragon perch” – its location reigns in the threat potential of certain double-based range-attacking juggernauts. The two nearby single-hex perches are held in check by close proximity to the LoS blocking ruins. Subtle differences between the two sides of the hill may reward careful playtesting, but I don’t believe either start zone offers a deciding advantage when contesting high-ground.

I really like “Elswin Plateau”. My only reservation is that I believe it lacks some degree of “polish”. One seven-hex rock tile near the Red start zone is situated over open space, lending a small degree of instability (which, incidentally, never affected play) and revealing the table beneath. The table is likewise visible from the Orange start zone beneath the 24-hex rock tile, though this area feels solid. If Mooseman was using the aforementioned gaps to emulate underground springs, there are plenty of spare water tiles which could be placed in the empty spaces beneath to further this effect. If not, it is possible to re-arrange Level-1 using the two leftover 7-hex tiles to fill in the gaps and eliminate instability – without changing any visible/playable tiles.

I’m really torn here – I absolutely love this battlefield, but feel that it could be made even better with a touch of base-level re-arranging. I’m tempted to decline, and request a revised version for re-evaluation. However, given that these “issues” in no way affect playability, and given that I am otherwise quite pleased with this battleground’s aesthetics – I am inclined to vote YES to induct “Elswin Plateau” into the BoV.

May I be the first to say – Congratulations, Mooseman! Good show!

[Dignan]

Congrats Mooseman!

[nyys]

Great job Mooseman!