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It’s time for another map contest! This map contest will focus on Renegade releases like the previous AoA map contest, however you are allowed to mix old sets this time!
Renegade is offering prize support for this contest as well! More info below!
You may submit up to 2 maps for this contest.
The goal for this contest is a Tournament Quality Map using some of the new Renegade terrain sets. New sets only, or mixing them with the old sets, is allowed. I’m hoping to select one or more maps to use at HexiCon 3, but it’s not guaranteed. This contest is a bit earlier than normal, for a couple reasons. One, so that map makers will have time to take feedback after the contest to improve their maps before HexiCon 3. The second reason is similar to the AoA map contest, so that when these new sets are released there’s a few competitive maps that already exist with them in use.
DEADLINE:
SEPTEMBER 30th, 2024
WINNER SELECTION:
At least 2 Winners! One will be via Community Voting, and the other by Renegade!
HexiCon 3 Map Contest It’s time for another map contest! This map contest will focus on Renegade releases like the previous AoA map contest, however you are allowed to mix old sets this time! Renegade is offering prize support for this contest as well! More info below!You may submit up to 2 m...
Required Sets:
1x Battle for the Wellspring
1x Swamp Terrain Pack OR 1x Swarm of the Marro + 1 Jungle
Ice is used in this file to represent Wellspring water.
Note that this map uses all six normal water tiles from Battle for the Wellspring.
The glyph of Brandar at the center is intended to represent the custom Glyph of Nifl, a Permanent glyph with the below stats: Clear Sight & Line of Sight for ALL figures is reduced to 3 spaces. (Be aware this affects BOTH armies as long as any figure stands on it.).
Alternatively, The Glyph of Thorian can be from SotM can be used instead as a range-mitigating glyph.
For further variants, a different permanent glyph, such as Wannok, Gerda, Ulaniva, Yadulkia, Lodin, or Dagmar can be substituted, but I recommend against using a Temporary glyph.
The two unknown glyphs are optional locations for random (facedown) Treasure glyphs.
I recommend a simple standard trap, while allowing the Hero to retain the glyph even if disarming the trap fails: When picking up an unknown Treasure glyph, roll the 20-sided die.
On a roll of 1-5, the unique hero attempting to pick up the Treasure suffers one wound (but still successfully picks up the Treasure glyph).
______________________________________________________ Sir Gilbert leads his new Ursine allies onward, his demeanor and standard inspiring them to march far swifter than usual. They make for surprisingly honorable paladins, demonstrating the highest order of chivalry and disdain for chaos. But they remain bears. A swampful of bears does wonders on the sinuses.
For the entire morning they have discussed salmon. Ordinarily, a conversation regarding well-cooked fish would have been welcome, but at present his mind could only conjure up the combined stench of wet bear, overripe sea bass, and shortbread.
Shortbread? Well, certainly something sweet.
Sir Gilbert raises his head and lo, in the midst of the marsh; cool, clean, and clear water. Thoughts of a drink, a bath, and of truly fresh fish enter the minds of the whole party. Something glistens beneath the surface, the silvery scales of a trout? Is the water itself glistening? Perhaps, but there IS something in the water, a helmet, wrought of finest silvery steel and golden brass, and yet untarnished. Gilbert makes the sign of the cross, a habit he had picked up from Sir Dupuis, and prays that the helmet's previous owner had the courtesy to remove it from his shoulders it before leaving it in this natural fountain.
Notes on the build and parts usage
Spoiler Alert!
If using the new swamp set, there is exactly one single-hex swamp water tile remaining after this is built.
I did not explicitly specify where the 3-hex swamp water tiles go. I don't think that's a problem.
Regarding Ewashia, I used all six water tiles in BftW on this map. I think we can expect people to bring their own water for her.
Other rambling comments from me:
Spoiler Alert!
I wanted to attempt a map with wellspring water, and since the water set is disqualified, one BftW was essential. Next, Palm trees look really good next to swamp. I could have used a full SotM to attempt this concept at a slightly larger scale, but I wanted to try to make a budget-conscious competitive map.
Since SotM contains every swamp tile in the swamp box and more (unlike the snow/lava sets which introduce their respective 24-hexes for the first time), I was able to build and tweak it irl easily.
The new swamp set includes two jungle brush pieces, just enough for that true swampy junglely feel, instead of just two palms randomly growing out of ordinary grass and rock, and I could see some new players buying the battle box and swamp set, solely because the brush looks very good with the palms, and unlike the jungle box, the swamp box actually lets you construct a bigger map.
The jungle pieces specifically offer the defense boost to the ordinary water spaces. The wellspring water is mostly at height 1, meaning the height 2 and 3 7-hex spaces nearby are prime spaces to shoot at a would-be drinker. Or at the very least, you can get height from the adjacent swamp tiles. The water on level 0 makes climbing up to the center surprisingly difficult.
Now, who likes (swamp) water?
There's three main categories:
Drudge, Microcorps, Marro Warriors and Water Elemental are ranged squads (or pseudo-squads for the elemental). The glyph of Thorian is here to make them earn their bonuses, since none of them have special attacks.
Second are the snakey melee slitherers, who (along with fliers) can get up to the glyph of Thorian more quickly than most.
Finally, on their own, are Othkurik and Ewashia, heroes unimpeded by water who have ranged, AoE special attacks.
Othkurik loves the swamp for facilitating ambushes, so probably won't hang out in the center of the board, but Ewashia would be quite at home right in the middle of the melee. At 5 move, she likely won't get there first.
In my first playtest I was running pirates vs. frostclaws, and the Exiles of the Sundered Sea killed (yes, 2 damage each) three bears using black powder in a single turn before the bears could make it to the glyph. Those were some very good/horrible die rolls.
The 2-hex pieces on level 2 slow down flanking just a little bit, as does the swamp water, but also help get units up to level 3 instead of stopping at the base. Never forget to use that bonus move point from Dorim on your pirates or dwarves!
As a final bonus, Greater Ice Elemental can stand on the glyph and heal by its own ability, while preventing others from drinking.
Or, if you really like Ice and Snow, since the new terrain boxes have identical hex contents, you can do the easiest palette swap ever and substitute out every Swamp piece for Snow/Ice, maybe borrowing two single-hex pieces from the start zones on which to stand the pair of evergreens.
Required Sets:
1x Age of Annihilation Master Set
2x Road to the Forgotten Forest
OR: 1x RotV, 2x RttFF, 1x Ruins, with adjustments to some unseen tiles.
Construction notes: FotA pillars are Laur Ruin pieces. Small wall connectors should be hooked up between each adjacent wall, with a large wall
connector in the center of the map.
If using Treasure glyphs:
For themstic play, I recommend that the game be played with two face-down Treasure glyphs. Specifically, the Cloak of Invisibility and the Revenant's Tome.
Shuffle them and place them face-down on the spaces marked with a Glyph of Brandar.
Otherwise, feel free to use standard competitive Treasure or normal glyph recommendations on those spaces.
Recommended Treasure Glyph trap rules:
When a unique hero ends its movement on a facedown Treasure glyph, before attacking it may attempt to pick up the Treasure. Roll a d20, if it's
1-5, the Trap is triggered and the glyph remains facedown.
Otherwise, 6+ means the unique hero safely picks up the Treasure and places it on it's card.
Suggested trap:
If one of your units triggers a trap, a chilling darkness falls upon your army. Until the end of the current round, your figures may not fly. Until
the end of the current round your opponent's units have no visible hit zones and take no disengagement attacks. (Rules reminder: line-of-sight is
not needed to attack an adjacent figure).
Or feel free use a standard competitive trap.
If playing with Regular glyphs:
Place a randomized glyph at the water spaces on the edge of the map as shown, denoted with the face-down glyph in the instructions.
In Valhalla, Death has a name: Hel.
There were three travelers, powerful warriors, full of pride from many victories. They built a shrine to her in Fairwoode forest, an opportunistic
ruse, hoping to draw her out by feigning fealty. She appeared to the travelers, and offered them wondrous gifts in exchange for their servitude.
A staff to travel great distances, a tome to call back beings from her realm, and a cloak to evade death.
Immediately, two sought to turn the relics against her. One summoned a great dragon, but it would not turn on its true master, and reduced the
turncoat to cinders. The second donned the cloak, aiming to strike Hel from behind, but her eyes burned brighter than its concealment and she
ran him through with an ancient blade. The third, no wiser, but certainly more fortunate than his compatriots with his gift, leaned on the staff
and found himself in western Crumland moments later.
But all three had promised servitude, and Hel's fury burns brightest when scorned. The third of the trio lived mere days longer, enough to tell his
tale. He leaned on Hel's staff, commanding it to bring him home, but his home was now Hel's domain.
So Fairwoode is now called Bleakwoode, and only the foolish walk there under the light of the moon.
The trio's shades still dwell at the site of the blasphemous shrine, and it is rumored that Hel's gifts may remain as well, baiting fools into her servitude even centuries hence.
Spoiler Alert!
Yes, I'm stealing borrowing from Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and Rowling's Tale of Three Brothers here.
Spoiler Alert!
I wanted the optional thematic trap to be darkness-related but not too punishing. With all the road, there's already a nonzero chance that your fliers will want to walk, so I also applied the Cloak of Invisibility effect until end of round. But with all the line-of-sight blockers, range also might not even have been option. So, a 25% chance of darkness shouldn't super ruin anyone's game. Likewise, the two glyphs effectively grant one extra bonus attack (if you've already had a unique figure die), and one-time Disengage+not being targeted by Range. They're nice bonuses, but shouldn't be too swingy. Early grabbing the Tome doesn't even benefit you until someone in your army dies. But they're thematic, and I like that.
Ruins look GREAT near RttFF Pines, and it's a shame that the upcoming snow set only comes with 2 single-hex trees.
Post-Revision Notes:
Special thanks to Shurrig, MegaSilver, Brian, Caps, and drumtooth on Discord for the many comments that dramatically improved this map.
This version fits the story even better too. The Pines are on the periphery, making it clear that this was a blasphenous shrine built in a bit of cleared forest, and the ruin pillars outline a rectangular structure. Plus, RttFF bridge walls are used now, also parallel with the Shrine's walls. After Laur Ruins come out, I may construct a non-competetive pre-erosion version for fun.
Wildflower by Vydar_XLIII
Requires: 1x DnD, 1x Wellspring, 1x Castle
Spoiler Alert!
War & Drought by Vydar_XLIII
Requires: 1x AoA, 2x Lava Fields
Beachheads by Scott
Requires: 1x AoA, 1x Wellspring
Spoiler Alert!
Here's the Sandbar Terrain rule from the map doc:
SANDBAR TERRAIN: On this map, Wellspring Water tiles atop Sand hexes are Sandbar spaces. Sandbar spaces count as waterfor the purpose of Special Abilities and do not have Wellspring Water effects. When entering a Sandbar space, do not stop movement. Leaving a Sandbar space requires one extra point of movement. If a double-space figure steps onto a Water space followed by a Sandbar space, it may continue its movement.
This is an interesting document as it (presumably) reveals the contents of the snow, lava, and swamp sets, which I don't think are widely known! That is quite exciting! Seems a shame that it's so few 1-hex and 2-hex tiles though, they don't seem to be good replacements for Thaelenk Tundra and Volcarren Wasteland.
Anywho, I might try out this contest, this sounds like fun! I have very little map-making experience, do we post submissions in this thread?
This is an interesting document as it (presumably) reveals the contents of the snow, lava, and swamp sets, which I don't think are widely known! That is quite exciting! Seems a shame that it's so few 1-hex and 2-hex tiles though, they don't seem to be good replacements for Thaelenk Tundra and Volcarren Wasteland.
Anywho, I might try out this contest, this sounds like fun! I have very little map-making experience, do we post submissions in this thread?
Do we have official gameplay rules for lava outcrops?
Are they ordinary LoS blockers like most props (glaciers, rocks, evergreen trees, ruins, etc), only doing something special if an army card says so?
Or are they perhaps dangerous if you're adjacent, similar to lava fields?
Less important: Do we have the height of the snow-covered evergreens? I assume they're both single-hex as shown in the gencon display case.
Edit: Could you please include the AoA and BftW set listings spoiler'd in the main post?
Required Sets:
1x Battle for the Wellspring
1x Swamp Terrain Pack OR 1x Swarm of the Marro + 1 Jungle
Ice is used in this file to represent Wellspring water.
Note that this map uses all six normal water tiles from Battle for the Wellspring.
The glyph of Brandar at the center is intended to represent the custom Glyph of Nifl, a Permanent glyph with the below stats: Clear Sight & Line of Sight for ALL figures is reduced to 3 spaces. (Be aware this affects BOTH armies as long as any figure stands on it.).
Alternatively, The Glyph of Thorian can be from SotM can be used instead as a range-mitigating glyph.
For further variants, a different permanent glyph, such as Wannok, Gerda, Ulaniva, Yadulkia, Lodin, or Dagmar can be substituted, but I recommend against using a Temporary glyph.
The two unknown glyphs are optional locations for random (facedown) Treasure glyphs.
I recommend a simple standard trap, while allowing the Hero to retain the glyph even if disarming the trap fails: When picking up an unknown Treasure glyph, roll the 20-sided die.
On a roll of 1-5, the unique hero attempting to pick up the Treasure suffers one wound (but still successfully picks up the Treasure glyph).
______________________________________________________ Sir Gilbert leads his new Ursine allies onward, his demeanor and standard inspiring them to march far swifter than usual. They make for surprisingly honorable paladins, demonstrating the highest order of chivalry and disdain for chaos. But they remain bears. A swampful of bears does wonders on the sinuses.
For the entire morning they have discussed salmon. Ordinarily, a conversation regarding well-cooked fish would have been welcome, but at present his mind could only conjure up the combined stench of wet bear, overripe sea bass, and shortbread.
Shortbread? Well, certainly something sweet.
Sir Gilbert raises his head and lo, in the midst of the marsh; cool, clean, and clear water. Thoughts of a drink, a bath, and of truly fresh fish enter the minds of the whole party. Something glistens beneath the surface, the silvery scales of a trout? Is the water itself glistening? Perhaps, but there IS something in the water, a helmet, wrought of finest silvery steel and golden brass, and yet untarnished. Gilbert makes the sign of the cross, a habit he had picked up from Sir Dupuis, and prays that the helmet's previous owner had the courtesy to remove it from his shoulders it before leaving it in this natural fountain.
Notes on the build and parts usage
Spoiler Alert!
If using the new swamp set, there is exactly one single-hex swamp water tile remaining after this is built.
I did not explicitly specify where the 3-hex swamp water tiles go. I don't think that's a problem.
Regarding Ewashia, I used all six water tiles in BftW on this map. I think we can expect people to bring their own water for her.
Other rambling comments from me:
Spoiler Alert!
I wanted to attempt a map with wellspring water, and since the water set is disqualified, one BftW was essential. Next, Palm trees look really good next to swamp. I could have used a full SotM to attempt this concept at a slightly larger scale, but I wanted to try to make a budget-conscious competitive map.
Since SotM contains every swamp tile in the swamp box and more (unlike the snow/lava sets which introduce their respective 24-hexes for the first time), I was able to build and tweak it irl easily.
The new swamp set includes two jungle brush pieces, just enough for that true swampy junglely feel, instead of just two palms randomly growing out of ordinary grass and rock, and I could see some new players buying the battle box and swamp set, solely because the brush looks very good with the palms, and unlike the jungle box, the swamp box actually lets you construct a bigger map.
The jungle pieces specifically offer the defense boost to the ordinary water spaces. The wellspring water is mostly at height 1, meaning the height 2 and 3 7-hex spaces nearby are prime spaces to shoot at a would-be drinker. Or at the very least, you can get height from the adjacent swamp tiles. The water on level 0 makes climbing up to the center surprisingly difficult.
Now, who likes (swamp) water?
There's three main categories:
Drudge, Microcorps, Marro Warriors and Water Elemental are ranged squads (or pseudo-squads for the elemental). The glyph of Thorian is here to make them earn their bonuses, since none of them have special attacks.
Second are the snakey melee slitherers, who (along with fliers) can get up to the glyph of Thorian more quickly than most.
Finally, on their own, are Othkurik and Ewashia, heroes unimpeded by water who have ranged, AoE special attacks.
Othkurik loves the swamp for facilitating ambushes, so probably won't hang out in the center of the board, but Ewashia would be quite at home right in the middle of the melee. At 5 move, she likely won't get there first.
In my first playtest I was running pirates vs. frostclaws, and the Exiles of the Sundered Sea killed (yes, 2 damage each) three bears using black powder in a single turn before the bears could make it to the glyph. Those were some very good/horrible die rolls.
The 2-hex pieces on level 2 slow down flanking just a little bit, as does the swamp water, but also help get units up to level 3 instead of stopping at the base. Never forget to use that bonus move point from Dorim on your pirates or dwarves!
As a final bonus, Greater Ice Elemental can stand on the glyph and heal by its own ability, while preventing others from drinking.
Or, if you really like Ice and Snow, since the new terrain boxes have identical hex contents, you can do the easiest palette swap ever and substitute out every Swamp piece for Snow/Ice, maybe borrowing two single-hex pieces from the start zones on which to stand the pair of evergreens.
This is interesting, because I would expect the opposite. I suppose we don't have full clarity because such a set has never been released before, but I would assume that a Battle for the Wellspring terrain set used in a map only includes 3x Water Tiles because Ewashia "reserves" 3 of them.
Even then, I'd just change the parts requirements to
BtfW+SotM+Jungle and still be within the stated parameters of this contest.
Edit: I will personally bring a large sack of old, discolored water tiles to any event I attend and allow all Ewashia players to borrow them if needed.
Even then, I'd just change the parts requirements to
BtfW+SotM+Jungle and still be within the stated parameters of this contest.
Edit: I will personally bring a large sack of old, discolored water tiles to any event I attend and allow all Ewashia players to borrow them if needed.
I'm rather disappointed that BftU counts against the 'Master Set' limit with its 161-hex count (which is less than half of a RotV or AoA.
The new terrain sets have 124, that's not much less.
I have an idea for a map with Shadow/Dungeon and Laur Ruins from the AoA master set, but then realized that with this contest's rules, that isn't allowed.
I'm rather disappointed that BftU counts against the 'Master Set' limit with its 161-hex count (which is less than half of a RotV or AoA.
The new terrain sets have 124, that's not much less.
I have an idea for a map with Shadow/Dungeon and Laur Ruins from the AoA master set, but then realized that with this contest's rules, that isn't allowed.
Ok i'm gonna wait to upload both of them until the day before the deadline. I'd rather not have people seeing my maps until the deadline that way I have a shot for more votes potentially
