I love the look and feel of this map, Dignan. In particular, I love your use of ladders. Obviously, the two-rung ladders are cool, and allow for gaining height in unique ways. But I also love the subtle use of the single ladders; on a map with so much height variation, those really help figures climb a lot faster — both by reducing the number of moves to climb two levels and also allowing them to stop mid-climb.
And also, I gotta commend any map that uses the flag!
Yeah I think that's useful.Also, I'm experimenting with showing the startzones in my images better. Here is a test on one idea I had. Let me know if this is an improvement, feedback, etc.
Risky outpost is in the map pool for our Peoria tourney this coming weekend...I'm excited to give it a go!
Cool- very unique! I like the minor asymmetry you did with the big tree and the split 3-hex/1-hex outcrops.Update 6/16/23
Finally got around to uploading another map. We used this one at the recent draft tournament and we've enjoyed having on the table for the past few months. After a little bit of tweaking, I think we finally have it running well. Hope you enjoy it.
Map: Respite
Date Uploaded: 06/16/23
Requires: 1 RotV, 1 BftU, 1 RttFF
Update 10/19/23
This map is probably my most revised map of all time. I've been working on a variation of this map since the summer. Now I have completely torn it down and started over several times, but this last iteration has gone through several different changes. We even played it last week at our NHSD tournament and I made additional changes after that. I think I just have to stop here before I tear it down again and start over.
Map: Verdant
Date Uploaded: 10/19/23
Requires: 1 RotV, 2 RttFF
Although you are missing a grass two hex and water in the blue start zone, right now it’s only 22 spaces. I assume it’s supposed to be symmetric to green’s?
Updated file has been uploaded. Thanks again for the catch, Cleon.
Updated file has been uploaded. Thanks again for the catch, Cleon.
Update 6/7
Added a new single tundra and RotV map to the list. This one is slightly asymmetrical, but it's not noticeable during game play. I've been trying to get more out of each expansion lately and also use heavy snow more often. This one surprised a few of the playtesters in my group, as they didn't expect much when they sat down to this one. It's rather unassuming, but we've found the gameplay to be pretty compelling.
Map: Fissure
Date Uploaded: 6/07/09
Requires: 1 RotV, 1 TT - Heavy Snow, Normal Ice
Digging a bit into the wayback machine of your maps for this review...
We had a NorCal gameday last weekend. Killo Jr. picked Fissure to be one of the maps, since TT is the only expansion I (and therefore he) don't have. I defaulted onto it for my first match, and wasn't initially very enthused about that. It looked pretty small, the watery canyon looked like it would split play, and I like to move fast, so heavy snow is usually not my favorite.
Instead it was a fantastic, engaging map with lots of options. The heavy snow dominating height made it play bigger than it is, there are a myriad of pathing options to cut off or bypass opponents depending on goal, the interspersed ice tiles keep the low water from being too daunting to cross, well placed LoS blockers allow slow melee hiding places to leapfrog to engage range, and the fixed Valda is very attractive to help balance the snow penalty but not so important that it can't be situationally abandoned. My second match also ended up being on Fissure, and I had no complaint at all about playing it back-to-back. This is one of my favorite maps I've ever played on.
The only weakness I saw was that the 3 hex glacier doesn't seem 100% efficiently used on the edge of the map. I wonder if a low path around the outside would be possible and beneficial?
Killo Jr. is reading my review over my shoulder, and asked me to include " had a ton of fun on it also."
Double Wannok?! haha, spicey!
Also, curious why you didn't make it symmetrical with the bushes? any particular reason?
I really like the Wannoks protected by Jungle. It gives that little extra impetus to engage the glyph holder, and softens range's ability to knock them off.
How often did you see bottlenecks at the level 3 road hex overlooking the centeal level 2 road "courtyard"? It seems like a pretty strong place from which to defend lateral movement.
Did you notice armies with Raelin I pulling to the right, especially ranged against melee armies? I notice the little perch right outside the start zone (single road for one army, single rock for the other) covers the two single level 4 hexes on that side.
Theoryscape nitpicks aside, it looks fun. Over the next month I was planning on doing some tourney army testing on maps from our pool, but I'm probably going to bump this one to the front of the queue.
@Dignan Just came to say that I very like your new map Déja vu! Very orignal (wannoks avalaible from startzone!) map, the range melee machup seems very balanced, extremly fast map. Love it!
We played with Yngwild(disengage+Wannok) glyphs but I really think the double Wannok you suggested would be better.
The only downside I would notice is if the armies are low figure count, the fight might concentrate on one half of the map, especially if some auras are in play, but not really something you can prevent, esp on a 2 hills map, if players really want to pod they will pod.