Rating HS Maps & Scenarios

[MisterMario]

Hello Heroscapers,

With the re-launch of HS I’m jumping back into my old terrain, troops and rulebooks. My hope is to have some family over and teach them the game. I’d love to use some very solid (Tested? Tournament? Balanced!) maps with fun scenarios (from Hasbro/Heroscapers)!

Has anyone created a rating system for maps/scenarios? There are plenty to pick from in the rulebooks… but I don’t want to waste time prepping for boring or unbalanced ones. I’m especially interested in the ones with given armies since most of my potential players have never tried HS!

I imagine there are a lot of folks who have played all the provided scenarios and could share their ratings… not sure what the categories I’m looking for would be. I don’t mind some death match rumbles but would prefer more interesting, complex, or unique scenarios, win conditions, or at least thematic or cool uses for the terrain!

I’m a bit overwhelmed by all that I’m finding on the Maps/Scenarios threads. It seems mostly to be organized by user/creator, but that doesn’t help me as I don’t know which maps are going to be great from all of those either! In my eyes it would be ideal to have a pinned post at the top of the maps/scenarios threads to lead newcomers in the right direction. Would anyone else find this helpful?

Thanks for any guidance!

 

[MisterMario]

TLDR: getting back into HS…Which maps rock? Which ones suck? Are there unique scenarios that make better gameplay?

 

[boromir96]

I can’t help you with the official scenarios, I honestly don’t think many people play them. If you’re interested in more competitive style maps I will direct you to the Wargrounds of Scape display thread. these are the best of the best tournament maps. People predominantly play simple 1v1 death matches on them, but most tournaments feature special and unique rules or army building restrictions. If you take a look at the Peoria Monthly past tournaments (scroll down to second post) you can see the variety of different formats we’ve used this year to help make every tournament interesting and unique.

 

[AStickInTheMud]

In terms of balance for standard 1v1, ~500 point armies, you really can't go wrong with any of the WoS maps. That's what they are curated for, after all.

In terms of non-curated maps, I haven't seen any lists or anything, but the other maps by map makers that have a map curated in the WoS are usually also safe bets, with some even being tested but found not quite up to standards for tournament maps.

If these are the qualities you're looking for, try to find ones with clear development paths and intersting highground to fight over, with line-of sight blockers along the paths so melee armies don't get bricked by a wall of ranged shots.

That's not to say other maps won't make interesting gameplay though. Sometimes even the wacky maps can make you use figures that you wouldn't otherwise, especially in a draft format. Got a map full of lava? perhaps Brunak or Obsidian Guards would be a good pick; likewise the Dzu-Teh for a map with heavy snow, or Theracus or the Monks on a castle map.

 

[MisterMario]

Very interesting and helpful comments, thanks for the tips! I’ll take a look at the tournament-ready maps and the formats for those tournaments for sure.

If anyone has any ideas for maps/scenarios that break the Deathmatch 1v1 mold I would be interested in what works and what doesn’t. I know that the army-building and facing off against a different army provides a lot of replayability.

Even so, I will often have a different number of players 2,3,4 and know that some variety in strategy and win-conditions will be a must!

 

[AStickInTheMud]

I can't give any specific examples but i can rattle off a few scenarios for alternative win conditions (no idea if these are any good):

Symmetric:

King of the Hill: Use a map with a clear central highground, put a glyph of Brandar in the middle. At the end of a round, whoever has a figure on the glyph gets a point, first to N points wins, or most points after N rounds.

Control Points: similar to KoTH, except there are multiple objectives. Players get a point for each controlled point, bonus points for controlling all.

Capture the Flag/Prisoner Rescue: Put a glyph of Brandar/a prisoner figure in each start zone, treat it as a treasure glyph (can get picked up). Players must return it to their own start zone (with or without the enemy flag also) to win.

Protect the General: Designate one unique hero for each player. Player loses if the General Dies

Death Race: use a long map, preferably planar symmetric and assign a goal zone at the edge furthest from both start zones. Players must get N figures into the goal first. (Escaped figures are removed from the board, maybe?)

Battle Royale/Rising Lava: Use a map with a central highground. After N rounds, one height level becomes lava/toxic. Treat the current level and below spaces as lava field (or molten lava for really short games).

Asymmetric:

Horde Survival: One player must survive a number of rounds against an overwhelming force (or 2+ other players). Usually on a map with a defensible location like highground or a castle. Rotate players and see who survives the longest.

Protect the Flag: Same as above, but the one player lose condition is if their startzone gets breached and a glyph of Brandar occupied

Reinforcements Arrive: Any of the above, but an extra player starts behind the larger army after a certain number of rounds.

Breachthrough: Similar to Deathrace, but only one player must reach the goal. Other players start scattered through the map.

Just some ideas for gameplay modifications. The Glyphs of Brandar were included in the master sets for player scenario customization. Get creative with them.

 

[MisterMario]

This weekend we did a capture the flag (Didn’t have to return the flag) and a reinforcements arrive deathmatch 2v2. Same map for both. Both were interesting in their own rights. The 2v2 had small squads of only 160 (and 160 for reinforcements) so ended up taking a long time. The CTF was a premade army set from the rules and even though the point values weren’t equal, the lower points (with Marro warriors!) won out easily. The map had some okay height and pathways through and around water.

I wonder about what determines a quality and repayable map for tournaments or others. What are people looking for? How do people rate them?

 

[caps]

I wonder about what determines a quality and repayable map for tournaments or others. What are people looking for? How do people rate them?

For tournaments, you could read the reviews the judges write for programs like Wargrounds of Scape, Battlefields of Valhalla, or Architects of Valhalla to get an idea of what map reviewers and tournament organizers are considering.

But for casual games with your friends and family I'd probably focus more on maps that look cool and fun and not stress about tournament style games. Try different custom scenarios and win conditions and see what you all like. Deathmatch is a lot of fun, but so are other win conditions.

I came up with a multi-dimensional scoring format and posted about it here.

You could also just try the scenarios from the rulebooks and see what you think of them. I'm not aware of any rating for them, but the ones I've read seemed fun enough if you just want to play some Heroscape.

 

[Scapemage]

Some of the official maps from back in the day I've always quite enjoyed. In particular, Searing Pass (I think it was an online release) which uses 1 RotV and 1 VW is a favorite of mine.

 

[Nukatha]

Forsaken Waters, Soulrazor Canyon, Wolf Swamp Road, Searing Pass, and Feldspar Pass are pretty decent semi-symmetrical competitive maps.