Recently, I gave you the Alleyway Map (which I've already ordered for myself, because it's just such a basic for cops'n'robbers, and a staple for Batman fans).
and last time, I gave you the circensis Big Top map. Now, as much as I knew a circus map needed to be made for the Heroclix playing masses, I doubt that I will have one printed for myself. But this next one, I will definitely be getting printed for myself-- probably today, in fact. Like the Alleyway map, it's such a sine qua non for proper Gotham-style conflict that I'm embarrassed I didn't make it sooner.
Why, what would being a villain in Gotham be like without....
THE ABANDONED WAREHOUSE DISTRICT.
Oh, the shadows! Oh, the lurkingness!
As in my other recent maps, I've tried to be subtler in how things like hindering terrain are marked. It can kind of spoil the murky atmosphere you want in a Batman game to have neon green and purples borders around huge chunks of the board. In fact, I haven't marked any terrain at all because it seems so obvious. If there's some kind of object in a square, then it's hindering terrain. Also, in each of the three warehouses (Apex, Warren, and Dexter), there are two particularly dark rooms with no light; those, too, are hindering terrain.
That and the blocking walls of the buildings are pretty much it. Note that I intentional put doors in the doorways. Unlike Wizkids, which seems to think that doorways without doors in them are the rule in life rather than the exception, I consider the doors on my maps to block line of fire (although the do not interrupt adjacency, like a wall would). This means there will lots of scurrying and hiding on this map; if you want to get your foes, you're going to have to dig in there and root them out face to face, rather than pick them off from 10 squares away with Long Ranged Combat Expert figures.
But there's a little something extra to this map, an idea that I've wanted to instantiate for quite some time: it can be played as one regular sized (2' x 3') map, OR you can play each third of it (marked by the glowing white transversal lines) as a smaller (1' x 2') mini-map. I have often longed for smaller maps because the smaller teams I favor (such a member of the Batman family with some GCPD versus a single Bat-villains with some back-up goons) tend to get lost on a full-sized map. So the Abandoned Warehouse District map is designed so that you can play a small game on any third of it, a medium game on either two-thirds of it, or a large game on the entire map.
If you play on less than the full map, place your figures along the outer edges of the parking lot to start (rather than at the traditional "goalpost" locations on a full-sized map).
The map--and each of its segments--is designed to prevent the *ahem* "clusterfudge" that arises in many maps, where all the figures just rush into a big melee in the center of the board. You won't be doing that with those warehouses in the way!
Oh, and for extra "realistic" fun, you can start with your villains INSIDE the warehouses, and the good guys 'surrounding' them from the parking lot on the outside. That will make your game seem more like a Gotham battle, and less like football with superpowers.
2 comments:
Y'know, putting you on payroll as a "Heroclix Creative Consultant" would pay off for the company on SO many levels it isn't funny.
Particularly since I'd do it for FREE, LOL!
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