The Tain

OtA has in Visage, created a pretty looking map that shows some very nice mapmaking skills.

However...

When playing competitive games, the massive hills are simply TOO dominant and theres not really enough open land in the map. Effectively this makes this a camp for all map (hey I better patent that fast!). Also he set the sandy wasteland to burn like grass, this put simply....sucks.

If the 2 huge hills were toned down or made impassable then perhaps it would work better. But then again, perhaps not.

p.s. I am a big fag :(

The map takes place in a rocky valley with a lot of steep hills, open fields and deep lakes.

One thing that really annoys me are the large hills which just look artificial and act as perfect defending positions that slow down the gameplay extremely. I also think that the other parts of the map are a bit boring and dont have to offer too much apart from visual content. To sum it up: although the terrain is beautiful it tends to freeze the combat for some reason.

The unit set is very uncommon but and a bit unbalanced on some versions. Nevertheless there can occur very unique combat situations (an army of shivers?).

I have to say that I have expected more from this plugin which was once announced in a hype. On the other hand, some people seem to like it a lot, so you should give it a try!

I can only really rate the colossal wreck variant, and the quality of the mesh/layout itself, but I regular myth units should and most certainly DO work very well with the way the map it laid out.

Somewhat remniscent of Clash in the Cloudspine, with (to me) a hint of moon shadow cave (low mesas to fire from) and some Hex!(heart of the stone mesh from TFL)-like passageways and rock obstacles.

The mesh is mostly symmetrical with a bit of asymmetry for flavor, and as you might guess the sheer carnage that is inevitable every time you load up the "colossal wreck" mesh is a joy to behold - enough "power units" distributed in a pretty (mostly) balanced fashion, with fallen lords and shades and what have you. They arent edited, as far as i know, except perhaps balance changes with the shade not having as many dispersals? Cannot remember that specific detail, but it is very fun knowing that shiver is EXTREMELY easy to kill (at least compared to soulblighter) with the right tactics, even if theyre only hero archers or some smart trow/dwarf flanking.

I've had some amazingly fun and satisfying games on this, and I never left it feeling like one side had much of an advantage over the other despite the (if i remember correctly) slightly asymmetrical unit balance (light vs dark themed, I believe? or perhaps it was a symmetrical trade, with only the alric/sb/shiver characters asymmetrical on the teams).

Either way I remember fun. That's the important part. Great team battles. probably wonderful for FFA as well. The center is dominated by some very high plateaus, which have "ladders" leading up to them as the only entrance/exit (much like one of the M3 multiplayer meshes with towers you could "climb", in the form of a nearly vertical ramp of mesh).

Most people left in myth understand the nuances of fighting near such an extreme stretching of mesh cells, but if you arent careful you can get kicked or hacked or posssibly even fetched/dispersaled from a unit seemingly far below you in the blink of an eye, due to the ladders.

Very fun, and the only issue is whether you the player is ready for any weird thing to happen as a result of the very unique topography of this map.

5 stars!