Last summer I studied the ISB map right before my tournament (an Omaha store championship). The week before, the news dropped that the map rotation was changing. I hustled out on a Friday night to buy the Alliance Rangers pack so I could "enjoy" Nal Hutta with the rest of us.

With that in my mind, I'm trying to study the new-wave maps before Worlds, "just in case." I had the afternoon off today and took a quick look at Maul's map, Coruscant Back Alleys, and played a fast game with a rebel wookie list against a Vader/ERiots list, (without putting serious building into either of them). Here are some initial thoughts.

@brettpkelly over at Roll For Damage has a decent pic of the map, back on a map-rotation-prediction post (duplicated here with permission):

Initial Reaction:

The map is a visual headache to assemble. I spent a decent amount of time staring at it and getting used to the tiles. It actually does seem to convey the neon confusion of the gritty electric undercity. If it enters rotation, I imagine it will be in part because FFG developers like the idea of giving players the chance to play in this turf we've seen in Clone Wars.

The deployment zones seem roughly equivalent: both sides need six movement to get to a doorway into the middle area, or can take a door-less "long way around" and be at the poster-areas in 7-8 spaces. The distances encourage you to play objectives on round one: shoot the gangsters or flip the posters before stumbling into each other in a chaotic brawl. Both sides can line up an easy shot on a "gangster" objective from their starting hallways. There are weird sight-lines through the middle that allow long-range shots, and players will need to be careful with their sight lines.

There's some weird love for EJets and Massive figures here. Not a lot of help escaping your deployment area (though a bit), but some ridiculous realities in that middle tile. Maybe not worth walking an AT-DP all that way in there, but a Bantha would wreak havoc (or, given the pack, "vengeance"). Melee figures have an odd time of it: on the one hand, you can "Looney Tunes" avoid them by hiding on the other side of the interior walls; on the other hand, the central tile is small, so a melee figure can pretty easily activate and come around to you, and maybe even duck into cover if you're trying to pot-shot from the hallways. Vader did well here; Han might have a bit of trouble finding his shot while staying out of trouble.

The Gameplay:

I sampled Mission B, and it was actually a blast. There's a uniqueness to the mission. The spend-movement-points mechanic is similar to Nal Hutta's "Raining Freight," but with each objective only worth 1 point, you may not need to pay a ton of attention to them. That said, they function as something of an extra timer: my rebels scored 6-2 points on round one. On the second round, activation order and Take Initiative mattered a bit more, and the rebels flipped all the posters, scoring 8-0. The fact that there are 8 points that will be scored each round, one way or another, gets you counting activations, movement, and flip possibilities. A hunter or Imperial list might be able to chase down the rebels, but if they don't pay attention to propaganda on the way, you could see 18-24 points going the other way in a 3-round game.

I could see this map having an interesting impact on the meta. The hunter tactic of "move+shoot" would have to start taking flips into account on mission B, and their powerful attacks would be required for off'ing 3-point gangsters on map A. Imperial lists might have Round One use for ERiots to flip posters, and EJets could zip over a wall, fire, and zip back, using fly-by points to flip a poster. The poster mechanic also de-values the ubiquitous "Take Initiative" a bit: you may want every activation to be able to flip a poster or two. If you can conceivably flip two posters in the middle (or the bottom-left room) with your final activation, that's a 4-point swing late in the round (2 fewer for the opponent; 2 more for you).

Brett didn't like the Gangster mechanic for competitive play on Mission A, and I'll agree to some extent: the fact that a new gangster arrives and THEN shoots makes you really think over where you'll hide in the alleyways (and frankly, I don't want to sit across from people agonizing about each possible location from a blue die). That said, it's not a ton of damage, so it adds a real element of randomness. The fact that they can appear near your back ranks forces you to think about where to hide. One interesting fact here is that it makes it a bit harder to "run away" with Vader, Han, or Chewbacca after your opponent's put a lot of work into them.

Will We See It?

I think it's a possibility, especially if Jabba's Palace is the mission to rotate out. It would be a Merc figure map replacing a Merc figure map, although that's not a rule written in stone.

This map is similar to Jabba's Palace in some ways: there are multiple areas that each need contesting, especially on mission B. There's a complicated middle area that forces diverse gameplay from each faction. There are places to hide, and (Jabba would actually be safer on this map than his own, but other support figures will be drawn into the middle hallways for terminal-sitting and line-of-sight boosts, and they won't be safe there through 3 rounds. Sight lines are as nightmarish here as on Jabba's Palace.

The two missions require different things. One is helped by speed, activation economy, and figure count. The other is helped by firepower, while re-directing some of it to the mission objectives and off your opponent. They're different from anything currently in rotation, and the 1- and 3-point objectives would be somewhat unique in the meta.

Finally, my guess is that Maul and Ahsoka haven't sold as well as Palpatine's pack (apart from Imperial players buying Maul for Brawler cards), so FFG may well have an economic incentive to choose one of their maps.

On the other hand: it would be two maps with "alley" in the name, and another map with plenty of love for Vader, R2/Chopper (close terminals) and Alliance Smugglers. So maybe something even more distinct?

I played this map on the propaganda side. It felt really different thematically and stood out. I think the gangster idea is cool and different and nice to see "npgs" in the firefight

11 hours ago, TheWelcomeMat88 said:

"npgs"

Non-player gangstas?

@GottaBadFeelingAboutThis Nice analysis! How did you feel about the size of the map? One of my criticisms of the map in my first impression article was that the deployment zones were too far apart with too many nooks to hide in. In practice, do you think that would be an issue for tournament play?

15 minutes ago, brettpkelly said:

How did you feel about the size of the map? My biggest criticism in my first impression article was that the deployment zones were too far apart. In practice, do you think that would be an issue for tournament play?

It actually feels almost as close as Mos Eisley Alleyways. In my Vader-vs-Chewie game, Vader was easily swinging at the end of round one with an officer and a brawler card, and Chewie got off a slam/shot on round two. The terminals create possible staging areas, and they're about 10 squares from each other, leaving a contestable middle between them. The Gangster mission is interesting because it draws both sides down one of the side routes, but with a mere 9 points available at start of mission, you'll probably also swarm into the middle to get at each other. The Poster mission makes opening the bottom two-door room an interesting mission investment: if you get it round one and your opponent doesn't contest it, that's 2 points per round over three rounds, similar to dropping a figure in the rancor pit on Jabba's Palace.

Some similarities to Mos Eisley:
There are long open hallways with objectives down them available to each side, with connections to a central area. This seems to allow for separate "theaters of war," but the ability to switch between them readily.

There are doors to open that create "short cuts" to the center. They're a few squares farther on Coruscant, but with some ingenuity, you can get a figure to the door and open it on round one, creating a path for other figures, or new lines of sight for, say, ERangers or ESentries.

9 minutes ago, brettpkelly said:

@GottaBadFeelingAboutThis Nice analysis! How did you feel about the size of the map? One of my criticisms of the map in my first impression article was that the deployment zones were too far apart with too many nooks to hide in. In practice, do you think that would be an issue for tournament play?

In terms of "nooks to hide in," there are a few in the deployment zone, but that would only seem to be a huge boon for Jabba, or for run-away Vaders, Chewies, IG's, and Lukes. But if the big figures are far enough forward to be beat up, it will take them a good while to get fully out of sight again. My guess is that ERangers will have lots of options for sight lines, although it may involve carefully planning around opening doors. With brawler and force user movement cards, I'm less worried about it.

One "con" for run-away heavies hiding back in a deployment zone is the map doesn't leave a lot of objectives in play to contest, which could really sour a tournament game. Vader runs out, kills two EQuays, soaks 14 damage and runs home again, leaving Greedo to half-heartedly flip a few posters each round while the Emperor cackles, etc.

Disposable figs like hired guns, greedo, riots should do great here for objectives and opening doors round 1. GIA

7 minutes ago, TheWelcomeMat88 said:

Disposable figs like hired guns, greedo, riots should do great here for objectives and opening doors round 1. GIA

Yeah, the doors are a little far for ERiots, but they can do it with an officer's help. In my fast game, the ERiots had plenty of center-tile targets in Round Two. I was left thinking about the Set a Trap command card: this map of all maps I've played gives a very clear understanding of what tile to use for that!

2 hours ago, GottaBadFeelingAboutThis said:

Yeah, the doors are a little far for ERiots, but they can do it with an officer's help. In my fast game, the ERiots had plenty of center-tile targets in Round Two. I was left thinking about the Set a Trap command card: this map of all maps I've played gives a very clear understanding of what tile to use for that!

Yeah sorry i assumed officer movement lol or atdp shenanigans. I wonder how the atdp does here actually.

Set a trap is seriously underrated imo. It can be so big for objective controlling

So if you kill the ganstas, do they still "deploy" at the end of the round? And its more of a redeploy right, because they start the game where the map tells you

I really don't like that random effect in Mission A.