We're now up to nearly 50 different two-player maps for Skirmish these days, meaning nearly 100 different missions can be played - that's a heck of a lot of variety, yet all that really seems to get discussed is the current tournament meta.

Are there any old maps you'd like to see played more often, especially with newer models that weren't around when they were released?

I wonder what Moisture Farm would be like.

I expect that the maps not in rotation are of little interest to the Skirmish community at large.

I mean, they're not going to play those competitively so why waste time and energy analysing them?

Double that for the former maps that used to be in rotation. They're not going to bring those back are they?

So beyond the nostalgia of playing on one, or using a roll-out map because you have it, I doubt anyone is spending time thinking about them...

umm it depends, I know some people (including some others on this forum, myself included) don't really play in tournaments but is always happy to bust out a skirmish game, it can get exhausting keeping up with "the latest meta" so we deliberately ban some of the figures from play (ex. no SC, no Hatred Vader, bring back the ISBs and Leia and have a Rebel Trooper vs. Stormtrooper duel), but with all the released command cards

Personally I only (intentionally) play tournament maps while playing in a tournament. Outside a tournament, I put all the skirmish cards I own (i.e. all of them) into a deck and draw one at random... there are a lot of maps, a lot of missions, many of them are a lot of fun, why stick with the same six all the time?

18 hours ago, Bitterman said:

Personally I only (intentionally) play tournament maps while playing in a tournament. Outside a tournament, I put all the skirmish cards I own (i.e. all of them) into a deck and draw one at random... there are a lot of maps, a lot of missions, many of them are a lot of fun, why stick with the same six all the time?

That's what I do when I'm not playing or training for a tournament. At least all the maps I CAN make with my tiles.

It's funny. Because as much as making the maps is a pain in the a-S#$, it is probably the greatest part of the game and the main reason it has the ability to stay fresh. You can go on the internets and come up with a killer list and walk right into a tournament for any other game. With IA, if you don't know the maps, good luck.

On 2/24/2019 at 10:14 PM, Majushi said:

I expect that the maps not in rotation are of little interest to the Skirmish community at large.

I mean, they're not going to play those competitively so why waste time and energy analysing them?

Double that for the former maps that used to be in rotation. They're not going to bring those back are they?

So beyond the nostalgia of playing on one, or using a roll-out map because you have it, I doubt anyone is spending time thinking about them...

That seems a remarkably short-sighted view - playing Skirmish shouldn't just mean playing the tournament meta, after all. Casual play using the whole range of maps is where at least some of the value in the game lies, and given that many maps never make it into the tournament meta, you're implying that they should never be played.

I really like @Bitterman 's idea of randomly drawing a mission from the deck, then throwing the map together to play it - means you have to build a list than can cope with the varied challenges, not just what the flavour of the month maps are.

To clarify further, I suspect most non-casual Skirmish players will spend most of their game times playing maps in rotation.

players who only play casual Skirmish are probably less likely to thoroughly analyse a map in the same way the competitive scene does.

while there are a ton of maps to play, I would guess that the fairly limited Skirmish scene has a likely even smaller casual scene.

On 2/28/2019 at 5:30 AM, Majushi said:

To clarify further, I suspect most non-casual Skirmish players will spend most of their game times playing maps in rotation.

players who only play casual Skirmish are probably less likely to thoroughly analyse a map in the same way the competitive scene does.

while there are a ton of maps to play, I would guess that the fairly limited Skirmish scene has a likely even smaller casual scene.

I think this is true in general not just for IA but for all games

as much as I love to setup a skirmish game, I never thoroughly bothered to analyze any map and I'd much prefer to be surprised by maps

For example, in one of the recent games I've played I ran a RGC list and we drew Kayn Somo's map where you could be in your opponent's deployment zone within 4 movement points, turn 1 RGC Brutality (with mission rule free Pierce 2) was amazing

was it balanced and fair? definitely not

would we ever see that map being in competitive rotation? most likely never

but was it fun? YES!