Hi,

After about 1 year playing Deathwatch and other RPGs, I decided to start running a small Warhammer 3 campaign in preparation of The Enemy Within.

Anyway, to the point, I am designing some "tactical encounters" using a "tree-like" structure with location cards that I have created using the Strange Eons program. The advantage here is that you can still keep a good level of abstraction while giving players (and your monsters) some interesting tactical choices, and at the same time keep track of where each character is situated.

I used to create some tactical maps for D&D but those took a lot of time to prepare because of the graphical aspects. Creating maps this way is fast and lots of fun! It took me only 2 hours to create this map, including creating all the "mini-location" cards that I hope to be able to reuse in the future.

Here you have then the first example (it's in Spanish, but I have translated all the mini-location cards to English also):

Bandit Camp (in Spanish)

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6PF7hbwQPuTT0JqTUd2UUp4VG8

Strange Eons "mini-locations" used for this encounter (English):

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6PF7hbwQPuTeXZaYWJvZWdyLTQ

Strange Eons "mini-locations" used for this encounter (Spanish):

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6PF7hbwQPuTSW5FelJOcW1VcUE

mini-location cards in JPG format (Spanish):

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6PF7hbwQPuTbF8zLWt2N3ZFQ0E

Practical steps to create them:

1. Start creating the encounter map using your favourite program (I used Photoshop).

2. Create the location cards in Strange Eons as you see fit. As you create the encounter, new ideas will pop to you.

3. Get the location images in JPG format and incorporate them to your map, separating the mini-locations with distance tokens to create some kind of tree structure.

4. My plan is to print the mini-locations and use them on the table, using the first file as guide, but you can also use the main file if you are playing through MapTool or similar programs.

Please let me know if somebody else has done something similar. It would be great to have many people creating and sharing these tactical maps.

Also let me know if you like the map and if you have any ideas for cool "mini-locations" or other cool maps.

I'll keep sharing the maps I create for my short campaign (though I'll stop some weeks because of travelling during Christmas).

Neat idea, tried accessing the English google docs and said I needed permission.

valvorik said:

Same problem here.

True, I had not changed the permissions for that file in Google Docs.

I have now changed them, so you should be able to see and donwload them. Please let me know if it still does not work.

Also, a quick table for the cards (Spanish to English):

Botín… Loot

Petates… Sleeping Sacks

Terraplén… Slope

Fogata… Campfire

Arroyo… Stream

Alarma … Alarm (obvious one)

Linde del Bosque… Forest Edge

I plan to use also the general "Bandit Camp" location for the encounter, and the point of entry for the encounter will be the Forest Edge.

Good idea, great use of the Location mechanism. I do the same in Fantasy Grounds II using locations already existing, or locations I create, when I am lazy and don't want to make a nice map.

I think the Reckless Dice podcast used a similar idea (again using the already existing locations) when they played Horror at Hugedal and The Witch Song. It sounded like it when listening.

I think the cards are too small to effectively read. We've moved them to "sheet sized." Great idea btw.

jh