This is another map created for a scenario on a Discord server, as a follow-on to the Marshall City Bank Heist.
The forlorn and badly damaged Desperados had fallen from being a reinforced company of mercenaries to a sole two lances, and had got a garrison job in a little Periphery state, for the coronation of High Lady something-or-other. They were desperate for work, so jumped at something that seemed low-risk. At which point there was a coup, and they were required to escort some VIPs to a neutral civilian dropship before it left. Why, yes, that is apparently the opening plot to a certain game. The guy running the scenario thought that it would be interesting to play something like it, and asked me to build a map for it. I've not actually played the HBS game (yet), but I've seen a fair amount of screenshots and footage. One of the things I noted was that the terrain appeared notably ... bumpy. So I tried to capture something of that air of rolling terrain with numerous hills, scattered light woods, and areas of broken ground. I was asked for "a small drop-port to the south-east, with a small settlement north of it, and broken and rolling hills on the rest of the map", and I hope I hit that brief.
48x53 Aurigan Directorate(click to enlarge)
Tileset used = hq_saxarba
The drop-port is large enough for a spheroid or aerodyne dropship to land (carefully) as long as there isn't already one there (although with very careful parking you could land two spheroids at opposite ends of the runway), and the settlement has grown up to serve the port and the people who work there. There are a couple of small heavy-duty buildings, intended to be infantry blockhouses and/or mountings for turrets, if those are required to defend the site, but other than those and the reinforced control tower, the remainder of the town is quite lightly-constructed. Despite the broken nature of the hilly terrain to the north, it is still possible to move through it at some speed (unless you're in an IS assault 'mech), if you pick your routes reasonably carefully, but it could make for a dangerous game of hide-and-seek, with the challenging sight-lines.
In the scenario as it was run, the mercenaries (plus VIPs) began around the bottom end of the main valley, and the town was defended by two lances of vehicles, with two lances of 'mechs arriving from the southern edge of the map a couple of turns later, and a neutral Union parked in the middle of the hard-standing, and got the unofficial scenario name of "
Get To The Droppaaa!", but I'd like to think that it could be used for a range of scenarios that might need a small, secondary drop-port, or potential ambushes on the way to one.
Size-wise, this is three standard mapsheets wide, by just over three standard mapsheets long. (I think the extra two hex rows were possibly due to being quite tired when I started laying it out, and once I'd started, I didn't notice. Oops. If the odd size does really offend you, it should be quite easy to saw two rows off the top to make it a true three-by-three-sheet map without too much impact.)
As usual, if you do use it, or have any other ideas for scenarios that it would be good for, please let me know how it goes.
