Welcome to the Terrain Showcase, where we share table setups for Star Wars Shatterpoint. We aim to help fuel your creativity, find ideas, and get useful tips for creating your next battlefield adventure.
Introducing Cherek
Terrain Used: Core Set and High Ground Expansion
Playmat Used: Deep Cut Studios
Mission Pack: Sabotage Showdown
Color Scheme: Retrofuturistic
Creator: Lupe
Setup Notes: While Cherek is a 3-level map, the two northern towers do not have the top tower piece attached, in the blueprint, the visual is maintained so you know what terrain piece to utilize. Feel free to add them, with or without gantries for additional terrain!
Cherek has the tower’s epicenter at the map’s highest point. With two large walkways and intersections, everyone can get in a fray and hold points. There is a variant amount of elevation with the Array connecting to two Tower Tops and then the Vent and Tech shed, creating a long L-shaped walkway around the outside of the north/east half of the map, creating some mid-level action.
Having almost all the objective tokens on higher ground (bottom point near the vent building on the ground) and a precise amount of ingress points to create maximum confrontation, Cherek will require some preplanned tactics.
“Star Wars, is, for me, a franchise about a guy kicking another guy off a gantry forever, and sometimes that guy flipping back onto the gantry to have a laser sword fight. I always want to see verticality and height and movement, especially since Shatterpoint is a game that actually does that well.” –Lupe
Strategic Considerations:
With four total Ingress Points (Array having two but can be chained together) it will make for a difficult win for a team without some jetpacks or jumping. You always have an option to climb, but that will put you behind with an action.
“(…)though there are comparatively few [ingress points], they’re all ones that project you into placement to hold objectives, but that require enemies to be just on the edge of holding to prevent access. (…) we play a lot of Mandos and Jedi in our lists.” Lupe talked about how he designed the map.
Lupe goes on to say, “That choke point on the top gantries is essential, though. It always becomes an interesting point of tension. You definitely want scatter [terrain] up there”
Starting Position
South starting position will have the advantage of being in striking distance of a ladder to get to the highest elevation and cover the ground; with some jetpacking or an additional move, they could also get up the Vent building’s back ladder to take the mid-level ground. You will be able to cover three points in no time while setting up to be in a great position to take the center and the west point.
The Array has an ingress point that will get you to the 2nd level center point; this could lead to a tactical advantage for having a shooter/sniper in position at the east Vent shed point or the Southwest gantry point, waiting for your opponent to get up there and expose themselves.
The North starting position has the advantage of the ladder to get to the two nearest points on the middle level L-shaped gantry system. A dash to grab the eastern objective will be critical to stay in the game. Then, fighting over the eastern and southern objectives should keep your opponent jumping off the gantry system, leaving you ample opportunity to get up the Array ingress point and try to take the center.
Symmetry or No Symmetry
Cherek is far from symmetrical. It could almost be considered an assault map where the southern player attacks the northern player’s base. The roll-off to decide on the starting position will be one of the most important parts of this match. It is also a map that could be utilized a couple of times. You can have each player try a different starting position, then rotate and see if you get different results.
“Asymmetric layouts are always my preference because that way you give first player something meaningful to choose other than mission” – Lupe
*note that the visual representations provided in these images are intended for illustrative purposes and should not be considered exact measurements. We recommend adhering to the measurements provided by the AMG mission cards. The rules state that you should always strive to have objective points on higher ground and adjust the terrain accordingly. For more information on the visual representation and examples, check out this article.
Have a terrain layout you want to see us feature? Drop us a line at contact@goonhammer.com
