I've been away from this game since right after The Revolution set and I was wondering if the rules for setting up the islands at the beginning of the game have been cleaned up? It was very hard to understand exactly what was intended in the rules originally as the rules were somewhat ambiguous. I asked some people from Wizkids in person at Origins last year and even they didnt have a good answer for me. Would anyone be able to tell me how this process is performed now?

From the WK:
Q: What exactly are the minimum and maximum distances that islands can be away fromeach other?
A: Islands must be placed at least 3L away from every other island, but no more than 6L away from one other island.

Most of the time I end up just making a rough pentagonal shape with an island in the center.

The pentagon thing seems to be the only way to make them work using the spacing rules that apply, IF no island can be more than 6L from ANY other. and even then, the island in the middle has to be the size of a pin.

__ __
|__| |__|
__
|__| __
|__|
__ __
|__| |__|


A design such as this wouldn't work under those rules because the cluster in the middle isnt 3L apart.

So Anyone know the exact tournament Rules?

I think I would like it better if there were like 6 different double sided playmats distributed randomly 1 per pack.

sorry about the blocky mess above, the cluster looked like a W pattern before I submitted the post.

The wording is a little unclear, but it has been clarified that no island can be closer than the minimum distance (currently 3L) to ANY other island, and no island can be more than 6L away from any ONE other island.

That doesn't mean that all islands have to be within 6L of a single specific island, it just means that an island must be a distance between 3L and 6L of any other given island.


If you have a large enough playing area, it is perfectly legal to place all the islands in a long straight line, like this:

(island1) <--6L--> (island2) <--6L--> (island3) <--6L--> (island4, etc...)

However,

The recommended playing area is still 3ftX3ft. so the line-up wouldn't work in tournaments. I never likes the new expansion rules. thew ols 2L away worked so much beter, but with the new 2s base movements and such, that was too close together I guess.