I thought it would be cool to regularly discuss a different map in the Bloomilk forums. We could talk about things like:
- what do you like about this map?
- what squads does it suit?
- which side do you normally choose?
- a memorable game on this map?
- and anything else you want to

I'd like to kick off with the perennial favourite Commander's Office/Ravaged Base. I've probably played more games on this map than on any other, but I don't know that I'm especially good at it.

Made by: Wizards of the Coast
Year of Release: 2006
Current Status: Restricted List C

I love this idea!

I've never been a huge fan of this map, mainly because I'm not great at it. I do like it though, if I'm being honest. It's very balanced and it's difficult for one player to get a terrain-based advantage without taking some risks. I usually choose the indoor (starting) side, but I think I'm going to change that to outside. The room to the north of the actual office is a great way to advance if you're coming from the outside.
Memorable game? Once I was using an Imperial squad with Thrawn, Nyna, Mas, Cad, a Felcor and some Ugnaughts. My opponent had a Mando squad based around Boba, MC, and using a Basilisk for some reason. Cad was able to take out a lot of his Mando grunts (are there really any Mando grunts?) as they advanced into the main hallwayand the Felcor was getting ready to burst out and base Boba Fet (I know, Flight). My opponent ends up bringing his Basilisk and Boba right through a door (that a grunt died to hold open) and straight down into the detention cell block. At the end of the cellblock, in the little alcove behind the consoles, were my commanders, with no protection! Now, I got a little overconfident in this game; if I hadn't they would never have been left so vulnerable. He was down to a dying grunt, Boba and the Basilisk, and I was thinking it was pretty much over. My mistake. My opponent kills Nyna right after I swaped out Mas for Cad Bane. Felcor ruins in, and starts fighting with the Basilisk on top of the consoles. (Picture that fight in your head. You're welcome). Basilisk goes down but Boba picks off the Felcor right away. Cad barely managed to take down Boba. I think Cad had something like 10 hp left at the end of the game. Learned my lesson that game.

Not my favorite map because it can tend to lead to potential stalemates/death boxes because both sides have easy protected gambit. However it is very balanced. This is actually my best map with the Lancer squad I run (but only if I start on the inside) which is why I could never bring it as my map, but I certainly was happy when I saw that it was my opps map. My most memorable game on this map was against Deri in the 2010 Gencon Champs. He was running Solo charge against my Lancer. After trading the Lancers for lots of Damage it came down to his 20HP Han against my IG86, uggies and something else. I had based his Han with my uggs to not give him a clean shot at my IG as if he won init he could kill it with some average rolls. Anyway, he wins init and gives up the AoO to the ugo so he can try and kill the IG86. BAM!!! The Ugo crit and killed Han winning me the game and propelling me to the T8 while leaving Deri in an unfortunate 9th (or 10th can't remember) place finish.

I almost always take the outside because it's easy to get first round gambit if you have a +6 movement breaker such as Master Speed or Intuition. But I also tend to lose on this map a lot, so that might not be the best move.

This one always has been one of my favorite maps. It's very evenly balanced between shooters and melee characters, with long enough lines of sight that you have to be careful if you're moving melee pieces up but there are still enough ways to get them across the board. I agree with Trevor that one of the best parts is that there are multiple good ways to advance. Lots of times people just want to go up the middle, which is what creates stand offs, forgetting that there is a fairly protected path along the top. It often requires a movement breaker to do it well because of all the difficult terrain, but it's a good way to advance. I also like that door control is important, but it's fairly difficult to cause a complete lockout. There are 2 doors which, if blown up, make very nearly the entire map accessible (the big one in the middle on the left side, and the small one right below it). Then you could also move through the top. It requires your opponent to have 3 more Override pieces than you do to cause a complete lock out, which is a rare situation. You can also usually safely approach the doors that you need destroyed with Ugnaughts.

I prefer the right side, because I like the quick and easy access to Gambit (although it's also pretty easy to get to the lift for Gambit) but mostly because I like setting up inside the Office. In my experience, you either set up your strike in the Office or in the hallway with the lifts, and I think the Office gives a little more freedom to move. You have to worry about your Commanders a little more, but usually they're far enough away that the opportunity cost of attacking them is just too high. Also, taking the right side is practically death against the Lancer unless you're playing some very strong counters to it.

This map seems to do well with most squads really. The high-movement squads like Yobuck and Lancer do great because they have good staging areas to strike and get back to. Squads with less movement can do well because there are relatively safe ways to advance. I think you do have to have some sort of a movement breaker here or you'll have a really hard time maneuvering, but a movement breaker of some kind is always a good idea anyway.

The thing is, the outside isn't THAT bad for the Lancer. Your opponent gets the Lifts to hide in which helps, and it's hard to get to the commanders, but it's not much worse than a normal map for the Lancer. On the other hand, if both the Lancer player and the non-Lancer player have this map and the non-Lancer player wins the map roll, the Lancer player gets to laugh maniacally because he gets to take the inside and force the non-Lancer player to the outside. Graham once chose this as his map while playing the single Lancer just because it was a very popular map and the map list was small enough that he knew that a fair number of players would have this as their map. I think it worked for him twice in Regional play, and it gave him incredibly easy wins because the Lancer can just decimate the player on the outside of the base in round 1, especially if he's got the MTB.

In fact, I think this is now a reasonable strategy again if you're playing on Restricted List C. Ravaged Base will be a popular choice, and the other choices are pretty left-right balanced so if you have to play on those you don't care as much that you don't get to pick your side. The only situation that you'll really have to worry about is if you both have Ravaged Base as your map and you win map roll so your opponent takes the inside, and like I said although it's the weaker position it's not insurmountable.

Very nice idea, We use this map a lot and is also good to use two or three of these maps side by side for epic battles if you have them.

Also a very nice map to use in RPG games.

I personally give this map 10/10 and is 1 of 5 maps so far to get the top marks from me.

I just played a fantastic game on this map. I played a variant of this squad: http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/126368/cloaking-or-non-cloaking

It was one hectic game. I was playing mando against two friends, one playing vong the other seperatist. They decided to team up on me so I got stuck in the lower left corner which was basically where I started. Somehow I nearly pulled out a win, calling the game when we ran out of time. That corner and the map in general is great for mobile shooters. I absolutely love this map.