The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=24708.

Western Castle Ruins depicts an extremely ruined castle, with essentially very little left of its former glory, and a dungeon dwelling underneath. It has a very generic style allowing you to use it virtually anywhere a castle would be fitting. As it is a completely ruined castle, you could even use it in modern or near-future settings as an unexplored set of ruins formerly buried under years of weathering or in a remote location that hardly sees travel. In other words, you can use it for much more than just fantasy.

OVERALL

Ruined castles can be excellent plot hooks given the immediate number of questions that arise. Who owned the castle? Was their a village nearby? Who lives there now? Is it haunted? What stories can these ruins tell? And more importantly, what can we find within its dungeon? This is definitely the style of battlemap that invokes numerous possible hooks for your adventure. You could even throw it down and let the PCs create this castle’s history.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 9 out of 10 DramaScape does a great job of dividing up their battlemap sections from page to page. This helps to retain the understanding of what each page represents by not cutting the map in important locations (causing confusion when looking at on-screen and during assembly). As always, there is a square and hex grid for both the ruined castle and the dungeon. The only difficulty I had with “piecing” the battlemap together is figuring out exactly where the dungeon connects to the ruins above.

Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10 Western Castle Ruins utilizes from beautiful textures with no shortage of broken rocks and random overgrowth. The dungeon has an excellent unused feel to it showing that it too has aged since the castle once stood. Rounding off this battlemap is a good-looking grass texture that has the feel of being able to grow wildly for many years if not centuries.

Desire to Use: 9 out of 10 If you’re looking for a ruined castle with some underground secrets, this is a perfect match for what you’re looking for. The only thing that could be added to improve its usability is a way of connection other possible branches (or even caves) to the dungeon below ground. Not that this would be very difficult, but it may require a larger room that lacks as much detail. However, the ruined castle is still a perfect representation of what it’s trying to be and the dungeon is an excellent way of expanding the possibilities for what lurks within the ruins.

Overall: 9 out of 10 Western Castle Ruins is a great battlemap combining the ruined aspects above ground and the “what may be lurking in the dungeon” underground. The castle is completely ruined, so if you’re looking for more of a recently destroyed castle, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a ages-old castle that was destroyed and has weathered significantly, then this is a perfect choice.

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/04/11/tabletop-review-battlemap-western-castle-ruins/

This battlemap from RedBrick is a 30″ square map of a small castle ruins and a small dungeon below. The large PDF file contains two copies of both maps, one with square 1″ to 5′ grids and the another with 1″ to 5′ hex grids. The publisher was kind enough to give a brief description of the dungeon rooms an overview map without grids, and assembly instructions.

Included with the PDF are 100 DPI .JPGs of the ruins and the dungeon for use with virtual table top systems.

Normally when I get a new battlemap I print them off and mount them to foam core. This castle ruin map was just “OK” and I couldn’t get motivated to print it out for use on my game table. The colors on the ruins map are somewhat muted and the map overall is a little busy. It looks like there should be some different heights to the ruins, and there is a set of stairs, but the whole thing looks rather flat and lacks some definition. The yellow grid lines are a bit garish and really retract from the map’s presentation. I have no idea how the ruins level connects to the dungeon level and suspect it really doesn’t.

The dungeon level walls look a bit rough, like they were carved and then not lined, but the floor was set with 5′ tiles. The difference between the walls and floor just doesn’t “feel” right and then the tiles contrast again with the grids. If the floor was a rough-hewn texture it would have worked.

This offering is a whole lot of “meh” for $3. I just cannot recommend this particular map.