This thread is basically how you'd like to describe your ideal battlezone. A map you could absolutely fall in love with and play countless times because of how much fun it is.

Partly, I just feel like writing and want it to feel constructive.

Initially I thought that the Goraxian Fjords would be the best map I could think of, but my mind never rests so I guess that this thread may just be me writing descriptions of a fantasy world I'd like to war game in. Honestly, I find more fulfillment in the scenery of a game sometimes than the game play, so I hope that somebody on the Dev team thinks similarly to me; primarily the level design guys!

Anyway, let's journey into Sagathoyr - The Shattered Maw of Arkohna.

There exists a place within Arkohna where death revolts against its contemplative slumber. Here, the ground peels away into the deepest pits of oblivion as a rockcrete and ferrosteel skeletal maw swallows all who are tempted by the otherworldly powers below. Once a quiet and dedicated chapel fortress of the Imperium, the flying buttresses and crumbling alcoves of its ruin form a rotting smile around the scar in the earth as Sagathoyr devours it from below. The story of Sagathoyr's appearance is a total mystery, as is its purpose on Arkohna as it seems almost completely inert, save a periodic flux of green light that can be seen for miles around the pit, illuminating the many floating rocks and debris stuck in the gravity defying well. Should one travel into the maw, they would find themselves upon a floating disk, slowly revolving over a great underground sea. The disk is all but invulnerable to attack, and clearly Necron in origin. Driven to discover why it is there, and/or to destroy it before it can summon the might of the restless dead, factions vie for control over the the great artifact as it hovers safely above a black sea. The waters below are not empty, nor is it unimportant, as the seemingly invulnerable disk has been damaged somehow. Pieces of Sagathoyr and the fallen chapel lie strewn on jagged islands rising from the waters to be exploited and put to use against itself. But the waters are far from empty, for Licters and other Tyranid horrors lurk beneath the waves, knowing with alien intelligence that these objects are important, and that easy prey would find themselves dragged helplessly beneath the waves.

Titan's Hold - The Heart of Arkohna.


Titan's Hold, a splintered and battered Imperial Bastion that encompasses an entire region of the map. It is so vast that it can be seen from space. Built with the intention to hold whatever giant war machine or priceless artifact the Emperor required inside the great Mountain keep, Dunicea, it is not a single continuous structure but a great conglomerate of city states. The toll of endless war has ravaged the lands beyond recognition in many sections of the hold, turning magnificent imperial palaces into beds of salt and bastion walls into nothing more than coils of rusted steel among the stripped carcasses of tanks. Ion storms dance across the boiling sky, occasionally striking the listing spires of Dunicea's ancient keep. Merciless ash dunes caught by the howling wind bury the dead and alive alike in scouring sands, as forces combat in the skeleton of a world brought low by strife. The sounds of slaughter ring in a siren's song across the land, for in the ruins of the cities, combat is joined in earnest as each side fights a desperate battle like conquer's bickering over the spoils of an extinct civilization.

Darkness has not conquered the Hold however. Piercing the burning skies, rays of holy light flicker and dance stubbornly in the ember filled air. The mountain groans under the weight of war as its halls are bloodied and stained with the blood of the righteous and evildoer alike. Dunicea, the inner sanctum of the hold is a legendary fortress in its own right. It is comprised of five great halls, each a bastion against the other should one fall. The outer four are arranged so that their defenses face each other as well as the gates that allow access into Dunicea. The four halls are linked only to the adjacent by a single bridge large enough to drive a tank across. The fifth, and innermost chamber rises above the four; overseeing all tactical movements that the other bastions are engaged in. Although at a clear advantage being able to shoot down (or leap) towards the other halls, it is also connected to all four of the other halls.

The sad reality of Dunicea is that it has been traded hands many times over the course of many campaigns predating our arrival on Arkohna. The Hold's history is a dark and bloodied saga of planetary Empires and strife. Although most recently, humanity built the hold within Dunicea, it was not its original owner - nor is it entirely in possession of the territory. The Hold carries the weight of millennia of conquerors, there are artifacts as well as ancient structures under and even within the ruins of Titan's Hold. Most recently, it has grown increasingly apparent that the tendrils of Chaos are taking root in the underhold and spire of Dunicea. Corruption is running rampant in the mountain, its great heart slowly corroding, relenting, and ultimately falling altogether into the embrace of Chaos forevermore. Such is the fate those who fight in the shadow of the mountain, the endless slaughter inevitably leading to damnation for all unless it can be claimed once and for all by a single race.