Mansion is very similar to the front of East Barricade Academy, if not identical. The map has two floors; the bottom floor has the frag grenades and the Boomshot Grenade Launcher, and the top floor has the Longshot Sniper Rifle.
Strategies[]
As the match starts, you have the choice of wandering around the outdoors or indoors. However, always stay with your team. While going out to flank the enemies can be a good idea and you can probably kill a few, you will most certainly need backup. The Boomshot is going to be the center of attention, unless its on a Torque Bow spawn cycle. The Boomshot is amazingly useful in this map as it can kill large groups of enemies, but should not be used at close range. The Longshot spawn is another point of interest, as many people rush for it, and this will probably be where the first shots are fired.
Gears of War 2[]
Mansion has been remade, along with Tyro Station, Gridlock, Subway, and Canals, for Gears of War 2, available only in the Flashback Map Pack DLC for 400MP. The following is a list of the subtle changes to Mansion.
Environment[]
The dark and stormy night weather has been replaced with a calm early morning. The mansion itself is more caved in, letting in rays of sunlight, which also makes it harder to see through the door from the balcony. There is also overgrowth on the walls, pillars, and floor of the mansion. Along with all that, when cutting the furniture, the animation is shown instead of being able to "run through it".
Weapons[]
Like every other remade map, Mansion's arsenal has been updated as well. There have been three new pistol spawns added; one just in front and below the balcony, and one placed on either side of the front of the mansion, where those alcoves are that players run through to get to the Boomshot. The pistol spawn on the inside does not alternate with each round, it is always a Boltok Pistol, but the ones on the outside alternate, first with the Gorgon Pistol, then with the Boltok Pistol. Inside, the Longshot Sniper Rifle and the Bolo Grenades also alternate with the Torque Bow and the Ink Grenades.
Horde[]
In Gears of War 2, Horde mode, a good tactic to use is to get to the upper center where the Torque Bow/Longshot spawns and place two people at the doorways to the stairs on either side and one person in the middle sniping. This area seems to be hard for Boomers to hit. At close range, it is not recommended that you use the chainsaw for the fact that most of the time it'll just cut up the furniture instead of the intended target. On higher waves, you can use a large amount of shields to block off the stairs, however, when the Bloodmounts come, it is often better to hold the shields and back into a corner and fend off the wave that way.