Ok, the challenges will open up as soon as I have the completed map, which should be sometime early today. I wanted to clarify some of the challenge rules (I will cover more in my next post though, so this isn't exhaustive).
When I was looking at the challenge rules I realized that it was kind of written where the challenges would only take place on enemy territory, which made just expanding your own tiles not really an option. So last night and this morning I have updated some of the rules for challenges. Now the challenger may choose to attack either an enemy territory (that they have a direct path to), or to try to claim an unclaimed hex, adjacent to a hex already owned by his faction.
Previously, it was noted that there were specific bonuses to some rolls for attackers and defenders (attackers +1 to seize init, defenders +1 for table sides and deployment zones). Those bonuses only apply now if you are attacking a zone already owned by the enemy. If the zone is an unclaimed one, then no bonuses apply. Also, if the challenger wins, they still claim the tile, but if the challenged player wins and it is an unclaimed tile, then the chllenged player claims that tile (if the challenged player already owns that tile, then they claim an adjacent one as they chase the challenger away from the battlefield).
Ok, I will clarify about the actual challenge process in my next post when I open up for challenges to begin.