The Board Is Set: How to Play Seize the Prize

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off our deep-dive into the scenarios from Pool 3, which includes one of the most polarizing scenarios in the MESBG line (and that happens to be the scenario we're looking at today). As we'll see in the overview section below, Pool 3 is a hodge-podge of different scenarios which are loosely joined together in a common theme. These scenarios have elements of other scenario pools and really test what an army can do. Let's look at the pool as a whole before we get into today's scenario (though if you're reading this after the other posts come out, you can skip ahead by clicking here).

Pool 3: Coveting Precious Things

When I looked at the scenario pools when they were first presented in the Matched Play Guide, I was like, "Pool 6 is the the eclectic pool that the oddballs go in." Months later, Evan Iverson from the Unexpected Podcast summarized that pool of scenarios as the "hero killing" scenarios - which is an accurate way of summing up the VPs you can get from Assassination, Fog of War, and Clash by Moonlight.

The actual "oddball" pool is Pool 3 - the unifying factor of these three scenarios is that the scenarios listed here have "objects" in them, but this summary is both broadly vague as well as unexclusive. We've talked previously about Heirlooms of Ages Past (from Pool 1), which clearly has an "object" in it that contains half of the VPs available in the game to one player, which would make it a good candidate for Pool 3 . . . if it weren't for the maelstrom of battle deployment rule (which is why it's in Pool 1).

Similarly, the "objects" in the Pool 3 scenarios differ in VP weight as well as in number. Seize the Prize has only one object that gives 3-7 VPs to the player that has it at the end of the game, giving more VPs based on whether the objective is on the controlling player's side of the board, on the opposing player's side of the board, or gets off the opposing player's board edge. Retrieval has not one but two objectives - one held by each player - and like Seize the Prize, you're trying to get VPs by moving it (but it's 1-7 VPs in this case - and these points are available to both players, not just one). Destroy the Supplies has three objectives for each side, each worth 2VPs if the other player can touch it without fighting/shooting/doing anything. While this means 6-7VPs in any game are tied to the object/objects, how you get these VPs differs greatly from scenario to scenario.

When you look at deployment, this is the first of our scenario pools where your deployment can change between scenarios. In Pool 1, all warbands walk onto the board from randomly-determined board edges. In Pool 2, both armies have the option to start on the center line. In Pool 3, two of the scenarios have the players start within 12" of their board edges, which means you're going to need some speed in your list to get 24" across the board to the three objectives in Destroy the Supplies or 36" across the board to the enemy board edge in Seize the Prize. These paths are very rarely straight lines . . .

Retrieval is different though: a diagonal line is drawn from one corner to its opposite corner and players can deploy up to 3" away from that line. Each player's "flag" is a certain distance from their starting corner and this scenario also requires you to do quite a bit of walking - more walking than the other two if you want max VPs because you have to a) get to the enemy flag, and then b) get it back off one of your deployment zone board edges (beyond 3" of the center line). This allows armies to start more in each other's faces if they want to, but it's still going to be a walking trip.

Perhaps that's the unifying factor of these scenarios: you have 1-6 objects in each scenario, but you have to do a lot of walking with them. There are other scenarios that require a lot of travel (we'll look at those when we cover Pool 5), but any model in your army can do the walking in those scenarios. In these scenarios, where one particular model (or several models in Destroy the Supplies) goes is what's really at stake. These scenarios can be a bit of a frustration - especially for new players or slow armies - but they also require you to flex different muscles than most of the other scenario pools.

Okay, let's dig into the first of these scenarios - and my least favorite: Seize the Prize.

Seize the Prize

The setup for the scenario is as follows: each player has a 12" deployment zone on their half of the table - which means there's 12" of space between the edge of your deployment zone and the centerline of the board. In the center of the table is "the Prize". The Prize needs to be "dug up" in order to be moved - an infantry model that ends its movement in base contact with the Prize marker can attempt to dig up the prize by making a roll: on a 4+, the Prize has been discovered and is carried by the model that successfully rolled a 4+. After that, the scenario-specific rules disappear and you're just left with the victory conditions - and it's the victory conditions that frustrate me the most.

I'm not alone in being frustrated with this scenario - many player describe it as follows: whoever wins the Heroic Move-off with a Heroic March wins. The reason for this is simple: the scenario awards you 3VPs if you have possession of the Prize on your side of the table at the end of the game, 5VPs if you can get it across the center line to your opponent's side of the table, and 7VPs if you can get it off the opposing player's board edge. Since it starts in the middle (12" away from both deployment zones), most infantry will fall a few inches short of the Prize on the first turn, but fast models (like Faux cavalry, flyers, and true cavalry) are likely to be able to get to/past the center of the board on the first turn, which can allow you to dig up the prize before your opponent has a chance to get there.

What this usually means is that whichever player gets to the center first (especially if they have multiple fast infantry, flyers, or dismountable cavalry) is going to have the Prize and will have a distinct advantage over the other player. The army that moves second will have the option of moving towards the first army's position, but they won't be able to both March and charge on that turn, so they'll need to be very mindful of who can charge at the start and who can't - and whether that even matters.

With 7VPs tied up in who has the Prize and where it is on the board, the remaining 5VPs are divided among the two common secondary objectives: breaking the enemy, potentially without being broken yourself (1-3VPs), and wounding/killing the army leader (1-2VPs). If you don't have the Prize in hand at the end of the game, you'll need to work hard at killing off the enemy army leader and breaking the enemy force in order to have a chance at tying (and possibly winning) the game.

Once one side has possession of the Prize, there are some tricks that they can use to do the really hard bit: getting past the enemy's army. Some models are blessed with Fly - and since most flyers happen to be infantry, they can dig up the prize on the first turn with 17" of movement (they don't need to be at the absolute front in order to be within striking range of the center of the board). Heroic March has already been mentioned for getting to the center on the first turn, but it's also quite useful on subsequent turns to get an extra burst of speed on whoever has the Prize (and hopefully can use the extra movement to get out of reach on the following turn of the nearest enemy troops). Third, all heroes with at least 1 Might point can use a Heroic Combat to get a full move after killing their foes - perfect if you've got some friends trapping a poor, unfortunate warrior and one of you happens to have the Prize in hand!

It's already been mentioned that you have to be infantry to dig up the Prize, but it bears noting that if you have a model with the Expert Rider keyword in your army, you can pick up the Prize with that model if it's been dropped by its carrier without having to dismount. Dropping the Prize is only possible if the bearer is slain - so it'll be "just lying there" if someone gets shot and will be handed off to one of the slaying models if the bearer is killed in melee.

Additionally, unlike Heirlooms of Ages Past, the Prize can be handed off in this scenario to someone else - so if you have a mixed arms force of infantry and cavalry, an infantry model can dig up the Prize and then hand it off to a cavalry model to run with it. There are rules for handing it off (you can't "daisy chain" your hand-offs - once a model gets handed the Prize, it can't move to touch another model and hand it off again), but you don't have to walk it all the way across the board (unless you left all your cavalry at home).

Okay, let's look at some strategies for playing this scenario . . .

Strategy #1: Get There First

This is the strategy everyone complains about - because in the hands of some armies, it's going to be painfully effective. If you have fast infantry (especially the Spider Queen and her Broodlings) or flyers (especially something really big and hard to shoot/kill in combat - like Smaug), you're going to be able to reach the center with at least one infantry model and have a chance of digging up the Prize on Turn 1. If it's a flyer and your opponent rushed to meet you in the center, there's a good chance that a 12-17" move by the flyer will be able to jump the enemy lines and get beyond reprisal range. In this kind of scenario, you might only have 3 turns to play . . . and breaking either force is going to be very, very difficult.

If you don't have flyers, having both Heroic March and a War Drum can be incredibly effective, since you can get +6" of movement on your infantry, which gurantees that the weight of your army will be at/near the center after one turn of moving - which puts you in a great position for a slug-fest in the center of the board. Most March+drum lists want to be in melee anyway, so this strategy has applications well beyond this specific scenario - but it's particularly powerful here.

Since very few factions have war drums (and no Forces of Good factions have them), most armies will rely on March only to get them into the center quickly (or the Fly special rule) - and when this is used, it's important to note that you have to declare a Heroic March before you know who's actually moving first. If both players declare Heroic Marches and Heroic Moves, whoever moves second is going to have far more movement than they can actually use if they intended to rush forward. I've said that counter-calling Heroic Moves is a waste of Might points - and I stand by that in this scenario. If you intend to use this strategy, be prepared half the time to show up second and waste your extra movement (unless you have a shenanigan that makes it otherwise - or unless you use the movement to wrap around the enemy advance guard).

One of the ways you can make up for not moving first, however, is moving any models that can charge without the extra March movement before the March hero begins moving. Like we talked about earlier this year in our Back to Basics series for Heroic Actions, the timing for the "no can charge" part of Heroic March is triggered when the hero who declares the Heroic March starts moving - every model who moves before that is fine to move however it wants (though it doesn't boost its speed). War Drums are not as lenient, but they also aren't as restrictive . . . so to each his own as to which is better in any given situation).

If you don't want to constrain yourself into a "race to the middle" roll-off scenario, you might want to consider a different strategy, like . . .

Strategy #2: Gunline and Flankers

If you're a shooting-heavy list and you aren't fast (like the Rangers of Mirkwood LL), you won't win a rush-to-the-middle, get-there-first fight on any day of the week - so don't try it. Instead, you can disincentivize your opponent getting there first very easily by promising them a LOT of shooting if they race forward and dig up the precious Prize. In many ways, it's better for you if your opponent spends his time and energy digging up the Prize, since you can then make your way towards it, shooting down whoever ends up holding it.

If possible, you want to "scoot-and-shoot" towards the center of the board instead of standing and shooting. Some ranged weapons (namely crossbows) are unable to move-and-shoot in the same turn, but if you just suffer a -1 penalty for moving and shooting, it's going to be a good idea in this scenario to be moving forward and shooting at the enemy, since you don't want him crossing over to your side with the Prize and be caught in the backfield (unable to get it to your opponent's side if you happen to get the Prize late-game).

To supplement your gunline (which should be set up to have good firing lanes at the Prize), you want to have other troops (probably your melee blocks) moving around the side as flankers. This will not only give you some units that are able to reach the centerline on Turn 2 (or possibly Turn 3, if you have to navigate around some terrain features), but it will also funnel your opponent's Prize-carrier towards the center of the board - right where your archers are. If your melee blocks are weak, your opponent might try to head that direction, but your archers in the center should be able to maneuver quickly (Centaur refers to this as a "wag") to intercept if they've been delayed by your melee troops.

If you have a force with overwhelming archery (like those all-shooting or basically all-shooting lists - most notably the Rangers of Ithilien and the Rangers of Mirkwood), don't underestimate the power of having some of your units move their full distance as flankers. Sometimes it's more important to get good positioning than it is to get a few extra shots off. This has applications in all kinds of control-based objective mission, but quite notably here in Seize the Prize.

Of course, if you don't have a great shooting presence in your army, this strategy won't work very well. So instead, you might want to look into . . .

Strategy #3: Patience and Dive-bombing

Patience is probably the hardest skill to learn in any tabletop game - I mean, we all want to get locked in and beat up the other guy's army (or get beat up in the attempt) as quickly as possible because that's where the excitement is, right? Well, yes - and there are some scenarios that will reward you for this more than others (namely, everything in Pool 4 for some armies). But not in this scenario. No, this scenario can swing very quickly if you misplay something with the Prize carrier - so to this point, if you don't have a lot of speed in your army and you also don't have a lot of shooting in your army, your best bet is to do what no one else is likely to do by default: be patient and wait for the opportune moment.

I've been playing most of my MESBG carrier with Khazad-Dum/Moria Dwarves - and while I often run them as a shooting-heavy powerhouse list, it's undeniable that despite Marching and shooting, this list isn't great at Seize the Prize. It just isn't - it's not hard to be faster than these guys (even if you just have March and infantry, you can still show up first) and some factions (not many) can out-shoot these guys no matter how hard you lean into your shooting options. Dwarves are slow and they're not fantastic archers (good, but not great).

But they are resilient, well-costed (perhaps too well - but I'm not complaining), and have almost all of the tools that you'd want to deal with any enemy threat. In a game of Seize the Prize, the key is to be patient with these guys - and then when your heroes can actually engage with the enemy, you use Heroic Combats to get a scary amount of movement and close in on the person holding the Prize. The rest of your army focuses on containing the enemy, relying on shielding or just having high Defense to stick around for the next round. This buys valuable time for your heroes to do their work - and perhaps even get you some VPs for breaking the enemy or wounding the enemy army leader.

All-cavalry or mostly-cavalry lists can use this strategy too - if they find that they're moving second (and so are disincentivized from rushing for the middle), cavalry lists can get a lot of movement from Heroic Combats, which can allow a seemingly out-of-position hero right where you want them to be if the enemy's infantry blocks are spread thin. One good round of cascading Heroic Combats can absolutely devastate someone's flank and that can give you an opening to tear into more vulnerable and valuable units (like whatever poor chap is holding the Prize). If they try to skirt away from your heroes . . . well, you have horses - hopefully you can catch them.

Conclusion

None of the strategies outlined here are fool-proof - but hopefully you've gotten a taste of the various ways you can approach this scenario. I don't care for Seize the Prize that much, but it's still good to have in the scenario pool. Next time, we'll take a look at what I think is a slightly better scenario: Retrieval. Released with the Matched Play Guide, Retrieval is a classic game of "capture the flag," effectively giving a Prize to each player that they need to protect while getting a Prize from the other player. It's a great scenario . . . in most respects. Check back in next week to see what you can do in that scenario (and how your gameplay theory changes based on a few differences in your setup from Seize the Prize). Until then, happy hobbying!