Today we will continue our Contender Series with a bit of a different approach. Whether your warband is classified as Strike, you’re playing Strike decks, or are just looking to get a little aggro, an incredibly important thing that separates the good from the great is target priority. Even if you’re playing a different playstyle like Take and Hold, you’ll almost definitely need to make some attacks to win even if it’s not your main focus. As such, I have developed a new players’ cheat sheet flowchart to help guide what to target next.

Is the enemy fighter a threat to one of your objectives?​
Slay it if possible, drive it back if it helps secure scoring​

You win the game by scoring glory. If there’s something you need to score that is being blocked by the presence of an enemy fighter, they have to go. Maybe you need everybody in a territory to have charge tokens to score Arena Mortis, and one fighter simply doesn’t. Killing them, or at least driving them out of the territory, makes the card scorable.

In a similar vein, you may have a ‘must hold’ treasure token. If there’s somebody on it, they must be removed. If you’re on it already, you need to eliminate threats to the opponent displacing you from that spot so you can get the objective glory you’re working towards.

Is the enemy fighter a threat to score their own objectives?​
Slay it if possible, drive it back if it helps deny scoring​

So, I lied before. You win the game by scoring glory AND scoring more than your opponent. That means that keeping your opponent’s score low is another pathway to winning. Denial is a major topic we won’t cover here in depth, but if you would like you can read the counterplay series.

Think about their deck and what objectives they’re likeliest to be working toward. If there’s a fighter you can slay or displace and prevent that, you’re on your way to winning. People standing on Treasure tokens are often the obvious choice, but other things like being adjacent to certain fighters, in your territory, just next to an edge hex and liable to be pushed into it, etc are all good things to consider.

Is it a threat to one of your vital fighters?​
Slay it if possible, drive it back if it helps deny an attack or charge

One or two of your fighters are ‘important’. Maybe they are needed to score some of your objectives, or are your best attackers. If something is lined up to kill them, kill it first (or put it out of threat distance) and give yourself a better chance of being able to keep the special toy alive for longer.

Is it lacking a charge token and can activate?​
Attack it to reduce enemy action efficiency

The best thing an opponent can do is charge 4 times in a round, with some exceptions of course. If you can drive something back so it can’t charge, they may choose not to use the fighter, or will have to take a less efficient action with them. If you can kill it, they may have to use a charged-out fighter and will not be able to make another charge. All this will reduce their output and lower their scoring potential.

Is it likely to threaten scoring or a vital fighter soon?​
Target them when practical ​

So maybe your leader isn’t on the ropes yet, but you think they might be if that big bad guy charges at them. Why wait to deal with it? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if you don’t have anything better to do, just eliminate whatever might become a problem later.

Attack the thing you’re likeliest to slay and collect some bounty​

OK, you’re a god and nothing threatens you. All your scoring is secured for the round and you’ve denied everything you can. You have an activation left and nothing more pressing to do? Swing at whatever you might be able to kill and scrape a little more bounty onto your pile.

If two targets appear equal, favor the one that threatens score or tempo the most, or can be attacked without reducing your own efficiency​​​.

Wrap

There’s a short and sweet target priority primer for you. These things will become more natural with practice, but at the start of your journey you may want to refer to this while pondering who is best to attack. Until next time, I hope you enjoy spending glory in the Spitewood!