Stratego community

The idea of the Challenge of the Week is to have a discussion about a game situation.

This is the first one of hopefully a long series.

In this Challenge you are playing with red.
This is not a puzzle, there is not one solution to the situation.

Players can comment below what their game plan would be and why.

Red:
Known: General and Major are known.
Everything else red is unknown, including the scout on B4.

Blue:
Known: Colonel and miner
Rest is unknown.

Blue still has 2 lieutenants, 2 sergeants and 4 miners.

Challenge of the week -1
What would you play with red here and why?

Hmm, well if the piece on a5 is a Miner and they ever decide to move next to the Scout, some issues may arise if they continue to move down... My first priority would be moving the Gen back to a more defensive position. I would first probably try to trap the piece on f4 with my Gen and Major, to at least move Blue’s Colo to a position where I can save my Scouts from the incoming Miner.


The game could go a lot of different ways after those moves are made, so I can’t really comment further on strategy. I’d probably park my Gen in the middle lane, with the Major in the left lane and make them pass Miners on the right side, and hopefully they will waste their remaining Miners. You kinda have to play for a draw, I think. There is no way to trap the Colo and the 2 friendly Miners are buried. Blue having 4 unknown pieces that can kill the Miners, as well as several unknown Miners which can trade means that a successful flag attack is unlikely, as well.

That's an excellent analysis, Alpha-Numeric. I would probably do a few things differently. First, I'd burn a scout on I2 to identify the blue piece on I3. Then, seeing that was a major, I'd take my piece on D2 (that's a lieutenant, right?) and move it to D3 so that it could defend to its left if the A5 blue miner decided to attack. Next I would move my major one space to the left to threaten the blue miner in the middle. That miner would undoubtedly forge ahead to F3, and this would make me in turn have to bring out my sergeant on G1 and destroy the apparently right pyramid. But I have to kill these miners. I'm not sure what would happen after that. Blue would probably be on the offensive the rest of the game and bluff his remaining miners with his lieuts and sergeants and beat me by forcing a mistake later.

It is a tough one for red, but I do know 1 thing for certain - it is near impossible for red to win if (s)he does not gain a lieutenant fast with the gen+major. How one goes about doing this is hard to say as the lieuts are unknown. I think that the options for red are all pretty nasty in the given situation, but I would likely bring the general back. This is not to try to stop the miner, but to release the major so that I can use both gen and major to try to trap one of the two pieces in the middle and left lanes. I am fairly certain I could get at least one of those two pieces while blue is working with col/miner. The next thing I would do is to keep the left scout alive and use the major + scout to attempt to 2 square the piece at B9 as it is a good chance at a piece, and if it is a bomb it gives away quite a bit of setup info. Don't know where from here as it depends on how successful the last 2 attempts were .

Likely a loss for red barring some kind of miracle. I'd retreat the general first to defend against a likely miner in the centre. Then after that point you have to go on the offensive and make a strong counterattack.

Thanks everyone for attending this week.

It is clear from the analysis that red is not in a dream position here.

For me it was very interesting to watch. I will put some pieces on for the next round, probably in a game where red has better chances.