Somewhere, deep in a UDE vault, stacks of money are waiting patiently. The games are about to begin. But what games? What armies? What a crazy map!

The dilemma of every game designer, when confronting his own game, is how to get two players to engage each other. Normally, the player that makes the opening move into the “middle” of the board has his piece shot all to heck while the enemy just retreats. Thus, every game needs to offer incentive for players to engage. In chess, that tempo is as simple as the knowledge that the White player has the edge, and if he fails to precisely use that tempo, he will give Black an advantage. In World of Warcraft Minis, there are multiple incentives.

The first is honor total. If your army is less honor than mine, and nothing happens all game, you will win. Thus, as a high-honor force, you must bear in mind not only that you will have to engage the enemy, but build with the knowledge that you will be engaging through the enemy’s defenses. The knowledge that you will be the one pushing at the enemy every game allows you to examine your Action Bar cards in a completely different light. If the enemy is coming at your Daspien Bladedancer, he wants Kick. If the enemy is running from your Timmo, he wants Sprint. Use this advantage.

The second is Hunters. If you have enough guys with range 4, the enemy will inevitably be tracked down and forced to slog their way through your range. Of course, there are answers to the above two efforts that get players to engage, Fog of War being the obvious one. But all else being equal, these are effective ways to force an engagement.

Still, just to make sure players do engage, the designers had the foresight to add Victory Point spaces. A single point per character seems so subtle, but it is so valuable that hundreds of games are won or lost based on how effectively a player was able to nab VPs.

What happens when two of the three pillars that hold up engagement theory are suddenly pulled away? Well, some might say you get a Minis World Championships.

The Worlds map is very tricky for Hunters. I’m not saying they can’t work, but they don’t have the same advantages they had on other maps. Defensively, a Hunter pushed into his corner has no hills to use for offensive rerolls. In addition, there are so many “choke” points that the Hunters will often have to attack a target of their opponent’s choosing. Any Bulwark figure, of course, loves this. VP spaces are missing entirely. Not only that, but there are higher honor parties that intrinsically offer great incentive for the lesser honor party to attack them. Rethilgore fits this bill.

All this just to say: the jig is up! Anything goes, buddy. Bring your A-game.

With a map that doesn't support Hunters and lacks a VP space, players are trying alternate ways to bait the enemy into engaging them, such as concocting low-honor parties. Be careful you don’t try to “name that tune” with one too few notes, contestant. It might come back to haunt you.

Because what works well against. low-honor parties?

Velen Wall certainly does, and anything with Summon Jhuroon—even Jaina Zoo might make a return appearance. And, when Vashj isn’t in her watery lair, I think she spends quite a bit of time hanging out in Ashenvale’s Warsong Gulch. Plan on seeing her.

So far, we’ve spoken only about the reduced amount of incentive to engage the enemy. I think offering 7 VPs for capping the flag is enormously powerful, but it can also be highly unreliable.

For instance, there are two basic methods of flag capping.

1. Get in, get out. Hello Frostsaber Prowler with a funny helmet!

2. Get in, kill the enemy, and retreat with the flag. Hello Vashj’s teammates . . .

In the former, the rush build, you have to worry about any player out there who came up with a crazy uber-defense. Maybe some series of ABCs that basically cheat and force a player to drop the flag. Maybe triple Kiala with triple Santuria to tick up the flag runner into infinity. Who knows? All I’m saying is that I bet somebody out there will have a crazy defense against flag capping. So, if your plan is plan 1 above (which many 15-19-23-27 builds could use), be prepared for some crazy solid defense.

But if your plan is plan 2, things are looking a bit better. Let’s look at a combination of characters that has proven wildly effective before: Vashj and Rethilgore.

On tick 6, because of Lycanthropy, Vashj turns the volume up and starts to spam out damage. During these ticks, it is all the enemy can do to duck and cover while taking pot shots back at her, hoping maybe, just maybe, to take her out and stop the madness.

During those ticks, Reth has all day (and night!) to saunter up to the flag, cap it, and stroll back to his end of the map. Can you build an army that will handle Vashj between ticks 6-10 and stop Reth from taking the flag? If you can, PM me your list.

Unless of course it is Zoo. Because yes, we all know, Zoo can create that bubble defense right over the flag so we can’t get to it at all, while spamming out ridiculous amounts of damage. And with Mortimers unable to teleport all over the map, and because of the map's size, Jaina can remain DoT-free for five ticks. Since this was the reason Zoo died out of the meta, it can certainly come back, especially as we know it beats Vashj and eats low-honor parties alive.

Which, of course, means Velen is back in the picture. So . . . bring that A-game, but start here. If you can’t beat this configuration, go back to the drawing board.

27 Honor—Cap the flag once, get 5 kills, take home $10k!

Best of luck with all your builds—I'll see you in Texas!