The Treasure Chest

There's a general consensus that, in the Hidden Treasure scenario, you still get the loot if your opponent routes while you're carrying the booty off the board. But what happens if your opponent routes while HE'S carrying the treasure?

No one gets it?

The winner gets it?

The winner only gets it if he's not in route-test territory?

If he is in route-test territory, he's got to go and grab the treasure and try to pass all of his route tests en route to the board edge while his defeated opponent looks on?

And what if one of the warbands routes before the treasure is even found?

Buh?

Yeah, this one has been in contention for a while...

While it doesn't apply to most scenarios, with the Sartosa treasure hunts, I worked in this caveat:

~Routers keep small treasure items (shards, etc.) When it comes to big stuff like treasure chests, they always drop it.

~The opposing warband gets it IF they have at least 1 model within charge range of the chest. They can be prone, standing, occupied, whatever... they just need to be within 2 x movement.

Why? Because it means that you have to have at least one person "near" it. This becomes more important in multiplayer games... a beardy third player may just let his two opponents fight while he hides in the corner. They both reach rout level without any effort or risk on player 3's part. Guess what? No pain, no gain.

That is a good house rule Styro. I'll mention it to my group.

we use it this way:
small items: 4+ the routing warband keeps the item
big items: you need twice a 4+ (because two modells are need to carry it fast)

@Styro: I like that ruling quite a bit. And I can see a place for it in multiplayer. It's always struck me that 3-player Mordheim especially is too much about politics and not enough about axe-wielding psychopathy.

Do you still play that rule for a 2-player game though? It just strikes me as odd that a model 10" away can drop the chest and scamper off the board while the other player's myopic warriors wonder where the loot went. And how do you handle those high-movement skaven? They're twice as good at picking up chests full of gold as dwarves?

Of course, I also understand that "winner gets the chest" is a bit boring. Any other rulings out there?

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Yeah, this one has been in contention for a while...

While it doesn't apply to most scenarios, with the Sartosa treasure hunts, I worked in this caveat:

~Routers keep small treasure items (shards, etc.) When it comes to big stuff like treasure chests, they always drop it.

~The opposing warband gets it IF they have at least 1 model within charge range of the chest. They can be prone, standing, occupied, whatever... they just need to be within 2 x movement.

Why? Because it means that you have to have at least one person "near" it. This becomes more important in multiplayer games... a beardy third player may just let his two opponents fight while he hides in the corner. They both reach rout level without any effort or risk on player 3's part. Guess what? No pain, no gain.

This ^^

A great way of solving things. I also got to say that we are more and more leaning on fully adapting to the Sartosa setting, not just visually Hiaaarrrr!

Our house rule is if the player who is holding the chest is the last player on the board then they automatically get it.

If the player who routes has it and they are within 1 movement phase from the board edge then they get it, if they are more then that then they drop it and run away. So for example if you have a normal human carring it then he would have to be within 4 inches since he cannot run with it. If you have 2 humans or a wheel barrow then you can run extending the range to 8 inches. Also if you are within 8 inches of an enemy you cannot run cutting the distance to 4 inches.

If the routing player drops it, and there is a player remaining has line of sight on the chest then they can find it, if not have line of sight they have to make a single search check and on a 4+ they can find it. If a model that cannot pick-up the chest like a war dog is within their running movement of the chest they each give a +1 to the search, but a 1 always fails.

Wow that seems a lot more simple in my head, when you write it out it is a lot more complicated.

We haven't played that scenario in a long time, because of its design flaws, but we used to play you had to drag it off the board, but if your band had it and you had to make rout checks you had a -1 bonus on your 2d6 roll.

Great ruling, Rudeboy! It balances out my main objection to Styro's rule, which is that Skaven are twice as good as low-movement Dwarves at finding dropped treasure.

Not sure how I feel about a routing warband getting to keep the chest though. Fluff-wise, I imagine a hapless warrior almost out of the danger zone, so close to victory he can taste it. But the enemy is closing in, and with a last tragic look at the treasure chest he has to dump it and run.

Who wins in your group if the routing warband gets away with the chest?

That said, the "line of sight" bit and the searching make a lot of sense to me. I think it's your rule that I will suggest to my group.

We give the last player standing the chest. Didn't realize that was a house rule. Warriors only get experience if they actually got it off the table.

Multi-player games--long ago we started playing that only one player could win a scenario. If two players ally to beat up another, they must fight it out to see who wins.

@Von Kurst: In the "Lost Prince" multiplayer scenario, do you play it the same? Last player standing gets the Prince and the reward?

I was going to say that never comes up, but then I remembered that it has. Yes we do.

I don't have a rulebook in front of me but we played this last night and I'm pretty sure it says that when the treasure chest is returned to one players edge of the table or a team fails a route test the game ends. I believe it then goes on to say that the winning team gets the chest. Seems to me even if the routed player had the chest at the time they failed the route check they're still the loser and would not get the chest.

Drayven wrote:

I don't have a rulebook in front of me but we played this last night and I'm pretty sure it says that when the treasure chest is returned to one players edge of the table or a team fails a route test the game ends. I believe it then goes on to say that the winning team gets the chest. Seems to me even if the routed player had the chest at the time they failed the route check they're still the loser and would not get the chest.

We played this yesterday and this is how we interpreted it.

Our one question though: It reads that movement is halved if carried by one model, but they move normally if carried by two. Can they run with the chest? We ruled no, but I'd be interested what other people say.

Since it didn't specifically state they couldn't run we played that they could if there were 2 of them.

StyrofoamKing wrote:

... This becomes more important in multiplayer games... a beardy third player may just let his two opponents fight while he hides in the corner...

I take it you mostly play with new players? Anyone attempting anything as transparent as this in my circle immediately finds themselves the victim of the sharp end of a non-agression pact until they are wiped out.

I always played that two models couldn't run with the chest. Have you and a buddy ever carried a full ice chest half a mile into a campsite? I for one couldn't keep up with an unencumbered guy.

Of course that's just fluff talking. You're right that the rules don't specifically forbid running. Even so, you're already getting a benefit from the second model by doubling your movement. That seems like enough to me.

And from a fun perspective, it means you're more likely to see daring last minute maneuvers at the edge of the board.