Wesnoth strategy puzzles

[Inky]

So, I stole was inspired by Crimson_Conure's idea on the Wesnoth discord of making Wesnoth strategy puzzles, sort of like the tactical puzzles you see in chess. Even though Wesnoth is RNG based, there are still tons of situations where there's a best move/sequence of moves.

Here's my attempt at making some (hopefully they make sense)! For convenience I labeled the important hexes.

#1. Nightgaunt trio:

You have 3 nightgaunts and want to take out the 69 HP Great Mage this turn (dusk). What's your plan of attack?

Notes: Nightgaunts have 35 HP, can skirmish, and have a 10x3 backstab attack. They're awesome so you'd like to keep them from (re)dying if possible.
The spearmen have a 7x3 pierce attack which does up to 12 damage total to nightgaunts. Assume the spearmen have 5 MP.

#2. Ambush:

You have a quick (6 MP) grunt and a quick (9 MP) wolf rider and need to kill the 1 HP enemy leader this turn. But you know that there's an elvish ranger hiding in the forest somewhere near the leader in one of the marked hexes. Since the grunt has only 2 strikes and the wolf has 3 you'd like to attack with the wolf. Is there a way to make sure the wolf can reach the leader?

Note: Orcs have a movement cost of 1 on flatland and 2 on forest.

EDIT: Added an elvish fighter to the second one, hopefully only the intended solution is possible now.
EDIT2 (4/21/2018): as mousyack pointed out adding a fighter right next to hex 5 made it unsolvable; moved the fighter back a hex.

And if anyone else comes up with puzzles, feel free to post them!

---
edit: I've now made an add-on called Tactics Puzzles, now in the 1.12 add-on server!

[Xara]

One way I can see this work is if you make a scenario where players can do several challenges repetitive. The number of total tries can be taken as scores.

[Eagle_11]

#1 post NE-SW, attack with both, if still not dead attack with third.
#2 If Ranger is in 9 or 6 you cant reach him this turn. Move Grunt to 3 to see if Ranger is in 6, if yes then move wolf 10,8 else move grunt out of way then 5,3,4 with wolf.

[skeptical_troll]

Great idea! If we collect enough puzzles we could start a Wesnoth magazine

My solution to the first:

Spoiler:

put them SW - NE, but attack only with the SW one. Then move from NE to N (they are skirmishers) and do a backstab party N - S. You dealt maximum damage and you are only under attack from 2 spearmen. That is, if the great mage isn't a professional dodger.

[Inky]

#1: Skeptical_troll's answer is exactly right! The idea is you want all 3 nightgaunts to backstab and you also want to avoid leaving a nightgaunt in the two eastern hexes where 3 spearmen can reach.

#2: Eagle_11s answer works! I actually overlooked that. The intended solution was to move the grunt to 3 then south to 6 to check hex 9 but turns out you don't need to do that. I'll see if I can modify it somehow so you have to check that hex.

An add-on where you can try moves sounds like a great idea, but I'm not familiar enough with WML and don't have the time to learn right now - I'll definitely keep it in mind for later though!

[Crimson_Conure]

Wow, I already learned a lot! . I totally missed that idea of moving twice with the NE nightgaunt. Yeah, this whole concept seems useful for training Wesnoth tactics. From experience playing chess, I can say that people, even grandmasters, miss simple mathematical tactics all the time.

P.s. Thank you for giving me credit on the idea of Wesnoth strategy puzzles :]

[mousyack]

I think the solution to the second one now goes

Spoiler:

If the guy is at 10, the wolf can never reach, but you probably then want to at least attack with the grunt. So, grunt tries to go 3, if he meets the guy then wolf can go around further south. If the grunt doesn't see anyone, the wolf tries to go SE-SE-SE-NE-NE-8. If the forest warden is at 10 or 8, the wolf fails and you attack with the grunt from 4. This is slightly more optimal then moving the grunt to 6 and then failing to attack at all with ranger at 10.

[Jozrael]

You can definitely always reach even if he's at 10 by going up and around the fighter (maybe the puzzle was changed to allow this :>)

[Inky]

Ah, mousyack is right, I accidentally made it unsolvable The wolf wouldn't be able to go around the fighter since the movement cost in forest is 2.

I think mayyybe moving the fighter back a hex fixes it?

Spoiler:

Now the only way for the wolf to get to hex 5 is to pass by hex 9, so you'd need to check hex 9 with the grunt first. If hex 9 is unoccupied the wolf can go 5,3,4 and if hex 9 is occupied the wolf can go around south.