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[CoheedandCambria]

cards in supply: Council Room, Gardens, Laboratory, Market, Militia, Noble Brigand, Nomad Camp, Smithy, Throne Room, and Trader

What's interesting with these cards is that there are many directions you can go. Also, I feel like there are some rock-paper-scissors matchups with this kingdom.

At first glance, this board seems pretty straight forward but something that I've been having trouble with recently is choosing which BM strat works best. I was 2nd player in this game and thought smithy BM with a few well-timed noble brigands would beat everything else. After seeing my opponent pick up a militia, I got a little scared and followed him. I later picked up 2 golds and after that just bought labs with 5-7. I thought that come late game, the labs would help me out more than the golds. The game didn't really last as long as I thought it would and I ended up winning from my low-level opponent's mistakes (buying gold with 6-7 instead of duchy late game).

Basically what I'm seeking from this post is a breakdown of the different strats on this board and how they fare against each other. These cards can create some good rules of thumbs for me in the future when picking out which BM strat is best.

Is militia worth it as a first buy? As 2nd player is there something that could help beat the militia player?
Is trader a good first buy when playing Smithy BM or is it just unnecessary?
Is trader/gardens (market can help too) fast enough against a smithy player? With labs/TR I think a smithy player can easily go through all 8 provinces pretty quickly
I'm assuming if both players are playing Smithy BM it isn't worth it to get labs or TRs because the game won't last long enough.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Is militia worth it as a first buy? As 2nd player is there something that could help beat the militia player?
Is trader a good first buy when playing Smithy BM or is it just unnecessary?
Is trader/gardens (market can help too) fast enough against a smithy player? With labs/TR I think a smithy player can easily go through all 8 provinces pretty quickly
I'm assuming if both players are playing Smithy BM it isn't worth it to get labs or TRs because the game won't last long enough.

Militia is generally weak vs strategies that don't rely on getting to $5 that much, since you can often make $3-4 off of 3 cards just fine, so it's probably not that great here, though it is a non-Silver/Gold source of money, which makes it safe from NB...
If you're going Smithy BM, Trader is not worth it.
Trader/Gardens isn't fast. It's more about getting those Gardens to 5 points apiece. I think that might be possible here if you keep attacking to drag the game out. Buying 8 provinces takes a long time.
If it's Smithy BM vs Smithy BM, then yeah, Labs/TRs aren't worth it, but Market might be, to squeeze an extra estate for the win.

I think your original plan was probably a good one, though I'd probably lean toward the Trader/Garden one...

[eHalcyon]

Don't forget about Nomad Camp for the Gardens strategy.

With Trader, if you can get your Gardens worth a decent amount, you can dabble in Provinces since you'll be flooded with Silver.  You just have to judge whether it's better to grab the province or to drag the game out longer to bulk up your deck even more.

[dondon151]

Trader/Gardens also yields a healthy number of Duchies.

[mnavratil]

I like Traders/Gardens here (not sure if it is strongest, but probably close against BM and more fun too play). As stated by HiveMindEmulator, I think the general idea is to just draw out the game as long as possible. Eventually you should have enough silvers to even grab a province or two for yourself (this should play out similar to how Bureaucrat/Gardens works).

As far as just BM + X, this excellent post was started in the simulation sub-forum:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2532.0

Surprisingly it looks like Noble Brigand is the strongest stand-alone option there.

[DG]

Don't rule out a militia opening moving into labs/markets/thrones/council room and extras. Repeated militia attacks might be very effective against a trader.