Review: Root

Introduction & Overview

Root is a fast-paced game of adventure and war. You will play as one of four factions fighting to prove you are the most legitimate ruler of the vast Woodland. Lurk as the Vagabond, seize the initiative with the proud Eyrie Dynasties, rule over your subjects as the Marquise de Cat, or organize the Alliance to establish a new order, and you will achieve dominance in this asymmetric game of adventure and war.

This is how we are presented with Root, a design by Cole Wehrle (Pax Pamir, John Company). The game was published in 2018 by Leder Games thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter. The illustrations are handled by Kyle Ferrin, who had already shown his talent in games like Vast: The Crystal Caverns, Dungeon Mayhem, or Deep: Enemy Frontier.

The game has been announced in our country in a Spanish version by 2Tomatoes Games (the cards and player boards feature a significant amount of text). It allows games for 2 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 years and an approximate duration of between 60 and 90 minutes. The retail price is €55. For this review, a review copy of the English version by Leder Games was used.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 29×22.5×7 cm. (a rectangular box similar to Agricola, though slightly less tall), we find the following components:

Double-sided Game Board (cardboard)
16 Clearing Type Tokens (cardboard)
2 12-sided Combat Dice (resin)
23 Item Tokens (cardboard)
2 Alliance Base Tokens (cardboard)
10 Alliance Sympathy Tokens (cardboard)
Marquise Keep Token (cardboard)
8 Wood Tokens (cardboard)
18 Marquise Building Tokens (cardboard)
7 Eyrie Roost Tokens (cardboard)
4 Ruin Tokens (cardboard)
3 Vagabond Relationship Tokens (cardboard)
4 Victory Point Tokens (cardboard)
98 Cards (63.5×88 mm.):
- 54 Shared Deck Cards
- 4 Eyrie Leader Cards
- 2 Eyrie Vizier Cards
- 3 Vagabond Character Cards
- 16 Reference Cards
- 4 Setup Cards
- 15 Vagabond Quest Cards
Learning Guide
Law of Root (Rulebook)

How to Play

Root is an asymmetric game in which four factions vie for control of a woodland, seeking to score victory points (each in a completely different way) or, failing that, to control certain areas marked by dominance cards that can appear during the game to be claimed by the players. The core engine of the game is a deck of cards associated with the clearings shown on the board, which are inhabited by three species (foxes, rabbits, and mice) along with birds. To act in a specific clearing, we must use a card that matches the suit of that clearing. Players must compete for control of these clearings and expand their power, keeping in mind that each faction does so in a mechanically unique way.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Board. It shows the Woodland, which features a series of clearings among the forests belonging to three of the four species living within: rabbits (yellow), foxes (red), and mice (orange). There is a fourth species, the birds (turquoise), who live in the trees and do not own any clearings. The clearings are connected by paths and have 1 to 3 square slots where buildings can be constructed. We will also see a river crossing the board, connecting several clearings, although this will only be taken into account with one of the factions from the expansion. In the top area, there are square spaces to place the items available at the start of the game. Along the bottom, there is a score track with spaces numbered from 0 to 30.

Associated with these clearings we will find the Shared Deck Cards, which are one of the pillars of the game. The top bar will feature one of the colors associated with the species. When executing actions, the suit to which a card belongs relates to the clearing where the action takes place. Since there are no bird clearings, this suit acts as a wild card. Taking up most of the card is an illustration depicting the effect. In the bottom box, we find the card’s effect. There are two types: items (on a yellow background) and effects/crafted improvements (on a blue background). Both card types indicate 1 to 4 clearing symbols that the player, depending on the faction they control, must match with other elements to craft them. Item cards are discarded (generating the corresponding item), while crafted improvements remain active in the player’s area, applying their effect when applicable.

As mentioned, when playing item cards, players craft these items and score victory points. These items are initially located in a supply on the main board and, as players activate the cards that allow them to be produced, they take them from this supply and place them on their personal board. Once the supply of an item type runs out, it can no longer be crafted for the remainder of the game. Only one faction fully utilizes items, while for the rest, they simply serve to accumulate points.

The primary presence of players on the board is through Meeples. Each faction has a set of custom meeples to move across the various locations. Except for one of the factions, these meeples represent warriors, who will fight each other for control of clearings and to remove rival structures. When it comes to combat, what must be kept in mind is that each warrior allows you to deal one damage to the rival side and, barring additional damage from various effects, you cannot deal more damage in a battle than the number of warriors you have in the fight.

To resolve combat, two 12-sided dice are used, which contain values ranging from 0 to 3. As a general rule, the attacking player rolls both dice. The die with the higher value represents the number of hits dealt by the attacking player (the active player), while the die with the lower value indicates the number of hits by the defending player, although, in both cases, this value is capped by the number of warriors in combat. Before the roll, the defending player has the opportunity to surprise the attacker with an ambush card (which deals direct hits before rolling), though the attacking player also has the opportunity to foil the ambush. When assigning damage, the player receiving it decides which elements to remove from the board, keeping in mind that warriors must be removed first.

Another important concept is rule. A clearing is ruled by the faction that has the most presence in it, taking into account not only warriors but also structures (square tokens of that side). In the event of a tie, as a general rule, no player controls the clearing. Many actions require ruling a clearing to perform them in that location. Furthermore, when moving warriors, the active player must rule at least one of the two clearings connected by the path being used—meaning the player must rule the clearing of origin or the destination clearing.

A special type of card is the Dominance Cards, which, instead of showing an action, show a victory condition consisting of controlling a specific set of clearings at the start of the player’s turn. Activating these cards comes at a heavy cost, as the player gives up winning the game through the standard method—being the first to accumulate 30 Victory Points. To do so, they must have accumulated at least 10 points, removing their victory point marker from the main board track at the moment they activate the dominance card. The Vagabond faction cannot win via a dominance card, but can activate it to form a coalition with the player with the lowest score, so that if that faction wins the game, the Vagabond wins too.

Let’s move on to describing the four factions included in the game. The first is the Marquise de Cat. The goal of this faction is to try to extract the resources of the Woodland to build buildings in clearings they rule. Resources are represented by wood tokens, and the player has three types of buildings: sawmills (which generate wood at the start of the turn), workshops (which allow the player to craft items and play cards to activate their effects), and recruitment centers (which allow them to add meeples to the board). This faction has a fixed number of actions (though it can increase it by spending bird cards) and scores victory points each time it constructs a building (the more buildings of a certain type already on the board, the more points the next building of that type will provide, though it will also cost more resources). For clear identification, building tokens are organized in rows and columns on the player board. The row corresponds to the building type, while the column shows the number of resources required for its construction. Each slot shows a victory point value and, optionally, a card draw symbol that increases the number of cards the player draws at the end of their turn. The crucial concept is that the resources needed to build the building must be able to be transported to the clearing where the construction is to be placed via paths that only traverse clearings ruled by the Marquise. As a final element unique to the faction, we find the keep, which is placed in one of the corner clearings. No other player can build in this clearing. Furthermore, whenever one or more of their own warriors are removed, the player can spend a card to prevent them from being discarded, placing them instead in the keep’s clearing (where the hospital is located).

The next faction is the Eyrie Dynasties. This faction operates via an accumulation of programmed actions. At the start of their turn, the player is forced to program one or two cards into their decree (represented along the top bar of their board). This decree shows the four basic actions of the game: recruit, move, battle, and build. For each card programmed into an action, the player must execute that action in a matching clearing on the board, fulfilling certain conditions. If during a turn they are unable to execute any programmed action, the player falls into turmoil, losing victory points and resetting the decree. The player starts the game with two actions pre-programmed via their two vizier cards. These actions depend on which of the 4 available leaders they have chosen (indicated on the left margin). Additionally, these leaders each provide a specific effect as if it were a crafted improvement card. Finally, this faction must build roosts (which count when evaluating rule over a clearing). Only one roost token can be placed in each clearing (even if there are empty slots available). On the player board, these roost tokens are organized in a row with slots associated with a victory point value and, optionally, a symbol to draw an extra card at the end of the turn. At the end of the turn, the Eyrie player scores as many points as the highest uncovered value. When crafting items, these roosts are the elements to take into account when playing cards, but they will only score one point, regardless of what the card says (the birds are proud). As a final detail, this faction rules clearings in the event of a tie.

The third faction is the Woodland Alliance, which uses guerrilla tactics. This side represents the inhabitants of the clearings (foxes, rabbits, and mice), tired of watching the birds and cats battle right on their doorsteps. They start with no presence on the board and must generate sympathy in the different clearings to later spark revolts. Sympathy is represented by circular tokens with a paw print found on a track on the faction board. Players place these sympathy tokens in clearings that do not already contain one, provided they are connected to a clearing that already has a sympathy token. To do this, the player must spend a number of cards from their supporters stack matching the clearing type, depending on how many tokens they already have on the board, scoring the victory points indicated on the slot (similar to the Marquise). These tokens impose a toll on other players, who must pay cards to the supporters stack if they move into or battle in clearings containing one of these tokens. When crafting items, these sympathy tokens are the elements to take into account when playing cards. Later, a revolt can be sparked in a sympathetic clearing (also by spending cards), which cleanses the clearing of enemies (all warriors and tokens are removed), and the player places a base from their reserve. There is one base for each clearing type (if a base has already been placed, a revolt cannot be incited in another clearing of that type). These bases act as recruitment points for this faction, as well as enabling the drawing of more cards at the end of the turn. Unlike the rest of the factions, Alliance meeples can occupy two roles. In addition to warriors, they can take the role of officers on the faction board. Each officer allows the player to perform an action during the evening phase. The key concept of this faction is that the cards used for revolts and sympathy are kept in a supporters stack on the faction board. This stack has a capacity limit if the player has not yet established a base.

As the final faction in this base box, we have the Vagabond. This is a peculiar faction because it does not feature warriors; instead, it is represented on the board by a single meeple. The core engine of its game revolves around items, as it can use them to perform the various available actions, the most important being the completion of quests, represented by cards, which grant victory points cumulatively (the more quest cards of the same type completed, the more points received). There will be items that can be placed in specific slots on its board, increasing maneuverability, while others must be placed in the knapsack, which has an item limit. The player can craft their own items or search the ruins of some clearings (items are placed under small tokens with a ruined wall symbol, which the player can recover using a specific type of action). Additionally, the Vagabond can interact with the rest of the factions to try and help them (getting their items in exchange for cards), improving their relationships and gaining victory points, or can attack them to eliminate their units and structures, becoming hostile and receiving points for each element removed (not just cardboard tokens). There are also three character cards from which the player can choose. Each card provides a specific unique action. Lacking warriors, dominance cards cannot be activated by this faction. In exchange, it can form a coalition with another faction, thereby sharing victory if that faction is proclaimed the winner. When engaging in combat, the Vagabond uses its items both to inflict damage and to take it. In this way, items can be in three states: undamaged (face up), exhausted (face down), or damaged (in the damaged items box of the bag). As a final important detail, the Vagabond meeple has the ability to slip into the forests and move from them into clearings.

That is enough to get started.

Setup

The board is deployed in the center of the table.
The factions to be played and the turn order are chosen.
Each player receives all components associated with their faction and deploys them as indicated on their player board.
The shared deck of cards is shuffled, and starting hands are dealt to each faction.
- In 2-player games, dominance cards must be removed from the deck before shuffling.
A ruin token is placed on each ruin space in the central clearings (if the Vagabond is playing, an item marked with an ‘R’ is placed beneath them).

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Root takes place over an indeterminate number of turns alternated among the players until the end condition is reached.

Each turn is divided into three phases: Birdsong, Daylight, and Evening. Each faction acts differently in each of these phases. After finishing their Evening phase, the turn passes to the next player. Let’s see the options for each faction.

Marquise de Cat:
Birdsong:
- Place one wood token at each sawmill on the board.
Daylight:
- First, the player can craft items or play improvements using constructed workshops to fulfill card requirements.
- After this, they can perform three actions (plus 1 for each bird card they discard) chosen from the following (except for one, they can be repeated):
  - March: allows taking two movements (with the same warriors or different ones). If moving into a clearing with Alliance sympathy, the player must add a card matching the clearing type to the Alliance’s supporters stack from their hand. If they have none, after showing their hand, the Alliance player draws a card and places it directly into the supporters stack.
  - Battle: resolve a battle against an enemy in a clearing of the player’s choice.
  - Build: the player takes the leftmost building token of the desired type from their personal board and places it in a free slot of a clearing, fulfilling two conditions: the player must rule the clearing and must pay the wood cost indicated on the personal board. This wood must be able to be transported to the clearing where construction takes place via paths containing only clearings ruled by the player. After this, they add the victory points indicated on the slot uncovered by the token.
  - Recruit: the player places one warrior in each clearing with a recruitment center.
  - Overwork: the player can discard a card matching a clearing that has a sawmill and places a wood token there.
Evening:
- The player draws 1 card from the shared deck plus 1 card for each extra card symbol uncovered in the building zone. If the player has more than five cards, they must discard down to the hand limit.

Eyrie Dynasties:
- Birdsong:
  - If the player has no cards in hand, they immediately draw one.
  - Now the player must add 1 or 2 cards to their decree, overlapping cards into the actions they deem appropriate.
  - If they have no roosts on the board, they place a roost and 3 warriors in the clearing with the fewest warriors (in case of a tie, the player chooses).
- Daylight:
  - First, the player can craft items or play improvements using their roosts on the board. As a general rule, they only score one victory point per item, regardless of what the card indicates.
  - After this, they must resolve the decree, resolving actions in order. Remember that this faction rules a clearing in the event of a tie:
    - Recruit: the player places a warrior in a clearing matching the card. If they do not have enough warriors, they cannot execute the action.
    - Move: the player moves 1 or more warriors from a clearing they rule (regardless of whether they rule the destination clearing) that matches the card. If they do not rule a clearing from which they must move, they cannot execute the action. If moving into a clearing with Alliance sympathy, the player must add a card matching the clearing type to the Alliance’s supporters stack. If they have none, after showing their hand, the Alliance player draws a card and places it directly into the supporters stack.
    - Battle: the player initiates a battle in a clearing that matches the card. If they do not have warriors in a clearing of a type associated with any of their cards, they cannot execute this action.
    - Build: the player places the leftmost roost token from their personal board in a clearing they rule that does not already contain a roost matching the color of the card.
- Evening:
  - The player scores as many points as the value of the rightmost empty roost slot on their personal board.
  - The player draws 1 card plus 1 card for each extra card symbol uncovered in the roost token zone. If the player has more than five cards, they must discard down to the limit.
- Turmoil. If the player, during the Daylight phase, cannot execute an action in the decree, they fall into disgrace, having to follow these steps:
  - Humiliation: lose 1 victory point for each bird card in their decree (including the two viziers).
  - Purge: discard all cards from the decree except for the two viziers.
  - Deposition: the current leader is discarded and a new leader is chosen, placing the viziers in the corresponding actions. If no leaders remain available, all leaders are flipped back to active.
  - Rest: proceed directly to the Evening phase.

Woodland Alliance:
- Birdsong:
  - First, the player can revolt in a clearing where they have sympathy. To do this, they must spend 2 cards of the clearing type where they want to start the revolt, provided that the base token of that clearing type is still on the player’s board (if it is already in play, a revolt cannot be incited in that clearing type). They spend 2 cards from their supporters stack of that clearing type and/or birds (wild card) and remove all elements in the clearing (gaining 1 point for each token removed), returning them to their respective owners. Finally, the base of that clearing type is placed along with as many warriors as there are sympathetic clearings of that type on the board (minimum 1, in the clearing where the revolt occurs).
  - Next, the player can spread sympathy. They place the next sympathy token (the leftmost one on their faction board) in a clearing connected to a clearing that already possesses sympathy (or any clearing if it is the first token), having to spend as many cards from the supporters stack of the corresponding clearing type as indicated by the token’s position on the board. Finally, the player scores the victory points indicated on the slot where the sympathy token was located. If there are at least 3 warriors of another faction in the clearing, the player must use an additional card from their supporters stack of that clearing type to spread sympathy.
- Daylight:
  - The player can execute the following actions in any order and as many times as they see fit:
    - Mobilize: add an action card from their hand to the supporters stack.
    - Train: discard a card matching the clearing type where there is a base and place a meeple in the officers box.
    - Craft: the player crafts a card (item or improvement) using sympathy tokens in the clearings.
- Evening:
  - In this phase, the player can execute as many actions as they have officers on their board, chosen from the following (can be repeated):
    - Move: the player shifts 1 or more warriors from a clearing they rule or to a clearing they rule.
    - Battle: start a battle in a clearing with their own warriors.
    - Recruit: place a warrior in a clearing with a base.
    - Organize: the player removes a warrior from a clearing where they do not have a sympathy token and places the next sympathy token, scoring the corresponding points (no need to spend cards).
  - Finally, the player draws one card plus another for each base placed on the board. Lastly, if they have more than five cards in hand, they discard down to the limit.

Vagabond:
- Birdsong:
- First, the player refreshes 3 exhausted items plus 2 additional items for each tea token they possess.
- Second, the player can slip the Vagabond meeple into an adjacent clearing or an adjacent forest at no cost (even a hostile clearing).
- Daylight:
- The player can exhaust items to execute actions:
- Move: the player exhausts a boot and moves their meeple to an adjacent clearing. If the clearing contains hostile units, they must exhaust an additional boot. This action does not allow moving into a forest.
- Repair: the player exhausts 1 hammer to remove an item from the damaged items box. It becomes active.
- Craft: the player discards an item card and exhausts as many hammers as the card indicates.
- Battle: the player exhausts a sword to battle.
- Strike: the player exhausts a crossbow and removes a warrior or a token from the clearing they are in. If the attacked faction was not hostile, it becomes hostile. If it was already hostile and they remove a warrior, this provides 1 victory point.
- Explore: the player exhausts a torch, takes the item from the ruins of the clearing they are in, and scores 1 victory point. After this, the ruin token is discarded.
- Special Action: the chosen character allows executing a specific action by exhausting a particular item.
- Aid: the player exhausts any item and gives a card from their hand to a player in the same clearing (even if hostile). Then, they can take an item (if that player has one). After this, if the aided player is not hostile, the relationship marker advances one space and the corresponding points are scored.
- Quest: the player exhausts the items indicated on the quest card, receives the points, and draws the cards indicated by the quest card, which is then tucked under the board. After this, a new quest card is drawn.
- Evening:
- If the meeple is in a forest, all damaged items are repaired.
- The player draws 1 card plus an additional card for each coin stack.
- If the player has more than 5 cards in hand, they discard down to the limit.
- Finally, if the player exceeds their knapsack capacity (6 items plus 2 for each bags token), they must discard the excess items (regardless of whether they are in the damaged items box or not).

Let’s remember that whenever a dominance card is spent to match a clearing type, instead of discarding the card, it must be placed at the disposal of all players so they can claim it by spending a card from their hand of the matching suit (taking it into their hand). These dominance cards will be activated directly from the hand. You must have at least 10 victory points (removing your marker and now only being able to win via this condition), and they can only be claimed during the Daylight phase of a player’s turn.

Whenever a player initiates combat against another player, it will be resolved as follows:

First, the defender can play an ambush card matching the clearing where the battle takes place.
If the attacking player responds with another ambush card of the clearing where the battle takes place, it is foiled. Otherwise, the attacking player takes 2 hits. If the attacking player has no warriors left, combat ends.
If warriors from both sides remain, the attacking player rolls the two combat dice. The higher value is assigned to the attacker and the lower value to the defender (unless the defender is the Alliance, in which case it is reversed). These values will be the hits dealt to the opponent, always capped by the number of warriors in combat.
- The player controlling the Marquise de Cat can discard a card matching the clearing where the battle took place to avoid removing their meeples, placing them instead in the clearing where the keep is located (in the original rules it stated it was one card per meeple, but in the latest rules revision it has been reduced to a single card for all meeples).
After this, players can add extra hits thanks to improvements and various abilities.
- If the defender has no warriors, the attacker deals one extra hit.
Finally, hits are applied simultaneously. Warriors must be removed first. When no warriors remain on the board, tokens can then be removed, receiving 1 victory point for each rival token removed, which returns to the corresponding player’s reserve.
- If any Alliance base is removed, the player of that faction must discard all cards of the corresponding clearing type from their supporters stack (birds included) and half of their officers, rounding up.
- When the Vagabond is involved in a battle, the number of hits they can inflict is capped by the number of undamaged swords they possess (active or exhausted). Likewise, when receiving hits, the Vagabond player must damage items (placing them in the damaged items box). If the Vagabond has no undamaged swords, they are defenseless and take an additional hit. If the Vagabond is allied with a faction, when battling they can add the allied faction’s warriors to their swords. When receiving hits after using allied warriors, the allied faction becomes hostile if the Vagabond removes more warriors than they damage items.

Game End

The game ends immediately when a player, on their turn, reaches 30 points, being proclaimed the winner.

Alternatively, if a player can win the game having activated a dominance card, they fulfill the condition indicated on it during the Birdsong phase of their turn.

Variants

Winter Map: clearing tokens are shuffled and placed randomly in each of the clearings. The central river acts as a great path connecting all the clearings along its banks.

Personal Opinion

It is getting harder and harder for a game to surprise us. It is increasingly complicated for a design not to remind us of anything else. It becomes more difficult for a title to transcend and become a hit considering all the great games already published. Yes, very good games come out with productions that are light years ahead of those published a couple of decades ago. But they are often merely revisions of consolidated concepts—titles that manage to be in the right place at the right time to become a mass phenomenon, even if it is a milestone achieved through gimmicks and/or secondary elements. But every now and then, the stars align and a flash illuminates the horizon. And in 2018, we witnessed just how brightly this Root shone.

Yes, I know, I started right at the top. Let’s see how I get down from here… so the best thing will be to stay right at the peak because this Root is amazing. This time you don’t need to scroll until your mouse wheel needs a bit of lubricating oil. Root is a masterpiece (a word I save so as not to dilute its meaning) and I get excited just thinking about the hell of a text block I’m about to drop on you next.

In Root, we find ourselves in the charming Woodland, where tall trees cover the sky except in the clearings, where characters of various species live, such as rabbits, foxes, or mice. They live peacefully with their mundane problems until, suddenly, a fierce battle takes place in their peaceful village. Four factions will fight each other to become the rulers of this fantasy world of anthropomorphic animals. Will you be the winner?

With this premise, we are faced with a light, asymmetric, and beautifully camouflaged wargame that, unless you are warned beforehand, you will feel instantly drawn to upon seeing it deployed on the table. Just seeing those animal-shaped meeples with their shrewd screen-printed stares makes it impossible to resist the temptation.

The goal is quite simple: be the first player to reach 30 points. How? Well, therein lies the beauty, because depending on the faction we choose, the way to accumulate points varies drastically. And this is going to be the first stop of this extensive analysis: asymmetry. When a game sells us on the idea that its factions are asymmetric (at least in eurogames), in most cases what we find are some special abilities that boost certain aspects of play. But at a mechanical level, there usually aren’t major differences when it comes to developing the game. In Root, we find that each faction has its own mechanics and elements to develop a game in a radically different way from the rest of the sides, although there are important points of intersection. Knowing these mechanics will be vital to succeeding—and not just your own. To defeat your enemy, you must know them well.

The feeling of seeing how the game allows you to approach it from four different angles is simply sublime. And it achieves this without gimmicks or mechanical gymnastics. Each faction works in a relatively elegant, even thematic way, and does not require a special effort to absorb the concepts needed to handle it. It is true that there are some finicky details that must be kept strictly under control so that the game does not get ruined. This is probably the biggest drawback you can find in the game. I’ll drop it here because I won’t mention it many more times.

Having offered a first glimpse at the asymmetry, let’s go back to what they all share: the board. It shows a series of clearings where the action of the game takes place. And independent of each faction’s own development, we could summarize the essence of the game as trying to control as many clearings as possible to develop each faction’s own structures that allow them to accumulate victory points. Likewise, the rest of the rivals will try, in parallel, to prevent this from happening.

Associated with these clearings we find the backbone of the game, the shared deck cards. These cards are divided into four suits, three of them matching the types of clearings we find on the board plus a fourth that acts as a wild card. These cards will have a dual use. On one hand, they can be played to receive the effects indicated on them (this will be common to all factions, changing only the elements that the player must possess on the board to be able to play them), and on the other, they can be used to act on the board when performing various actions. Here, each faction is entirely its own beast, and the only thing in common is that cards are used to activate some effect in clearings that match the card type.

Players will not be overflowing with options in this regard, always having few cards in hand (at the beginning of the game you only draw one at the end of your turn, being able to expand this number as your faction develops on the board). In addition, there is a hand limit, so we can never start a turn with more than five cards, which limits things quite a bit, since these cards, to a greater or lesser extent, will be the fuel for the turn.

With the use of cards, I dive into the peculiarities of each faction. In the first place, we have the Marquise de Cat, the resource management approach. This faction aims to extract wood from the forests to develop infrastructures that allow it to execute increasingly powerful actions. Each time this player builds a building, they get victory points directly (more points the more buildings of a certain type are on the board). This player becomes the developer of the Woodland.

The downsides? A high presence on the board is required to carry out their plans. Firstly, because resources are needed. Without wood, you cannot build. Secondly, because to build, the player must rule the clearing, so they will have to increase their forces through recruitment centers (the second building type). Finally, every card in their hand that provides points is pure gold, so you have to litter the board with workshops to be able to play as many as possible each turn. This is another curiosity of the faction, since except for crafting items and improvements, shared deck cards will not be a fundamental pillar of game development as they are for two of the other factions.

The Marquise is the faction that starts with the most presence on the board, occupying almost all clearings, though with only one warrior in each. Weak positions that can be attacked by rivals with relative ease. You have to know how to move troops to disrupt rival plans and allow a constant process of building construction—and without forgetting the defense of the same (although more than once it will suit us to have a building removed to free up a slot and be able to rebuild it later, accumulating the points for that building all over again).

Obviously, to fight against the Marquise, what needs to be done is to harass them and cut off supply lines. Without wood, the faction is lost, so rivals will have to attack the clearings where sawmills are located or, failing that, clearings that interrupt the connection from other sawmills, so that the wood is blocked and cannot be used (the Marquise needs to be able to transport wood from sawmills to the construction point traversing only clearings they rule).

Let’s move on to the Eyrie Dynasties, my personal favorite. Here we find a faction that resorts to a cumulative programming of actions, so that at the beginning of each turn, the player is forced to place at least one card (they can place two if they want) on the upper part of their board, where the four basic actions of the game are shown: recruit, move, battle, and build. Each card will force (an important word) the execution of an action in a clearing matching the card type. In this way, each turn for this faction will be more powerful. Think about it: if they program 2 cards for 3-4 consecutive turns, on that fourth turn they will already be executing 8 actions, while the Marquise can only execute three plus any additional ones if they discard cards. Highly powerful if managed well.

In addition, it is the only faction that scores points recursively, accumulating the value of the highest visible roost slot on the player’s board. The problem? If the player fails to execute an action, the faction will fall into turmoil, and all programmed actions will go down the drain, besides losing victory points (this is the only faction that can be penalized this way). You have to measure very well which card is programmed each turn, trying to read the situation on the board as best as possible to avoid an unpleasant surprise.

As I said, it is the faction I like the most because it demands a significant long-term vision from the player and, in parallel, constant decision-making to maintain a favorable situation. Obviously, the rest of the players will know our weakness, and with a simple attack on a clearing of a specific type, they can destroy us if, for example, they remove our roost and we can no longer recruit in a clearing type that we have programmed in the corresponding action. Letting this faction roam freely is highly dangerous, as it is the one that can rocket ahead in points the fastest. But it is also the easiest to slow down, because it starts with little presence on the board and cutting off its advance is not as complicated as it seems.

Let’s move on to the Alliance, in my opinion, the most stimulating challenge in the game. The Alliance represents those poor citizens who live in peace in each clearing, having to endure the squabbles of the Marquise and the Eyrie. But everything has a limit, and tired of so much grievance, the small foxes, rabbits, and mice will join forces to establish a new order. It is the only faction that starts the game with no presence on the board. But not having a single meeple on the table doesn’t mean starting from scratch.

Its main mechanic will be a dual management of cards. On one hand, it will have its hand of cards, just like the rest of the players. But on the other, it will have a supporters stack. The player will have to bulk up this stack, which represents the discontent of the clearings’ inhabitants. With this second deck, we will spread the idea of rebellion, gaining sympathy in clearings so that when the time comes, they can rise up, establish a base of operations, and expel all enemies from the clearing. Once bases are established, players can train officers with whom to execute actions during their turn. These actions will be focused mainly on continuing to expand this sympathy in the different clearings, since it is the way this faction accumulates points.

The Alliance does not count on a numerous army, so the player controlling it will have to balance their troops appropriately on the board. But, since it simulates guerrilla tactics when fighting, it has the advantage of keeping the higher value die when resolving combat. Besides, combat will not be the most recommended path to winning the game. It is preferable to send emissaries to clearings that do not yet share our ideals to expand that sympathy directly without having to resort to the supporters stack. This is why this faction develops in the opposite way to the Eyrie. If it manages to establish itself on the board, this faction can pull off massive final turns, accumulating an enormous amount of points by spreading sympathy.

Obviously, the way to prevent the progress of this faction is to clip its wings early on and, above all, not to anger the locals in clearings that already show affinity for the Alliance, since both the Marquise and the Eyrie must pay a toll to move into (or remove tokens from) sympathetic clearings. This toll is paid in the form of cards placed into the supporters stack, which amounts to fighting fire with gasoline. The more the people are oppressed, the stronger their response will be.

As the last faction of this base box, we have the Vagabond. The most peculiar of all, because calling it a faction is perhaps too much, since we will only control a single meeple (as its name indicates). Its first characteristic will be being able to slip into the forests, so it can get out of the way and not interact with the rest of the factions for a turn.

Its game will consist of completing a series of quests that require it to have accumulated certain items to be able to activate them. It can find these items by searching through the ruins, crafting them itself, or obtaining them from rival factions by lending them aid in the form of cards (which will improve its relationships, allowing it to even use their troops if it reaches allied status).

It is the most solitary faction in the game, turning almost into a personal adventure in which the player finds themselves involved in a war in which, initially, they take no part. Its goal is to carry out its quests and accumulate points. But this will lead it to interact with those factions, positioning itself in the war and having a lot to say when it comes to altering the state of the board. This interaction will be stronger the more the rest of the factions craft. If they do not craft, the Vagabond’s interest in aiding them will not be particularly high (except for the victory points).

It can be an interesting faction if we have that type of player at the table who does not particularly enjoy intense, direct interaction. Playing with the Vagabond will allow them to go about their own business and, if they wish, they don’t have to be involved in a single combat during the game. It’s not bad, but it will be the faction left out in almost all games if we do not have four participants at the table.

Well, we have already done an overview of what Root is. As you can see, it is a masterpiece of design. I find it amazing how each faction works with such a distinct mechanical development. This poses a small problem in first games, since it is very tempting to study only how the faction we are going to control works, paying no special attention to the inner workings of our rivals. It is essential to know how to stop each one, because the game develops at lightning speed and, if we get careless, a winner will have been proclaimed before we have even realized it. Whoever is in charge of explaining the game must master all aspects and give a brief introduction to each player on how each faction works and what its weak points are. Otherwise, the game will not be as satisfying as it could be.

I find it very curious how a light wargame has been successfully disguised using a fantasy setting that will mislead more than one person. The author himself, in the design diary, mentions being inspired by GMT’s COIN (counter-insurgency) series. Since I haven’t played any COIN games, I can’t speak to the similarities and differences between these types of designs, although I understand that the asymmetry in Root goes a step further.

I really like the combat system. On one hand, it is very direct and allows for more or less precise calculations of what will happen if we get into a battle. And that’s because, even though there are opposing dice rolls, we find ourselves with a very narrow range of values. We know that if we are the attackers (and the defender is not the Alliance), the worst that can happen to us is a tie. It might sound too bland, but it is sufficiently seasoned to be exciting. On one hand, we have ambush cards, which give a very interesting touch of uncertainty to the game. Attacking with just enough troops in a clearing and eating an ambush can cause an imbalance of forces that leaves us in the minority, when initially we had more power than the rival. To this, we must add the improvements that players can keep playing, many of them allowing slight alterations to the rules. No time is wasted, it is easy to explain, and it turns out to be exciting. A magnificent system!

Root is, furthermore, a living game. The designers are constantly polishing the game and looking for new factions. Already in the crowdfunding campaign itself, two additional factions were included (I have ordered the expansion and am looking forward to its arrival), which expand even further everything discussed up to now. And some aspects of the game that were perhaps not sufficiently balanced have also been polished (such as the points the Alliance receives when placing sympathy tokens or the cost for the Marquise when recovering lost troops). It is a game that clearly has a long life ahead of it. Even with the base box, it is as if we had four games in one. Just trying out each faction will already require four games. And since the duration is very tight, it is tremendously easy to bring to the table. Extremely high replayability!

Scalability could be one of the weak points of the design. And while it is true that it is most enjoyed at three or four players (having the Vagabond in play is not as relevant as lacking one of the three factions with warriors; there aren’t as many tight squeezes on the board), the Marquise versus Eyrie setup is balanced enough to make games interesting, as the Eyrie has no choice but to go after the Marquise to carve out a space. The element of persuasion—trying to entice one rival to go against the other—is lost, and it becomes a much more strategic game. But even so, it is highly satisfying. I haven’t tried other two-player combinations, but I suspect they won’t go particularly well. Playing with the Alliance at the start of the game is tricky, and with no one to contain the other faction, it can be almost impossible to snatch victory. And playing with the Vagabond at two players seems nonsensical to me.

Let’s move on to the edition. We find ourselves with an acceptably well-produced product, although it has its flaws. First, the cardboard elements, even having a proper thickness, use a material whose layers are not particularly well compressed. When punching them out, it is very easy for the corners of the tokens to lift. The cards have a proper weight, a smooth texture, and an acceptable snap. However, they are the kind of cards that scuff easily. Sleeving is almost mandatory. The wood elements are what truly stand out, with a very attractive custom cut. As for the rules, we find two manuals: on one hand, a learning guide, and on the other, an extensive rulebook. Once you master the game, the reference manual is properly structured, although it is true that there are concepts that remain unclear even looking at both manuals, and you have to resort to forums to resolve doubts.

In the visual section, we find magnificent work by Mr. Ferrin. Just like the mechanics, the look of Root is unique, with comic-style illustrations for the characters and a color palette that, while somewhat muted, fits the design perfectly. The cover, the cards (and their backs), and the board—everything catches your eye. You see Root displayed on the table and you don’t care at all what kind of game it is: you want to try it.

And let’s wrap this up. Root is, in my opinion, by far the best game published in 2018 (and probably in the two previous years as well). A very light wargame with a spectacular asymmetry, not only in terms of goals, but also regarding its own mechanics and elements. It is as if we had four games in one. The games are tense, fun, and very brisk, so it hits the table with astonishing ease. The only downside that can be put on it is that, being a wargame, there is a significant conceptual burden (especially when it comes to small details) that requires a player who masters the game at the table for the experience to be complete. But, overlooking this minor detail, we are dealing with a masterpiece. For all this, I give it a…