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Every conflict encourages opportunists who travel around trying to make a profit and a name for themselves. In Root, this role is played by the Vagabond, a lone wanderer who is allied to no one and everyone. The Vagabond is just a single pawn that can move freely around the board, no matter who’s in control. The Grand Duchy gain points by swaying ministers. To sway a minister, you must match your suits of cards to the clearings you control and have built within. Less influential ministers allow you to take extra actions, whilst more prestigious minsters grant you victory points.
The second time I played, however, I was playing a two-player game with my wife. I’d seen the rules in practice and was able to avoid the traps I’d walked into previously. It was much easier to teach the game to just one other person. The Vagabond works differently to the other factions. It’s actions are dictated by items it has it it’s satchel which change from game to game. The base box came with three possible characters all of which start with a very different set of items. You could be the thief (the character the meeple design is based on), which allows you to easily move around and steal cards. The Ranger is more aggressive and starts the games with weapons. Whereas the Tinkerer makes it easier to craft. Over the years, new cards have been added offering a variety of different characters. One of my favourites being the Scoundrel, a cat who wears a pumpkin mask and can torch a clearing making it unusable for the rest of the game. The Learning to Play book suggests combinations for two and three-player games, indicating what each player should try to do in those scenarios. Essentially, any combination of factions can be used for lower player counts except the Vagabond, who can’t be played at two.
The Ronin, a racoon, however, is faster, starting with two boots as well as a sword. His torch action allows him to exhaust a sword to do an extra hit, being one of the more violent vagabonds. The strongest in the set for me is the Adventure. A wise old owl, the Adventure starts with a boot and hammer and is able to damage an item to use it as any other one. This makes him much more adaptable. However, with so much care and design in the rest of the aesthetics, it always feels sadly dissatisfying to be playing a character that doesn’t look like the meeple in front of you. Well not any more! A Myriad Of Meeples One of the challenges in designing a completely asymmetrical game is balancing it. How do you make sure that every player has a fighting chance when they're all following different rules? I can't answer that question, but it appears that Cole Wehrle can. The games I've played so far have all been close, with no runaway leader. In the base game, four factions battle for supremacy in the woodlands. I’ll introduce them here. I don’t have space to go into their mechanical nuances, but I’ll give you an overview of how they work. The Marquise de Cat The Underworld Expansion adds two more factions and two new maps. The Mountain and Lake provide new battlegrounds to fight to victory on while the factions give you new ways to do so. The Great Underground Duchy mixes the play style of the Marquise and Eyrie factions, while The Corvid Conspiracy are a sneaky faction that plot and plan. I haven’t explored two or three player games as much as I’d like to yet, but the one experience I had of cats vs birds was incredibly close. The game felt competitive all the way through, until my wife beat me with a Dominance card. Had I had one more turn, I would have won, which is how close it was. I wouldn’t hesitate to play at fewer than four again.
If you are familiar with playing the base game of Root then you will be able to start playing Root: The Underworld Expansion immediately. The base rules are the same, with only a few new additional rules depending on which new map you play. Root’s gameplay is governed by some foundation rules that allow the factions to interact. It plays out on a wooded board containing 12 clearings, all separated by forests and connected by paths. Players battle for control between these clearings. At its heart, Root is an area control game. Three of the four factions score points by adding warriors, buildings, and other tokens to the board, then fighting for control against the other players. To enable this area control, players battle – a simple mechanic in which two D8s are rolled and players can do damage based on the number of warriors they control in the clearing. Some of the time, there simply is great joy to be had in being bad. We can deny it, but often our joy in a game does come from the downfall of others, often sweetened if we think that we created that by our own superior devious planning. If you are willing to accept that you enjoy the schadenfreude of watching your opponents fall into your trap, then there really is no other expansion better suited to you than the Root Underworld Expansion. The Corvid Conspiracy in this expansion is the guerilla band of spies that secretly place out tokens that create dastardly opportunities for them to gain the upper hand. Trouble is, if your opponents can guess what you have played out, then they can foil your plans and remove the token. However, the risk of potentially being able to ignite a bomb and decimate that clearing of pieces really makes the reward worth the risk.Sometimes the hype over a new release is overdone but I can’t think of a game more deserving than Root. The Riverfolk Expansion is now also available, featuring two new factions and a solo/co-op mode! Bring on more Root; it’s a fantastic game. This box also offers some hireling factions. These smaller factions will change hands throughout the game, but whilst under your control they can be moved at your whim and you will be immune from their negative effects. Introducing these factions will help your lower player count games shine with a new brighter light. Best For Those Love To Play The Vagabond Root represents the next step in asymmetric design. Like Vast: The Crystal Caverns, each player in Root has unique capabilities and a different victory condition. Now, with the aid of gorgeous, multi-use cards, a truly asymmetric design has never been more accessible. However, Leder Games have four shiny new mechanical factions for us, and it’s a marked improvement. They slot into regular games of Root neatly, freeing players up to choose the smaller factions. Now, groups of two or three are no longer confined to the same factions. You can play as the Lizard Cult, or the Woodland Alliance, or whichever takes your fancy.
Finally, I must add, I am actually good at Root. I lost 2 of perhaps the last 30 games I played. I have my preferred factions, but I can play as any of them and give anyone a run for their money. Having said that, I have never won a solo game against the Mechanical Marquise that came with the Riverfolk Expansion, and that’s both what this piece will focus on and also what I would rather no one brought up in my presence ever.
My only difficulty with the Grand Duchy is that, without any swaying ministers, their actions are limited to two per round. This really isn’t enough when you have markets to make and enemies to slay. So, swaying ministers that grant extra actions is advisable from the start! In Root, players drive the narrative, and the differences between each role create an unparalleled level of interaction and replayability. Explore the fantastic world of Root! The Legendary Forge is perhaps the most complicated addition. When placed, you will take a number of crafted items from the board and place them on the Legendary Forge card. These items can now only be crafted if you have a player piece in the same clearing as the new forge. You still need to satisfy the needs of crafting etc and so this simply makes it more difficult to craft. If you find that you’re frequently playing with only 2-3 players, I would lean slightly towards the Underworld Expansion. At 2 players, the best match-up is Marquise v Eyrie, so the Duchy really help the two player game come alive. Likewise, I find the new maps inject some much needed variety at those low player counts and the Corvids work best for me at 3-4 players. In contrast to the Riverfolk, the Corvids and Duchy are also a little more new player friendly. This could tip the scales for you if you’re constantly introducing Root to groups of new players. The woodland has become more and more popular, and even more factions have come to vie for control and assert themselves as the mightiest in the land. Now, not only are the Eyrie, Marquise, Alliance, and the Vagabond fighting for victory, but now the Riverfolk Company and Lizard Cult have joined the fray!
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