Overview

Root is an asymmetric strategy wargame designed by Cole Wehrle, illustrated by Kyle Ferrin, and published by Leder Games in 2018. Players compete for control of a vast woodland using wildly different factions, each with unique rules, abilities, and paths to victory. While all factions share common rules for movement, combat, and crafting, each faction plays fundamentally differently. The first player to reach 30 victory points wins immediately.

Components

• 1 double-sided game board (Fall and Winter maps)
• 2 custom dice (0-3 pips each)
• 4 faction boards (Marquise de Cat, Eyrie Dynasties, Woodland Alliance, Vagabond)
• Faction-specific wooden pieces (warriors, buildings, tokens)
• 54 shared card deck (suits: Fox, Rabbit, Mouse, Bird)
• Item tokens (swords, boots, bags, hammers, crossbows, teapots, coins)
• Victory point track
• Ruin tokens and item chits
• Overview and walkthrough cards

Setup

1. Choose the board side (Fall or Winter) and place it centrally.
2. Each player selects a faction and takes its faction board and all associated pieces.
3. Follow the faction-specific setup instructions (each faction has a unique starting configuration).
4. Shuffle the shared deck and deal 3 cards to each player.
5. Place item tokens on the map’s ruin spaces and in the supply.
6. Set all players’ victory point markers to 0.

Turn Structure

Players take turns in clockwise order. Each turn consists of three phases (specific actions vary by faction):

1. Birdsong: Mandatory start-of-turn actions (faction-specific).
2. Daylight: Main action phase. Perform actions available to your faction.
3. Evening: End-of-turn actions, including drawing cards.

Shared Rules for All Factions:

Movement: Move warriors from one clearing to an adjacent connected clearing. You must rule (have the most combined warriors + buildings) the origin or destination clearing to move.

Battle: Initiate combat in a clearing containing your warriors and an enemy’s pieces. Attacker rolls 2 dice; higher die = attacker’s hits, lower die = defender’s hits (max hits = number of warriors present). Remove warriors first, then tokens/buildings. Each removed building or token scores 1 VP for the attacker.

Crafting: Spend cards matching the suits of clearings where you have crafting pieces (workshops for Marquise, roosts for Eyrie, sympathy for Alliance, specific items for Vagabond) to craft items or activate card effects for victory points.

Actions

Marquise de Cat:

• Birdsong: Place 1 wood at each sawmill.
• Daylight: Spend actions to Battle, March (move), Recruit (place warriors at recruiters), Build (place buildings using wood), Overwork (spend a card to produce extra wood). Limited to 3 actions + 1 bonus action per bird card.
• Evening: Draw 1 card (+1 per card draw building), discard down to 5.
• Scores VP by building workshops, sawmills, and recruiters (escalating VP for each new building of a type).

Eyrie Dynasties:

• Birdsong: Add 1-2 cards to the Decree (a growing program of mandatory actions).
• Daylight: Resolve the Decree in order: Recruit, Move, Battle, Build roosts. Each card in the Decree forces actions in matching-suit clearings. Failure to fulfill any Decree action causes Turmoil (lose VP, reset Decree, change leader).
• Evening: Score VP per roost on the map, draw 1 card (+1 per pair of roosts).
• Powerful when the Decree engine is running smoothly; collapses if it cannot fulfill requirements.

Woodland Alliance:

• Birdsong: Revolt (spend supporters to place a base and warriors, removing all enemy pieces from a clearing) or Spread Sympathy (spend supporters to place sympathy tokens).
• Daylight: Craft items, Mobilize (add cards to supporters stack), Train (spend cards from supporters to add officers).
• Evening: Move and battle (# of actions = officers), organize (draw cards), recruit (at bases).
• Scores VP by spreading sympathy. Other players must give the Alliance a card when entering or battling in sympathetic clearings.

Vagabond:

• Birdsong: Refresh exhausted items, slip (move without ruling).
• Daylight: Move (exhaust boot), Battle (exhaust sword), Explore ruins (exhaust torch), Aid (give cards to other players for VP and improved relations), Quest (discard 2 matching-suit cards for VP), Craft, Strike, Repair, Special actions.
• Evening: Rest in forest (repair all items) or draw cards.
• Scores VP through quests, aiding factions, and removing warrior-heavy factions’ buildings. Relationships with other factions affect interactions.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

Primary Win: First player to reach 30 victory points wins immediately (during any phase of any player’s turn).

Dominance Victory (alternative): Instead of scoring VP, a player may play a Dominance card to change their win condition to controlling 3 specific clearings at the start of their next Birdsong. Other players may also adopt Dominance.

Coalition (Vagabond only): The Vagabond may form a coalition with the lowest-scoring player, sharing that player’s win condition.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Rule: You rule a clearing if you have the most combined warriors and buildings there. Ties mean no one rules.
• Sympathy Tax: Moving into or battling in Alliance sympathy clearings costs the acting player a card (given to the Alliance).
• Turmoil: If the Eyrie cannot fulfill a Decree card, they fall into turmoil: lose VP equal to the number of bird cards in the Decree, remove all warriors and buildings except roosts, choose a new leader, and reset the Decree.
• Hostile/Allied Relations (Vagabond): Vagabond tracks relationships with each faction. Removing 3 of a faction’s warriors makes them Hostile. Aiding factions improves relations.
• Ambush Cards: Defenders may play matching-suit Ambush cards at the start of battle to deal 2 hits before dice are rolled.
• Bird Suit: Bird cards are wild and match any suit.
• Item Limits: The Vagabond is limited to carrying a specific number of items based on their satchel capacity.

Player Reference

Faction	Scores VP By	Key Mechanic
Marquise de Cat	Building structures	Wood economy, area control
Eyrie Dynasties	Roosting (per roost)	Decree engine (mandatory actions)
Woodland Alliance	Spreading sympathy	Supporters stack, revolts
Vagabond	Quests, aiding, exploring	Item management, relationships

Combat: Attacker rolls 2 dice: high die = attacker hits, low die = defender hits. Max hits = warriors present. Buildings/tokens removed after warriors = 1 VP each to attacker.

Win: 30 VP or Dominance card condition.