Leder Games | Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right | Board Game | Ages 10+ | 2-4 Players | 60-90 Minute Playing Time

Product Information

My problem with the Underworld Expansion is that neither of the new factions is balanced to work in a 2-player game. I was super excited to play the Corvid Conspiracy. Sadly, I will not be able to get a group of friends together to enjoy the full game experience any time soon. Those sneaky looking corvids are calling to me.

Now I run away from the mormon analogy as these are not nice people, of course this is a war game after all. You will be converting other pieces to become your followers with your wily ways, sacrificing warriors to gain more actions and ramp up your “spreading of the creed” engine. This expansion offers new types of factions that feel nothing like any of the base game ones, but are definitely best suited to groups you love to have a bit of negotiation and fun with their Root games. Perhaps not so much for the quiet and serious groups. It also brings into the foray three new vagabond characters for use with the base game material, and instructions for both cooperative and competitive bot play for those smaller player count games. With all the content from this game, Root can now be played with up to 6 players, although I am not sure I could sit at the table long enough for such a huge game to run its course. Best For Those Who Love To Be Devious On a similar note, if you enjoy the base game of Root, then you will almost certainly appreciate this expansion. There are no major changes in the core mechanics of the game. Rather, The Underworld Expansion adds variation and expands on the world of Root. 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. Soup Kitchen’, (a bird card), allows for your tokens to be counted toward rule. Not just counted, but counted twice. For someone like the Badgers or the Duchy where rule is so important in their scoring, or the Cats that need a route for their wood so they can build, this could be priceless.When I first heard Root being talked about I had one burning question: would it play well at two players? I was concerned that the balance of the game would be off when the number of factions was reduced. It turns out that I needn’t have worried. All factions can also gain victory points in a couple of ways to help them get to the winning total of 30. Removing an opponent’s buildings in battle will always earn you points, as will crafting certain items. As well as these methods, each faction has unique abilities that grant them other, more effective ways to gain points.

When I first heard Root being talked about I had one burning question: would it play well at two players? I was concerned that the balance of the game would be off when the number of factions was reduced. It turns out that I needn't have worried. Enough of that though, how does it feel to play against them? In a 1 v 1 game (playing as Eyrie as recommended), it’s a pleasingly tight affair. The Mechanical Marquise doesn’t use building tokens, so the focus is on taking down hordes of feline warriors. This makes it good practice for an aggressive Eyrie player. You have to work hard to stop clusters of Marquise warriors accumulating (which allow it to score points). There’s a nice ebb and flow to the two player game which I’ve always been fond of.On paper, this all sounds rather grand and, frankly, Wehrle’s execution is nothing short of genius. The services up for grabs consist of buying cards from the Riverfolk’s public hand, hiring their otter mercenaries for use on your turn or getting the chance to temporarily utilise the Riverfolk’s unique ability to travel along the map’s river. Instead of bundling the Riverfolk with some arbitrary currency, the Company exchange their services for each faction’s spare warriors. The Elder Treetop adds a new space to any clearing where buildings can be placed. This is a fantastic addition for any factions, like the cats, that need to build as much as possible. Once again, for someone like the Eerie, this will add nothing of use to the game. However, if buildings here are destroyed (in the usual way) then the victor takes two points instead of one. So be careful if you build up there. It would be remiss of me to hide the difficult side of Root. Though I don’t think any one faction is very complex, teaching it for the first time to a group at full player count was hard. The teaching takes a while because you need to give different guidelines to every player andmake sure everyone understands the basics.