Favorite pieces of vagabond bullshit, tinker edition: any item card that the tinker draws can be crafted and then drawn again to craft the second copy of the item either on the same turn or the next. Any player that can be forced to discard cards (lizards, moles, eyrie, badgers) can be forced into giving up item cards they’ve been hoarding (turmoil the eyrie, blow up gardens or mole buildings), which can then be reclaimed from the discard pile. I’ve also had situations where players at the table will hold up how many cards they’re discarding at the end of their turn, and then discard them all stacked on top of each other to subtly hide what cards they are. In this case, the discard stack is public info, which means that you can just check what cards they are before ever using day labor. Did someone sabotage coffin makers? Day labor that shit and now the table is down a saboteurs card and coffin makers is back online. Someone crafted a card that you wanted? If you have saboteurs crafted, discard their card and then use day labor to draw it and craft it. Ambushes are now dangerous to use at all, since any ambush card discarded is literally just free for the taking, making the vagabond even harder to police. And trust me when I say you absolutely must craft swap meet or stand and deliver depending on the deck you’re using. Use it every turn to try and snag item or effect cards you want (or favor cards with the base deck). The moment someone sabotages it, just draw it and craft it again. They will hate you. Anyways, uh, the tinker is bullshit. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
Speaking of adding house rules to Digital, I really wish they'd add some of the really fun gameplay twists from Solo Challenges as options to multiplayer. Certainly wouldn't be as competitive, but it'd be a lot of fun. In case no one's ever played them here are a few examples: -Dominance only wins. -No ambushes in the deck. -1 extra VP for every card crafted. -Long games, requiring 40/50/60 VP to win. -Clockwork traits for players. -Eggs appear in random clearings, hatching a warrior when you move into that clearing. That's not even mentioning the faction specific stuff. There's so much potential here and it'd probably take 30 seconds to code, all they have to do is add them as options.
Tbh i was lost in the sauce. I likely wouldve been better off pricing at 2, but wanted to squeeze as much as I could out of pricing at 1 as an actual strategy.
Keep rushing is also just a generally bad strat for the VB too, unless they're playing Harrier. Going hostile with the Marquis early means that almost every space on the board requires two boots to move to, which is kinda crippling. It's definitely not as bad as losing your keep, but it's probably not the best strategy.
In the vast majority of cases: No. It's strictly less reliable than despot. If you have a really hot starting hand or a table that won't be crafting anything though, you can do pretty well regardless.
holy moly the lisp adds so much, so glad i discovered this channel i know it must've been a pain to record all the voicelines with a lisp but know it was heavily appreciated
3 minutes in, already a subscriber. Fantastic video. I got stuck as the cats for my first 6 games, and you touched on everything that was bothering me. Can’t wait to try again!😁
You do score those points again, yes. WA scores for *placing* tokens, not for maintaining them (like the eyrie's roosts.) Getting to place the same token twice means more points, but it usually means less points overall than if you'd gotten to place the next token on the track instead.
@@Nevakanezah_ I wish I knew what it was like to win. Played a game with my mom who has never played Root or any game like it before and she still beat me while I was playing the cats. I over complicate things a lot and I do that with the cats especially. Right now I'm just trying to practice in the online game.
Doing well with cats really requires a strong grasp of the positional gameplay of root; both in terms of which areas of the board are safe/threatened, as well as figuring out who the real threats are and how opponents might interact with each other/you. They require good fundamentals moreso than anyone else, but you can still lose if someone at the table decides to shit on you anyway. Plus, 2p games are always really brittle like that, so don't feel guilty there. If you haven't yet, I'd check out the woodland warriors discord - They're the sweatiest part of the fandom. Either join games there and ask for advice, or share screenshots of your games to the strategy channel to get advice on where you might be able to improve.
"Trade crappy bird cards for suited Dominance cards and live a better life" As in, when there's an available Dominance card that matches a clearing you want to perform a Ritual in, discard a bird card to put it into your hand and use it for that Ritual.
Trixter has it right. The rules have always allowed you to trade cards in your hand for dominance cards that've been discarded. People just figured out that factions who dislike bird cards (lizards/moles) benefit greatly from exchanging those bird cards for dominance cards in the suit they want. This small optimization makes a *huge* difference in how effective lizards can be.
You don't! Birds have an automatic failsafe where having no cards in hand for the decree results in you drawing a card at the start of that step. If you want to get really spicy, you can still use that extra card to guess corvid plots and still have no cards to add to the decree, in which case you add nothing and carry on normally. Turmoil only occurs if you can't fulfill the cards you've added to the decree; your birdsong steps can't trigger it.
@@Nevakanezah_ thanks for speaking on this! ...but I am still not sure if that is the correct interpretation. Is there an official post on this? I can't find anything... The way it reads in the Law of Root is a lot more broken than just skipping a crucial step.
No "official post" that I know of, but I'm pretty sure we bothered LG about it at some point. The rules are roundabout, but they do clarify the behaviour eventually. root.seiyria.com/#7.4-birdsong The way it plays out is: 1. Start of turn/birdsong (you can guess plots here if you want to empty your hand) 2. hit section (7.4.1) Emergency orders. You have no cards in hand, so you draw one automatically. This step is complete now, and does not repeat. This step does not specify that the card you drew must go into the decree. 3. You can guess another plot between these steps to lose the card you just drew 4. Hit step (7.4.2) Add to the decree, which specifies you "must" add cards (to force you into it if you have them), but no penalty for failure is specified. Section (7.7) Turmoil *specifically* can only occur as part of (7.5.2) Resolve the decree, and as such can't be triggered in birdsong. 5. The "just trust me, bro" part - It's not in this web rulebook, but current copies of root include a primer that specifies that Root's rules are meant to be interpreted literally, and not with the kind of "rules as intended" looseness many other games use. It's a holdover from the game's wargaming roots. In addition to this, Root has an important piece of errata that for every action you can't fully complete, you always "do as much as you can" (Read: walk through the action until you hit a part you can't fulfill, then skip what you can't.) You don't have a card in hand for the decree, and there's no mechanism to provide a new card for the decree, and no mechanism to punish you for not adding a card when you don't have any. Unable to complete step (7.4.2), you're meant to fulfill "as much as you can" (read: fuck all), and proceed with the rest of your turn regardless.
@@Nevakanezah_ I started a thread in BGG to get something official, and turns out that 4 years ago, Josh and Cole weighed in through a discord post: "gamey but not breaking anything". Personally, I still think it violates the spirit of the Decree; but I had eventually come around to understanding the logic of how it doesn't violate the rules. Unfortunately, it is just a case of the rules not being specific enough that there is room for a literal interpretation one way or another. I still see Exposure being done before Add to the Decree as Interrupting Add to the Decree, but plenty of people say that "you didn't say you are Adding to the Decree yet, so it's not interrupting anything". I think the current language on Add to the Decree is very absolute, and it is just a case of the rule needing to be rewritten for clarity. The Law of Root uses "must" pretty consistently for ultimatums but Add to the Decree is the only time it violates that pattern, but only because of Exposure. I think a pretty simple rewrite would be "If there are cards in your hand, then you must [...]" yada yada yada. Or Exposure could use a general facelift, instead, since it is the greatest flaw of the Corvids.
Merging the two steps would certainly solve it, since you can't interrupt a step in progress. ...That, or change exposure so it's not the most permissive rule in the entire game. In fact, do this one anyways. You're certainly free to feel/play how you like though; god knows DI is as popular as it is controversial. At least this decree goofiness isn't impactful enough to be worthwhile.
Root has enormous tactical depth and replay value, but it's got a notorious learning curve. If you only have tabletop simulator, I recommend checking out the woodland warriors discord discord.com/invite/woodland-warriors-476234833572397056 and asking if anyone would be willing to teach you the basics. If you have the digital version on steam (frequently goes on sale), the in-game tutorial covers things very smoothly, but won't give you much of the metagame info. One of these days, I'll make a "how to play" video. Until then, Modern cardboard has the best guide going: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WpeCTljzlWI.html
I'm curious, if you were to (reasonably) buff the Corvids, what you do? Make exposure still trigger Raids and/or be more expensive? Give them Guerilla Warfare from the WA? Just give us more actions please for the love of god? Som'n else my small birdbrain can't think of rn?
Corvid buffs are a circular discussion, but my favourite so far is: - EA does it's hit in the same window as ambush - The cost of plot caps at 2 warriors
@@Nevakanezah_ EA hitting first like Ambushes makes so much tbh, and making triple-plots (and now possibly even the legendary quadruplots?) just a little more affordable is definitely nice. I think I agree with these changes
oh my gods I never thought about that "no longer enemies" bit next time I play vagabond I'm going to hurt people >:3 (people not being the marquise keep I'm not that much of an ass)
Damnit, I thought I had corrected that before publication. ...Also "1/3" instead of "1.3." The "Blue" circles are the two clearings just west of the pass.
Dominance is generally not a strong approach for anyone, owing to how easily coordinated opponents can upset rule. Charismatic could probably pull it off, but you'll essentially need the table's permission to win.
It's such insanity that eyrie was recruiting 6 guys a turn!? and even more unhinged that they were getting away with it!? Like even the last turn they sent you to the forest they lost all six of their soldiers attacking you, Harrier is a beast!
I feel like if you are known to never make good faith deals, gaslight, not consider how much your opponents are willing to pay, and behave like an extortionist while playing a faction entirely focused on trade, eventually nobody will trade with you. (and smart enough people never will to begin with). "Woodland alliance shouldn't ever buy from you, and if they do, you should never return them" is an amazing statement here. I wonder just how often this approach misses on a powerful alliance.
They had the disadvantage of working from a script I'd prepared for them, so they didn't know what intonation I had in mind. Check out both their channels if you want a better sense of their normal delivery
I head to: rootcards.seiyria.com/search?q=game:root&d=images&s=id&b=asc&p=0 and painstakingly extract the characters from the cards. This frequently means reconstructing body parts that are concealed by text boxes or other graphics.
35:09 this is literally how i play every board game like Risk or Catan. Lying, scaming, forging false alliances and being an unpredictable menace. We played Risk a few times back in school and one time i got pushed back into Australia with nothing else. I managed to convince the other 2 players that our Teacher is a far bigger thread and i wouldnt recover from this for a long amount. They both squared up with him while i rebuild my forces and than stabbed them in the back by taking over all of Asia and Europe. They where pissed but our Teacher was just laughing telling them "Thats what u get if u let people trick u". Great times
Na i would never destroy Marquise de Cats Keep - at least not aslong as he is useful to me. The moment i discovered i can Crossbow the Keep i hate a evil grin on my face. God i love this game. Backstabbing is the best kind of stabing
