Root

What does it take for the little people to get ahead? The answer this month was clever strategy, a military-industrial complex that ignores them, and at least one leather backpack. That’s right. For the first time, Charlie Dash has guided the forest to a system where the Woodland Alliance (the littlest guys) could not be ignored by scoring 30 points. The early game saw the expansionist birds, led by Alphonse Lichtenberg III, leave their heriditory roost like they’d been kicked out by the Queen. They found out early what happens when viziers can’t do what they’ve been assigned and twice they fell into turmoil. Even so, they established a half-dozen roosts and had an impressive display of avian might with a powerful army that took the battle to the Marquis. ...

Alphonse Lichtenberg III wins an epic game of Root by a sneaky misdirection amid bird-y turmoil. Alphonse Lichtenberg III once again took the role as head of the Eyrie Dynasty. Crabapple Westlake took the reins for the entrenched powers of the Marquise. While Charlie Dash acted as rouser-in-chief for the Woodland Alliance rabble. The early game saw Commander Westlake try to contain the Eyrie to the southeast corner. The gambit failed and the Eyrie quickly built roosts throughout the middle of the map. This ambitious expansion turned out to be an overreach. Not long after the roosts were built, the despot in charge was overthrown and the government of the Eyrie was sent into turmoil. The turmoil led to the Eyrie adjusting their goals to only ruling the clearings they considered worthy of their rule thus ignoring any penalties from government in turmoil. “Let the rest of the forest rot for all I care”, the new leader preached. ...

Three first-time, wanna-be forest rulers sat down at the table. They were initially befuddled by sentences like “Birds Are Wild. You can always treat a bird card as a card of another suit”… “WTF is a bird card?!” one wanna-be lamented. Eventually, it dawned on all of them that they were playing three different games and that maybe at least one of them should have paid attention in Civics 201: Ruling a Forest in 2025. ...