How to play Root

How to play

Setup: Choose factions and seat players randomly, with score markers on 0. Shuffle the 54-card deck (minus the dominance cards with two players) and deal 3 cards each. Place the ruins and item supply, then set up each faction in the letter order on the boards.

Turns and winning: A turn has Birdsong, Daylight and Evening, and your faction board says what you do in each. Everyone scores a point per enemy building or token removed and the points on items they craft. The first to 30 points wins at once. With 3+ players, at 10 points you may play a dominance card in Daylight: you stop scoring and win by ruling three clearings of its suit, or two opposite corners for bird, at the start of your Birdsong.

Rule, moves and battle: You rule a clearing with more warriors and buildings there than anyone else. To move, you must rule where you leave or where you arrive. In battle the attacker deals hits equal to the higher of two dice and the defender the lower, each capped by their warriors there, plus one extra if the defender has no warriors.

Cards and crafting: Each card's suit matches a clearing type or is bird, which is wild. Craft a card by using your crafting pieces in clearings of the suits it shows; items score their points. Each Evening you draw and then discard down to 5.

Marquise de Cat: Your warriors start in every clearing but one. In Birdsong each sawmill makes a wood. In Daylight craft with workshops, then take three actions (more by spending birds): battle, march (two moves), recruit at every recruiter, build, or overwork a sawmill. A building costs wood from connected clearings you rule and scores the points uncovered on its track, more as the track empties.

Eyrie Dynasties: Each Birdsong add one or two cards (at most one bird) to your Decree's recruit, move, battle and build columns. In Daylight you must carry out every card in a clearing of its suit; if you can't, you fall into turmoil: lose a point per bird in the Decree, discard all but your two Viziers and change leader. Each Evening score the rightmost empty space on your roost track. You win tied rule, but crafted items give you only 1 point.

Woodland Alliance: Spend supporters, the cards on your stack, to spread sympathy, scoring the points uncovered on your track. Revolt in a sympathetic clearing to remove all enemy pieces and place a base. Bases let you train officers, and each officer gives an Evening move, battle, recruit or organize. Rivals who remove sympathy or move warriors into it must hand you a supporter, and you use the higher die when defending.

Vagabond: Your one pawn can't rule, moves through forests and exhausts items to act: boots to move, a sword to fight, a torch to explore ruins (1 point per item), a crossbow to strike, a hammer to repair or craft. Aid factions with cards to raise relationships for points; remove a faction's warriors and it turns hostile, paying extra points for its pieces. Quests exhaust two items for points or cards.

Strategy

Root is a game of reading the table as much as your own board. Every faction scores differently, and whoever is left alone longest usually wins. Marquise de Cat: Your points come from building, and wood can only reach a building site through connected clearings you rule, so keep your network whole; a cut path strands your wood. Spread buildings across all three tracks: sawmills feed construction, workshops let you craft, and recruiters keep warriors coming; some track spaces also uncover extra card draws. Protect the keep, since no one else can place pieces there and Field Hospitals return removed warriors to it for a matching card. Eyrie Dynasties: The Decree only grows until turmoil, so add cards you can keep fulfilling next turn and the turn after. Bird cards fit any clearing but each costs a point when turmoil comes. More roosts raise your Evening score, and they are also where your warriors arrive, so a lost roost hurts twice. Turmoil is a setback, not the end: choose the new leader whose Viziers suit the board. Woodland Alliance: Sympathy scores more the more of it you have, and Outrage turns every rival's incursion into a supporter for you. Revolt where you hold several sympathetic clearings of that suit, since the new base arrives with a warrior for each. Guard your bases: losing one discards its matching supporters and half your officers. Vagabond: Your items are your actions, so explore ruins early for items and points, and rest in a forest to repair everything. Allied factions give 2 points each time you aid them and let you move and fight with their warriors; a Hostile faction pays infamy points in battle but costs an extra boot to walk among. In games of four or more you can use a dominance card to join the last-placed player's coalition. Table politics: Scores are public, so slow whoever nears 30. Removing any enemy building or token scores a point, which makes a raid on the leader good for you too. Watch for a dominance card: a player who stops scoring may be three ruled clearings from winning.

Tips

- Learn one faction thoroughly before switching; each faction's rules are close to a separate game. - Removing any enemy building or token scores you a point, whatever your faction. - Bird cards are wild, which is why the Marquise can spend them for extra actions and the Eyrie may add only one to the Decree each turn. - Marquise: wood moves only through clearings you rule, so keep sawmills connected to where you want to build. - Eyrie: before adding a card to the Decree, check you can still carry it out next turn; turmoil costs a point per bird in the Decree. - Alliance: sympathy costs an extra supporter where a rival has three or more warriors, so spread where the armies aren't. - Vagabond: ending your turn in a forest repairs all damaged items. - With two players, remove the dominance cards; the Learning to Play guide suggests playing twice, swapping factions and adding the scores.

Player count & time

2–4 players aged 14 and up, in 60–90 minutes, and longer while everyone is learning. With two players the dominance cards are removed, and the Learning to Play guide suggests two 30–45 minute games with players swapping factions, Eyrie against Marquise being the ideal learning pair. Expansions add factions for up to 6 players, and the Clockwork expansions add automated factions for solo and cooperative play. The winter side of the board, with shuffled clearing suits, is recommended for experienced players.

Expansions

The Riverfolk Expansion adds the Lizard Cult, the Riverfolk Company and a second Vagabond. The Underworld Expansion adds the Underground Duchy and Corvid Conspiracy with the Mountain and Lake maps. The Marauder Expansion adds the Lord of the Hundreds, the Keepers in Iron and hirelings. The Clockwork expansions add bot factions for solo and cooperative play. The newest, The Homeland Expansion, announced for 2026, brings the Lilypad Diaspora, Twilight Council and Knaves of the Deepwood with the Marsh and Gorge maps.

Faction balance and player count

The Law gives each faction a reach value (Marquise 10, Eyrie 7, Vagabond 5, Woodland Alliance 3) and recommends mixes whose total is at least 17 for two players, 18 for three, 21 for four, 25 for five and 28 for six. That makes Marquise and Eyrie the natural two-player pair, while the Alliance and Vagabond together fall well short. The Learning to Play guide notes that when both are in a game the Alliance is the Vagabond's natural friend, and both should watch out for a dominance win.

Common beginner mistake

Treating Root as a symmetric war game and attacking with everything. Combat is often a tool for slowing the leader, not your main way to score: the Marquise scores by building, the Eyrie by roosts, the Alliance by sympathy and the Vagabond by relationships and quests. The other classic slip is leaving the Alliance alone early, when its sympathy is cheapest to remove.