How Root convinced me to love war board games

Regrettably, I am allergic to ugly board games. It’s a tragic affliction, because, often, the best board games are as sexy-looking as a spreadsheet. I’m enticed by a slick art style and a strong theme, so I’ve spent years passing great games by. All-brown, brain-busting strategy games? Ignored. Sepia maps filled with grey miniature armies? No thanks.

That is, until Root came along.

Cole Wehrle’s 2018 darling is about as wargame-y as it comes, but it was the first in the genre that made me sit up and pay attention. That was all thanks to the adorable animals that, in lieu of human rebels and generals, you get to push around the board. Leder Games’ signature visual style, carried by the vibrant, often cutesy art of Kyle Ferrin, is striking enough that you’d recognize it on any shelf.

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. I know that. You know that. Your neighbor’s dog knows that. But visuals are such a crucial part of board games, both as a commercial product and a meaning-making machine. Visuals capture the imagination. They convey tone. They marry the ideas of a game with its mechanics.

Root’s art told me that this wargame was different. It looked unique, fresh, and more importantly, accessible to a genre newcomer like me.

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But, in Root’s case, the cover was absolutely right.

For the uninitiated, Root is an asymmetric, faction-based wargame where woodland creatures duke it out for dominance. Everyone is racing to 30 victory points, but each faction scores in drastically different ways. Destroying enemy units is a universally useful score booster, but combat is not the be-all-and-end-all. Some factions skirmish very little, if at all.

The base game (because there have been several expansions) gives you four factions to choose from. The Marquise de Cat sticks saw mills all over the place, churning out feline troops to thin the enemy masses. Their biggest rivals, the avian Eyre Dynasties, score points for building an ever-more-elaborate action engine that grows more powerful as it gets harder to maintain.

The Woodland Alliance sneaks into territory already dominated by a faction, sowing rebellion and stealing resources. And then there’s the Vagabond, who seems to be playing an entirely different game, and who wins through clever card trades, exploring the maps, and declaring their allies wisely.

Those are birds-eye summaries, because the gears powering these engines are reasonably complex. The interactions between them make Root even more of a thought-cruncher. This is one of those games where, if you’re playing with a newcomer, you can expect it to take twice as long. It’s tough to teach someone about their faction whilst playing another – especially if you aren’t savvy with every army yet.

The barrier to entry is pretty high. They might be as high (higher, perhaps) than the brown and grey board games I was averse to for so long. But Root rewards those who push through. Each game is a dramatic clash of four political powers with drastically opposing ideas. In the UK, at least, it’s hard not to map the factions onto real-world political parties, which speaks to the thematic depth that Root offers.

What’s even more impressive – and it’s a skill that I’ve come to associate with Cole Wehrle games – is how narratively compelling the game is without introducing roleplaying elements. Root has plenty of lore (and even its own tabletop RPG), but the mechanics speak for themselves. The actions available to you reflect the beliefs of your faction so strongly, you are invited to inhabit their worldview for a while.

Theme-lovers are eating good with Root, but so are the strategists. It takes a lot of games for the loop to get same-y. The asymmetric nature innately offers replayability, but the factions clash and complement each other in such interesting ways that few games ever feel the same. The luck of the card draw each turn, or the starting positions of the factions, can have a profound effect.

Plus, once you grow bored, you can flip the board to its alternate map. You can invest in an expansion, which adds even more thematic (sometimes, even more complex) factions, additional rules, and more maps to battle on. You can even experiment with different player counts, though this is something I’d recommend less confidently. My only qualm with Root is that it’s not well-balanced for less than three or four people. Similarly, when one expansion opens you up to six-player games, things start to feel a bit crowded.

Since playing Root, I’ve found myself looking twice at other wargames. Even if they’re soul-crushingly brown. Even if they have more grey minis than I’ve had hot dinners. Even if they have hardly any art at all.

The gateway has been opened for me. Root has a unique power to do this, and I think it’s why, almost 10 years after release, it still has such formidable staying power.

Want to talk more about your favorite Root factions? Hit me up in the Wargamer Discord.

Source: Wargamer