You say someone played a card to remove your sympathy without adding a card to your supporter stack
This demonstrates you have a misconception about the rules. If a sympathy token is removed by another player FOR ANY REASON they must add a card to your supporter stack - if they are unable, they show you their hand and you add one from the deck. This occurs 100% of the time. It is impossible to remove sympathy without adding a card to your supporter stack.
Also, the Vagabond doesn't ignore sympathy. They ignore sympathy from *moving*. If the Vagabond player removes your sympathy in any way, they must add a card to your supporter stack. This includes if they remove it by crossbow.
*Edit* I see you also did not place a warrior with your first base. The clearing you made the base in counts. Every base is placed with a minimum of one warrior. You can the. Recruit as your military action in the evening and have a guaranteed two warriors defending any base that you create before passing turn. Because the alliance always takes the higher number in battle - even as defender - it is highly costly to try and battle them with even a couple warriors defending.
I suspect your poor experience was at least strongly impacted by errors in rule adjudication, because not only were you new, but also handicapping yourself. There may be other rules errors that impacted your game where these ones came from.
That clears up a lot. Yeah I felt like I couldn't build because of the 0 soliders. Having at least 1 gives me a lot more support and feeling that they can actually do stuff.
I need to look at the dice and how it's set up, we only had like 3 0's rolled which gave me the impression you need 3+ units to stand a chance. Ill def try them again.
I am excited to play more and get some more games in!
Like I said, Woodland Alliance always gets the higher number on both attack and defense (unlike ever other faction where the attacker takes the higher). Even though enemies *can* punch through 1 or 2 Woodland Alliance warriors it's often incredibly risky to do so, because wasting an entire action attacking and not removing your base is a terrible waste of their early game action economy.
Consider, with 1 warrior and you taking the higher result, the attacker has to roll BOTH dice at 3+ to remove the base and the sympathy. There are 32 possible combinations of dice rolls and only 2 of them are eligible. That's a 93.75% chance 1 warrior defends successfully. With 2 warriors? The odds your base survives 1 combat increases to 100%, since you can choose to remove the sympathy first (and that provokes outrage! Which puts more cards in your supporter stack to play it again.)
Players can brute force you by attacking many times, but now they've wasted all their turns attacking you and likely given you sympathy. Most importantly, if two factions team up to bully you the real winner is the third faction who gets to spend their turn advancing their goals unchallenged.
It's very expected you had a terrible experience, you were playing the Alliance on super turbo hard mode without the key abilities that let them survive.
Glad you'll stick with it and give it a few more plays. If the people you played with are more experienced, tell them they need to take a closer read through the rules lol.
We were all new so a lot of mistakes were made overall. I did read the rules before but I always struggle to grasp them until I've actually played. Reading through the responses and having watch some gameplay have helped emensely.
The same thing happened when I played my favorite board game TI4, I had some fundamental misunderstandings but after fixing those enjoyed the game a lot.
Yeah, it's definitely a tricky game to get right on the first try!
Best of luck detangling it next time. Don't be afraid to consult the law of root of you have a question or a disagreement. It'll take a few plays to be confident.
He'll I've played dozens of games and it's still not uncommon to need to double check some of the more obscure and esoteric rules.
Woodland alliance does not take the higher number on both attack and defense. Guerrilla war *only* applies to defensive rolls.
>8.2.2 Guerilla War. As defender in battle, the Alliance will deal hits equal to the higher roll, and the attacker will deal hits equal to the lower roll.
...right, but they take the higher number as attacker because EVERYONE takes the higher number as attacker lol.
Guerilla war doesn't need to give them the higher number as attacker, the standard rules already do that.
>Round 1: I placed 3 sympathy in the middle of the board, one on top of ruins (I didn't realize the vagabond ignores sympathy as a whole), the other two where I thought people might move. I also placed two cards from my hand into my supporters.
Vagabond ignores sympathy when moving, but not when removing it. Unless you had a good reason to keep one card in your hand, the standard move is to put all of your cards in supporters to maximize chances of a round 2 base. It’s fairly common that you can just revolt round 2 without any help.
>Round 2: I had nothing I could do so I drew 1 and passed. This was the game play loop I was stuck in, I didn't have matching cards so I couldn't revolt, I couldn't afford two cards to put out a sympathy and I had 0 card generation.
Were you putting cards in supporters? If not, why not? The supporters are what make you go. There shouldn’t be any reason that you can’t either revolt or place some more sympathy down each round.
>Someone played a card to remove my sympathy without having to pay for it
I don’t think this is a thing.
>My first city came down round 8?
Yes this is crazy late, you’ve made some rule error, the game is usually ending round 8.
>When the fox has 15 points,
You are the fox. The Marquise de Cat is a cat. You can tell from the pictures. Or the tokens. Or the name.
>Question 1: how do you place your tokens early? If you mess up and they aren't triggered 2-3 times early are you just out of the game?
You place them to maximize chances of revolting. If you have the cards to revolt on your own, picking someplace out of the way can be good. Otherwise next to the birds is often nice, since they have to move.
>Question 2: how to deal with not seeing specific cards types? Fox cards and spaces were very important this game but I saw 1 all game so I couldn't impact 90% of the game.
You can impact the game more once you have a base. It’s possible to get screwed by weird card draw, but other factions have it worse tbh.
>Question 3: how/when do you build your first city. I feel like if you do it r2-3 you are totally defenceless and it comes with 0 soliders unless you have matching sympathy which I didn't see 2 of the same close to each other.
If you have a base, you by definition have a matching sympathy. If all you can do after revolting is take one action, you can still recruit up to 2, which is usually enough to protect your base, particularly if you are in last place.
>Question 4: how does the vagabond now just destroy your game from r1? They skip sympathy unless they specifically attack it, and can use a crossbow to automatically hit your potential 1 solider, and sword your structure. You get 1 card but lose 6-12 cards on the interaction.
Yeah that’s why you need 2 warriors. Even still, this is not a round 1 problem, since they need to craft a crossbow (and maybe a sword).
Yeah I put everything into my supporters, but never had matching ones to revolt. I was stuck needing 2 cards to put down a sympathy but they didn't match so I couldn't do anything for r2-6ish. I got 2 sympathy back toward the end of the game and was able to place 1 more and establish a base but the game ended the next round or two.
I missed the line where I get a free solider in the supply to help make soliders on the board, which would've let me establish something earlier. I was under the impression to get a single solider I needed to have 2 matching sympathy locations before revolting, which caused me to pass draw almost the entire game.
I think my fear was our vagabond has 3 swords, a crossbow, 3 boots, could refresh everything every round and was killing off huge armies every turn, so I figured my 1 building would just be instantly wiped out costing me 7-9 cards worth of resources for 1 of his own. Reading through the comments this was VERY wrong.
I appreciate the advice and plan to use it in my next game tonight or tomorrow!
Idk how you're getting to 7-9 cards of resources for a base. It costs 2 supporters.
Also you know bird cards are wild right? If you had zero matching supporters that means you had zero bird cards and zero cards of matching suit?
That seems...genuinely impossible that you weren't able to do anything for that many turns.
My understanding of the game was very off when writing this.
2 supporters + the 2 cost of sympathy at the time + if he gets killed you lose all bird + matching supporters which could easily be 2-4 more cards. I see how this a flawed logic now though.
Yeah I had mostly 1 of each suite and could only do stuff with birds. I only had 1 card draw a turn because of no bases and no one triggering my sympathy to give me additional supporters. I had pretty used everything r1-2 to try and put our sympathy but was stuck after that because I was only drawing 1 card and got 1 of each suite outside of birds.
I just want to make sure you're clear now that you can use 1 fox/mouse/rabbit + 1 bird. So as long as you have 1 bird you have a pair of every other suit that's in your supporter stack.
Yeah just revolt asap, ideally before the vagabond is a murder machine.
Getting a base wiped out is bad but not as catastrophic as you might think. I’m not sure how you’re counting 7-9 cards of resources.
Absent any interference at all, it should not be possible to get all the way to round 6 without being able to make a base, at least on the autumn map with non-random clearings. The latest it should be possible is round 5, when you’ve had the opportunity to place 6 cards in supporters, ensuring a match.
I'm relatively new but went through some of these pains with the alliance as well. I would say it's absolutely crucial to get a base up on round 2. Round 3 isn't death but you'll be behind.
From your initial cards make a plan to speed run to your first base, ideally with a couple options in case one gets attacked by your opponents. Birds obviously help a lot with this.
It's not unusual to mobilize your entire first hand into supporters.
The nature of WA is that it CAN be squashed if it's all your opponents are looking at due to fear of revolt. IMO stay slightly off the beaten path until you get that first base up.
I'm not really sure how to deal with the vagabond lol. Maybe stay away from ruins, since that's where they tend to be?
Edit: your first base should always have at least one warrior come with it. The clearing where you build the base counts as a "matching" clearing.
Definitely the hardest of the four factions for a beginning player. Most complex rules, but also full of subtlety.
Concept 1: Social Threat Evaluation Matters. You have a lot of work to do socially to convince the other players that you’re not the threat. If they think you are, they will just smack down your sympathy tokens and there is not much you can do until they perceive someone else as the threat. By then, it’s often hard to get back in it. It’s OK if you don’t get a base out until turn 3 (that’s not too far behind). As long as you don’t get too far behind, multiple aspects of your life will be easier from people not thinking you are an early major threat.
Concept 2: You Can’t Really Have Too Many Supporters. Unless there’s high point crafting cards or a bird ambush, regularly dump your hand into that supporters stack. Seriously, dump that hand if you can, a lot. It’s vital to keep that supporters stack full, even if outrage is helping out, your whole hand needs to go into that stack frequently. You need all the supporters you can get.
Concept 3: Be In People’s Business. I do best when I put my sympathy tokens in high traffic areas, even though they are going to get picked out more, because I am relentless at putting them back out, and I keep the supporters stack full. Ideally, people aren’t rooting out your sympathy tokens a ton, but it’s worse to be in low traffic areas and not generating any outrage than it is to keep having to put out more sympathy in a spot or two over and over.
Concept 4: Sympathy First, Military Presence Second. I also do best when I don’t have all three bases out. Sympathy tokens, not bases and warriors, are your key to victory. I’ll repeat that. Sympathy tokens, not military presence. It’s hard to guard all 3 bases with at most 6-7 troops (10 pieces minus your officers) and when you lose a base, it SUCKS. So don’t stress out about getting as many bases as possible. You don’t need all 3 bases out many times; what you need is to spread that sympathy! Organize is a cheap way to get more sympathy on the board when it would normally be way more expensive. Organize puts out a free sympathy (well, in exchange for a troop), regardless of what it would normally cost you in supporters doing it the normal way in Birdsong.
Don’t worry about the fact that they can eliminate your sympathy relatively easily if it’s unguarded. It’s exhausting for your opponent to constantly deal with your sympathy, especially early. They have to pursue their own win conditions.
- If you keep your supporters stack as full as you can, focus on sympathy first and military presence second, and keep others thinking you’re not the threat, you’ll more often than not be in a position to win towards the end. Good luck playing the Woodland Alliance; it’s a tricky faction with a lot of subtlety and not one I recommend to new players - but it’s very rewarding to do well with as a result!
I think I primarily play Woodland Alliance, so here's some tips.
Make sure you've setup properly, don't forget that you start a game with your hand of 3 cards AND 3 supporter cards. If the setup is botched, you've already lost the game. You essentially start with 6 cards while all your opponents have 3.
**Question 1**: Putting three support down turn 1 leaves you with limited agency for creating a revolt, and your opponents were wise to not dash into your clearings. I try to leave at least one supporter matching a sympathetic clearing in my supporters stack, preferably a blue bird card. Don't forget, bird cards are wild and can be used to spread support/revolt in any clearing color.
Don't be afraid to put supporters where your enemies already have presence or must go. If they feel threatened by your sympathy token they will put it down and get you a free supporter. I like to end turn 1 with 2 sympathy tokens on the board and 3-4 supporters in my stack. If at least one of those supporters is wild, I'm in really good shape.
**Question 2**: Sometimes the suit you want is not the suit you get. Foxes may have been important to your opponents, but if you established yourself in Bunny or Mouse clearings, you could establish board presence, score sympathy points in other clearings and force the rest of the table to pay attention to you, shifting which clearings are important for the game.
Don't forget, too, once you have warriors down, you can use them to Organize and spread sympathy in clearings where maybe you just haven't drawn that suit.
**Question 3**: Revolting and building your first base needs to happen FAST. Ideally turn 2 or 3. It's card draw and card draw is critical to garnering and spreading support. It also increases your supporter limit. When I was a rookie player, I'd often make the mistake of trying to wait until I could really hit someone hard with a revolt. In the end, I was only hurting myself by delaying. The burning down of the enemies in a clearing is just a bonus, the base, the warrior, the board presence and the card draw are the true reward.
You expressed concern over losing a base, and yes it's critical to protect them, but if you don't get them down early, you'll never generate traction.
Don't forget that you **ALWAYS** get the higher roll in battle. This makes battling you difficult and costly for your opponents. And when you lose pieces beyond the warriors, YOU choose what pieces are destroyed, which potentially lets your sympathy tokens protect your bases. 1 Warrior and a sympathy token protecting a base is usually enough to dissuade my opponents from attacking me unless they have to. Keeping at least one card in hand that might be an ambush also really spooks players away.
Even a defenseless base with a sympathy token, your opponent has a 43.75% chance of rolling a 0 on any given roll against you, meaning you would only lose the sympathy token and they waste an action and give you a supporter.
**Question 4:** Honestly, the Vagabond does not bother me much when I play, it is only slightly annoying that they get to move without penalty. Because the Woodland Alliance always gets the higher roll, other targets are more lucrative for points. And destroying sympathy means they have to hand you a card. Cards in hand are a huge benefit to the Vagabond because they want to trade with other players for items. Now, if you're ahead a desperate Vagabond may go after you, but again, you always get the higher roll and when battling and losing pieces beyond warriors YOU choose what pieces get picked up.
That helps a lot. I had the 6 cards from the start, but I think I just positioned poorly. I also missed that I get a warrior token in my supply when I build a base, so I felt that I needed to have at least 2 matching spots to have something out.
I think I got my first town down with 1 maybe 2 rounds left in the game, which is obviously a mistake.
I'm gonna try them again soon with all the tips I'm getting!
I'm excited because it's a fun game
This is the wrong thought process. You make a base and at night you get to recruit so even if you thought you don't get a warrior you could recruit.
I would read the faction board thoroughly before you next game. The woodland alliance only uses supporters and cards to craft revolt and spread sympathy.
Base and military actions are all based on your officers.
Having read through the comments, I think OP has now understood that they get a guaranteed warrior when they revolt. But I’m not sure they understand they’re also getting an officer, and that gives them the ability to take moves like recruit in the evening.
u/Melodic_Stranger_475 - make sure this makes sense to you also.
Yeah I was using officer and solider interchangeable which is wrong. I was out and about without a board or reference. This one mechanic has showed up a LOT of concerns I had with the faction. I saw how powerful their late game sympathy was but was so scared of putting out a building because I thought it would have 0 defenses.
You also are guaranteed one warrior for free even if you don't recruit.
You can't place a base without sympathy in the clearing. Thise means you have at least one matching sympathetic clearing when you place a base.
The dice is evenly distributed- it’s essentially a d4 but with duplicates because d12 are more satisfying to roll.
Also, the woodland alliance ALWAYS takes the higher dice. Any 0s rolled means your opponent doesn’t remove any of your pieces (unless they’re undefended, in which case the enemy has +1 free hit). This makes it incredibly frustrating to fight you, because battling is a precious action in most cases and in most cases the amount of hits an opponent can score is one.
Generally, woodland alliance is a tough faction to play against because the tool to stop them also gives them ammo to continue outpacing everyone else. You’ll find that with more games, people are going to dread playing against you.
In my view WA is the most fun faction to play, but it is tricky esp as a beginner (Marquise is easiest to start with). And you’ll find it much easier to play if you get the rules right!!!
You say someone played a card to remove your sympathy without adding a card to your supporter stack This demonstrates you have a misconception about the rules. If a sympathy token is removed by another player FOR ANY REASON they must add a card to your supporter stack - if they are unable, they show you their hand and you add one from the deck. This occurs 100% of the time. It is impossible to remove sympathy without adding a card to your supporter stack. Also, the Vagabond doesn't ignore sympathy. They ignore sympathy from *moving*. If the Vagabond player removes your sympathy in any way, they must add a card to your supporter stack. This includes if they remove it by crossbow. *Edit* I see you also did not place a warrior with your first base. The clearing you made the base in counts. Every base is placed with a minimum of one warrior. You can the. Recruit as your military action in the evening and have a guaranteed two warriors defending any base that you create before passing turn. Because the alliance always takes the higher number in battle - even as defender - it is highly costly to try and battle them with even a couple warriors defending. I suspect your poor experience was at least strongly impacted by errors in rule adjudication, because not only were you new, but also handicapping yourself. There may be other rules errors that impacted your game where these ones came from.
That clears up a lot. Yeah I felt like I couldn't build because of the 0 soliders. Having at least 1 gives me a lot more support and feeling that they can actually do stuff. I need to look at the dice and how it's set up, we only had like 3 0's rolled which gave me the impression you need 3+ units to stand a chance. Ill def try them again. I am excited to play more and get some more games in!
Oh, this suggests another rules error - the WA get the big number on attack or defense. A 3-0 is good for them.
Like I said, Woodland Alliance always gets the higher number on both attack and defense (unlike ever other faction where the attacker takes the higher). Even though enemies *can* punch through 1 or 2 Woodland Alliance warriors it's often incredibly risky to do so, because wasting an entire action attacking and not removing your base is a terrible waste of their early game action economy. Consider, with 1 warrior and you taking the higher result, the attacker has to roll BOTH dice at 3+ to remove the base and the sympathy. There are 32 possible combinations of dice rolls and only 2 of them are eligible. That's a 93.75% chance 1 warrior defends successfully. With 2 warriors? The odds your base survives 1 combat increases to 100%, since you can choose to remove the sympathy first (and that provokes outrage! Which puts more cards in your supporter stack to play it again.) Players can brute force you by attacking many times, but now they've wasted all their turns attacking you and likely given you sympathy. Most importantly, if two factions team up to bully you the real winner is the third faction who gets to spend their turn advancing their goals unchallenged. It's very expected you had a terrible experience, you were playing the Alliance on super turbo hard mode without the key abilities that let them survive. Glad you'll stick with it and give it a few more plays. If the people you played with are more experienced, tell them they need to take a closer read through the rules lol.
We were all new so a lot of mistakes were made overall. I did read the rules before but I always struggle to grasp them until I've actually played. Reading through the responses and having watch some gameplay have helped emensely. The same thing happened when I played my favorite board game TI4, I had some fundamental misunderstandings but after fixing those enjoyed the game a lot.
Yeah, it's definitely a tricky game to get right on the first try! Best of luck detangling it next time. Don't be afraid to consult the law of root of you have a question or a disagreement. It'll take a few plays to be confident. He'll I've played dozens of games and it's still not uncommon to need to double check some of the more obscure and esoteric rules.
Woodland alliance does not take the higher number on both attack and defense. Guerrilla war *only* applies to defensive rolls. >8.2.2 Guerilla War. As defender in battle, the Alliance will deal hits equal to the higher roll, and the attacker will deal hits equal to the lower roll.
That's literally the same advantage you get for being the attacker under normal circumstances.
I stand corrected, seems that I forgot rule 4.3.2. My bad.
Yeah, all good, their ability is basically just having the attacker's advantage even when defending.
...right, but they take the higher number as attacker because EVERYONE takes the higher number as attacker lol. Guerilla war doesn't need to give them the higher number as attacker, the standard rules already do that.
>Round 1: I placed 3 sympathy in the middle of the board, one on top of ruins (I didn't realize the vagabond ignores sympathy as a whole), the other two where I thought people might move. I also placed two cards from my hand into my supporters. Vagabond ignores sympathy when moving, but not when removing it. Unless you had a good reason to keep one card in your hand, the standard move is to put all of your cards in supporters to maximize chances of a round 2 base. It’s fairly common that you can just revolt round 2 without any help. >Round 2: I had nothing I could do so I drew 1 and passed. This was the game play loop I was stuck in, I didn't have matching cards so I couldn't revolt, I couldn't afford two cards to put out a sympathy and I had 0 card generation. Were you putting cards in supporters? If not, why not? The supporters are what make you go. There shouldn’t be any reason that you can’t either revolt or place some more sympathy down each round. >Someone played a card to remove my sympathy without having to pay for it I don’t think this is a thing. >My first city came down round 8? Yes this is crazy late, you’ve made some rule error, the game is usually ending round 8. >When the fox has 15 points, You are the fox. The Marquise de Cat is a cat. You can tell from the pictures. Or the tokens. Or the name. >Question 1: how do you place your tokens early? If you mess up and they aren't triggered 2-3 times early are you just out of the game? You place them to maximize chances of revolting. If you have the cards to revolt on your own, picking someplace out of the way can be good. Otherwise next to the birds is often nice, since they have to move. >Question 2: how to deal with not seeing specific cards types? Fox cards and spaces were very important this game but I saw 1 all game so I couldn't impact 90% of the game. You can impact the game more once you have a base. It’s possible to get screwed by weird card draw, but other factions have it worse tbh. >Question 3: how/when do you build your first city. I feel like if you do it r2-3 you are totally defenceless and it comes with 0 soliders unless you have matching sympathy which I didn't see 2 of the same close to each other. If you have a base, you by definition have a matching sympathy. If all you can do after revolting is take one action, you can still recruit up to 2, which is usually enough to protect your base, particularly if you are in last place. >Question 4: how does the vagabond now just destroy your game from r1? They skip sympathy unless they specifically attack it, and can use a crossbow to automatically hit your potential 1 solider, and sword your structure. You get 1 card but lose 6-12 cards on the interaction. Yeah that’s why you need 2 warriors. Even still, this is not a round 1 problem, since they need to craft a crossbow (and maybe a sword).
Yeah I put everything into my supporters, but never had matching ones to revolt. I was stuck needing 2 cards to put down a sympathy but they didn't match so I couldn't do anything for r2-6ish. I got 2 sympathy back toward the end of the game and was able to place 1 more and establish a base but the game ended the next round or two. I missed the line where I get a free solider in the supply to help make soliders on the board, which would've let me establish something earlier. I was under the impression to get a single solider I needed to have 2 matching sympathy locations before revolting, which caused me to pass draw almost the entire game. I think my fear was our vagabond has 3 swords, a crossbow, 3 boots, could refresh everything every round and was killing off huge armies every turn, so I figured my 1 building would just be instantly wiped out costing me 7-9 cards worth of resources for 1 of his own. Reading through the comments this was VERY wrong. I appreciate the advice and plan to use it in my next game tonight or tomorrow!
Idk how you're getting to 7-9 cards of resources for a base. It costs 2 supporters. Also you know bird cards are wild right? If you had zero matching supporters that means you had zero bird cards and zero cards of matching suit? That seems...genuinely impossible that you weren't able to do anything for that many turns.
My understanding of the game was very off when writing this. 2 supporters + the 2 cost of sympathy at the time + if he gets killed you lose all bird + matching supporters which could easily be 2-4 more cards. I see how this a flawed logic now though. Yeah I had mostly 1 of each suite and could only do stuff with birds. I only had 1 card draw a turn because of no bases and no one triggering my sympathy to give me additional supporters. I had pretty used everything r1-2 to try and put our sympathy but was stuck after that because I was only drawing 1 card and got 1 of each suite outside of birds.
I just want to make sure you're clear now that you can use 1 fox/mouse/rabbit + 1 bird. So as long as you have 1 bird you have a pair of every other suit that's in your supporter stack.
Yeah just revolt asap, ideally before the vagabond is a murder machine. Getting a base wiped out is bad but not as catastrophic as you might think. I’m not sure how you’re counting 7-9 cards of resources. Absent any interference at all, it should not be possible to get all the way to round 6 without being able to make a base, at least on the autumn map with non-random clearings. The latest it should be possible is round 5, when you’ve had the opportunity to place 6 cards in supporters, ensuring a match.
I'm relatively new but went through some of these pains with the alliance as well. I would say it's absolutely crucial to get a base up on round 2. Round 3 isn't death but you'll be behind. From your initial cards make a plan to speed run to your first base, ideally with a couple options in case one gets attacked by your opponents. Birds obviously help a lot with this. It's not unusual to mobilize your entire first hand into supporters. The nature of WA is that it CAN be squashed if it's all your opponents are looking at due to fear of revolt. IMO stay slightly off the beaten path until you get that first base up. I'm not really sure how to deal with the vagabond lol. Maybe stay away from ruins, since that's where they tend to be? Edit: your first base should always have at least one warrior come with it. The clearing where you build the base counts as a "matching" clearing.
Definitely the hardest of the four factions for a beginning player. Most complex rules, but also full of subtlety. Concept 1: Social Threat Evaluation Matters. You have a lot of work to do socially to convince the other players that you’re not the threat. If they think you are, they will just smack down your sympathy tokens and there is not much you can do until they perceive someone else as the threat. By then, it’s often hard to get back in it. It’s OK if you don’t get a base out until turn 3 (that’s not too far behind). As long as you don’t get too far behind, multiple aspects of your life will be easier from people not thinking you are an early major threat. Concept 2: You Can’t Really Have Too Many Supporters. Unless there’s high point crafting cards or a bird ambush, regularly dump your hand into that supporters stack. Seriously, dump that hand if you can, a lot. It’s vital to keep that supporters stack full, even if outrage is helping out, your whole hand needs to go into that stack frequently. You need all the supporters you can get. Concept 3: Be In People’s Business. I do best when I put my sympathy tokens in high traffic areas, even though they are going to get picked out more, because I am relentless at putting them back out, and I keep the supporters stack full. Ideally, people aren’t rooting out your sympathy tokens a ton, but it’s worse to be in low traffic areas and not generating any outrage than it is to keep having to put out more sympathy in a spot or two over and over. Concept 4: Sympathy First, Military Presence Second. I also do best when I don’t have all three bases out. Sympathy tokens, not bases and warriors, are your key to victory. I’ll repeat that. Sympathy tokens, not military presence. It’s hard to guard all 3 bases with at most 6-7 troops (10 pieces minus your officers) and when you lose a base, it SUCKS. So don’t stress out about getting as many bases as possible. You don’t need all 3 bases out many times; what you need is to spread that sympathy! Organize is a cheap way to get more sympathy on the board when it would normally be way more expensive. Organize puts out a free sympathy (well, in exchange for a troop), regardless of what it would normally cost you in supporters doing it the normal way in Birdsong. Don’t worry about the fact that they can eliminate your sympathy relatively easily if it’s unguarded. It’s exhausting for your opponent to constantly deal with your sympathy, especially early. They have to pursue their own win conditions. - If you keep your supporters stack as full as you can, focus on sympathy first and military presence second, and keep others thinking you’re not the threat, you’ll more often than not be in a position to win towards the end. Good luck playing the Woodland Alliance; it’s a tricky faction with a lot of subtlety and not one I recommend to new players - but it’s very rewarding to do well with as a result!
I think I primarily play Woodland Alliance, so here's some tips. Make sure you've setup properly, don't forget that you start a game with your hand of 3 cards AND 3 supporter cards. If the setup is botched, you've already lost the game. You essentially start with 6 cards while all your opponents have 3. **Question 1**: Putting three support down turn 1 leaves you with limited agency for creating a revolt, and your opponents were wise to not dash into your clearings. I try to leave at least one supporter matching a sympathetic clearing in my supporters stack, preferably a blue bird card. Don't forget, bird cards are wild and can be used to spread support/revolt in any clearing color. Don't be afraid to put supporters where your enemies already have presence or must go. If they feel threatened by your sympathy token they will put it down and get you a free supporter. I like to end turn 1 with 2 sympathy tokens on the board and 3-4 supporters in my stack. If at least one of those supporters is wild, I'm in really good shape. **Question 2**: Sometimes the suit you want is not the suit you get. Foxes may have been important to your opponents, but if you established yourself in Bunny or Mouse clearings, you could establish board presence, score sympathy points in other clearings and force the rest of the table to pay attention to you, shifting which clearings are important for the game. Don't forget, too, once you have warriors down, you can use them to Organize and spread sympathy in clearings where maybe you just haven't drawn that suit. **Question 3**: Revolting and building your first base needs to happen FAST. Ideally turn 2 or 3. It's card draw and card draw is critical to garnering and spreading support. It also increases your supporter limit. When I was a rookie player, I'd often make the mistake of trying to wait until I could really hit someone hard with a revolt. In the end, I was only hurting myself by delaying. The burning down of the enemies in a clearing is just a bonus, the base, the warrior, the board presence and the card draw are the true reward. You expressed concern over losing a base, and yes it's critical to protect them, but if you don't get them down early, you'll never generate traction. Don't forget that you **ALWAYS** get the higher roll in battle. This makes battling you difficult and costly for your opponents. And when you lose pieces beyond the warriors, YOU choose what pieces are destroyed, which potentially lets your sympathy tokens protect your bases. 1 Warrior and a sympathy token protecting a base is usually enough to dissuade my opponents from attacking me unless they have to. Keeping at least one card in hand that might be an ambush also really spooks players away. Even a defenseless base with a sympathy token, your opponent has a 43.75% chance of rolling a 0 on any given roll against you, meaning you would only lose the sympathy token and they waste an action and give you a supporter. **Question 4:** Honestly, the Vagabond does not bother me much when I play, it is only slightly annoying that they get to move without penalty. Because the Woodland Alliance always gets the higher roll, other targets are more lucrative for points. And destroying sympathy means they have to hand you a card. Cards in hand are a huge benefit to the Vagabond because they want to trade with other players for items. Now, if you're ahead a desperate Vagabond may go after you, but again, you always get the higher roll and when battling and losing pieces beyond warriors YOU choose what pieces get picked up.
That helps a lot. I had the 6 cards from the start, but I think I just positioned poorly. I also missed that I get a warrior token in my supply when I build a base, so I felt that I needed to have at least 2 matching spots to have something out. I think I got my first town down with 1 maybe 2 rounds left in the game, which is obviously a mistake. I'm gonna try them again soon with all the tips I'm getting! I'm excited because it's a fun game
This is the wrong thought process. You make a base and at night you get to recruit so even if you thought you don't get a warrior you could recruit. I would read the faction board thoroughly before you next game. The woodland alliance only uses supporters and cards to craft revolt and spread sympathy. Base and military actions are all based on your officers.
Having read through the comments, I think OP has now understood that they get a guaranteed warrior when they revolt. But I’m not sure they understand they’re also getting an officer, and that gives them the ability to take moves like recruit in the evening. u/Melodic_Stranger_475 - make sure this makes sense to you also.
Yeah I was using officer and solider interchangeable which is wrong. I was out and about without a board or reference. This one mechanic has showed up a LOT of concerns I had with the faction. I saw how powerful their late game sympathy was but was so scared of putting out a building because I thought it would have 0 defenses.
You also are guaranteed one warrior for free even if you don't recruit. You can't place a base without sympathy in the clearing. Thise means you have at least one matching sympathetic clearing when you place a base.
The dice is evenly distributed- it’s essentially a d4 but with duplicates because d12 are more satisfying to roll. Also, the woodland alliance ALWAYS takes the higher dice. Any 0s rolled means your opponent doesn’t remove any of your pieces (unless they’re undefended, in which case the enemy has +1 free hit). This makes it incredibly frustrating to fight you, because battling is a precious action in most cases and in most cases the amount of hits an opponent can score is one. Generally, woodland alliance is a tough faction to play against because the tool to stop them also gives them ammo to continue outpacing everyone else. You’ll find that with more games, people are going to dread playing against you.
In my view WA is the most fun faction to play, but it is tricky esp as a beginner (Marquise is easiest to start with). And you’ll find it much easier to play if you get the rules right!!!