Episode #61 - Hirelings Group C (Part 2)

Katie said to me the other day, she doesn't really understand what it's like for the women who complain about their husbands who always have football on the in the back ground. But she says that multiple times in the past week, she's been in a room alone with her son and either a computer or a screen in the background. And I'm not in the room is playing the root winner tournament. She's like, I've never seen so much root on this house before. You're like, gosh darn it, Nico G B. I haven't been watching too intently, but I've been keeping it on in the background while I do stuff because I want to keep track of it as best I can. But I can't stay focused enough in it because I don't know the bandwidth right now to do that. But it is such a nice background thing to check in on and see the progress and see the crazy developments. It's been a really fun tournament so far. Oh, yeah. Also, I love hanging out in chat. I mean, the games are scheduled in a way where they're just happening all the time right now. Like, we are just being flooded with these winter tournament games. So on the good side, it's like we have a bunch of content to go through, but on the flip side, it's hard to always be present in chat and stuff because you know, three and four hour games. Yeah. Yeah, you can kind of pop in and out for sure. I kind of just pop in, make a joke about how somebody should go for dominance and then leave. You know, that's kind of my business now in the winter tournament. You try out about 10 or 12 jokes before one hits then you leave. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I know. Also, I love being around for the gamble. I have lost thousands of year books. And I hate to tell you, I bet against Kyle. I did. I bet against Kyle and I paid the price. I paid the price for it. Kind of friend. I say, I guess reasonable amount of faith. I wanted Kyle to win, but I wanted my Garrett bucks to be in the most likely. Cool. Good. That's logical. I bet on you, Sam, during your game, even though it was. Well, very worthless. Wow. All right. The truth always come out. Kyle's a better friend. That being said, the Garryk buck economy is booming right now. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, isn't there a ton of inflation? I guess there would be a ton of inflation, but with the all the bucks that people keep losing to the house. I feel like it's keeping the, keeping the numbers up. Yeah. Highly in demand. If you've got extra Garryk bucks out there and you want to donate them, just hit us up on the Woodland War Machine channel of the good time society discord. You're just panhandling for digital currency now. In a way that they actually can't give us the digital currency. If they come to the discord, I guess there's no way to transfer it, right? No, it is not on the public exchange, Kyle. They're channel points. I'm sorry. I'll be right back. I have to call my investment advisor. Sir, you can't pay with tea. Get out of our store. I think these three gold coins will be enough. I mean, technically, yes, they're enough, but we can't take this, sir. I think you'll find that there were three points. Just take it. He has a sword. Let's actually start with the winner tournament since we're in it, right? Let's get into the game. Well, this sounds like a bit of root news. How do the noise? I did it. It was a little far away. Oh, sorry. Root news. Don't come off. No, no. No, you're like, your gate is cutting you off on our end. So he's just going root news and we see your mouth move and we hear nothing. Yeah. It's like, it's the positive reinforcement I need when I do the root news. The thing is, I'm so familiar with it. I still heard it, even though I think I summoned the noise, you know, and I'm so familiar with it. Am I neurons? You all know what it sounds like. Yeah, this is Zoom cutting me off. Yeah, I think I'm not going to put it in and people will just assume it correctly. Yeah, it's like, you all just heard that in your brain, not in your ears. Yeah, it's like one of those things where you like, you stare at it for like 30 seconds, you know, and then you like, move over to the thing you can still see the circle. Still there. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about some winter tournament recaps. All right. So we, like Sam mentioned, there is wall to wall winter tournament going on right now. So we've had a ton of games in the past week or so. Starting with game eight on the winter map, get ready, folks, for a trend of winter map. It turns out that for tournament play, people seem to be really favoring the grindy sort of equally oppressive nature of the winter map. But this game was pretty notable because we got a cat's victory congrats to insulin noise maker. Nice. This was by no means a sure thing. And I think this was the first great currency crisis of Garic Bucks because I think no one made any. It was just 90,000. It's just down the drain. So in the games to come, we obviously have a chance to make back some of those bucks. But game nine took place in the mountain map and congrats are due to over the morrow for a lord of the hundreds victory. Lord of hundreds have a great tournament so far. They were an underdog in that game as I recall. I think I tuned in for a little bit of that. And it was a real everybody got real close to like 27 all of a sudden. And then the game took another hour or something. Oh, yeah. This one was a traffic jam at the end. And I feel like a lot of these tournament games, it's like the kind of general skill level of root players has just increased. Oh, yeah. You can really feel how much better everyone is at the game because we're getting all these games that go right down to the wire. It's anyone's game. The whole table works together to just stop someone at the finish line. Yeah. And we're just like, I'm dealing with the aftermath. Who can cross it first? Who can drag themselves to the finish? Yeah, this was a, this was a near five hour game as I think. I think that that's what the runtime is. It's bananas. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And really good play kind of caused this game to go along, which is exciting. Our right game 10 we had back on the winter map. And this one was a Dutchy victory by player Argent Burns, a Red, which I believe is a Twilight Imperium joke. I think so. Yeah. And with that kind of handle, I would have expected them to take either the Woodland Alliance or lower to the hundreds, but they took the Dutchy and turned out to be a great move. They won on the winter map. Congrats. Game 11, we me entered over to the lake map for a nice little vacation. And this game actually was pretty fun. This was a lizard's victory. Congrats to BooHuman. Great job. Nice. That's a great name too. Yeah. And I think this one was a little bit of an unexpected turn of events as well for the lizard. Go check this game out. This one was fun. One of the rare vagabonds got played like adventure or something. I think it was on right. Arbiter maybe for this one. Okay. Turn to remember exactly. I don't have a written down, but yeah, you're right. It was it was adventure. It was adventure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was badgers as well. It was it was very close. I'm pretty sure both adventures and badgers were like 2829. Wow. And lizards managed to get it done. Woof. That's great. Absolutely. That's that one's worth checking it out, I think. Absolutely brutal. Really fun though. Okay. Back to the match this year. We have game 12 on the winter map. Congrats to Moss for I think this was the first eerie victory of the tournament. I hear he's giving a lot of play. Like I feel like eerie's in a ton of games. Yeah. Everyone thinks they're like, okay, I got this. I've played the bird before I do it every time I lose. The eerie is just such attempting because you're like, oh, but if I can play it right, no one will be able to do anything about it. It is. Yeah. It's funny. It's tricky. It's like it feels both reliable and very unreliable. Yeah. It's a fraction. Yeah. It's always a risk for sure. For beings just strong faction, they can be incredibly fragile. Especially with good players, right? Like players who are heads up about it. Yeah. Also, winter map is happening a lot. I feel like I feel like almost half the time and that is a little less move options for them sometimes. Yeah. The mobility can be an issue. What we're going to talk about that a little more when we get to the game I played in this week. Game 18. But first we're going to continue with our winter map theme for game 13. This was a Dutchy victory, congrats to Bernie for pulling it out with the Dutchy. The Dutchy seems to be like one of the top faction choices in this winter tournament, much like it was in last year's winter tournament. And particularly on winter map, it seems like the Dutchy is having just like a string of successes. So maybe they are they the kingpin to Topo right now, do you think? I felt that way since last winter tournament. Well, just because mules can get out of control and the winter map doesn't restrict them as much, right? They want a couple of clearings and they can pop up anywhere into a new clearing through dig. So those kind of movement restrictions aren't as big of a deal maybe. Yeah. So maybe a faction to really watch out for. for on winter map, because the Dutch you can take advantage of the kind of relative isolation of kind of the corner areas of this map. Game 13 just as like on a nutshell too, has I think some of the most meeples I've seen out between just two factions ever, especially towards the end game. Like the cats have, I think, all their meeples out and the moles have most of them out. - Whoa. - On the board. - It's great. - I'm really loving these red faction beatdown games. - Yeah, just as quickly flash back to game nine on mountain map, or maybe it was game 10 on the winter map. Yeah, it was game 10. I think there was like a record or something of like number of meeples lost in battles. - In that frame, it was really. - Just an insane number of battles going on. It was three red factions. So I have everyone's keeping each other in check and going around kind of taking their forces off the board. Yeah, just really brutal. I keep saying meeples, they're warriors. If anybody doesn't speak English, they doesn't know what we just said. - Yeah, the faction. - There were a few ESL folks that listened. - And just while we're on at game 10, this reached a state that Cole Whirly has mentioned in his various interviews about root very early on, which is in a game played between four very skilled players, you sometimes reach this end game situation where there's very few warriors left on the map, a very small footprint for each faction. Because there's been so much combat and chaos, it's left this sort of burned out shell of the woodland for everyone to fight for the scraps over. - Those are the games. - Yeah, game 10 is very much that kind of situation. We have this post-apocalypse landscape that then these factions have to try and crawl over the finish line. So fun. Game 14 on Wintermap continuing the theme. We had a victory for the Lord of the Hundreds and congrats to Francis, long-term community member. And absolutely fantastic strategist. This is also a great game. And maybe Lord of the Hundreds is kind of coming in behind the dutchy as a top contender at this year's tournament. - Francis is pretty familiar with Lord of the Hundreds as I recall and also they're quite the table talker. It tend to get involved in most discussions and put not only like a fair amount of reason into the conversation but also doubt for people. It's, you guys should watch that back if you want to know about clever maneuvering of people's needs. He's a good salesman in that way. - Able to kind of frame the game in the board state. - And that was a game with otters too. So there was a lot of negotiating. And I don't think an otters have been played much in the tournament. I don't have it seen in the very end. - No, it's been quite rare. It's almost like keepers and iron. It's been sort of an oddity to have the riverfelt of the game. - Yeah, the badgers haven't gotten. I think the badgers simply weren't pulled into the draft very often. It was just a random chance thing. - I remember a couple of games where they were unchosen as well. - Oh, okay. But otters definitely ramped up the level of table talk and I don't know if that's exactly what one Francis the game but I recall it having an effect for sure. - Yeah. Yeah, it definitely matters in these games. Again, as we'll get to in a moment. All right, but game 15, we moved back to the autumn map. It's been a while since we've seen the autumn map. But this one was a Woodland Alliance victory by Levi Congrats to Levi and additional shouts to Batmaster. - What a Batmaster. - Batmasters, an awesome root player. We've played root in real life before in Brooklyn, which has been rad. Also, Batmaster is famous for creating the overlay for the winter tournament, the kind of visual look of the stream this year. - Oh, and it's so good. These are the most watchable root games of all time. - Yeah, Garrick has really nailed their TTS camera work and having the overlay, it's great for chat 'cause it answers the question of what was the unchosen faction which is probably at the top comment you get in the chat. - Also, I don't know how we've been playing this game for years and didn't have these clearing numbers out here. - Very helpful. - Now, we'll talk about the kind of end of the community game of the community game you needed to have these clearing numbers so that you could even just talk about the game and the abstract. But it's just so nice to be like, all right, I battle in 10, instead of like in this fox clearing here, where we're both at in the middle there. That's how we used to have to talk. - You used the tab button a lot to-- - Oh yeah. - Boink, boink, boink. - Boink little arrows everywhere. I barely had to use the arrow function. - Yeah. - We'll do it all through words, which is great. - All right, moving on to game 16. It took place on the lake map. I love when we go to the lake map. This one was, shockingly, a woodland alliance victory. - A high-strip map. - Congrats, for high-oh, yeah, very surprising. The woodland alliance traditionally struggles to stay competitive on the lake map. But in this game, they were able to break free and get their presence around in multiple areas in the map and that's sometimes all you need. Just need an option. So congrats, Kriah, well played. - Nice. - Game 17, again, on the lake map. And here we go. We start the eerie victory parade. This one was a bird's win for Poliskin, who's a long-term root community member and a fantastic player. So congrats, Poliskin. It's never easy to win on the lake map. I feel like no matter what faction you are, it's always like a crazy amount of luck and circumstance and positioning. - Yeah. - All right, and then we go to game 18, which I played it. - Yeah. - Oof. - Yeah, and you cooked during. Turns out. - I did, yeah. - Did you prepare a borscht, was it? - A bit. - Okay. It's sort of a disc road, but. - Kyle, I've never seen this happen. There's a competitive root game going on. And Kyle goes, sorry, I'm gonna step away for a bit. I've got to stir some soup. And chat with crazy with the soup stuff. But also, the other players literally were like, great, well water man's away. (laughing) - How do we take them down? And they had a whole discussion. - Obviously, it came back after like maybe 15 seconds. It doesn't take long to stir soup. I heard basically the whole discussion. - I had imagined that that was the case. And like when it lulled out, you're like, I'm back. - It was fun. - It was fun. - You're on stream. You know that people could be listening. - It was fun, it was fun though. So during that moment, I actually was waiting for them to reach the point at the discussion where they've gotten past the direct ways that they could stop me. And they started talking about, okay, well once we stopped the eerie, like what does that mean for like the lizards? And that question was like in the air and I was like, hey everyone, I'm back. - You just wanted to like leave everyone with that taste in their mouth, the pike. - Yes. - Yes. - No. - I can't, I don't want to be too direct 'cause then that helps my opponent win. - Great timing. - Yeah, so this game was super fun. We were on the winter map, so kind of following the theme of the year. And the faction mix was, it ended up being pretty great. We did pull the keepers in iron, which I had a great hand for. But it was fourth in turn order, and it was the winter map and the rest of the factions were eerie, with and alliance, vagabond and lizards. And I thought as the keepers, it would sort of end up falling to me to police the birds eventually. And I just thought with like the with and alliance and the lizards, that movement was gonna be very painful. - Annoying. - Yeah. - And I thought as like fourth in turn order, I was probably gonna get camped by the with and alliance on turn one, 'cause I have to like move to do stuff. - Yeah. - And then I would get stuck on one half of the board because of the lizard. - Lizard. - It was just, it seemed terrible. - You'd compete with everyone for rule to delve too. - Yeah, exactly, 'cause eerie and lizard specialize in that. - So it seemed to me that the more reasonable option, the most flexible option was to pick eerie. Just 'cause no matter what, there's probably gonna be some way for me to navigate or respond at least to what's going on. - Yeah. - And I had a hand I could do God of War with and I thought, okay, let's do it. So the faction mix ended up being eerie, with an alliance lizards and vagabond. And the-- - It was thief, right? - It was the thief, yeah. - It's been a lot of thief this tournament so far. - The thief is probably among the best vagabonds. I think as we've claimed in the past. - Oh yeah, I would, I'd probably take thief in a vacuum. - Yeah. - Especially with despot infamy, I would take thief. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, the options are wide open. You get a really, really healthy start to basically every game no matter what. - Yeah. - Yeah. - The thief is very, very easy way to get into the game for sure. But yeah, I think this game really came down to keeping the decree intact for the entire game. And being able to battle the alliance sympathy tokens early on for those little guac points. - Here's the thing, Kyle. You had a bunny battle that was way precarious. I don't know if you know this. Have you seen this? Have you seen this thing? Have you heard of this? - So yes, I realized how precarious the bunny battle was. I guess I just totally missed that. Once I cleared the lizards out of their bunny clearing, that there was no backup. - Other than further. - Yeah. - There were no pieces. But the other players at the table did not seem to notice. You had a lot in your game. degree. So it was like which one of these cards is the one that you can topple, but you know, chat's always seeing everything. No, they are omnipotent for sure. I did notice it and I noticed it, I think as soon as I moved south over to like battle the lizards, I realized that this was going to be probably it. And I started planning for my swap into like commander or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And then the lizards put a dude there. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I get another turn. Great. And then what I realized was eventually that if I abandoned the clearing in the north next to the with them, the lions that in order for them to stay competitive, they had to spread there. Yeah. Basically. And even if it was guarded by an alliance player, warrior, I was like, fine, that's perfect. You can send one dude and they can absorb battles there forever. So I think I got through the one round where they really could have done it. Yeah. I think there were two rounds where yeah, I expected the the alliance to spread because they needed to stay in the game, but they didn't. They didn't know. Oh, this is it. I guess I'm done now. It was interesting. They're like a wet air supporters or something. Yeah, they stacked it up big time. It was looking scary. Yeah. And at a certain point too, well, throughout the game kind of, I kept highlighting the little alliance as this big threat. Yeah. You mentioned 11 supporters multiple times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I kept mentioning like the number of points that they could potentially score. You're like, they're going to craft everything. Yeah. Just like look, look at the clearing they have. They're going to be able to craft a bunch. Yeah. But I think really what it came down to was that last turn. Oh my God. That last turn I was so hungry. Had that soup. The soup smell was right there. It was so distracting. It smelled so good. But basically I like spent everyone else's turn writing down my like winning plan. Yeah. And I just totally overlooked. I like didn't check back in with the board state that the lizards had recruited one dude in a clearing. Yeah. And I could have just gone there or I could have done like a million other things. But I decided to initiate a battle in the one clearing that could turmoil me with a just a 25% chance that I would like live to see another day. It was it was so funny because we're like, I like everyone's already talking about how it was a good game, you know, wall. You're taking your final turn. It's over. He's water man. He's got it. And when you say you're initiating a battle in that mouse clearing, Derek like his hard dropped. He was just like, wait, what? Derek physically slammed on the brakes and he wasn't in a car. It was and luckily the dice worked out just fine. But yeah, it was definitely dice luck. That was it. It was close. It was close. Very close. You need luck. You need luck to win the game a route. You just do. I got a little lucky at a few kind of key moments in that game. That was one of them. But the thing was, it's like, it's late in a route game. I like had come home from work, put some soup on and then just like hopped into the game right away. So I had like zero downtime and was just like fuzzy brain at the end. And that's kind of the time you have to be the sharpest. And so I definitely almost threw being nutrient deficient really makes a difference. I feel and I thought it was going to hangry going to be this weird thing because you played with friend, friend, a great root player and friend was in one of my games where I think I can't remember if it was friend or somebody else in that game who just took their last turn too fast and didn't kind of realize what was going on and then they didn't get to 30. Like they were kind of wrapping it up too fast or whatever. And I was like, oh my gosh, did that just happen to Kyle? You know, luckily, you did it. You got the luck you needed. But also you played a great God of War game. Did what you had to do and you know, steered the conversation when you needed to steer it was good game. That is a specialty of your style. I think you you talk when you should. Like you tend not to talk too much. You really reserve it. And that actually that punctuates your effectiveness. I feel. Yeah, I think that actually helped me a lot in that game just because especially with the like whole rabbit battle thing. Oh yeah. I knew that that was the way to turmoil me. But I just never mentioned anything about rabbit suits or anything like that. I just wanted to like I never said big ears with the noses. I just mentioned how many carrots I put in my soup. But chat notice that because of that Kyle, you really water man won the game through water man's law of not pointing out the way that you could have been to true. It's totally true. Yeah, I just shut up about it. That was my strategy. I mean, that's like not a good plan to like hope that your opponents don't notice something. But like in any game of route, there is so much going on and there's so much to keep track of so many individual components to like think through that I kept just like trying to throw the spotlight on like other crunchy nonsense to like think about where it's just like, okay, well like what's the outcast going to be like or like, you know, how many points could the one little lion score and just make everyone do the number crunching in their own heads. I just like claim a number and then everyone else has to like verify if that's true. And then we rather not looking at the decrease. So just setting them a arithmetic question. Yeah, well, yeah, it was it was tough. So I think what really ended up doing the trick for me in that game was positioning because it really was kind of two and a half insurgent factions against one military faction. And in that kind of mix, it's just important for the eerie to like put a lot of pressure on the board. Yeah. And I thought that I got to a place where the lizards had to make had were eventually forced to decide which clearing they truly wanted to protect whether it was in the South choke point or the North choke choke point. And they couldn't do both. They just didn't have enough cards. They didn't have enough time to deal with both threats. And so they went for the North clearing that Fox corner. They bulked it up. And that meant that I was free to just like, you know, flood in from the south side. And I had been thinking about ways to kind of put pressure on the board throughout that game. And I thought that because I was able to that was really what got me enough tempo, enough, you know, actions and stuff to actually win the game. Yeah. And you do a lot of like tiny little battles you were conserving your birds as much as possible. It was yeah. It was very well. To the vagabond a few times. God, yeah. Yeah. It was a fun game. It was a great game and just, you know, shouts to Luke who I've played against in Winter tournaments class. First round of last winter tournament if I remember right. And I think this one was a little bit of like, you know, I won this game, but you know, Luke totally kicked my butt the last time we faced off. So yeah, great player. And and Zeke never played against Zeke before. But what a what a fun group of individuals to play with. That was it was awesome. Absolutely. How was the soup? Oh my God. It was delicious. It was very tasty. I'm at the win. That was exhausted. And I just sat and ate the soup. It was so good. It was so good. I send a picture. There's a picture on our discord. Come check out. And that's why you got to join the good time society discord on the Woodland War machine channel. You can see a picture of Kyle's soup. I actually did repost it withland warriors because it was such a thing. But um, maybe I shouldn't. Okay. Well, that wasn't the only games that happened recently. And in fact, a couple of weeks ago, we forgot to mention that the community game of root has concluded. Yeah. I loved this. A fantastic game just to kind of jog everyone's memory. I was on team badgers. Jake, you were on team crows, and then Kyle, you were on team birds. And of course, there was the lizards team who didn't have a podcast host as far as I'm aware. But the last time we talked about this, I said, you know what? The badgers are going to have something to say before this game is over. And Kyle, you said my game is over. Right. But you just say that basically every game. So I said that like, I think it was like round two or something of this game. I was just like, well, that's our game. We're done for. I've heard you say it earlier. And I'm not joking. Um, but it turns out that Kyle's my first turn. It's happened before. It turns out that Kyle's game wasn't over. And the birds team did take home the victory. Yeah. And the badgers team dwindled down until we actually made the lore of how the arbiter became who they were. Because we were down to just one badger. It was ready to battle a ton. And we're like, all right, well, that is the arbiter now. The arbiter has been born. So yeah, in a way, both Kyle and I lied. Well, I have to say for this community game, it was a crazy experiment that went really, really well. Yeah. Yeah, it really did. Um, and just the team, the the eerie dynasty's team was like, oh my god, it was a dream. It was a dream team. We had Greg Gula, who was like one of the team captains who did an incredible job. We had a bot bot on the on the squad who was doing amazing. Francis was on our team, of course. I don't even have time to name every single individual on this team. But there was like a billion players who really helped out. Moss was great. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Go birds. Go birds. Yeah. Yeah, big. A lot of birds wins for you lately. Is that your new favorite faction, Kyle? I would I would say it's not my favorite faction. In fact, I'm going through a big Lord of the hundreds like Okay fan crush kind of phase right now. I really love that faction Every time somebody plays it in the tournament, I get really excited and I'm just like what's your opening like? I am playing Lord of the hundreds at every chance I get because it's still the one faction I haven't won with even in a casual game I still haven't found my Lord of hundreds victory. I've gotten to like 28. I don't know. I don't know I keep playing five player games though and Lord of hundreds is definitely worse if I play yeah A freshness is not nice if you miss the community plays root game and you're sad about it Don't worry because the whole archive is actually available for you to like comb through in fact They made the hidden chats public. Oh, and I'm in trouble because I said some mean things. Oh my god I don't know what Israel and the Palestine had to do with this game, but you had so many Oh my god. Yeah, I'm here to cause controversy That's my role You can find a link to the community plays root discord and you can look through all of the back and forth and there's a whole command center channel Where you can see every turn of the game and the updates as they happened Super fun and I know they will be doing it again in the future. So we'll notify you when that happens. Yes, please please be a part of this It is a crazy chaotic super fun and joyful experience for the community of love it and big big shots to Banzai and PJ darker if you have a great idea for a way to like get the community to play root together in some unconventional way Tap yourself on the head with the Matic wand. You can do it Let us know we would love to participate speaking of I am prepared to tell you that the Woodland War Machine podcast In concert with good time society has a very Special announcement that I cannot tell you about quite yet, but there is an announcement that is going to shatter your brains all right Also save those flight vouchers Save all your flight vouchers and remember 40,000 garrick bucks equals 20,000 southwest miles all you have to do is join the southwest airlines discord Go ahead and verify your twitch account there and then you will be able to fly to Portland Oregon sometime this Oh Portland Oregon that sounds nice. Okay. Um, here we go Let's get into the episode proper. Hey, hey, hey, welcome. It's with little war machine Yes, finally we're back to the brackets Getting into the trenches Second half of group C of this higherling world cup has brought us the sunward expedition the Corvid spies and the Theorious protector These are all the promoted sides of the underworld Tyreling pack and we're gonna go through them Talk about what who's a good floor who encounters y'all know how the tournament works and then y'all will decide At the end Well, not the end of the episode at the end of the episode will say you decide But if you want to vote on who advances you're gonna have to join that good time society discord on that woodland war machine channel We gave a rough ranking for the demoted side. I believe Raven centuries got first the gold I should say and then was it stoke protector afterward or what was it? Yeah, it was stoke protector no second I think stoke protector got bronze right Or did we leave it undecided? I can't believe we didn't write it down Can't believe none of us can listen to the episode. Yeah, I truly don't remember this one was pretty close I did listen to the episode and I've had several federal agents contact me about editing Jake. I will say I'm pretty sure the centuries one and then it was Protector second artisans third we went back and forth there was a debate for sure Yeah, this one was close no matter which way slice it hey friends future Jake here apparently we have the memory of jurbles But anyway the Raven centuries did indeed get first the stoke protector got second and the mole artisans were third Okay, well let's talk about this one. Yeah. Yeah Well, let's get into the sunward expedition Jake During set up place a foothold token and three expedition warriors in any clearing then once in daylight First place a foothold token and up to three expedition warriors in the clearing with no foothold If no footholds are in a supply remove one from the map in order to place it Secondly, you may move and then you may battle or place a warrior at each foothold. I assume a foothold is essentially a tunnel Yeah, it's a little token. Yeah, yeah, okay Okay, yeah, so you get you get a little um a little strike force right can pop up somewhere yeah, basically any clearing that where you can play stuff right and then May move and may battle as long as there's like enough warriors to pop up somewhere It's essentially like a a dig in a battle kind of situation, right? Yeah, yeah very much. Yeah, it's it's a useful little strike force um I suppose you can battle with any of the expedition warriors that are on the board you know have to use the ones that Just dug there, right? That's a great point. Yeah, so this is pretty flexible Once it's fielded. It's kind of army. I watched nitro revs video on this particular higherling set Which if you all are interested in the higherlings I would strongly recommend you checking out nitro revs route channel on YouTube Goes through all these things great and nitro said something really smart about these guys Which is like this this is like a beginner Higherling. This is like a very vanilla Strat forward No weird tricks here. It's just like get warriors. They hit for you. You move on. Yeah Yeah, so You know, I think this takes care of like the the very like bread and butter of route, right? Who's it good for? Well, it's the ones that want to battle and don't have access to it, right lizards cats Badgers honestly are it's good for just to have some extra rule You know, I just definitely move three guys there and then all of a sudden I rule a clearing I don't even have to have badgers there and now I'm benefiting from that recover or that delve It seems like they'd be pretty good for badgers. What's pretty crazy about this higherling is that they can pop up anywhere Much like dig. It's like there's no rule situation It's just like where do you want an army to suddenly appear right? They will appear there. Yeah You know, and if you're gonna hold them for multiple turns you can use the second ability to reinforce them All around and then have options everywhere I know that's the less optimal option you want them to be moving in battle But like if they've been dwindled by somebody else because you have to remove them from the supply What's that line? If no footholds are in the supply or move one from the map in order to place it Okay, so there'll always be a finite one But people could I guess smack those out of existence Will they go back to the supply? Go back to the supply. Oh, okay, so never meant I just feel like you would never place a warrior at each But hold you wouldn't want to right? What is the point of the second ability then of the or because you would always plop another one down? My guess is if all the warriors are concentrated in two clearings and you got a place foothold somewhere else Right Maybe you want to reinforce it over moving from one of those two clearings with a bunch of moles and battling I don't know I mean if it's on top of like a woodland alliance base then reinforcing would make some sense But yeah, you're right. I think the moving and battling is like Definitely more bang for the buck. How many warriors are in the supply for these guys? Great question. There are three foothold tokens and eight warriors which makes it the most outside of the cats for the higher links What a weird number though because eight is just one shy of three groups of three. Yeah, right? Yeah, it is interesting because it says up to three expedition warriors So if only it's only if they're in the supply to do so right But I guess the assumption is that you're moving and battling one of those is probably going back to the supply So yeah, if you're consistently moving and battling you should be able to play as a foothold and three warriors Somewhere most of the time. Yeah, I think it's like it's effective. It's consistent We talked about in the earlier episode about how That some of the powers were like really good in certain circumstances But the sunward expedition is just like it's always pretty good Yeah, I don't think it's gonna really win you the game But it is going to just give you a boon in the game Big time and the fact that you can target this higherling at Whatever point on the board you feel like going to and dealing some damage Means that if a vagabond is about to win the game you can just pop up and they're clearing and hit him If there's a quervid conspiracy plot that has one single quervid defender You can send these guys in to go and deal with that problem Um, yeah, it just feels like it's a nice kind of surgical Strike force kind of solution to if you're if you're having problems on the board Yeah, this is a great great The closest one that it reminds me of is kind of the eerie one the last dynasty Yes, the bullies though the last dynasty has like some fire power to it where it will come in in wreck shop Where is these guys aren't going to wreck shop, but they will keep things at bay Right. And they're more flexible about where they get to go. So totally I mean they're kind of consistently doing one important Battle per turn if you guys like Whereas the area dynasties Higherling is the last dynasty is it's like a I call it a cannon ball It's like a wrecking ball, you know shows up and it just bashes around in whatever area media areas and yeah Where's these guys pop up anywhere? I don't know if I like the sunrored expedition. I think it's a good a good hairline Awesome. Well then who does this help counter? I Would say that aside from the examples that I've given that this also helps to counter the eerie dynasties specifically for you know Taking advantage of those suited recruits, you know can knock out a roost in the back line pretty easily or at least we can have Yeah, this for The keepers in iron. I would say that this could be quite a nuisance They really need those badgers to stay alive. Yeah, and this could do one of two things It could contribute to Stopping the badgers from moving through kind of a rural situation. It could Take out or weaken a badger clearing that has some card boards and delicious cardboard in it and yeah, you know You won't you won't get the points for taking out their cardboard but taking out a way station Can be the right move in some circumstances and this would help you to do that. Yeah, it feels like any faction that needs like Go take a clearing This is this is a really good counter to because you can get there first Even if you're not battling them once they're there just like putting three warriors in a token there is like oh Okay, so now I have to bring four guys there, you know And if you're like the eerie you're like oh I have to battle them, you know, yeah, it's It's a good way to throw off the Factions that have to do a lot of calculating till I get to where they need to go if you can see where they're going the Sunward expedition can be a really good thwart to their point show up first the vagabond is is easy to counter with the Sunward expedition too because they're not gonna get any points for taking this faction out. Yeah And then lastly of course this counters the rats like every higherling I mean obviously just more pieces, but like yeah, they can go to the rats like most sensitive clearing and just like and they get to move and then May battle so you can stop up three moles in one little clearing and then move two of them out Oh, and that's just yeah, then they got to deal with both of those this is gonna be super annoying Go solo rats are doing to have a terrible time When the warlord was like first, you know, we were first seeing it and I was like oh no Like did they go too far like they made a faction that fights too much, you know, and now I'm like you poor rats If only they can find control everything like that so brutal yeah Okay, so should we rush for this higherling? I'm of the opinion that it's not worth rushing for you. I mean probably not probably not although those early battles could be Really no worries is three hits potentially. I don't know. I mean it could be enough to throw off your opponent's engine Yeah, you can really you can really throw a wrench in the engine pretty quick And then if you're presumably you're in the lead if you're if you're rushing right so Or this course someone comes to decisions. Oh, yeah, like if somebody's going double build eerie or something like this is a this is like Sorry, you don't get to do your plan, you know For real yeah, if anyone's trying something cute in the early game dividends something like this you can really make them pay for it This is a good tool to punish a greed strategy for sure Um the double sawmill cats or anything like that where it's like oh this person's already starting with like kind of a racing move Yeah, you could make them pay for that for sure totally So yeah, circumstantially maybe you should rush for it, but it's hard, you know, it's because it's just such a good old Cheeseburger of a higherling that it feels hard to be like you should throw your whole game off for it But if the circumstances arise it might it might be the right move Yeah, if you're at the lizards and you're in a low reach kind of environments and you're kind of You know the factions aren't able to really check each other for a while in the game This could tip the balance. This could be a nice way to Give yourself a leg up just be the lizards and score four points on your first turn Just do it That's easy. Are you letting it simplicity like Degrade itself in your eyes Sam? I don't know something about it just being one battle Which like it's a free battle. I should be stoked about this, but I don't know it just When you see the other higherlings the do battle, you know We're all excited about the combos that can come from the other things because they also have situational factors to them But I think you are ignoring the fact that they can teleport anywhere right they can appear in anything pretty powerful It's nice. I mean this this definitely goes a little beyond chip damage I would say this is this does put it into your last dynasty territory For me because the dice can only roll up to a three and you'll probably have three warriors So they can they can do one yeah potentially max hit on an opponent And if you got to just pick a place to like deals and damage each round for free I mean that I feel like that would tip the scales Pretty decently Well and last dynasty if as if I recall correctly can be whittled down right they don't they don't reappear until they're wiped out right right Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah these guys just keep reappearing in numbers of up to three depending on what's in the supply Yeah, and even still you're moving and battling with them as they exist and a move in battle is great Like that's gonna hit somewhere useful like 90% of the time right well Kyle's point of also like leaving a mold to be disruptive elsewhere Obviously is mostly oppression centric, but also just like That could be situational for what is needed to like deny rule somewhere else for somebody who had something clenched Previous yeah woodland alliance trying to like move and organize could get tripped off by a couple warriors and stuff like that It doesn't take much with these low number games. Yeah, yeah, and three warriors could be a martial law consideration for the alliance You know, that's a good point that it is a free martial law that might be a counter Yeah, see Sam like I actually agree with you. I think it is feels a little cheeseburgery a little standard But like I'm trying to find the brightness in this I think definitely it's it's it's not even mobility It's just ability to be somewhere is is such a heavyweight and I mean don't get me wrong. I like cheeseburgers. Yes I do this feels like the plain hamburger. This is Yeah, you're right. You're right Kyle. It is a hamburger. Yeah, yeah with not a lot of topics, you know, $1.79. Yeah Okay, so card interactions Obviously we got false orders because we can move people out and then get that sweet sweet hit on in the backline here Yeah, that's that's mega that's good then coffin makers, right? Of course We're gonna see a theme with these higherlings and how they remove warriors You know, you can add up stuff in the coffins pretty easy Yeah, it definitely interacts a lot with these like kind of battle-centric cards. I would even throw maybe like Eerie emigray into the mix a little bit. Ooh two free Movin battles. Yeah, it has just like an extra oppression on the board You know depending on what your needs are you can use this to deal damage elsewhere etc. Cover your own pieces Make more progress if you think of you were the cats and had Eerie emigray and sunward expedition granite You would never craft Eerie emigray as cats two foxes is pretty difficult though fox crafting cats is in right now I don't know if y'all have seen dominance wins are happening and you put that crafter in fox now that's like I don't even know this game anymore, you know what I mean? I love it I love it well the one fox craft crafting power is very very handy For the cats right false orders especially is it good to craft for them That's the power of that one card that it might change where you put that first workshop as cats, right? Okay Fox partisans, you know, yeah fox partisans is good special teams. I have none It doesn't seem like it's very special. It just seems like it's pretty good. Does anyone have anything? Yeah, add cheese and lettuce All right, live a little All right, we're gonna give this one I wrote a ma out of a shrug Out of how how many possible shrugs um well, I see Jake you've written here 179 in garrick coins $1.79 in garrick coins. It's a hamburger worth of garrick coins Or 179 miles on southwest That's gonna get you to Portland baby There's here's no special teams we can think of just before we move on. I guess not it's to cheeseburgery It's the thing is because we can't use crafted items we come across this in the The promoted side of the hirelings a lot because we can't use our crafted cards to interact with their warriors or anything right right right Um, so the combo with the crafted improvements is I think actually less And even with promoted hirelings sure there's really no special teams with like certain faction abilities I guess right. I mean Instant martial law was kind of like the most exciting thing we came up with right Well instant also appearing where sympathy is without having to move into it right So you don't trigger outrace right you place you would battle it and give them a card Yeah, if outrage gets triggered the player controlling the hirelings would pay the card. It's weird stuff That's in weird stuff. Yeah, it's in weird stuff Also, you could use these guys to move on the fairy and draw a card. Also weird stuff. Okay, I guess that's a little bit of a special team. Yeah. Yeah, we all, we tried. But that's the same special sauce you can put on every higherling. You know what I mean? Any higherling that moves at least. Okay, let's get to our next contender. Corvids spies, Jake. Corvids spies during setup place two spy warriors. One each in two clearings of a matching suit. Then once in daylight, first place two spy warriors among any clearings with enemy pieces. Then second, you have two options. Battle in each clearing with any spy warriors. Or in one clearing with any spy warriors, the controller takes a random card from each enemy with faction pieces there. Oh, now that's a spicy meatball. (laughing) Yeah, wow. Corvids spies is really good. Yeah. Also really cute art. Hat tip to Kyle Fehrand for this art. It's a Corvid warrior with these big round glasses and like a cute sweater. Yeah, it is a cute sweater. That's a spy sweater. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so a lot of times with these higherlings, it'll be like, do this or like kind of like a set up. For move. Yeah, exactly. Like some kind of thing that's like whatever. But the choice between battling in each clearing with spy warriors, I got him here. There are six Corvids spies. So already on your first turn, you're gonna be doing it in three clearings if you want because it sets up with one in like two and then you place two in one, right? So you could do and granted, it's tiny chip damage. But Sam, it's the first step of the once in daylight is place two spy warriors among any clearings with enemy pieces. So you can do four clearings. Oh, you are so right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so you could do a lot of chip damage with this, which Kyle, I know you love tiny little battles. I do love tiny little battles. They are actually so helpful. Yeah, almost as much as I love tiny little soups. No, I like a big soup. I like a tiny battle. (laughing) Okay, or you can steal cards, which is everyone's favorite thing that is so inaccessible in route. It's locked behind a vagabon ability, a three mouse crafter, and then the brigand, right? But here we get to steal, or I guess the extortion with. Yeah, extortion, the reason this is here. Exactly, yeah, this is like a themed extortion. But yeah, the idea that you could do this each turn. Ooh. Yeah. You could just get to place that warrior in a clearing that has the maximum number of faction presence there, and then immediately get three, or, and it depends on the player count, but you could potentially get a card from each of your opponents in one go, which is completely insane. Oh, this one's good. This is during daylight too. I mean, if you're a faction that crafts during daylight, why would you not just immediately do this on your daylight step? Yeah, so good. Okay, well, who is it good for specifically? Obviously, let's talk about the card factions here. They're gonna love that. Lizard cult. You know about the good lizard cult? Yeah, as you can tell, it's always the first action of a family. In daylight, in daylight, you get up to like three cards. Oh my gosh, give it to me. Give me, I've been thinking about this lately. Like, wouldn't it be fun to like play a game of root where you draft a higherling that you get the whole game? Oh my gosh. So what do I mean? It's just a game of like broken root, right? And this would be a very tempting one to choose. All right, so lizards, otters, badgers, and moles are gonna love that steel a card thing. Yeah. And lizards are gonna love the ability to do battles at all. And of course, the woodland alliance. Would love this ability. 'Cause you can mobilize all those cards you get or train. Yeah, yeah, you just like sap card wealth from your enemies and then turn it into your engine as the alliance. You can also potentially clear out threats to your wayward sympathy and suddenly they're free again, right? Exactly, yeah. Your, the woodland alliance is already sapping the card wealth of the table, right? That's true. With this, they are just like making, they're just bringing them to poverty, right? Like, you're gonna be getting by on like warlord hands for the rest of the game, you know? But also, who does this help counter? Well, how about those factions that care about cards? Lizards, otters, badgers, moles. (laughing) I wrote vagabond. Yeah, I think that's just 'cause this can pop up in a clearing with the vagabond and just punch 'em. Yeah. And anytime that you can get free battles against the vagabond for a nothing, that's pretty helpful. Yeah. It's pretty crazy that you fight in all of the clearing so that's how warriors are. It's incredibly impressive. You not only get to bop the, you're just always going to bop the vagabond in addition to the other x-clearing that you're gonna bop. And I think we should spare a thought for the good ol' Lord of the hundreds here. I think the Lord of the hundreds has really helped a lot by the Corvids buys, both in terms of you can get cards, but also you can place these Corvid warriors in your back line and use the multi-battle option to kind of clear the way for your represson. I think this could really help. Yeah, they clear all you've your oppression for you and if that's already done, then your zero card hand traditionally suddenly has some more cards. Yeah, you could have a stronghold. You do have one card. And so they will steal a hundred percent of your hand. It's happened to me before it's pretty brutal. You're like, "Oh great, I get to build." And you're like, "Nope." "Oh great, I have the item I need to craft to improve my horn." Nope, it's taken away. Yeah, it's bad. Okay, well, should you rush to get this? I think, yeah. This one seems worth it. This one seems very worth it. I mean, the abilities are great, but obviously we're all imagining everyone did one clearing and then I steal a card from everyone at the table, but that's not gonna happen on your second turn most likely. There's not gonna be that one clearing where everyone is. Right, but if you're getting two out of this, that's debatable, but if you're getting four battles out of it, Sam, on your first turn. I mean, even if it is crazy. That's crazy. It's awesome. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Also, think about how many ambushes this just might draw out of somebody's hand. Yeah, but a desperation, you mean? Yeah, or just like, "Oh, you're really gonna knock me down? I can't, I can't. I'll use the ambush on this one warrior or two warriors." There's two warriors in my sawmill clearing and they're gonna make this undefended cardboard. Like, I have to ambush. Yeah, yeah, this is excellent. I think rushing for it is definitely. Like, we always have to weigh the factor of when you rush for it, you hold it for us finite amount of time and then you have to give it away. Yeah, one or two turns. That's the catch 22 of rushing. I actually, I don't know. No, I'm convinced now because you place those two spies one in each clearing at the beginning of the game, right? Before everyone sets up, right? That's true, you know where they're at, right? So if you get them first, then you get to use them to battle as Chip Damon. You get to do the four or three battles in one turn. But after that, most likely those warriors have died and then whoever gets it next has to place two and they might get two battles with one damage each or one battle with two, but or maybe there's one of yours left over or the cards. Yeah, they pull from someone else and doesn't get the cards anymore. It's crazy that you get the cards. Oh, I would just take moles cards. It's not drawing. It's stealing. Like there's a double benefit to that. Yeah, that's a zero-sum card advantage to go for. Yeah, so maybe the ideal way to get a start with the Corvans spies would be to rush for them, use that first turn to do some battling to protect yourself. You're from using a greedy strategy to score points instead of doing more responsible things with your faction. But then that second turn, draw cards from people. If you're the kind of faction that needs to get your engine online if you've stepped away from that to score some fast points, well, this will help to charge that back up. So I think that this has a really high reward for those factions that want to go out of their way to rush for it. If you've rushed for it and taken it and then battled and then stole people's cards, you'd better be ready to table talk because the rest of the game you're going to be a pariah. [LAUGHTER] You are the villain, for sure. That's pretty bad. I mean, you do have to get lucky to get it twice. But even just one time for tiny battles or stealing a couple cards, there's probably a clearing with at least two people. Just get ready. Yeah, that's pretty good. OK, card interactions. Obviously, we've got stand and deliver. How sweet would it be to steal even more cards than a single turn? And then coffin makers, right? We are going to do a ton of little battles here. Yep. If we're talking about-- Just get help charge up, crowd. Four little battles? Like, definitely on average, that's getting you at least one point in coffin makers. Oh, yeah. I can see this teaming up with informants as well if you're using this to draw a bunch of cards from your opponent's hands. Why not also grab an ambush from the discard pile? Yeah, that's a good point. Especially for when you've drawn the iron of the whole table. Yeah. And maybe also forced out a nambush on that. earlier turn. Yeah, get an ambush for when they have Corvid spies and they start peppering your backline with a bunch of battles. Yeah. And in addition, I think to a lesser extent, a swap meet could pair really nicely with this card. I thought about it. Because you can swap meet first, kind of grab a random card from somebody, see if it's worth it, and then pick somebody else to target. Or, you know, if you like, like it's going on, you can keep sapping their strengths. I just think that in terms of card advantage, there's one way to play the Corvid spies where you're only caring about just like draining your opponent's hands. And I think that's like maybe as good as the little battles. It depends on the board state. So we're not going to mention codebreakers here. Guys, come on. Oh, like Jake, you could see what you're doing. Yeah, you could look at someone's hand and then decide if you're going to steal from them. Is it still a random card? But I mean, you know what what they got, you know, if it's the rats, it's not random. It's just one car. You don't need to look ahead and time for that. Well, you might be like, am I choosing the right. What's my 100% chance of getting? Yeah. Well, that's what's fun about swap meet is it's essentially codebreakers for the rats. Okay, cool. Any other card interactions we can think of? I mean, better Bureau bank will make you like maybe shed heat afterwards. Like, look, I took a card. Why don't you take another one? Oh, yeah, that's good. And I will also take another one. That's true. Maybe don't mention that. Just also just mention the gift and then quietly draw a card. Well, is it a gift if you stole from them and then you just say is a apology gift? It's like, it's like a balloon that you give this as I'm saw we yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I stole your sweater. Here's a scarf. That's what it does. I hope it is. I don't know. I haven't seen it. Yeah. One other card is false orders. I don't know if you guys know what this does, but it can move warriors into a clearing. Now, and if you're already doing something with false orders, it's a good combo with it. I don't think there's a reason to false orders just to combo this, but you can put three people in a clearing if you wanted to. Yeah, exactly. You can kind of shout out a little bit more to the maybe I don't think false orders is super relevant here, but I'm just saying if you want to maximize a card steal at the end game, so like I could see it being especially for like an endgame push that you guys might need a ton of cards for. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So we got Corvus spies. We got Eerie M. Agree where the warlord and were relentless. We're doing like 12 battles this turn. Right. Speaking of like theory crafting, I got special teams here. Okay. A player with Corvus spies, the brigand, which is the vagabond hyaline and then and stand and deliver can steal three cards from one player on a given turn. And if there's a thief, you make it for I thought about that, but the thief can't craft stand and deliver it. At least pre a rada. You're right. You're right. I literally had a whole thing where it's like once we are on a stand and deliver and I was like, wait a minute, we could do this with the brigand. Yeah, it's great. Cool. Overall score gents. What do we think of this one? Yeah. I'm going to give this one two out of two cute sweaters. I'm going to give this one five out of three cards. I just stole from you. Check your own cards. The warlord has left. Look at this four free battles out of three possible free battles. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. That's going to be a tough, higher wing to beat guys, especially given the demoted side. I don't want to tip our hat here to the whimmies who ultimately decide who they're all young. And we will do a recap where we strongly influence what they should vote for. I would say there's plenty of contrarians and independent thinkers. So we'll see. Oh, yeah. Last one. Yep. Furious protector, Jake. During setup, place the protector pawn in any clearing. Then as an ability, the protector cannot be battled or removed. Enemies cannot place pieces in its clearing. Yes. Then at the start of bird song first, you must move the protector, ignoring rule, of course. And then second, you must remove one faction warrior of each player, even you in the protector's clearing. Do not remove higherlings, however. So this guy comes in with his two handed sword and beheads one person from every faction in every way. Is that correct? The tallest one. The tallest guy. He's just so big that he just accidentally steps on one. Also, if we're talking about Kyle Ferenart, this might be my favorite piece of root art from the Marauder expansion. Oh my god. This one is legendary. Okay. So let's describe this. You do a Kyle. You're better at that. So we have a gigantic frowning elk with a big rack of antlers that's just glaring down. All right. He's got on this like gold and orange kind of cloak with a nice oak leaf insignia on it. And he's holding a like a broad sword point down. He's just like standing kind of at attention and looking down at this teeny tiny little mouse with a teeny tiny dagger who's got a big grimace and angry eyes. And he's just running straight at the protector who's completely unruffled. It's just clearly going to like flick this mouse away as soon as it gets close enough. The mouse is like a third the size of the sword. It's so tiny. It's amazing. Yeah, it would be clear that the the mouse's sword isn't tiny. It's a broad sword, but in mouse proportions. Oh, that's I don't know. It looks like a mouse dagger. It looks even tinier. He looks so angry too. You know, the mouse and mouse partitions that's inside the like barrel. It's got like a ten-knife clutch in its teeth. I think it's that mouse that's going after the protector. I wonder if Kyle Farron's got a name for that guy. He's really cute. All right. Well, who is now I will say about this one. Who is it good for versus who does it counter this to me is the hirling where it's way more about countering other factions than it is about boosting a faction. My first thought about who it's good for is the vagabond considering the vagabond doesn't have warriors. So that part where it removes one of you like doesn't matter. Also, we talked about how the protector and the vagabond the vagabond can all it's like run to the protector and then enemies can't place pieces in its clearing. However, unlike the demoted side of the protector, this furious protector actually doesn't protect anything other than like sympathy from going down or a mob to spread. It only prevents pieces from being placed. No, protectors just his last name. My name's John Protector. I kill people. Yeah, I don't think he's a protector of anything. I guess the forest is what the maybe the thing is here is because the other one doesn't allow fighting. This one just doesn't allow people to fight here because he beheads them. He does allow people to fight there. That's true. That's just everyone's a little bit weaker. Yeah, he just likes to battle first. Yeah. He's like the equalizer, right? Yes. Yes. He's a he's tough but fair. Okay, so it's good for the vagabond for that. It's good for the moles. Is it? Why? I guess I know why. Why did you say I think it's good for it's good for any faction that has plenty of warriors and no problem getting them out. Yeah. It's terrible for factions that have a thin number of warriors because everyone counts more. And so when you lose one for nothing and you can't place any pieces in that clearing anymore, things can get a little dice. I'm thinking of like the Woodland Alliance for example. Yes. Because usually they just got the one warrior guarding the sympathy. Yes. Or the no warrior guarding the sympathy. Right, exactly. And they can't play sympathy in the clearing with the furious protector. So you can use it as a kind of traveling like intense martial law. Right. Yeah. Definitely to me the number one counter is the Woodland Alliance because of the low warrior count. Well, you just move the protector onto the base. And then it's like, oh, that base that was guarded by three is now guarded by two. And that's a huge difference for the Woodland Alliance. Big difference. Yeah. And similar for the for the Corvette conspiracy as well. Yeah. There's a plot being guarded by a single Corvette warrior. Then this is going to just make life that much harder for them. Or like, you know, Corvette sometimes they have to set up turns ahead. So you go to a clearing with two Corvette warriors. You remove one and now they can't even plot there. Yeah. Exactly. That's brutal. Very disruptive. Who else is a good for though? I would say maybe the cats. This would be kind of nice for what it's enemy pieces can't or enemies can't place pieces in the clearing. All I'm thinking of is it prevents sympathy like plots and like lizards, right? Tunnels too. It's like a big. Okay. So that's the protector portion of it I think is like they can't put a bomb in there. You know, he's the keep with a uncontrollable sword. And enemies can't place pieces, which means that your saw mills would still generate wood. You still can. And I think that's like what I was thinking when I wrote cats is is because they're the police you might not, you don't mind paying the tax if you've got six cats in there already, if it clears one out of everybody that's invading, or conversely, if you move them out away from your front line, which I think is more important where people are amassing, you can stop the advancement of sympathy in your direction. - It does hurt badgers, 'cause badgers margins are thin. - Yeah, it just really, it feels like it takes the wind out of a building attack sometimes, right? - Does it go in and takes out warriors of your opponents? I guess in yourself too. Just one, I know, it seems small, but it can make a difference in a game of work 'cause you can't be everywhere at all times. And so. - I just want my opinion to be consistent. If I was like Luke Worm on three warriors doing a battle, I feel like I gotta be less warm on one warrior from each faction. 'Cause it does equal everything out, kind of. Right? I know that margins are better, it's bigger deal to go from two to one or whatever, but if it had the demoted side where it protected, like people can't battle you in that clearing, this is great, but it just prevents pieces from being placed there, which most of those pieces, you have a turn anyway. And you gotta move this guy so I don't know. - You're right. It's not as crazy as they can't move into there. It's essentially a keep right with a cannon that also hits your guys. (laughing) It also hurts you. I know. - You can't field hospital. - But that's the benefit, or that's the, sorry, that's the cost of being able to hit three other factions at once, I know that whatever. It's not like, I guess the same as getting able to deal three hits to someone who's a threat to you, but it's a guaranteed striping of three warriors. - The question I have is like, what's the better ability, the blocking placement of pieces or the removal of the warriors? - I feel like the removal of warriors. - Blocking the piece from being placed can be selectively pretty effective, 'cause if you just put this in the warlords clearing, that warlord is not recruiting now. - Yeah, that was my special teams is, you can move into the warlords clearing and you can't remove the warlord with the ability, but you could remove one of his minions, and then he won't recruit there. Yeah, that is like, I feel like the best use of the protector. Also, you can prevent badgers from encamping or decamping. - Yeah, that's huge. - And whatever suit you place it on, it's like the Corvid's can't recruit one crow in that suit. So it makes the recruit. - Yeah, you said the cats can't put down wood if they don't control them. - Correct, right. - If you put it on a sawmill, they don't get the wood. - So yeah, I kind of think that the placement of pieces denial is, you know, specifically very good, yeah. - More effective, but really the trick with this one is just like put it in your opponent's side of the board and just like let it be annoying over there. - Continue to live your life as though this guy doesn't exist. - Yeah, I know, I feel like the best case scenario is you never come across this guy. - He's not protecting you at all. Like I don't know. - Again, he's John Protector, he's lost his identity. He's an agent of chaos that you can't control too because he hits everybody. So he might dilute the policing force that you need later in the game, right? So if like he's wandering in the clearing far from you which you're fine with, but then he hits the one bird warrior that was in the clearing that could have dealt with the lizards that were about to like start up there. - Yeah, I do think that it, in the type of game where it goes along and everyone's grinding each other down and the margins get really thin in the end game. This guy could make a huge difference. - Yeah. - I think in most game states that are like early middle game kind of states that this guy is gonna have a very limited impact. - Yeah. - I mean, it just depends on where, where is that but I think it's a cool ability, but it's pretty narrow, pretty narrow ability. - So it's sounding like you're saying don't rush to get it. - I don't think we should rush to get the furious Protector. I'm gonna throw my game off the rails here. I want to make sure that nobody places a piece in one clearing. (laughing) - Yeah, it's not enough of a return and on that kind of investment 'cause you also don't protect your stuff with it. - Yeah. - To kind of contrast with Corvid spies, if you rush it, you get some battles back to kind of protect your stuff if you've built some buildings or whatever. And same with some of an expansion, you have the ability to kind of reinforce, get ahead of the game again by rushing for it. - Like a furious Protector? I don't know. - So where did he start? - Like he's only in one spot, right? So you are rushing for him is really dependent upon where he is 'cause he must first move before you do this. So he can't be in the place where he is (laughing) before he does his action. - Right, yeah. Yeah, and he doesn't have any effects. - Except for War of War. - Except for you can't place pieces there. - Right. - Yeah, yeah. While he's there, you can't place pieces there. - Okay. If you're a fourth player and you're setting up the hiraling, - Yes. - You can choose a clearing where the keep does not go. - Right. - Where people don't set up. - Yes. - Which is interesting. - 'Cause they can't place warriors, they can't place pieces there. - This is not about you. - You should, you rush for it, this is before the game starts. If you're a fourth player. - You should rush to set up. (laughing) - Just sit across from the person who owns the game and you'll be fourth player. (laughing) Yeah, okay. So, yeah, there's some considerations upon set up there because that is actually pretty interesting. You do deny someone a set up clearing. - Well, you also know that in the rushing context, where it will potentially be when you get it, it won't be in that space. It will be one space away. (laughing) - Wouldn't this prevent enemy pieces from being placed not just the keep, but like warriors and stuff as well? - Yeah, I think so. - It's a non-set up spot. - Exactly. You deny a whole clearing upon set up. - So if you're like the dutchy and you're setting up and you have to be next to this guy, like that's kind of a little bit annoying 'cause you're not gonna be able to sway Brigadier on your first turn potentially. - Yes, possibly. Though all those factions like Lizards and Moles where it's like, here's five warriors, put them among adjacent clearing or whatever. You could like stack them if you go between two clearings and one of them, you can't even place pieces in, then you put them all in the other one. - That's a good point. That's a good point. - If you're willing to burn a move, you can still move into it. - Very true, very true, but you're gonna lose that warrior. (laughing) - No, you're not gonna lose the warrior. - No. - You're correct, because it's bad of there. Probably into your tunnel. (laughing) - Yeah, you're gonna move in there. - You're gonna move in there, other clearing. - Look at the hit Moles first. Let's be honest. - But think about this, that wouldn't it be the case though that the fearless protector would just stay put until it's actually hired? - Yes, that's what that's saying. - But the first step in at the top of daylight is move him. - Right. - True, once it's hired. - Right, yes, yeah, yeah. - So he won't ever swing. - That clearing will be safe. - The adjacent clearing is gonna be the problem. - Everybody get really close to him, he's gonna move. (laughing) - Yeah, really weird. Really weird this one. Okay, some card interactions. First of all, coffin makers is actually pretty good here. - This is great. - We're gonna be removing a lot of warriors, so that one works great. Also, I thought propaganda bureau. - Oh, that's a fun one. - Right, if we remove one from everybody and then I remove an extra from you and place one of mine, all of a sudden the margins got thinner and that ability gets even better. - That's really taking advantage of that kind of zero sum. - Yeah. - Kind of situation there, yeah. - Cool. - One last thing with the rats is, you can move into the warlords clearing, okay? That removes one of the rat warriors, prevents them from recruiting and prevents them from inciting. - Yes, and also they'll never be able to score an oppress. - Right, point for that clearing, because the presence of the furious protector just a hard counter to the hundreds. - The hirelings really have it out for that faction. - Yeah, well I guess it makes sense, right? They're like people like, "I'm for hire." There's a warlord and I don't like him. Not gonna help him oppress clearing, so that's what I'm-- - Oh yeah. - Actually, they do though. - No, they don't. - No. - They don't distract if they are owned by the lord of the hundreds, they don't distract from the oppress. - I mean, this could be a real problem with oppression because he could slice off your one guy you have to-- - Oh yeah. - Yeah, that's right. - That's right, clearing's get a little thin sometimes when you're like, all right, I gotta get five here. - Okay, I thought of another special team. This isn't that special, but if you're the scoundrel, whatever clearing the furious protector is in, you can't blow it up. - Right. - You need to place your torch, token on that clearing in order to use your ability, scorched earth. - For a score, what do we give in the furious protector? - I'm gonna give this one 50 out of 16, five chainmail links. - I'm gonna give this one out of one of my own guys. (laughs) - Yeah, I'm gonna give this two out of 17, actually you can't place peace there. Two out of 17 years. - I actually think this might be the weakest half of the hiraling in this group. - Yeah, the protector really stumbled in the second half of this game. - Yeah, I think the demotivate side is better than the promoted side for this. - Absolutely, yeah, no, I definitely agree. - I agree with that. - All right, so closing thoughts. Let's go over how we combine these two things. Let's just kind of go over card by card what it would be. Okay, so for the moles, you got mole artisans, just a quick recap that's like, when you craft a card with an item, you don't have to discard the card, you get it back in your hand, and you can end your turn with six or more cards. Okay, and then you pair that with the expedition, right? The cheeseburger where you're placing the foothold tokens and rewarriors and doing a battle, or you can recruit more guys, you're probably never gonna do that. Okay, that's pretty solid. - I think that's a very reasonable shot for top of this group. - Yeah, I really love the demoted side, and like I said, the promote side is really useful. It's always gonna be useful. We talked about all these moments where the protector could do something, always just doing a hit wherever you want is good. - Yeah, and this one was when we were like, should you rush for it? Maybe. - Yeah, maybe. - Compare that with Raven Centuries, the demoted side. In battle, you deal an extra hit if that clearing has your buildings or tokens. - Yeah, sort of embedded agents. - Right, kind of as I'm using on offense, as we talked about. - Which is very cool. - And then-- - And then-- - Spiky, love that. - The Corvid Spies, where we're putting out the spies, we can do battles in each clearing with a spy, or we can steal a card from each player in one clearing with a Corvid spy. - Yeah, this one is crazy good, I would say. And to me, in the second half, a Corvid spy has really had a good showing. - Yeah. - And the first half, they came out with that with gold medal, right? - I think so, yeah. - Leading the group. - Yeah, like-- - Well, and yeah, I felt like they just got further ahead in the second half. - Yeah, I kind of feel like they got gold in both halves here. (laughing) That's how soccer matches work, right? You get medals in each half. - Yeah, multiple golds. - Yeah, I have to watch them time. - They could just do so much in so many places. It's so crazy. - And it's just like whatever is going to benefit you most, you should do, you know, if it's stealing cards from your opponents, or if it's doing some chip damage. I think like both of those are incredibly useful. And it's like, this is actually an either or that you might struggle to decide between, which is really cool. - All right, and then the protector, the stoic protector of the demoted side is enemies can't battle or remove your faction pieces where at the protector in that clearing, and then you have to move them every turn. And then the promoted side is you move them, ignoring rule, and then you remove one faction warrior from each player. Also enemies cannot place pieces at the clearing with the protector. So, so that one happened. - John Protector. (laughing) - I mean, this pairing is also like a strong option, but it feels like it's compared to the mobility of the other two, like the presence of the other two. It feels like, oh, one clearing at a time, things are gonna be either stagnant or bloody. - Yeah. - Yeah, I like the impact that this Higurling has on the board. I think it's very fun. I think it's a cool ability. And I think it does something nice for the game, right? There's like one clearing where things are like a little weird and that kind of thing migrates around. It's like a force of nature, right? I think that's a cool thematic kind of thing, but just in terms of the strength of the abilities, I think it's a little bit underpowered compared to the other ones in this category. - All right, so we've set our piece over three hours of peace about these particular hirelings. But we wanna hear what y'all have to say. You will choose which hireling moves on to the final. - Are we going to give them all three choices or are we gonna limit it to them to two? Because I don't know. I feel like we kind of-- - If the listeners want to troll us and put the protector in the final, they're gonna find out that their troll choice doesn't fare very well in the final. I think that we can leave it up to them. I trust them to make the best choice. It's the crowds. And I know that they will, okay? - Absolutely. We should spare a thought though for the grabability of these meeples. I do think the protector has a great people. - I'm glad you said that Kyle, because there's one way where the protector is clearly the best and that is the best people. - It's so cool. - I do like the crows, goggles, the-- - Yeah, the most spectacular ones. - The art for the crows is pretty cool. - Yes, the art on the cards is very good. But in terms of just meepability, I do have to give this to the protector. - It's really awesome, yeah. It's also big, which I love. - Yes. - Oh, you got it. - Wow, that's so cute. - It's also kind of gold, which is fun. - Yeah. Yeah, all the other pink kyrlings are pink. This one is just deer colored. (laughing) Anything else, folks? - I think we did it. So I'll put a thread in the Woodland War Machine channel of the Good Time Society Discord day. Or when this goes up, it'll be available. And then a couple days after after they've had some deliberation to all agree that the Corvids are the best, they'll go ahead and vote. - Yeah, yeah, this one feels like a formality, but you know what, we decided that we were gonna let the Wemis choose since Group B. So I think we gotta stick to that. - Honestly, I trust you all out there. I trust you all to come up with the best choice here. - Yeah. Hey friends, future Jake here. We do trust you all. So we're gonna let you decide between any of the three and we're not gonna be disappointed if you don't choose the Cros. I think upon further reflection that we undersold the protector a little bit, especially given that it stops all recruiting for all factions in that clearing. You know, it doesn't matter if it's just the Cros or the specialty with the warlord. If in the case of a one-roost eerie, it's gonna turmoil them on recruit the worst way to turmoil. So in the Spirit of Fairness, when you come join the Woodland War Machine channel and I started new thread, you can vote for any of the three. And we do have one more group left before the finals. That is going to be group D, which is gonna have the Woodland Band, the rats and the keepers. - Yeah, so that was so exciting for this group. - All right, so for all of you out there, go ahead and check out the Linda Tournament, put it on in the background while you do your regular work. It's super fun to check in on because we are so lucky this February to be overwhelmed with the amount of. (laughing) (upbeat music) (laughing) - And then we end the episode. (laughing) - We all simultaneously fell off a cliff just then. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughing) - Sorry, it seems like I am wanted for questioning in regards to a missing editing Jake, it seems like I don't know what you're talking about. - Are the sirens outside like. (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) (humming) - Root, broot, broot, broot. (laughing) - I don't know if that's gonna work.