Eyrily Prescient

The last day of the summer holidays for Stan, and we broke out Root for yet another play. Stan's track record with the Vagabond is impressive and it seems he was bored of beating me with it now, as he decided to play the Marquise. Tempting as it was to give him a taste of his own Raccoon-flavoured medicine, I played the Eyrie and declared it would be a straight up war.

Stan built a recruitment station as close to me as possible whilst I moved out from the Eyrie's initial position at the bottom of the board. I conquered a first clearing with ease, and the game was afoot.

As the Marquise, the focus is on building, but having seen me neglect the threat of the Eyrie when playing the cats Stanley went aggressive as soon as possible. On the second turn of the game I countered, moving into a clearing where he had three cats and brought three birds with me. I only needed to rule the clearing (ie have more pieces there than him, or in the Eyrie's case, the same number of pieces as they win ties) so as long as I didn't roll 3-3 I'd be able to build.

I rolled 3-3. Despite the early stage, the birds fell into Turmoil, deposing their leader and lost all their points - which fortunately for me, was only one point.

But with three birds lost and my charismatic leader replaced by a despot, things were looking grim early on. Every time I placed a roost, Stan went for it. I fought back and regained ground on the board and on the points chart, with Stanley hitting 11 points as I gained six. I managed to negotiate some tricky decrees, but then Stan suddenly played a Dominance card - now, instead of winning by reaching thirty points, he merely had to control two (diagonally opposite) corners of the board.

I marched to the south-west, and jettisoned him from there. He countered in the south-east, and as he controlled both northern corners, it was looking grim. I needed to recruit in the one roost left to me, march south and gain control of the south-east corner - which I did, by a hair. However I had no momentum left, and Stan built and recruited there, leaving me even more bereft. I attacked one last time, needing to roll a two or a three - anything but a zero or a feeble one in attack.

some pics from earlier

I rolled a one and a zero.

It was a game of distractions with builders here and Joe asking for snacks on a seeming minute by minute basis, but all the same - a thumping.

In the evening then, we went head to head again, with the same factions as our early battle. This time the early dice smiled on me as the Eyrie spread out across the board, and even a relatively early turmoil didn't have too much effect. With my charismatic leader deposed, I went for the commander instead, only I kept forgetting to do the extra damage in battle he causes.

I also kept forgetting to craft. I was getting too excited by the fact I was in such a strong position, especially when a Dominance card fell into my hand - control three mouse clearings to win the game outright. I already controlled them, and had avenues to move more birds in. Ignoring the fact I was scoring four points per round - or more, if I ever remembered to craft anything - I threw down the gauntlet and jettisoned my marker from the points track.

Stanley sallied, gathering his troops and piling in to gain control of one of them. I counter-punched and got it back, and this went on for a couple of turns. My problem was that while I could kick him out easily enough, Stanley was still scoring points, whilst I had forewent that pleasure with the Dominance card, which I was now regretting. I realised I'd have been past 30 points easily if I hadn't had the rush of blood, but as it was my despotic foolishness meant Stanley eked out his second victory of the day - in 45 minutes.

Madness