Root Battle Odds: What the Dice Really Do

Welcome to Level 2. At Level 1 you learned what each faction wants. Now you start choosing fights on purpose, and that starts with knowing what Root’s two dice actually do.

The good news: Root’s battle math is small enough to learn by heart. Two dice, one simple rule about who gets which, and one cap.

How the dice work

Each battle die has twelve faces, showing the numbers 0, 1, 2, and 3, three faces each. So each die is an even four-way split. Roll both. The attacker deals hits equal to the higher roll, and the defender deals hits equal to the lower roll.

That gives these chances for the two numbers:

On average the higher roll is about 2.1 and the lower about 0.9. Attacking is favored, by design.

The cap

Here is the rule that changes everything: nobody can deal more rolled hits than they have warriors in the clearing of battle. A single attacking warrior can never deal more than one rolled hit, however high the dice.

Going from one warrior to two adds about three quarters of a hit. Going from two to three adds almost half a hit more. A fourth warrior adds nothing to the roll, though it does keep you ruling the clearing after the dust settles.

The same cap protects defenders. A clearing with one defending warrior deals at most one hit back, about 0.56 on average. With two defenders it is about 0.81, and with three, 0.88.

Will you clear the clearing?

The question that matters most is usually: will my attack remove every defending warrior? These are the chances for a single battle, before cards or abilities.

Two patterns stand out. Attacking a single defender is nearly sure with two warriors, so a lone warrior guarding a building is a thin wall. And three defenders are hard to clear in one battle: under half the time, even with three attackers.

Defenseless targets

If the defender has no warriors in the clearing, the attacker deals one extra hit, and extra hits ignore the cap. A lone attacking warrior against an undefended building or token always removes at least one piece, unless an ambush stops it. That is why the Alliance’s sympathy and the Marquise’s wood are so easy to pick off, and why a roost or sawmill with no guard is an invitation.

Ambush math

An ambush deals two hits before the roll, and those hits come off the attacker’s warriors first. That does two things. If you attack with two warriors, a matching ambush removes both, and the battle ends. If you attack with three, you survive with one, and your roll is now capped at one hit.

So the defender’s hand matters. Before attacking a player who holds cards, ask whether they could hold an ambush matching this clearing. There are five ambush cards in the deck: one fox, one rabbit, one mouse, and two birds, which match anywhere. The attacker can foil an ambush with a matching ambush of their own. The card tracking lesson at Level 3 shows how to count which ambushes are still out there.

The factions bend the math

• The Woodland Alliance fights with Guerrilla War: as defender, they take the higher roll and the attacker the lower. Three Alliance warriors at a base deal about 2.1 hits back on average, and an attacker deals at most the lower roll. Attack a base only with a plan.
• The Eyrie’s Commander leader deals one extra hit when attacking, which lifts every row above.
• The Vagabond caps his rolled hits by his undamaged swords, not warriors. As defender with no undamaged sword, he is defenseless.
• Cards like Brutal Tactics (an extra hit as attacker, but the defender scores a point) and Sappers (discard for an extra hit as defender) shift single battles. Armorers can be discarded to ignore all rolled hits taken in one battle.

When is an attack worth it?

Weigh what you remove against what you lose. Every enemy building or token removed scores you 1 point, and your opponent may lose future points too: a roost removed costs the Eyrie points every Evening after. Warriors removed score nothing, but they change who rules the clearing next turn.

A good attack usually has three warriors, a target with at most two defenders, and a building or token at the end of it. Our article on area control without the bloodbath looks at why Root’s fights are so lopsided by faction.