Root Marquise de Cat Strategy: Wood, Workshops, and Rule

The Marquise de Cat starts the game owning the Woodland. She has a warrior in eleven of the twelve clearings, three buildings, and a keep where no one else can place pieces. She also has more ways to spend an action than actions to spend. The Walking Through Root booklet says it plainly: of all the factions, she is the most starved for actions.

This lesson covers how she scores, how to stretch her turns, and how to stay standing when the whole table decides she is ahead.

How does the Marquise score?

Mostly by building. Her faction board has three tracks of buildings: sawmills, workshops, and recruiters. When she places one, she scores the points printed on the space it uncovers. Each new building of a type costs the same or more wood than the last (1, then 2, 3, 3, and 4), and the points climb as each track empties. In the walkthrough, her first new sawmill scores 1 point and her first new workshop scores 2.

She also scores the usual ways: 1 point per enemy building or token removed, and the listed points for crafting items.

The engine: what each building does

• Sawmills make wood. In Birdsong, each one places a wood token in its clearing. She has only 8 wood tokens, so wood is a real limit.
• Workshops let her craft. She activates workshops in clearings matching a card’s suits to craft it, and each workshop works once per turn.
• Recruiters make warriors. The Recruit action places one warrior at each recruiter, and she may take it only once per turn. Some recruiter spaces also uncover an extra card draw each Evening.

Every building fills a slot, and slots are scarce. Ruins block slots until the Vagabond explores them, and without a Vagabond they stay blocked all game. Before building, ask where your last few buildings will fit, not just the next one.

Three actions, and how to get more

In Daylight, she crafts first, then takes up to three actions from this list, in any order: Battle, March (up to two moves), Recruit (once per turn), Build, and Overwork (spend a card matching a sawmill’s clearing to add one wood there).

The Learning to Play guide calls her way to get more Hawks for Hire: each bird card she spends buys one extra action. That makes bird cards precious. They can also craft, ambush, or pay for Field Hospitals, so every bird is a choice.

Workshops are the long answer. The walkthrough points to cards like Command Warren and Cobbler, which give her extra actions every turn once crafted. A second workshop in a suit you draw often pays for itself.

Keep the wood connected

To build, she spends wood from the chosen clearing, or from clearings linked to it through clearings she rules. One lost clearing can cut a sawmill off from the place you wanted to build.

• Put sawmills where their wood can reach your next build sites.
• Keep a few warriors in the clearings that hold the network together. One warrior in every clearing looks strong at setup, but a single attacker can flip a clearing with one defender.
• Use Overwork when a build is one wood short. It turns a card into a building this turn.

The keep and Field Hospitals

While the keep is on the map, no other faction can place pieces in its clearing. The Alliance cannot put sympathy there, so it cannot revolt there either. Enemies can still move in and attack.

Field Hospitals lets her spend a card matching the clearing where her warriors were removed to put them all back at the keep. The walkthrough’s advice is to save it for when several warriors fall at once. Spending a bird to save one warrior usually costs more than it returns.

If the keep is removed, it never comes back, and both abilities are gone. It is also a token, so the attacker scores a point.

Setup choices that matter

You choose the keep’s corner and place your three starting buildings in the keep’s clearing and the clearings next to it, in any combination. The Eyrie then set up in a far corner, diagonally opposite if they can. Look at slots and suits: a corner with room to grow and neighbors of the suit you want to craft in gives your first ten turns somewhere to go.

Surviving as the target

Early on, the Marquise usually looks like the leader, because she is everywhere. Expect the Eyrie and the Alliance to push on her. In the two-player game, the Learning to Play guide notes the Eyrie must grow fast just to keep her in check.

In a four-player game, the guide warns her not to chase a few extra points while the map fills with interlopers: lose control, and it is hard to win back. Spend some actions policing, not only building. The area majority explainer shows why ruling a clearing in Root is about control, not just presence.