Root

Root is the game we most enjoy playing and least enjoy teaching. It earns Bamboo 2/5 and Pandas 5/5 from us, and those two numbers are the whole argument: four factions with four separate rulebooks, and a box that hands one player 25 warriors and another player none at all. When it lands, nothing else on our shelf feels like it. When it does not, somebody spends an hour unsure what their own faction is even supposed to be doing.

First time out, the Root review lays that trade-off out in full, and our faction ranking sorts the base four by how forgiving they are rather than how strong they are. Start with the Marquise, and know that there is one faction we would not hand a beginner. If your table is usually just two people, read Root at two players before you buy, because the design assumes a coalition will form against whoever is ahead, and at two there is nobody to form one.

Once the base game is worn in, the expansion ranking puts Riverfolk, Underworld, Marauder and Clockwork in order by what each one actually adds, and Root vs Scythe is for anyone stuck choosing between the two asymmetric heavyweights everybody recommends.