– Hi Jimmy, want to play a game?
– Sure Timmy! What should we play?
– Wroth, the asymmetric area control game.
– Oh, you mean Root!
– No, no Wroth the area control with multiple asymmetric factions where you need to be the first to score 30 points!
– Oh, you mean Root!
– No, Jimmy, I mean WROTH!
Leaving aside this cheesy segway once you are done reading the rule book for Wroth, you cannot immediately compare it to the titular game, Root, as the similarities between the two are uncanny.
Wroth is an area control game, true and true. You place dudes on a map; each area you have majority in will grant you some points. If you dominate the area, as in there are no other players pieces there, you get an extra point. You win the game by being the first to reach 30 points and… killing everyone along the way. Weh-hee fun times. So, is this game worth it? Should you buy Wroth if you already have Root in your collection? Short answer YES. Now let’s see why.
Game setup and flow
Dudes on a man, not much of a setup am I right? Just place the play mat representing the board in the middle of table, next to it place the VP tracker. Randomly distribute 8 VP tokens across the different areas on the map. Each player choses a faction. Grab all their troops and deploy them across both your player mat as indicated and the play board. Based on the number of players each player gets a different number of action dice. Each faction comes with 3 unique player abilities from which you may now select one. After that you can begin the first round.
Wroth is played over an undetermined number of rounds, with each round containing 6 phases. In the first phase you do the maintenance and you just pass the first player marker. For the second phase make sure you collect the spoils of war. Going through each of the map’s region in turn order, the player with the most troops collects the bonus for that region but not the VPs. These bonuses may vary from getting an extra troop movement to a kill or just receiving a plain corra(the monetary resource of the game). Needless to say, both 2 phases are skipped in the first round. In phase three the groundwork takes place and each player places 2 basic troops in the deployment zone, receives a corra and roles the all-seeing eye dice. In phase 4, one player rolls all the available action dice and then in turn order each player drafts 2 dice, so be careful as these will be your actions for the round. Ahh yes, now that the admin work is out of the way the killing can start via the action phases. It is now that you will play the dice you drafted 1 by 1 in order to fulfill different actions and achieve player majority in each area of the map. Actions range from summoning units, moving them, killing other units or performing your special ability. During this phase you will also be able to mine for corra and spend that corra to buy special elite units. Each faction has its own units with different abilities. Finally, after everybody exhausts their actions, it is counting time. No, no don’t go away there is no more admin work to do, I promise, now we count points we are going to get. For each area see who has majority and grant them the points on the VP tokens. If an area contains only one player’s pieces, that player dominates and he receives an extra 1 point on top of the VP token’s value. Rince and repeat until somebody reaches 30 points. If one player has reached the 30 points in phase six that player wins. If multiple players have reached 30 points or exceeded that, the player with the most points wins.
The Good
The first thing that struck me about Wroth was the artwork. Although it looks like some elves and undead decided to throw a rave party in a lush forest during the last days of summer, it suits the theme perfectly. The mix of colors and drawings intertwine impeccably high fantasy with neon SF and create a perfect setting for a world which was ravaged by war for centuries.
These days there is a tendency in the boardgame design space to mix and match mechanisms even if they don’t fit. I blame this strictly on the need to be original in a design space that has less and less room for originality, but that is a different article for another time maybe. The point I am making is that in a world of convoluted board games having a streamline design like Wroth is a treat. You play your dudes on a map; you kill some other dudes and that is it. No deckbuilding needed to kickstart the game, no auction biding to get the right orders for your army, no, just dudes on a map fighting, simple, old fashion and dare I say elegant.
Speaking of streamline and elegance, I think Wroth does asymmetry right. For sure, it is way easier to balance out factions and asymmetric powers when every faction has the same core principle in mind, in this case needing territories to score points. Going back to my earlier point about Root, it is fantastic that in a war game you have factions that can win by trading or by gathering items but not everybody has time and energy to learn 4 factions and the way the interact between themselves. This is where Wroth outshines Root in my opinion.
The Bad
To be honest I don’t have a lot to complain on this one, maybe a few nit-picks like the rule book not being flushed out enough, but the game is so simple that after your first play you get a good understanding of the rules; or that virtually there is no theme in the game. I mean there are 7 factions that have been warring for centuries. “Why?” you ask well we don’t know and neither do the factions because such much time has passed that they don’t know anymore. Insert face palm emoji, anyway this is a boardgame if I want a good war story I can read “All is quiet on the western front”.
Conclusion
For me Wroth will be in my 5 top games played in 2025. I missed playing an elegant, straight to the point, dudes on a map game. And if you are also in need of a quick, fast and easy to teach area control, jump in and pick this one up.
