Keepers in Iron

Return to the Woodland, recover what was lost, and rebuild your order one relic at a time.

Hard

Background

The Keepers in Iron are a devout order of badger knights who were once exiled from the Woodland. They have come back with a single purpose: recover the sacred relics — figures, tablets, and jewelry — that were scattered and buried in the forests during their long absence.

You begin with modest forces and a handful of waystations, the order's holy shrines that serve as both recruiting posts and crafting sites. Your warriors fan out across the map, delving relics from adjacent forests and carrying them back to be recovered. The order grows through its Retinue — a column of woodland followers whose actions power everything you do each turn.

How you win

You score victory points by recovering relics — removing a relic token from a waystation clearing and scoring points equal to its face value (1, 2, or 3). Each time you recover one relic of each type (a figure, a tablet, and a piece of jewelry) you earn an additional 2 bonus points for completing a set.

With twelve relics on the board worth up to 3 points each, plus set-completion bonuses, the Keepers' theoretical maximum is enormous — but the scoring is entirely front-loaded on your ability to rule clearings, delve relics out of forests, and protect them long enough to recover. Get your Retinue engine running early and spend the mid-game harvesting the highest-value relics before opponents can contest the clearings you need.

How they play

Your turn runs on the Retinue — three columns of cards on your faction board, each column enabling a different type of action during Daylight. The leftmost column gives Move actions, the middle column gives Battle then Delve actions, and the rightmost column gives Move or Recover actions. You act with each card in a column in any order, left column first, then middle, then right.

The catch: whenever you delve or recover a relic, you must count how many clearings of the matching suit you rule. If that number is less than the relic's point value, you discard the Retinue card you just used. A 3-point relic demands that you rule at least three matching clearings — or it costs you a card.

In Birdsong you manage your waystations with three steps: Encamp (swap a warrior for a waystation), Decamp (swap a waystation for a warrior), and Recruit (spend a suited card to place two warriors at a matching waystation). In Evening you trim oversized stacks with Live Off the Land, fill empty Retinue slots with Gather Retinue, and draw cards scaled to your waystations on the board.

Strengths

✓
Twelve relics worth 1–3 points each, plus 2-point bonuses for completing sets of all three relic types, give the Keepers one of the highest possible point totals of any faction. A well-executed relic harvest can carry you to 30 before opponents find an answer.
✓
Your action count is not fixed — it grows as you fill your Retinue columns. A full Retinue of ten cards lets you take substantially more actions per turn than most factions can match, making the mid-game extremely powerful once the engine is built.
✓
Encamp and Decamp let you convert warriors into waystations and back every Birdsong, giving you unusual flexibility to adjust your board presence without spending Daylight actions. You can lock in a waystation when you're safe and pull it back to a warrior when the front lines shift.

Weaknesses

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Recovering a high-value relic requires ruling several clearings of the matching suit, or you discard a Retinue card for the privilege. Lose board presence at the wrong moment and your most valuable actions start destroying the engine you've spent several turns assembling.
!
Your Retinue starts thin and your warrior pool takes cards to replenish. In the first few rounds, before your action engine is filled, you are vulnerable to early aggression that can set you back several turns of Retinue recovery.
!
Your whole scoring line depends on ruling specific clearings long enough to delve and then recover relics. An opponent who parks warriors on key clearings — especially matching-suit clearings near high-value relics — can stall your engine with surprisingly little investment on their part.

Tips & tricks

Tip
Spend the first two to three rounds filling your Retinue to eight or more cards before you attempt risky recoveries. A deep Retinue absorbs the occasional card loss without crippling your action count — a thin one does not.
Tip
When you have a choice, go for 3-point relics first. They score more per action and complete sets faster, but only attempt them when you genuinely rule the required number of matching clearings — otherwise you're burning Retinue cards for nothing.
Tip
A waystation must be in the same clearing as a relic for you to recover it. Place your waystations in clearings adjacent to forest spaces that are likely to hold the relic types you need, so your Move-or-Recover column can be productive from the moment the Retinue is ready.
Tip
Live Off the Land removes one warrior from every clearing where you have four or more at the end of Evening. Treat that as a signal: spread your warriors to additional clearings rather than stacking them, and use Decamp to convert excess presence into board-positioning flexibility rather than letting Evening trim your stack for you.

Walk through a turn →

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