Knaves of the Deepwood

Three Captains, one Stash, and a forest full of Prisoners — mock the powerful and protect the weak.

Easy

Background

The Knaves of the Deepwood are forest rogues who mock the powerful and protect the needy. They are exclusive with the Vagabond — both cannot be in the same game. You field three Captain warriors (chosen at setup from a larger pool) each backed by a crew of rowdy Skunks that can move with them through clearings and forests alike.

The Knaves run on two interlocking loops. First, a Captain rotation: your three Captains must each act once before any can act again — choose a Captain in Birdsong, act with it all Daylight, Retire it in Daylight, and it cannot be chosen again until all three have gone. Second, a Stash of items (placed face-up when gained) that you flip face-down to power special actions; items reset to face-up only when all three Captains complete a full rotation in Take It Easy. Balancing when to spend items versus when to save them for the reset is the defining skill of this faction.

How you win

Each Evening, Mock the Powerful scores you 1 VP for every 2 Prisoners and 1 VP for every 2 Acclaim tokens on the map. You want both in large numbers, every turn.

Prisoners are enemy warriors your Captain captures during battle via your Have at Thee ability — instead of being removed, a hit warrior is moved to an adjacent forest. Certain item actions like Assault let you take every warrior you hit as a Prisoner in one devastating sweep. Acclaim tokens spread across the board via item actions (Revel, Gift, Serve) and via Protect the Weak, gradually building a passive VP engine that scores every Evening regardless of whether you fought anyone.

How they play

Each Birdsong, you Ready a Captain: place its card face-up in your Acting Captain slot and gain its passive effect for the turn. If that Captain's warrior isn't on the map, you place it in any forest (removing any Prisoners in that forest and adjacent forests) but take only three actions this Daylight instead of four.

In Daylight, you get up to four Captain Acts in any combination: Move (move the Acting Captain, bringing Skunks along), Battle (fight in the Acting Captain's clearing — your Have at Thee ability captures the warriors you hit as Prisoners rather than removing them, and places Acclaim in the clearing if your Captain is still there at battle's end), Filch (once per turn: craft using your Captain as the crafting piece, or steal 1 item from an enemy faction's crafted items in the Captain's clearing), or an Item Action (flip a face-up Stash item face-down to use it). Item actions include: Dash (move the Captain up to twice, ignoring rule), Assault (battle and take every warrior hit as a Prisoner), Skirmish (move from a forest then battle, ignoring the first hit you take), Nab (battle; if the Captain is hit it moves to an adjacent forest instead of being removed; may move after if not hit), Revel (place 1 Acclaim and 1 Skunk at the Captain, or 2 Skunks if Acclaim is already there), Gift (place 1 Acclaim and draw 1 card, or draw 2 cards if Acclaim is already there), and Serve (place 1 Acclaim in the Captain's clearing, or activate matching Acclaim to craft cards).

After acting, you must Retire the Captain: flip its card face-down. In Evening, score Prisoners and Acclaim, optionally spend matching cards to add Skunks at Acclaim (Protect the Weak), and check if all three Captain cards are face-down — if so, Take It Easy resets all Captains and all Stash items to face-up, and the enemy with the most Prisoners may release their faction's pieces from adjacent forests.

Strengths

✓
Captains and Skunks can move in and out of forests freely, ignoring rule. No other faction navigates forests like this. You can stage in forests between moves, retreat Captains to safety, and use Skirmish to charge directly out of a forest into a battle — giving you angles of attack that opponents can't easily predict or block.
✓
Prisoners accumulate without disappearing between turns, and every 2 Prisoners is a free VP every Evening. The Assault item action takes every warrior you hit as a Prisoner in a single battle — in a large skirmish this can swing the scoring track dramatically. Combined with regular battle from multiple Captains, Prisoner totals snowball fast.
✓
You have two independent scoring engines: Prisoners (volatile, battle-driven) and Acclaim (passive, spread once and it ticks every Evening). This redundancy means that even in turns where you can't fight, spreading Acclaim via Revel or Gift still advances your score. Opponents who focus on removing your Prisoners still face your Acclaim track, and vice versa.

Weaknesses

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You can only act with one Captain per turn, and each must act before any can repeat. If one Captain is in a bad position, you may be forced to act with it anyway — wasting a turn repositioning rather than scoring — before the cycle resets. A Captain eliminated from the map can be restored with Ready, but that turn's Captain gets only three actions.
!
Take It Easy resets your Captains and items — but the enemy with the most Prisoners gets to choose a clearing and pull all their captured faction pieces from adjacent forests into it. A large Prisoner haul can return a swarm of enemy warriors onto the map at once, undoing some of your battlefield gains.
!
The Knaves cannot be played in the same game as the Vagabond. This is a hard rule, not a balancing suggestion. It limits faction combinations and means any table that wants a Vagabond must leave the Knaves in the box — and the Exile/Brigand hireling removes both at once.

Tips & tricks

Tip
Acclaim is your most reliable long-term scoring resource — place one token and it earns VP every Evening until an enemy removes it. Prioritize Revel, Gift, and Serve item actions in your first few rotations to seed Acclaim across the board before opponents realize how fast it adds up.
Tip
Your Captain cannot be hit in battle while any Skunks remain in that clearing. Keep Skunks between the enemy and your Captain in fights you must win. Losing a Captain isn't fatal (Ready can place it back in a forest) but it costs you an action-reduced turn and removes any Prisoners you've stored in adjacent forests.
Tip
All Stash items and Captains reset to face-up in Take It Easy once all three have rotated. Plan to use your most powerful items — especially Assault — in the third Captain's turn, right before the reset. That way you spend big, then immediately recover everything for the next cycle.

Walk through a turn →

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