Pick your clan in the room — all four play by the same rules On your turn you get 3 actions Tap one of your clearings; the dock shows what you can do there Pick the verb; MARCH and RAID ask for the clearing you leave FROM before the target — nothing happens on the first tap Press "End Turn" when you are done

The number on the carved sign beside a clearing is what it pays you at a harvest A Root raises that number for good; the bushes inside are the roots planted, the bare scrapes the room left A capture scores once, a Root pays at every remaining harvest When a clearing changes hands the Roots go too — the leader is always the best target

You choose how many warriors to send; the confirm row shows both powers Summer gives +1 to the attacker, winter +1 to the defender Roots add to defence — developed ground is genuinely expensive to take If no defender is left standing, the clearing is yours

Ironclaw: Muster brings 3 warriors · scores its fullest clearing at harvest Skyplume: musters anywhere it holds, one free Muster a turn · +1 per terrain type Thistle: one free Root a turn, +1 defending · +1 per clearing touching a rival Mistmane: one free Raid a turn · +1 per clearing taken this season

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Thornwood

Thornwood is an easy-to-learn area control game you can play free in the browser. You get three actions a turn: muster warriors, march, raid a neighbouring clearing, or plant a Root. Every clearing carries a bounty number, and at the end of each season there is a harvest: whatever you hold right then pays you. After four seasons the highest score wins. 2–4 players, three maps, with bots or with friends.

Fernvale

Rules

2–4 players; everyone picks a clan, but all four play by the same rules
The match runs four seasons: Spring → Summer → Autumn → Winter
At the end of every season there is a HARVEST: each clearing you hold pays its bounty
The autumn harvest pays double; after the winter harvest the highest score wins
Three actions a turn: MUSTER · MARCH · RAID · ROOT
ROOT raises a clearing’s bounty by 1 for good, strengthens its defence and makes it a muster point
RAID: power = warriors + season + clan + one thorn card; each side loses half the other’s power
If no defender is left standing, the clearing changes hands — and its Roots go with it
Survivors of a failed raid walk home: you lose soldiers, never your position
The thorn deck is twelve cards and what is left is printed on screen — luck is bounded and countable
Your home clearing can never be taken, so you are never knocked out

How to play

Pick your clan in the room — all four play by the same rules
On your turn you get 3 actions
Tap one of your clearings; the dock shows what you can do there
Pick the verb; MARCH and RAID ask for the clearing you leave FROM before the target — nothing happens on the first tap
Press "End Turn" when you are done

Bounty & harvest

The number on the carved sign beside a clearing is what it pays you at a harvest
A Root raises that number for good; the bushes inside are the roots planted, the bare scrapes the room left
A capture scores once, a Root pays at every remaining harvest
When a clearing changes hands the Roots go too — the leader is always the best target

The raid

You choose how many warriors to send; the confirm row shows both powers
Summer gives +1 to the attacker, winter +1 to the defender
Roots add to defence — developed ground is genuinely expensive to take
If no defender is left standing, the clearing is yours

The clans

Ironclaw: Muster brings 3 warriors · scores its fullest clearing at harvest
Skyplume: musters anywhere it holds, one free Muster a turn · +1 per terrain type
Thistle: one free Root a turn, +1 defending · +1 per clearing touching a rival
Mistmane: one free Raid a turn · +1 per clearing taken this season

Looking for a woodland area-control game?

Thornwood is a free, browser-based area-control game with ONE rulebook for everybody. Three actions a turn from four verbs — MUSTER warriors, MARCH them, RAID a neighbouring clearing, or plant a ROOT — and every clearing carries its bounty number printed right on it, so the score is something you read off the map instead of working out. No download, no install: open a room, pick a clan, and start against bots or friends.

The match is a calendar, not a race to a number. Four seasons — spring, summer, autumn, winter — run three rounds each at a three- or four-player table and four rounds in a two-player duel, and a HARVEST at the end of every season pays you the bounty of every clearing you hold at that moment. Each season bends exactly one rule: spring musters bring an extra warrior, summer gives the attacker +1, the autumn harvest pays double, winter gives the defender +1. After the winter harvest the highest score wins — so you always know how much of the game is left.

Three boards, three different wars

Fernvale is an open 3×4 lattice built for a first game: every clearing is one step from its neighbours, and the two rich glades sit on opposite flanks so an army has to commit to one. Winterhold is two nested rings laced with twenty-four paths — armies collide early and the whole inner ring is bounty 3. Lakeland is a ring around an impassable lake with only two fords across it: one stack corks a flank, and marching the wrong way round the water costs you four turns.

A clan is two sentences, never a separate rulebook: Ironclaw musters three warriors and scores its fullest clearing; Skyplume musters anywhere it holds and scores the terrain types it spans; Thistle plants a free Root each turn, defends at +1 and scores its frontline; Mistmane raids for free and scores what it took this season. Combat is two numbers and one comparison, with a single thorn card each from a twelve-card deck drawn face up and without replacement — so the luck is bounded and countable.

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