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Bluewater Buccaneers [RootJam 2026]'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Clarity of Rules/Mechanics | #10 | 3.486 | 3.600 |
| Creativity/Uniqueness | #12 | 3.938 | 4.067 |
| Use of This Year's Theme | #15 | 4.002 | 4.133 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Includes Law of Root?
No
Includes PnP?
Yes
Includes TTS files?
No
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Comments
Ugh I was trying to make the scoring mechanic of connected clearing scoring work with my faction but you totally solved it. Looks really awesome and like others said the hireling vip is really cool :)
Having an Hireling as your VIP is a great idea ! I really like that it works well as an hireling on its own but becomes way more important when you play it with this faction.
The barrel economy makes it very versatile, what would your starting turns look like ? I feel like getting more barrels is the top priority, so soaking should be avoided, and the first turn could be store water on the drakkar -> store water in the other clearing -> resupply to drakkar-> store water in the same clearing-> resupply to the drakkar -> store water in the same clearing -> resupply to the drakkar. And start doing this again the following turns until you are pretty much maxed out on barrels.
What does "ignoring path and linking rivers" mean for the Sail action ? Could I go from a river corner to another river corner ?
Would love to see this faction in action !
Thanks for the feedback! Honestly I haven’t tried it with an entirely barrel-focused start yet, but foregoing scoring on the first turn to do so might be interesting! I usually do 3 recruits, an Excavate, and store 1 barrel on the first turn, but having one person test will have them reach the same strategic conclusions often.
Also I tried to word the Sail action like the Harrier, so it should be able to go from one corner to the other. You don’t really want the ship too isolated though, since most of your recruiting is at it.
This one seems really fun to play. I really like the barrel economy, like action points
Great job! The barrel economy would make for some good decisions. Is there any advantage to collecting more than 12 barrels, since that seems to be the maximum you can spend on actions? I saw there were double that many tokens available, and you might want some extras to Soak your warriors, but was there some other purpose I missed?
Also, do the canals have any impact on other players, or does it only affect the Buccaneers?
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
For barrels above 12, other than keeping them on the map you can spend them with the Heavy Weapons berry ability to deal extra hits at the ship or spend them in the daylight to battle using the hireling (within this battle you can spend them to ignore hits you take). The Quarter action also takes barrels from the ship, so unless you have extras, recruiting away from the ship costs you more actions to do. I do believe the faction could work with 18 barrels instead though, I didnt really do optimisation on the number.
The canals also make the clearings rivers for everyone, so while it admittedly doesn’t have the greatest effect on most factions, factions with Swimmers can ignore rule while moving on them, riversteads counts them, and riverfolk can recruit on them. The main goal with them was to make a clear AOE for the ship that the enemies can control by destroying the connection to the main river or destroying a new canal so you can’t move there in birdsong for the battle with hit protection
That makes a lot of sense; thanks for the explanations! Having too many barrels is definitely a better problem to have than having too few. Would love to try this out sometime!
This is very cool. I love the use of the Hirelings card and barrels as actions.