RonnieOatmilk-
I had Root and all the expansions but Leder Games and I just don't seem a good fit so I got rid of it practically unplayed recently.
The game has quite a high barrier to entry as all the characters are asymmetrical so everyone is playing a slightly different kind of game with different rules and strategies so teaching it is hard if you've not played all the factions already and understanding the necessary strategies to win requires additional plays to pickup.
When getting ready to play it solo against the AI player I would always have lost the interest in playing by the time it had been setup as it just seemed like a lot to keep on top of (which given what I just posted I'm playing may tell you something). I ordered all the expansions as they were planning on improving the AI and expanding it to include other factions controllable by the AI so you could play against multiple opponents which I thought might fix my doubts but in the interim I played and sold 2 other Leder Games titles (Vast) because of how badly they played against the AI so I wasn't interested in trying anymore when they finally arrived.
With the right group (and by that I mean a serious group willling to play through a few times before it might click at all) I imagine it can be fun but if you're looking for something to pull out for a fun game night it's not going to be smooth sailing.
I didn't pay much attention to it myself but maybe look up their latest game Oath on kickstarter, it's ended now but it'll give you enough info about the game to see if it's worth trying to pickup when it hits retail (which it will). it certainly had a lot of buzz around it during the KS campaign but as 2+ player game it wasn't on my radar.
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HatBeard
Received my latest kickstarter game "Etherfields" on thursday from same people who made tainted grail (which i reviewed in here a while back) my favourite game of 2019.
This game is a different theme but still has an apocalyptic gothic kind of feel to it.
the gist is you're a "dreamer" and that's all you really know. you wander around the dreamworld (bottom map tiles in plastic holder) and enter in and out of slumbers (mini encounters with entities which you have to overcome) and finding keys to enter into the bigger episodic dreams, each of which is a self contained "dreamscape" with its own story, rules and goals. as you progress you unlock more of the main storyline, new game mechanics and items. most of the game is interacting with story points on the map tiles which refer you to a story book which has a bit of a choose your own adventure kind of vibe.
on top of that you have some light deckbuilding, hand and resource management and some puzzle solving.
it's a coop game so all players (1-4, 5 with expansion) work together, I'm playing it solo with 1 character and it's very well paced, playing with more you each take turns performing main actions and a number of smaller actions until you all pass before the turn card triggers an effect and ticks down the number of turns remaining to solve the dream/slumber before something bad probably happens. i think it would be fun with a group but with a lot of moving parts it's only for groups who like to juggle lots of things at once and discuss everything as a group to make decisions.
picking up the game has been pretty slow going as the rule book only covers the main themes and there's a lot introduced on top of that but 3 main dreams in (0f 33 total plus 2 future expansions coming next year with more) and it's really quite good. should hopefully have enough in the box to keep me entertained up to christmas.