Thanks! The Rise track definitely makes for some very dynamic and interesting gameplay. I imagine they will struggle a lot against factions with early battle agency. Near the end, just imagine them as a WA that always rolls a 2 and has 25 warriors - so I'm hoping the early game struggles balance out the later game unstoppability (they probably have way to many actions near the end). I also think that with the punitive mechanism being tied to the Rise track, it will hopefully make it more painful to lose monasteries later.

You may have missed the second step of Birdsong, in which they choose a clearing and spread to every adjacent clearing that doesn't contain their pieces. This is a little restrictive in a badly-connected map, but it's still enough to quickly get them to 2 points a turn. I was afraid it would be too powerful and so I had to bump down the scoring track - especially since after the first two turns, getting rid of those single warriors will cost you a guaranteed casualty.

Thanks!

Yep that is how it works right now. However, I have no idea what it would look like after some intense testing. When I did playtest them, they were insanely good simply dealing 2 hits every time as defender in the later rounds - and it balanced out as attacker. It was almost impossible to take out a well-defended monastery because you had to commit so many warriors to do it. That said, I played with pretty non-aggressive factions, and I think their crippling beginning should balance out their later power. It was also before I added some of the newer mechanics (like Wrath of Jaddeth), but you'll still have monks to give a little extra attack/defense. Luckily the Wrath of Jaddeth scales, so though it can be crippling at the end, it's nothing to worry about in the beginning.

They would also struggle playing in a game with a very crowded board. So if I feel like continuing to develop them more after the jam's over, they're likely to get some changes - maybe including something that can raise/lower the Jaddeth track.