Defenders of the Wild is a cooperative board game of animals against machines. Play as one of four unique factions and assemble your crew of defenders from a wide range of animal characters to resist the machines across a modular map that changes with each game. War has come to the Wild. For millennia, animals have weathered shifting alliances and the cycle of the seasons—but they’ve never faced an enemy like this. An army of machines powered by corrupted magic is rampaging across the woodlands, enclosing everything in its path and exploiting the warmth of the world. Across the marshes, plains, mountains, and forests, scrappy crews of defenders rise up to resist the machine occupation. The partisans hail from four factions, each determined to fight back in their own way: the Council with its fortitude and bread, the Order with its wisdom of the flame, the Sect with its ingenious inventions, and the Coven with its spells and subterfuge. Players assemble their crews by drawing defender cards that each correspond with a faction and a habitat type. Each card details a unique animal character that enables that player to take various actions such as moving, clearing pollution, fighting mechs, building camps, and healing across a modular illustrated hex map. Different combinations of defender cards from different factions allow for varied strategies and approaches to achieving objectives and fighting the machines. A machine deck controls the expansion of the machines and their development across the board. As the machines enclose habitats, they build factories and send out hunter mechs while leaving behind a trail of walls and pollution. If players can successfully build all of their camps and rewild the machines' factories before the last factory is built, all players win the game together. Can the Defenders band together to heal the land and outsmart a seemingly impossible enemy? Or will the woodlands succumb to an endless industrial winter? It’s up to you and your comrades to decide. —description from the designer