Defenders of the Wild is a strategy tabletop game of resistance, magic, and political intrigue featuring both cooperative and competitive modes. Play as one of four unique factions and assemble your crew of Defenders from a wide range of animal characters to resist the Machine invasion across a modular map that changes with each game. War has come to the Wild. For millennia, Animals have weathered shifting alliances and the constant turn of the seasons---but they’ve never faced an enemy like this. A monstrous army of Machines powered by a corrupted magic has invaded, intent on exploiting the warmth of the world and enclosing everything in its path. From each habitat, scrappy crews of Defenders rise up to fight back. The partisans belong to one of four factions, all determined to resist the Machines their own way: the Council with its power and engineering, the Order with its ancient wisdom, the Sect with its ingenious innovations, and the Coven with its spells and subterfuge. When playing in cooperative mode, all players must coordinate and work together to complete each faction's win condition and destroy the machines. When playing in competitive mode, players must outmaneuver each other to complete their faction's objectives first while continuing to resist the machines. Each player assembles their crew of animal partisans by drafting Defenders cards into their crew. Each defender card details a unique animal character that enables that player to take various actions such as moving, gathering, building, attacking, and healing across a modular illustrated hex map. Different combinations of defender cards allow for different 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 attack units while leaving behind a trail of destruction and pollution. Can the Defenders band together to heal the land and outsmart a seemingly impossible enemy? Or will the world succumb to an endless Industrial Winter? It’s up to you and your crew to decide. —description from the designer