All I play anymore is trick-takers.

Okay, that isn’t wholly true anymore. It seems the trick-taking bubble has, if not burst, levitated a few meters off the ground. Still, another title from New Mill Industries, this one designed by proprietor Daniel Newman himself, is always a treat. This one’s veneer is about woodland creatures trying to shirk their turn as the warden of the forest. Not that you’ll think about the fluff for even two seconds while playing Woodlanders. Instead, the real draw is the excellent poison-pill gameplay, a truly deadly capsule that once again highlights how much ground this eldest of genres has yet to cover.

Badger badger.

To backtrack into the fluff for a moment, if only to prevent this review from being as dull as a skim of the rulebook, this particular forest is dominated by five clans, the badgers, foxes, hares, deer, and owls. Upon receiving your hand, everybody is given a chance to draft one of these clans. This becomes your “pain suit,” which has nothing to do with trying to squeeze into old Jeans and everything with identifying which of those five clans you absolutely cannot take over the course of the coming tricks.

As with many trick-takers, the scoring reveals the majority of the game’s racket. Every card you claim is a point. Take even one card from your pain suit, however, and everything else from that trick will be thrown out, leaving you with only the remaining pain cards — which are, sadly, worth a negative point.

Along the way, Newman adds one other wrinkle, one which initially seems like a seam but soon reveals itself to be a major crease, the kind that leaves a furrow in your face if you happen to take a nap sprawled over the top of it. Rather than playing only one card, players are permitted to play a pair and sum their digits. There are restrictions; the suits must match, and the highest rank, the 4, can never be paired with anything. This crafts tricks that are decided by tiebreakers more than average, while also conferring no small measure of command over each play.

Here’s an example. It’s early in the hand. You’re holding two 3s, both in the fox clan, and you’re tempted to play them together. You’re all but guaranteed to win the trick, barring somebody matching your paired 6 or trumping the whole thing. (The trump is whichever of those five clans was not selected at the hand’s outset.) But this also signals to the players following you that this is the perfect opportunity to poison the trick. Of course, depending on what’s already been played, you might be relatively safe. Maybe nobody is holding your pain suit right now, or perhaps it’s early going and nobody has winnowed much from their hands. Still, you can never be entirely sure that a big play is safe. Unless you’re the last player in the trick, I suppose.

Either way, this ability to add two cards instead of only one is a big deal. Just like that, the value of any given trick suddenly becomes negotiable. You can poison a rival’s hand to the tune of two cards instead of only one, or swipe a beefy trick at the last moment. At the same time, spending cards too aggressively also runs the risk of forcing you out of the last trick. The hand doesn’t conclude until two players have run out of cards, so going all-in on every trick is a surefire way to limit your access.

Hopefully those aren’t hares.

To some degree, playing Woodlanders does make me wonder about my trick-taking endurance. I tend to prefer bigger swings, hybrid designs, titles that make me laugh. Woodlanders isn’t that. It is, rather, like so many trick-takers before it, a reassuringly familiar experience that makes minor, mellow adjustments to the formula. It’s novel but not complicated, perfect for playing with grandma or a group that doesn’t have the gray matter for anything heftier than a few small alterations. Given the format and price point, it’s a worthwhile contender for appreciators of the genre. For those of us who chase endless innovation, it would be advisable to seek elsewhere.

A complimentary copy of Woodlanders was provided by the publisher/designer.

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