Tips & Strategy

How to teach Lignum, first-game advice and the traps new players fall into.

How to teach it

Teach it as a supply chain, in the order wood travels: hire on the supply path → cut in the forest → carry to the mill → saw → sell, dry or fill a task → survive winter. Lignum 2nd (Second) Edition Board Game – How to Play (CONCISE full rules!) by Meeple University follows this order.

Stress early, before anyone moves:

Two one-way choices. Wood goes to the sawing area or the sale area and never switches; supply path foremen never move back. Lignum: How to Play by Just Play spends time on both.
Winter costs $3 per missing piece. Point at both winter cards during setup.
Hired workers leave every round. Only your mill worker stays.

Get wood into the sale area in round 1. You need cash for next round’s workers and saws.
Don’t skip far down the path unless one location really matters: everything you skip is left for others.
Keep $1 back when you share a cutting area, so you can move if someone cuts first.
Buy only what you’ll use this round. Unused workers are wasted money; equipment does stay.
Plan winter from summer. Food comes from the forest, path tokens and the market; heating needs sawn wood in your firewood storage. Fall rafts arrive in spring, not winter.
Drying takes seasons. A piece reaches +2 only after three drying phases, and winter has none. Start drying early for tasks that need +1 or +2.
Tasks pay only at the end. Fill them once your cash flow is steady.
Planned Work: the first token on a card is free. Read the face-up cards early; combining two plans in one season is strong.
A loan can be a good move if $4 now earns more than the $3 it costs back.

Hiring more woodcutters, bearers or sawyers than you can use this round.
Floating wood down the river in fall and counting on it for winter.
Putting wood in the sawing area to sell unsawn, or in the sale area to saw later.
Arriving at winter without the food or heating on the card.
Starting to dry too late for +2 tasks.
Spending everything in fall and having nothing to hire with in spring.

2 players: only one placement card a round, so hardwood is scarce. Use the winter bonus or the Overtime Planned Work to get some. Skipping ahead lets the other player collect everything you skipped.
3 players: tighter supply path; harder to scoop up skipped tokens.
4 players: the fiercest race for sawyers, fodder and an early spot in the forest clearing.

In Lignum Playthrough Review by Ant Lab Games, wood floated in fall is talked about as if it could be used in winter. The river is frozen: it arrives in spring. The same video also uses one mill worker for more than one winter job; without huts, your mill worker does only one.
The rulebook’s winter pictures show the bonus wood differently from its text; the text is right. See the FAQ.
Lignum 2nd (Second) Edition Board Game – How to Play (CONCISE full rules!) and Lignum: How to Play also cover the Joinery & Buildings expansion, which this guide does not include.