The Legacy of Risk: Part 1 – First Impressions
Opening the box I knew that this was not going to be anything like the Risk games I have always loved. Lots of cards I had never seen before and more cards and other surprises hidden behind hazard marked stickers and enigmatic phrases. “Do not open ever”, being the most dire of them all. Everything in this box tells me that my family and I are about to have an experience we could not have expected.
I poured through the rules grabbing any of my family members who would be playing to point out to them significant rules changes. We have all played Risk before (more times than we can count) so the modifications in the rules had us all itching to play by the time we finally got a chance.
As it happened the only family member who sat down to our first game with me was my dad, Don. We had company over and the father and son, Eric and Joe, often played games with us so they joined us and were the first two to sign the back of the board. Signing the board is significant I builds buy-in. It says, my actions are significant, I am significant. Don and I signed the back as well and as I unboxed the rest of the board, I explained the rules.
They took to the new rules right away and soon we had everything set up and troops were moving their way across the board.
Game One
Factions
Joe – Khan Industries, Middle East
Don – Die Mechaniker, Argentina
Eric – Saharan Republic, West Australia
Josh (me) – Imperial Balkania, South Africa
The special rules for each army were fun to pick out but did not have much of an impact on the game. The new setup rules that limited forces and left most of the map empty were very interesting. Eric, Don and I each had a continent bonus by the end of the first round in Australia, South America, and Africa respectively. Joe tried to start off by attacking down into Africa and spreading out towards Australia. My defenders chewed through his attacking forces but eventually fell and he left himself vulnerable to attack from behind by Eric. As expected on Don’s next turn he launched into Africa as well. His attack devastated me and knocked me out. Eric chewed through Joe’s back line stopping in India which left Joe with East Africa and the Middle East. Joe mustered the best offense he could against Don who was weak in Africa after his whirlwind defeat of me and managed to take Egypt. I rejoined the war somewhere up in east Asia just in time to watch Don turn in two cards worth three coins for four armies and walk right through the last remains of Joe’s army ending the game.
Those of you who have played must by now realized that Don should have won when he ousted me but we were still getting use to victory points in Risk and forgot.
Don signed the front of the board and founded the major city of Dandyville in the Western United States. Eric founded Bollywood in India and I founded Gotham in South Africa. Three Bunkers went down in that game, Eric put one in New Guinea, Joe put one in China, and Don put one in Brazil. The board was filling up fast!
We also got to open one of the card decks up in the top of the box. The one that was to be opened when a player was eliminated. Out of that deck Joe got a chance to improve his faction a bit which helped ease the sting of being the first player eliminated and not getting to found a city with the rest of us.
At the Table 