*Caution: some spoilers in the closing paragraphs - I'll warn you when they're coming*
The world of board games has moved on enormously since the days of Ludo and Snakes and Ladders – not that there’s anything wrong with those classics but today we have fantasy role-playing board games (Descent, Arkham or Eldritch Horror), battle games (Memoir 44, BattleLore, Pirates Cove), deduction games (Werewolf, The Resistance), horror-survival games (Last Night On Earth, City of Horror, Dead of Winter, Zombicide), economy games (Power Grid, Pillars of the Earth), back-stabbing games (Munchkin, Kung Fu Samurai On Giant Robot Island), co-operative games (Pandemic, Ghost Stories), betrayal games (Shadows Over Camelot, Panic Station), murder mysteries (Mystery of the Abbey, Mystery Express), and completely so-utterly-mad-it’s-awesome games (Killer Bunnies, Fluxx) and games that mix elements in striking new ways (Claustrophobia, Earth Reborn, Fury of Dracula).
The world of board games has moved on enormously since the days of Ludo and Snakes and Ladders – not that there’s anything wrong with those classics but today we have fantasy role-playing board games (Descent, Arkham or Eldritch Horror), battle games (Memoir 44, BattleLore, Pirates Cove), deduction games (Werewolf, The Resistance), horror-survival games (Last Night On Earth, City of Horror, Dead of Winter, Zombicide), economy games (Power Grid, Pillars of the Earth), back-stabbing games (Munchkin, Kung Fu Samurai On Giant Robot Island), co-operative games (Pandemic, Ghost Stories), betrayal games (Shadows Over Camelot, Panic Station), murder mysteries (Mystery of the Abbey, Mystery Express), and completely so-utterly-mad-it’s-awesome games (Killer Bunnies, Fluxx) and games that mix elements in striking new ways (Claustrophobia, Earth Reborn, Fury of Dracula).
There are games that draw friends and families together and there are games that tear them apart. Of the latter category, two games have cast a long shadow down the decades – one is a certain property trading game that in my upbringing basically taught me to cheat and gamble while running my relatives into bankruptcy; the other is Risk and the last time I played classic Risk, the game ended with my sister deciding she’d had enough and throwing the whole entire board up into the air – sending pieces every where and bringing the game to a very definite halt. If that echoes your experience you are far from alone…while both franchises have long-since branched out, Risk has been the most adventurous and created vastly different games rather than just themed versions of the same thing (Star Wars Monopoly, TMNT Monopoly, Batman Monopoly and even Alpacaopoly????).
This review focuses on Risk: Legacy and it is AWESOME (the game, not the review…well, hopefully the review too, but that assessment is up to you…whereas the assessment of the game – at least for this review – is up to me…so let me get on with it please. We’re only just getting past the introduction now!).
Open the box of Risk: Legacy and you’ll find a bunch of figures and tokens ready for play, as well as a bunch of sealed sections of the box and sealed envelopes with strict instructions only to open them when certain conditions are met (when the first player is eliminated, or one player recruits 30 units to the board on one go, or three nuclear warheads are unleashed in a single combat and so on).
It’s fascinating, suspenseful and intriguing from the get go.
It’s fascinating, suspenseful and intriguing from the get go.
Nuclear Warheads?
Yes, that’s correct...and more on those soon.
In the meantime, however, there are two other things you’ll soon notice upon playing the game:
Yes, that’s correct...and more on those soon.
In the meantime, however, there are two other things you’ll soon notice upon playing the game:
- Firstly, the rule book is full of gaps – not because of a printing error or that it’s incomplete…it’s been printed with a whole lot of blank spaces that will be filled as certain conditions are met and you are instructed to paste new rules into the book…sometimes overriding old ones and sometimes simply adding additional elements. But you’ll have to play a few times to find out what they are. We’ve played nine games now and still have a few gaps yet to fill.
- The other, perhaps more shocking thing, is that as certain events happen you will be instructed to tear up some of the cards containing old rules, place permanent stickers over certain territories and parts of the board.
Aside from the ever-evolving game itself, this is the coolest part about Risk: Legacy. The decisions you make in a game and the way events unfold, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, changes not only the world and the environment the game is played within, but also the very fabric of the game itself.
And you will do this by destroying cards and permanently defacing parts of the board (and an absolute part of the pleasure of this game is watching a new player being instructed to tear a card in half and wrestling with how WRONG it seems to do this)...
...or permanently defacing a territory on the board – changing the population bonus, adding defensive penalties etc.
That small case of civil unrest that popped up in the Middle East again? It’s now permanent.
...or permanently defacing a territory on the board – changing the population bonus, adding defensive penalties etc.
That small case of civil unrest that popped up in the Middle East again? It’s now permanent.
When was the last time you got invited to go and try out someone’s new board game where part of the experience included tearing up components and defacing the game board? This is the first part where Risk: Legacy truly lives up to its name…you leave a literal legacy behind you each time you play.
The experience of those that follow you – for anyone else who plays this copy of the game – is permanently altered because of the choices you made and the consequences of your actions.
The experience of those that follow you – for anyone else who plays this copy of the game – is permanently altered because of the choices you made and the consequences of your actions.
In fact, buy your brother in law a copy of the very same game (which is what I did) and after half a dozen plays, you will already have two very different games that are no longer interchangeable. It’s genius – I’ve seen nothing else like it. Every game completely alters the game play for those who play future games.
Risk: Legacy shares the same foundations as it’s original namesake in that you control territories and are awarded increasing numbers of soldiers depending on how many territories you control. That’s about all it has in common though (apart from continuing to exclude New Zealand from the game map!).
Instead of an endless battle for world domination (ie spending 4 hours trying to control the entire map or eliminate the red army, until your sister has enough and throws her hands, and the entire board, up in the air in disgust), Risk: Legacy is won by the first player to gain 4 victory points.
And, at least until the game evolves a bit, you begin with two victory points already – one simply as a starting bonus and another which is attached to your starting base (this one can later be lost if another army conquers the territory you’ve placed your base in). So, capture another couple of bases and game over.
At least until things evolve a bit…
At least until things evolve a bit…
An average game of Risk: Legacy? Perhaps an hour. I think we’ve done an hour-and-a-half or two hours at most in the early games, partly as we were still getting our head around it and trembling with anxiety each time we were told to tear a card in half.
The way the game has now evolved, our games are all over in about 45 mins. That could never have happened with the old school version. Games were more often abandoned than completed back then. All that is gone with Risk: Legacy and it’s a much better experience in every respect.
The way the game has now evolved, our games are all over in about 45 mins. That could never have happened with the old school version. Games were more often abandoned than completed back then. All that is gone with Risk: Legacy and it’s a much better experience in every respect.
[*Spoiler Alert* - skip to the final paragraph if you want to stay in the dark…and try not to look at the photos].
Remember those Nuclear Warheads?
We’d been wondering about what was inside the sealed box bearing those instructions for a long time. We’d had several games where we nearly got to open the box but it never quite eventuated…until the other night.
And now, thanks to our ambition, we have a world covered with biohazards and a new race of mutant humans emerging…but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
We’d been wondering about what was inside the sealed box bearing those instructions for a long time. We’d had several games where we nearly got to open the box but it never quite eventuated…until the other night.
And now, thanks to our ambition, we have a world covered with biohazards and a new race of mutant humans emerging…but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
In Risk: Legacy each time someone wins the game overall they are awarded a nuclear warhead, which will be theirs from the beginning of all future games (although they no longer start with that free bonus starting victory point, so there’s a small trade off).
Nevertheless, win the game a few times and you build up a formidable arsenal. The warheads are used as a one-off weapon to change any dice to an unmodifiable 6. It doesn’t sound like a big deal on paper but at critical points it can be a game turner.
When our group last gathered to settle the fate of the known free world, the game had it’s usual ups and downs as armies marched and blood was shed and then Andreas and Roland came head to head in the battle between Egypt and Southern Europe…and nuclear fuses were lit. Three in fact. Andreas won the battle but, in the greater scheme of things, may well have lost the war for humanity’s ultimate survival. Alas, we did not know this at the time. Ignorance and excitement triumphed over wisdom and prudence as we tore open the long-concealed container that had been just waiting for this moment…only to find we’d unleashed a radioactive Pandora’s box. Smaller biohazards started to appear around the globe, Southern Europe is now a full blown radioactive ground zero – any army that enters the territory loses half it’s troops, and the fallout of the explosions wiped the armies on every neighbouring territory completely off the planet. That was the good news.
Then the true nightmare began to emerge as the dust cleared and a new race of radioactive mutants rose from the nuclear ashes to stake their claim on the now decaying planet.
It was terrible, it was horrifying, it was unbridled chaos and destruction…it was the apocalypse and it was AWESOME!
It was terrible, it was horrifying, it was unbridled chaos and destruction…it was the apocalypse and it was AWESOME!
We now continue our battles but the question is no longer which human faction, army or tribe will dominate the future, but whether any humans will exist at all. Will we give way to the rise of the mutants? And there is still a whole other compartment waiting to be opened the first time someone recruits 30 units to their army in a single turn. How else might the game change? Time will tell, but unlike Mr Jagger once prophesied, time it seems may no longer be on our side.
Risk: Legacy is an outstanding game the truly – and I mean TRULY – lives up to its name. It’s the most powerful and enjoyable lesson in ecology and cross-generational inheritance that I have ever seen. And just when you think it can’t surprise you any further, there is always more.