No more Risk games that last forever! The time limit, conveniently, comes in the form of the Fellowship as it makes its way towards Mount Doom. A pewter ring token, which looks remarkably like the One Ring, acts as a marker for the Fellowship as it moves along its track.
When the Fellowship reaches Mount Doom and casts the ring into the volcano, the game ends. The time limit is variable, which has the advantage of adding uncertainty and therefore excitement , and the disadvantage of causing the game to largely come down to which player has the last turn.
You see, in Risk it is easier to capture territory than it is to defend it. In the final stages of a game, each player will gamble in the hopes that the game will end following their turn — knowing full well that the chances of getting an additional turn will likely be slim assuming more than 2 players.
The player who happens to have had the last turn will therefore almost always win. This, understandably, is a pretty big drawback to the game. Aside from the aforementioned end-game problem, caused by the Fellowship acting as a time limit, the Fellowship acting as the time limit also has another problem. You see, in the books and the movies when the Ring was thrown into Mount Doom, the good guys won. Here, the Fellowship is added as an afterthought.
The Adventure cards also leave something to be desired. It is as if the designers were too lazy to make rules for three different types of cards, and therefore simply lumped them all together — resulting in a rather clunky, unwieldy aspect of the game. Thus, the rules advise that you should remove all of the cards that say this from the deck, deal 4 cards to each player, then return the random event cards to the deck and shuffle it.
Additionally, whenever a player draws a random event card, it is played immediately and then the player draws another card to replace it. Why do they have to be in 1 deck? There is no reason for it other than convenience for the manufacturer. A little more effort from the designers could have produced a much deeper and better gaming experience, particularly in regards to the Adventure cards. But ah, it is not to be, at least in this game. Because Adventure cards are so important, it becomes essential to draw at least one every turn.
The effect this has on game-play is to essentially make drawing Adventure cards a mini-game within the larger game itself; you will find yourself splitting your time and resources in order to pursue the two different goals of capturing territory and capturing sites of power with a leader.
The game, inadvertently I think, places great emphasis on your ability to position your leaders. It is somewhat paradoxical, and simultaneously very frustrating, that it is far easier for your leaders to move around when they are plowing through enemy-held territory than it is when they are moving through territory that you have already captured. That has always been a key feature of standard Risk that has never made any sense to me, and it makes even less sense from a game-design perspective when applied to a game that places a lot of emphasis on the positioning of your own troops.
In short, the emphasis on positioning of leaders, combined with the limit of 1 reinforce move per turn, is a terrible handicap that only the most skilled of players can work around. The Evil side is better than the good side, because they have better starting territories.
For instance, of the 11 fortresses in the game, 7 of them are awarded to Evil players to begin the game, while only 4 are awarded to Good players. Additionally, the two best regions on the map roughly equivalent to Australia and South America are both Evil. There is only 1 region that approximates Australia or South America for the Good player — so that means if there are 2 Good players then one of them will have to do without.
It still feels like Risk , and Risk is a fun game despite its shortcomings. Despite its differences, it still feels like the light-thinking, dice chucking game of yore.
The theme is nice, and the new mechanics present a lot more strategic and tactical choices, but not enough to overwhelm you. You get the hang of the strategy of the game after only a few plays, and because it builds off of a fairly popular game, it is easier to teach new players how to play than most other war games.
You can easily tell, after only a few plays, that the game has some serious flaws. Which is a shame, really, because the game had real promise. A light war game based off of Lord of the Rings has the potential to be both very fun and very popular.
And in the end, this game, despite all of its flaws, is still fun to play. If you like Risk , you will like this game. If you like Lord of the Rings, you may like this game, but you will find it lacking if you liked War of the Ring. Due to this, Leader pieces are a focal point in the gameplay. Each Adventure card contains either a mission that can be completed with a Leader piece, a special bonus for your troops, or special events that can be triggered by certain conditions.
Much of the game is juggling between the taking and defending of Territories while completing Adventures. Certain features of the map give players various targets that are desirable for control. For instance, to the west of the map, five Ports litter the coastline. They let you move your troops across the map quickly, letting you cover more area and easily outmaneuver opposing armies. For instance, if a territory is being taken that is far away from your troops, you can get them there easily through a nearby port to reach a port near the disputed territory.
The Gold Emblems on the map represent Strongholds. Holding down Strongholds can prove decisive in this game, as they are much harder to conquer than territories without them.
If you have both Ports and Strongholds, you will be nigh impossible to stop. Players get 1 point from Territories, 2 points from Strongholds, and anywhere from 2 to 7 points from Regions. Whoever gets the most points is the winner, simple as that. The aforementioned rules are mostly for games played between 2 to 3 players. Trouble follows the Ring as it makes a journey towards Mount Doom. It is pretty much the timer of the game as the Ring either reaching Mount Doom or being found by an army of Mordor signals the end of the game.
Obviously, the forces of good want it to reach Mount Doom in order for it to be thrown into the fiery lava, while the forces of evil would want it returned to Sauron. This is the main gameplay feature that makes this game different from Classic RISK as it is like a timer of sorts in addition of being an objective, which adds more tension to the gameplay.
When the Ring crosses an evil Territory on its way to Mount Doom, that is when it can be found. However, that first version had only Middle-earth in its map, excluding the realms of Gondor, Mordor, and Haradwaith, which Lord of the Rings fans criticized.
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