The Inside Scoop on Gaming

INTRODUCTION

I have years of experience playing classic Risk (Hereafter referred to as just RISK). In fact, I probably have about 17,000 hours of game time logged with RISK; which as any true Risk fanatic can tell you is about twelve actual games. As I'm sure you guessed, I was kidding about the number 17,000. But it does illustrate one of my major gripes with RISK.

Although I've always enjoyed RISK and play every time someone asks, the game is not without it's problems. My biggest complaint about RISK is the amount of time that a game can take, especially with six players. I have many fond memories of playing RISK all night long with my friends, however now that I’m out of school and in the real world I just don’t have that kind of time to dedicate to games any more. The extreme game length also means that players that get eliminated have to go find something to do for a few hours while awaiting the start of a new game. Over half the RISK games that I have played have not ended with one man standing but rather end simply because the eliminated players force one (or more) of the remaining players to concede.

The second complaint that I’ve always had with RISK is how dependant the outcome can be on luck. Or to be more specific bad luck, since I never complained when the dice gods got me out of a tight spot. In RISK a drooling five year old on a hot streak with the dice could destroy even the best-laid plans. Sooner or later all RISK players, unless you are the groups habitual loser (All groups have one; If you can’t remember him, it was you.), run into this problem. Since a lot of elements of luck come into play in a real battle I don’t mind an element of chance in my war games (Yes I called RISK a war game, get over it). The real problem, as I see it, is that the ratio between the numbers of forces on either side was never factored in. Nothing is more annoying than watching fifteen of your troops getting ground up by two defending troops just because that drooling five year old couldn’t stop rolling box cars.

All experienced RISK players eventually realize that there are only so many strategies that one can use to obtain victory. Combat and cards are the only random factors in RISK. The major strategic points are always the same and the same continents are easiest to hold. The only thing that can really upset the plans, besides bad rolling, is the dreaded MASSIVE DEPLOYMENT. All RISK players know this one; you finally get that five year old down to one territory when he turns his cards in for fifty troops! (As a side note I have absolutely nothing against five year olds)

In the rest of the review I will talk about what Risk: LOTR (Hereafter referred to as RLOTR) does different and how it affects game play. So does RLOTR manage to solve the problems of the original? Should you run out and buy it now? If you are a fan of RISK, the short answer is YES! Don’t wait; buy now!

PRESENTATION

The first thing that a person notices about RLOTR is the nice box artwork. Although the classic Risk box has had many facelifts over the years it still looks pretty plain. If you placed RISK beside the RLOTR edition I don’t think anyone would say the classic box is better.

THE MAP
The first thing that one will notice upon opening the RLOTR box is that the map is now a depiction of Middle Earth. The second thing that hits the viewer is just how nice the new map is. They’ve really stepped up the artwork from the crappy old RISK board. However, in the spirit of fairness I must admit that the first problem I encountered with RLOTR was with the board. The designers mistakenly placed Rohan on the wrong side of the mountains.

Just as the awe from the artwork wears off you’ll think to yourself “Wait a minute! The territories are in one big clump. It’ll be chaos!” Don’t worry, calm down, and take a deep breath. The designers have introduced new terrain concepts that go beyond water and not-water, that address this issue. The list of terrain types has been expanded to include mountains, rivers, bridges, seaports, strongholds, and places of power.

The inclusion of these new terrain features allow for a lot of new strategies. Mountains are impassable; except for one special case that I’ll mention later in the review. Rivers can only be crossed using bridges. Seaports allow a player to transport troops to any other seaport on the board (there are only three ports for now). Strongholds are one of the most important new terrain types. They give players’ troops a defensive bonus while trying to defend a territory. They are also worth points at the end of the game, making them very valuable.

MINATURES
As soon as the board is removed from the box it becomes clear that there are only four armies inside of the box. Unfortunately RLOTR is only meant for two, three, or four players. I’m not really sure why this particular decision was made since I believe (and others have agreed with me) that the board is big enough to host six players.

One also has to wonder at the colour choices that were made for the armies. Two of the armies are fairly close in colour and once the game gets going I’ve seen people make mistakes and get them confused. I can only imagine that this problem gets worse if you have some drinking going on around the table. Why pick two such similar colours if only four are needed? This isn’t a very big problem and I only mention it because I couldn’t find much else to complain about.

The armies are divided into two factions, good and evil, with two armies belonging to each. Good and evil have different miniatures. Each army consists of four different types of miniatures. The models for the forces of good consist of an elf, a rider of Rohan, a roc, and there are also two shields per army. A goblin, a nazgaul, a cave troll, and two shields represent the forces of evil. Battalion sizes have been adjusted from RISK’s one, five, and ten to one, three, and five. This change is a good one in my opinion as it limits the number of troops that are involved in battles and therefore cuts down on the overall amount of time that battles take.
THE ONE RING
It’s hard to miss the replica ring that sits in the bottom of the box. Although it is a bit gimmicky, the ring serves a very important and highly useful function that I’ll detail in the GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS section below.
CARDS
RLOTR contains many more cards than RISK does. Territory cards now have pictures of the different battalion pieces on the bottom. Some Territory cards also have a shield on them that is either silver of black. There are also two Territory cards that have all three battalion type pictures on them but no territory that represent wild cards.

There is also another deck of cards that represent a new type called the Adventure card. I will detail these cards in the GAMEPLY ELEMENTS section below.

Overall the artwork on the cards is quite nice. However, the cards themselves feel somewhat cheap. They are the one item in the box that I fear may become damaged from general wear and tear.

GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS

NOTE 1: In writing this section I will assume that the reader is familiar with RISK. If this is not true the reader may have some difficulty fully understanding the topics covered herein.
NOTE 2: Even though the game allows for 2-3 players my review of game play will focus on the four-player version only. The other two are very similar and equally good, but it would take to long to cover all versions.

GAME SETUP
1. ASSIGNING TERRITORIES
  
  Each player roles a die. The player with the highest role is assigned a “Good” army. Starting with him alternate as you go around the table. So you end up with Good-Evil-Good-Evil. Then you separate the neutral from the non-neutral Territory cards. This will give you 9 good and 9 evil Territory cards. Deal them out so that one of the Good players ends up with five territories with four going to the other Good player. Then do the same for the Evil forces. Each player then places one army on each of his territories.
  
  Next, starting with the player that rolled the highest each player places one army on a territory until all of the territories have been claimed. Picking which territories you are going to start out in is one of the most important strategically important things a player will do. Although the “random” Good/Evil territories you began play with will have some impact on your troop placement, you must also look beyond that. It is probably in your best interest to try to get an entire land (although this will make you a target if you are the only player that has one) and likewise it is best to prevent another player from doing so. You also have to worry about proximity to places of power and strongholds (I will go into the value of these items later).
2. ARMY PLACEMENT
  Once all of the territories have been claimed, each player places two of his armies on any territory that he owns. Once the players have deployed all of their troops they must choose a territory to deploy their leader to. Placement of your leader is very important for a couple of reasons:
  1. You only pick-up an Adventure card if your leader has conquered or moved into a territory that contains a Place Of Power.
  2. Your leader can swing the tide of important early battles, since he adds 1 to your highest die on both defence and offence. This advantage is crucial in attempting to take a stronghold (provides 1 to highest die roll while on defence).
  It is important to deploy the leaders now before people see which Adventure cards they are dealt. Otherwise if a player was lucky enough to control a Place Of Power that he got a mission for he would simply place his leader at that location.
3. DEALING OUT THE CARDS
  Once the leaders have been placed each player is dealt two Territory cards and three Adventure cards (minus the Event cards).
BEGINNING THE GAME
All players will role a die to determine who will start play. The player that has the highest die goes first.
1. REENFORCMENTS ARRIVE
  A player counts up all of the territories that he controls. That number divided by three, and then rounded down, is the basic amount of troops that all players get. As long a player controls a single territory he gets three troops to place. So if a player only controls thirteen territories he will get four troops (13/3 rounded down is 4), However if a player has only six territories he will collect three troops (6/3 = 2 but you can’t go lower than 3). If your last leader was eliminated, you place a new one on any territory that you control.
  
  A player may receive bonus troops if he controls one or more entire lands (blocks of territories). There is a chart showing how many troops each land is worth. The values range from two to seven. I don’t think each land accurately reflects how hard it is to take/hold. The one worth two (the Australia of RLOTR) still has three access points one of which borders two external territories. While another worth three has four access points one of which borders two other territories. In actual play both are exactly the same difficulty to hold. Moreover, the territory that provides a bonus of three also contains a stronghold and has much better access to the rest of the world thanks to it’s seaport. Now someone will chirp in and say that the territory worth two only has four territories to take, so it doesn’t take as many guys to hold. On closer inspection though, you realize that the land worth three only has four territories that require armies to hold and the land worth two requires you to place significant armies in each of it’s four territories to hold on to it.
  
  A player may also receive bonus armies if he has cards to “cash” in. Each territory card contains a symbol of a troop type. Get three of a kind or one of each and you receive a one-time boost of troops to deploy (there are two wild cards). Unlike normal RISK you will always receive four, six, eight, or ten troops and the amount received is not determined by the amount last “cashed” in for. The amount of troops received is determined by what type of set you turned in. Four, six, and eight correspond to three of a kind of archers, riders, or rocs while one of each gets you ten. A player may never have more than five Territory cards in his hand at one time. I really like this system, since it allows you to completely avoid the DREADED MASSIVE DEPLOYMENT problem that I mentioned in my introduction. Never again do you have to worry about the guy with only one territory turning for fifty troops and going on a massive tear around the board.
2. CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!
  After all troops have been deployed the real fun begins. You can attack any territory that adjoins a territory (or is connected by seaport or bridge) you control. Battle is conducted in exactly the same way as RISK except for the following things. If a leader is present he adds 1 to the highest roll of that player for both offence and defence. So if both players have a leader present at a battle they will cancel each other out. It is important to remember that the leader miniature does not represent an actual troop. So he can’t be killed unless all troops at that territory are eliminated. All troops that are defending a territory that contains a stronghold gain 1 on their highest die role. Since stronghold and leader bonuses stack attacking a territory that contains both is a very risky business, especially without having your own leader present (Defender gets 2 to highest die roll).
  
  Another new wrinkle on strategy are a subset of the Adventure cards called Power Cards. Using your power cards wisely can be the key to victory. They allow for such nifty things as:
  1. When attacking a territory place four extra troops at the territory you are attacking from.
  2. When being attacked place four extra troops at the territory you are defending
  3. When attacking take two away defending armies and add two attacking armies
  4. You may attack across a mountain range (normally impossible)
  Power cards open up whole new strategies.
3. AFTERMATH
  After a player is done fighting he can declare a mission done if his leader has taken a Place Of Power that he has a mission card for. Mission cards are another type of Adventure card. They have a Place Of Power at the top, along with two values at the bottom, which tell you how many points they are worth (points will be covered in the victory conditions section down below). More difficult missions are worth more points. There is also a “prize” for completing a mission (usually extra troops, sometimes an extra Territory card). It is important to realize that you have to declare missions complete before redeployment. Otherwise a player could simply transfer a leader to a site of power. This way if the leader is not involved in the taking of the mission objective, he will have to waste an entire turn sitting there next time.
  
  If a player conquered a territory that turn they get to draw a Territory card off of the pile. And if a leader for that player either conquered or moved to a Place Of Power he also gets to draw an Adventure card. A player can never have more than three Adventure cards or five Territory cards. Some Adventure cards are of a type called Event cards. Event cards must be played immediately and general affect could affect anybody. Event cards are both good and bad, but rarely are they inconsequential. Events include things like:
  1. Gaining a second leader. (A huge advantage)
  2. Some territories losing half of the troops placed on them.
4. MOVING THE RING
  The single best innovation in RLOTR is the concept of the Ring. Here’s how it works. The Fellowship (represented on the map buy an actually replica of the one ring) starts out in the Shire. At the end of each player’s turn they advance the ring one territory along its journey. Some territories require that the player make a roll higher than three to advance the Ring. The ring can also be held up for a turn by playing Power Cards. Once the ring leaves the board the game is over. The shortest game I’ve played has been a hour and a half. Most games seem to be almost exactly two hours.
  
  Controlling the progress of the Ring is very important, as the player who has the last turn is at a pretty big advantage. However, the last territory the Ring passes through always requires a roll in order to move the Ring. So nobody knows for sure if they are taking the last turn.
VICTORY!
Victory can be achieved in one of two ways. Either you eliminate all of the other players (which I don’t think can be done) or you score the most points. Points are scored as follows:
1. Each territory you control is worth 1 point.
2. Each stronghold you control is worth 2 points.
3. Each Land you control is worth the same amount of points as number of troops that it grants.
4. Total point value of all power cards played.
5. Total points for completed missions.

CONCLUSION

All of the games flaws have been fixed but one. Extreme luck good or bad can still swing the outcome of the came of the game. However, the new version does allow players to mitigate the effect of luck by using good strategies to a massive degree.
The addition of leaders, new terrain types, and Adventure cards opens up a ton of new strategies that force players to do a lot of thinking in between their turns.
Thanks to the new built in timer (the Fellowship) four player games rarely take over two hours. Since game time is limited no player can afford to just sit back, which makes for some very exciting games. Also since time is limited it is rare for a player to be eliminated (I haven’t seen it happen in ten games), so everyone gets to play from start to finish.

RLOTR has improved upon RISK in every way in my opinion. Even though extreme luck can still swing the outcome of a game I’m still giving this game a five because the designers have managed to make strategy far more important than before.

NOTE: Hasbro will be releasing an expansion RLOTR that will add Gondor, Mordor, and Mount Doom. Unfortunately we have to wait until next year to get our hands on the expansion.

RISK: The Lord Of The Rings
RISK: The Lord Of The Rings Playtest Review by JavaDragon on 12/12/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) So does Risk:Lord of the Rings manage to solve the problems of the original? Should you run out and buy it now? If you are a fan of RISK, the short answer is YES! Don’t wait; buy now! Product: RISK: The Lord Of The Rings Author: N/A Category: Board/Tactical Game Company/Publisher: Hasbro Line: Risk Cost: 69.95 CAN Page count: N/A Year published: 2002 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by JavaDragon on 12/12/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Other	INTRODUCTION I have years of experience playing classic Risk (Hereafter referred to as just RISK). In fact, I probably have about 17,000 hours of game time logged with RISK; which as any true Risk fanatic can tell you is about twelve actual games. As I'm sure you guessed, I was kidding about the number 17,000. But it does illustrate one of my major gripes with RISK. Although I've always enjoyed RISK and play every time someone asks, the game is not without it's problems. My biggest complaint about RISK is the amount of time that a game can take, especially with six players. I have many fond memories of playing RISK all night long with my friends, however now that I’m out of school and in the real world I just don’t have that kind of time to dedicate to games any more. The extreme game length also means that players that get eliminated have to go find something to do for a few hours while awaiting the start of a new game. Over half the RISK games that I have played have not ended with one man standing but rather end simply because the eliminated players force one (or more) of the remaining players to concede. The second complaint that I’ve always had with RISK is how dependant the outcome can be on luck. Or to be more specific bad luck, since I never complained when the dice gods got me out of a tight spot. In RISK a drooling five year old on a hot streak with the dice could destroy even the best-laid plans. Sooner or later all RISK players, unless you are the groups habitual loser (All groups have one; If you can’t remember him, it was you.), run into this problem. Since a lot of elements of luck come into play in a real battle I don’t mind an element of chance in my war games (Yes I called RISK a war game, get over it). The real problem, as I see it, is that the ratio between the numbers of forces on either side was never factored in. Nothing is more annoying than watching fifteen of your troops getting ground up by two defending troops just because that drooling five year old couldn’t stop rolling box cars. All experienced RISK players eventually realize that there are only so many strategies that one can use to obtain victory. Combat and cards are the only random factors in RISK. The major strategic points are always the same and the same continents are easiest to hold. The only thing that can really upset the plans, besides bad rolling, is the dreaded MASSIVE DEPLOYMENT. All RISK players know this one; you finally get that five year old down to one territory when he turns his cards in for fifty troops! (As a side note I have absolutely nothing against five year olds) In the rest of the review I will talk about what Risk: LOTR (Hereafter referred to as RLOTR) does different and how it affects game play. So does RLOTR manage to solve the problems of the original? Should you run out and buy it now? If you are a fan of RISK, the short answer is YES! Don’t wait; buy now! PRESENTATION The first thing that a person notices about RLOTR is the nice box artwork. Although the classic Risk box has had many facelifts over the years it still looks pretty plain. If you placed RISK beside the RLOTR edition I don’t think anyone would say the classic box is better. THE MAP The first thing that one will notice upon opening the RLOTR box is that the map is now a depiction of Middle Earth. The second thing that hits the viewer is just how nice the new map is. They’ve really stepped up the artwork from the crappy old RISK board. However, in the spirit of fairness I must admit that the first problem I encountered with RLOTR was with the board. The designers mistakenly placed Rohan on the wrong side of the mountains. Just as the awe from the artwork wears off you’ll think to yourself “Wait a minute! The territories are in one big clump. It’ll be chaos!” Don’t worry, calm down, and take a deep breath. The designers have introduced new terrain concepts that go beyond water and not-water, that address this issue. The list of terrain types has been expanded to include mountains, rivers, bridges, seaports, strongholds, and places of power. The inclusion of these new terrain features allow for a lot of new strategies. Mountains are impassable; except for one special case that I’ll mention later in the review. Rivers can only be crossed using bridges. Seaports allow a player to transport troops to any other seaport on the board (there are only three ports for now). Strongholds are one of the most important new terrain types. They give players’ troops a defensive bonus while trying to defend a territory. They are also worth points at the end of the game, making them very valuable. MINATURES As soon as the board is removed from the box it becomes clear that there are only four armies inside of the box. Unfortunately RLOTR is only meant for two, three, or four players. I’m not really sure why this particular decision was made since I believe (and others have agreed with me) that the board is big enough to host six players. One also has to wonder at the colour choices that were made for the armies. Two of the armies are fairly close in colour and once the game gets going I’ve seen people make mistakes and get them confused. I can only imagine that this problem gets worse if you have some drinking going on around the table. Why pick two such similar colours if only four are needed? This isn’t a very big problem and I only mention it because I couldn’t find much else to complain about. The armies are divided into two factions, good and evil, with two armies belonging to each. Good and evil have different miniatures. Each army consists of four different types of miniatures. The models for the forces of good consist of an elf, a rider of Rohan, a roc, and there are also two shields per army. A goblin, a nazgaul, a cave troll, and two shields represent the forces of evil. Battalion sizes have been adjusted from RISK’s one, five, and ten to one, three, and five. This change is a good one in my opinion as it limits the number of troops that are involved in battles and therefore cuts down on the overall amount of time that battles take. THE ONE RING It’s hard to miss the replica ring that sits in the bottom of the box. Although it is a bit gimmicky, the ring serves a very important and highly useful function that I’ll detail in the GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS section below. CARDS RLOTR contains many more cards than RISK does. Territory cards now have pictures of the different battalion pieces on the bottom. Some Territory cards also have a shield on them that is either silver of black. There are also two Territory cards that have all three battalion type pictures on them but no territory that represent wild cards. There is also another deck of cards that represent a new type called the Adventure card. I will detail these cards in the GAMEPLY ELEMENTS section below. Overall the artwork on the cards is quite nice. However, the cards themselves feel somewhat cheap. They are the one item in the box that I fear may become damaged from general wear and tear. GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS NOTE 1: In writing this section I will assume that the reader is familiar with RISK. If this is not true the reader may have some difficulty fully understanding the topics covered herein. NOTE 2: Even though the game allows for 2-3 players my review of game play will focus on the four-player version only. The other two are very similar and equally good, but it would take to long to cover all versions. *GAME SETUP* ASSIGNING TERRITORIES Each player roles a die. The player with the highest role is assigned a “Good” army. Starting with him alternate as you go around the table. So you end up with Good-Evil-Good-Evil. Then you separate the neutral from the non-neutral Territory cards. This will give you 9 good and 9 evil Territory cards. Deal them out so that one of the Good players ends up with five territories with four going to the other Good player. Then do the same for the Evil forces. Each player then places one army on each of his territories. Next, starting with the player that rolled the highest each player places one army on a territory until all of the territories have been claimed. Picking which territories you are going to start out in is one of the most important strategically important things a player will do. Although the “random” Good/Evil territories you began play with will have some impact on your troop placement, you must also look beyond that. It is probably in your best interest to try to get an entire land (although this will make you a target if you are the only player that has one) and likewise it is best to prevent another player from doing so. You also have to worry about proximity to places of power and strongholds (I will go into the value of these items later). ARMY PLACEMENT Once all of the territories have been claimed, each player places two of his armies on any territory that he owns. Once the players have deployed all of their troops they must choose a territory to deploy their leader to. Placement of your leader is very important for a couple of reasons: You only pick-up an Adventure card if your leader has conquered or moved into a territory that contains a Place Of Power. Your leader can swing the tide of important early battles, since he adds 1 to your highest die on both defence and offence. This advantage is crucial in attempting to take a stronghold (provides 1 to highest die roll while on defence). It is important to deploy the leaders now before people see which Adventure cards they are dealt. Otherwise if a player was lucky enough to control a Place Of Power that he got a mission for he would simply place his leader at that location. DEALING OUT THE CARDS Once the leaders have been placed each player is dealt two Territory cards and three Adventure cards (minus the Event cards). *BEGINNING THE GAME* All players will role a die to determine who will start play. The player that has the highest die goes first. REENFORCMENTS ARRIVE A player counts up all of the territories that he controls. That number divided by three, and then rounded down, is the basic amount of troops that all players get. As long a player controls a single territory he gets three troops to place. So if a player only controls thirteen territories he will get four troops (13/3 rounded down is 4), However if a player has only six territories he will collect three troops (6/3 = 2 but you can’t go lower than 3). If your last leader was eliminated, you place a new one on any territory that you control. A player may receive bonus troops if he controls one or more entire lands (blocks of territories). There is a chart showing how many troops each land is worth. The values range from two to seven. I don’t think each land accurately reflects how hard it is to take/hold. The one worth two (the Australia of RLOTR) still has three access points one of which borders two external territories. While another worth three has four access points one of which borders two other territories. In actual play both are exactly the same difficulty to hold. Moreover, the territory that provides a bonus of three also contains a stronghold and has much better access to the rest of the world thanks to it’s seaport. Now someone will chirp in and say that the territory worth two only has four territories to take, so it doesn’t take as many guys to hold. On closer inspection though, you realize that the land worth three only has four territories that require armies to hold and the land worth two requires you to place significant armies in each of it’s four territories to hold on to it. A player may also receive bonus armies if he has cards to “cash” in. Each territory card contains a symbol of a troop type. Get three of a kind or one of each and you receive a one-time boost of troops to deploy (there are two wild cards). Unlike normal RISK you will always receive four, six, eight, or ten troops and the amount received is not determined by the amount last “cashed” in for. The amount of troops received is determined by what type of set you turned in. Four, six, and eight correspond to three of a kind of archers, riders, or rocs while one of each gets you ten. A player may never have more than five Territory cards in his hand at one time. I really like this system, since it allows you to completely avoid the DREADED MASSIVE DEPLOYMENT problem that I mentioned in my introduction. Never again do you have to worry about the guy with only one territory turning for fifty troops and going on a massive tear around the board. CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR! After all troops have been deployed the real fun begins. You can attack any territory that adjoins a territory (or is connected by seaport or bridge) you control. Battle is conducted in exactly the same way as RISK except for the following things. If a leader is present he adds 1 to the highest roll of that player for both offence and defence. So if both players have a leader present at a battle they will cancel each other out. It is important to remember that the leader miniature does not represent an actual troop. So he can’t be killed unless all troops at that territory are eliminated. All troops that are defending a territory that contains a stronghold gain 1 on their highest die role. Since stronghold and leader bonuses stack attacking a territory that contains both is a very risky business, especially without having your own leader present (Defender gets 2 to highest die roll). Another new wrinkle on strategy are a subset of the Adventure cards called Power Cards. Using your power cards wisely can be the key to victory. They allow for such nifty things as: When attacking a territory place four extra troops at the territory you are attacking from. When being attacked place four extra troops at the territory you are defending When attacking take two away defending armies and add two attacking armies You may attack across a mountain range (normally impossible) Power cards open up whole new strategies. AFTERMATH After a player is done fighting he can declare a mission done if his leader has taken a Place Of Power that he has a mission card for. Mission cards are another type of Adventure card. They have a Place Of Power at the top, along with two values at the bottom, which tell you how many points they are worth (points will be covered in the victory conditions section down below). More difficult missions are worth more points. There is also a “prize” for completing a mission (usually extra troops, sometimes an extra Territory card). It is important to realize that you have to declare missions complete before redeployment. Otherwise a player could simply transfer a leader to a site of power. This way if the leader is not involved in the taking of the mission objective, he will have to waste an entire turn sitting there next time. If a player conquered a territory that turn they get to draw a Territory card off of the pile. And if a leader for that player either conquered or moved to a Place Of Power he also gets to draw an Adventure card. A player can never have more than three Adventure cards or five Territory cards. Some Adventure cards are of a type called Event cards. Event cards must be played immediately and general affect could affect anybody. Event cards are both good and bad, but rarely are they inconsequential. Events include things like: Gaining a second leader. (A huge advantage) Some territories losing half of the troops placed on them. MOVING THE RING The single best innovation in RLOTR is the concept of the Ring. Here’s how it works. The Fellowship (represented on the map buy an actually replica of the one ring) starts out in the Shire. At the end of each player’s turn they advance the ring one territory along its journey. Some territories require that the player make a roll higher than three to advance the Ring. The ring can also be held up for a turn by playing Power Cards. Once the ring leaves the board the game is over. The shortest game I’ve played has been a hour and a half. Most games seem to be almost exactly two hours. Controlling the progress of the Ring is very important, as the player who has the last turn is at a pretty big advantage. However, the last territory the Ring passes through always requires a roll in order to move the Ring. So nobody knows for sure if they are taking the last turn. *VICTORY!* Victory can be achieved in one of two ways. Either you eliminate all of the other players (which I don’t think can be done) or you score the most points. Points are scored as follows: Each territory you control is worth 1 point. Each stronghold you control is worth 2 points. Each Land you control is worth the same amount of points as number of troops that it grants. Total point value of all power cards played. Total points for completed missions. CONCLUSION All of the games flaws have been fixed but one. Extreme luck good or bad can still swing the outcome of the came of the game. However, the new version does allow players to mitigate the effect of luck by using good strategies to a massive degree. The addition of leaders, new terrain types, and Adventure cards opens up a ton of new strategies that force players to do a lot of thinking in between their turns. Thanks to the new built in timer (the Fellowship) four player games rarely take over two hours. Since game time is limited no player can afford to just sit back, which makes for some very exciting games. Also since time is limited it is rare for a player to be eliminated (I haven’t seen it happen in ten games), so everyone gets to play from start to finish. RLOTR has improved upon RISK in every way in my opinion. Even though extreme luck can still swing the outcome of a game I’m still giving this game a five because the designers have managed to make strategy far more important than before. NOTE: Hasbro will be releasing an expansion RLOTR that will add Gondor, Mordor, and Mount Doom. Unfortunately we have to wait until next year to get our hands on the expansion.

RISK: The Lord Of The Rings