Risk Legacy

Today we played our second game of Risk Legacy.  I did not win this time around, so it was a terrible game :)

If you haven't heard about Risk Legacy, it is a very interesting and unique game for quite a decent price.  I heavily advise looking into it if you're a fan of Risk, or even if you are not such a big fan.  It plays quite differently than the old school game that it shares a name with.

The basic overall structure of the game is the same as the old one.  You have a map of the world, divided up into continents and countries.  You march your little plastic men across the world, killing enemies and capturing territories in order to bring about your victory.  You still get new troops each turn based on the number of countries you hold, still roll 3 dice to attack and 2 to defend, still get one free move for reinforcements, and still get a card for capturing an enemy held country.

The details are where the differences start to appear.  First, the biggest difference and my favorite one is the play time.  This version plays in about 45-60 minutes, as opposed to the 4-5 hours of normal Risk.  How does it accomplish this amazing feat?  Well victory is no longer about world domination, it is about gaining four Red Stars (victory points).  To make things even faster and easier everyone starts with a capitol HQ, which counts as one Red Star, and if you haven't won a game yet you get a bonus Red Star token, so you are halfway to victory.  This makes for very quick games once you realize it.  Heck all you have to do is capture one other player's HQ and then turn in 4 cards for an additional Red Star token and you've won.

Another thing that really makes this Risk version unique, and that I also really like, is that the game is constantly being changed and customized to your group as you play it over the course of the 15 game campaign that it is intended to be played for.  You end up making changes to and adding lots of cool stuff to the map, the cards, the rules, and the game itself.  Both as a reward at the end of each game and as a result of various conditions and triggers being met you will do things like add custom named cities to the board, increase the value of various territory cards, name continents, change the continent bonuses up or down, fortify cities, add powers to the various factions, and even change the basic rules of the game.  By the end of 15 games you will have a very unique and highly customized Risk game that has been shaped and formed by the creative minds and hard efforts of your gaming group.  A gaming artifact of extraordinary personal value.

Of course a certain type of gamer will not be able to accept the coolness of this unique feature of Risk Legacy.  Those who hold the physical components of their games to be sacred and inviolate have shown themselves to be utterly aghast at the concept of such travesties as WRITING ON THE BOARD or TEARING UP CARDS.  The horror!  Why even the owner of our copy is unwilling to actual destroy any portion of the game, even when it instructs us to do so.  We will just be setting aside anything that should be "destroyed".  Which is totally fine by me.  I don't really feel that there will be much to gained from physically destroying game pieces.  Doing things like naming cities and continents, and recording your name on the victory track are enough for me.  I founded the city of Asgard in Scandinavia first game, and the city of Spiel-ville in Northern Europe the second game.

There are a plethora of other minor things that make this game different from classic Risk.  Each player plays a faction with specific plastic minis and special powers (well only one power right now, but there will be more later).  If you've won a game and don't get a bonus Red Star token any more, you get a missle token that you can use to change a die in any combat to a 6.  There are things called Scars that can make certain territories harder or easier to defend.  You only start with one country at the beginning of the game, so there is lots of expanding into empty territories at the beginning of the game.  And more interesting changes should be coming up as we open some of the various boxes and envelopes in the box.  Like if either John or I win the next time then we will open the envelope that says "Open when someone signs the board for a second time."

I have to say I'm really a big fan of this game so far, and I think my opinion will only go up as more facets of it are revealed.  I love the super fast play time, I love the customizing, and I love the cool theme and flavor of it.  It still has the same failing of any Risk game to some degree, in that victory can largely be determined by being the first one to trade in a good set of cards for a large chunk of troops.  But that is not going to be the only way that people win.  John won this one by saving his cards and trading in for that fourth Red Star token.  I think the game will promote people playing harder and taking more risks, since games can go from a stalemate to a victory so quickly, easily in a single turn.

Last Will Board Game Review

A few Sundays ago I played a board game called Last Will. Here is an excerpt from BGG that explains the theme of the game:

“In his last will, your rich uncle stated that all of his millions will go to the nephew who can enjoy money the most. How to find out which nephew should be rich? You will each be given a large amount of money and whoever can spend it first will be the rightful heir. Visit the most exclusive theaters or eat in the most expensive restaurants. Buy old properties for the price of new ones and sell them as ruins. Host a huge party in your mansion or on your private boat. Spend like your life would depend on it. Spend to become rich! If you're the first to run through the money on hand, you'll receive the rest of his inheritance – oh, and win the game.”

Sounds fun doesn't it? I sure found it to be quite well designed and a lot of fun.

For starters the art in the game is very well done and a theme that I particularly enjoy. I'd call it Victorian or Dickensian I guess. You know top hats and corsets, gaslights and horse drawn carriages. There are quite a few cards in this game and pretty much every one of them has something nice to look at on it.

The board exhibits good graphic design, with an appealing look, nice, easy to understand layout, and plenty of space for what is there. The individual player boards are nicely arranged as well, and heck there are even little wooden top hat meeples!

The game rules were, in my opinion, fairly easy to learn and understand, and the strategies seem both deep and varied. This is obviously a very good thing.

The game is played out until the end of seven turns or someone spends all their money, whichever happens first. If no one wins before the end of seven rounds, then the winner is the player with the least money and property values. If someone goes bankrupt on a previous round, then you play out that round and whoever is furthest in debt by the end of the round wins.

A turn takes place in five distinct phases. The first phase is setup, and is nice and quick. Basically fill the 8 card slots on the main game board with the designated type of card; and there are icons on the board to tell you which type goes where.

Next up is planning. There are eight different planning options on the board in a 4 player game, I think there are less with less players. Each option has four components to it: Card Draws, Errand Boys, Actions, and Turn Order. Each plan has different combinations of the first three, i.e. Four card draws, one errand boy, and two actions. The turn order portion is determined by how far to the left in the line up of planning spaces you place your token. The plans to the left go before the plans to the right; but the plans to the right have the advantage of getting you more stuff. You pick a plan and place your token on it, and then immediately draw the designated number of cards from any of the four main card decks (more on them later).

After that you, in turn order as determined by the planning track placement, place your Errand Boy tokens (the awesome little wooden top hats). You will have either one or two errand boys on a given turn, and each player takes turns placing one at a time until everyone has placed all of theirs. You have a good selection of options for what to do with them. First, the biggest variety of options are the various face up cards that you dealt onto the board during setup. You can place an errand boy on one of them to immediately take it into your hand. These cards range from being exactly the same type of cards you get from draws, to special more powerful version that you can only get this way, or even wild cards. There is one spot for getting an expansion to your player board. Your player board starts with five slots for cards, and this allows you to add more slots. Each player has a color coded space that allows them to just draw a card from a deck. There is the real estate market, where you can go manipulate the price modifiers for the four different types of buildings. And one person, if they don't really want to do anything else, can just go to the opera and spend $2.

The next phase is the Action Phase. Remember back when you got actions from your chosen plan? Here is where you spend them. You can play cards from your hand or activate cards that are already on your player board. Most cards will take at least one action to perform, and many will have an option to spend more actions to get more benefits out of the card play. Each card will explain what type of actions are needed and what you get from spending them on the card itself. This phase looks fairly straight forward, but the majority of the strategy and planning is in this phase. The other two are mostly just worker placement. Here you have to plan out the use of the limited resources of Actions and Cards in order to move towards your goal as quickly and efficiently as possible. Lots of interesting approaches can be taken.

Finally you have an End of Round Phase. Here you discard down to two hand cards, depreciate properties (more on that later), reset any activated cards on your player board, clear unclaimed cards from the main board, reclaim figures, move the turn marker, and pass the first player marker to the left.

Now, to understand all the things you can and might want to do during a given turn you need to know about the different types of cards in the game. There are four main types of cards, in four main decks: Events, Companions, Helpers and Expenses, and Properties.

Events are white bordered cards that represent one time expenses and experiences. They will be things like going to the theater, taking a sailing trip, going on a carriage ride, having a fine dinner, etc. Each will take one or more actions to play, and are played directly from your hand. Almost all will result in your being able to spend a certain amount of money. Many of them can be enhanced by either spending more actions to cause the expense to go up, or by attaching companion cards to the event to also make the expense go up. The card will have the details as to what particular companions can come along, and how many actions are necessary to bring them. These cards ended up being a huge portion of my strategy, and one of my favorite ways to spend money.

Helpers, Expenses, and Properties all are black bordered cards. To play them you have to have an open space on your player board. Most will take an action to play down to the board, and can then be activated for further effects later on, usually by spending more actions. Expenses work like events, except they stay in play and can cost you money each turn. Some will just drain money without having to spend actions, and some will require one or more actions to activate. I also really found that I'm a fan of non-action costing Expenses.

Helpers give you cool bonuses and advantages. Some of them also cost you money, which is nice, but even if they don't you will always get something cool; like extra actions, or being able to activate things without spending actions, or giving bonuses on buying or selling properties; stuff like that. The one that gives extra actions is VERY nice.

Properties are one of the main ways that you can get rid of large chunks of money. You're best case scenario is to buy the property at a high price, then sell it again later at a much lower one; losing as much money as possible on the deal. You can affect the prices via the real estate market and by special abilities from cards. Also, as long as you don't pay the maintenance cost on property, most of them will depreciate in value at the end of each turn; further adding to your loses. Which remember is a good thing. The other thing you can do instead of letting the property depreciate, or on the ones that don't depreciate, is to activate the property and pay the maintenance costs. This is another good way to spend money each turn, and you can enhance the amount spent with extra actions and companions, just like with events.

Properties are however a double edged sword. Sure you can lose a good amount of money on them, via depreciation or maintenance, but you also have to sell off all of them before you can declare bankruptcy, go into debt, and win. So if you are getting near the end of the game; you should probably start ditching those properties. Also, because of the short number of turns, you won't get to pay those maintenance costs very many times, or allow is to depreciate naturally for every long if you want to ditch it before the game ends. When I played I was the only one not to have any properties when the game ended (in round six with me winning btw :) ). I think properties CAN be good, you just have to avoid the temptation to hold on to them for too long. And remember, when you sell that property you are probably going to get a decent amount of money back, even if you sell at quite a loss, and you will have to plan for getting rid of that money quickly if you want to win.

The last type of cards are slate (blueish color) bordered, and these are the companions. There are four types: Dog, Horse, Guest, and Chef. There are also a couple of wild cards that can be any of them; and these are available face up on the board, not from drawing. As I've stated in the descriptions of the other cards, these are used to enhance the amount of money you spend on events, expenses, etc.

Technically there is one more deck of cards, the special cards, but they can't be drawn up the way the other ones can. You can only get them by claiming them off the main board with errand boys. These cards will be both white and black bordered; and will tend to be slightly better versions of the same type of cards from those respective decks.

I'll wrap up with my thoughts on the game in general. I've already stated how I loved it aesthetically, and that I found it to be well designed and have deep strategy possibilities. All very good accolades in the games metaphorical cap (or top hat). Properties are a double-edged sword and may or may not be worth it. Events seem to be where it is at, at least in my opinion. I loved that there are lots of different paths to victory that you can take though; and none is really the right way.

I think that you don't have to be too caught up in picking the right plan during the planning phase, both because you can always get something good no matter what order you go in the turn; and because everyone gets to be first player once or twice.

Top hat meeples rock!

Overall this was a great games, that was tons of fun, and I look forward to playing it some more. I will probably buy it at some point in the future, and that is about as strong a recommendation as I can give I guess.