Overview
Lord of the Rings Risk: Trilogy Edition, a board game by Hasbro and Parker Brothers released in 2003, takes the classic game of Risk and transports it into Tolkien’s Middle Earth. In addition to the change of theme, the game builds on the classic Risk mold by adding several new elements – presenting new strategic and tactical choices – yet still feeling like a light war game. But a lack of polish and an overwhelming ‘mass-market’ feel dampen what otherwise could have been a good game.
This review presupposes that you understand how to play (and hopefully have played) the basic version of Risk. There are many other reviews devoted to Risk, and examining the mechanics of regular Risk, in addition to examining the mechanics of Lord of the Rings Risk: Trilogy Edition (hereafter referred to as “LotRR”), is simply beyond the scope of this review.
This game builds on the standard Risk mold. Its core mechanics are the same – you attack and capture enemy territories, you roll 6-sided dice for both attacks and defense (with ties going to the defender), you receive additional reinforcements based on the area you control, and you try to eliminate the other players. All of these mechanics are present, but LotRR presents several additional ones, some of which were seen in other Risk variants. But at its core, LotRR is a light war game based on attacking your opponent and capturing territory.
How it is Different from Regular Risk
LotRR presents a number of very obvious differences from standard Risk. First of all, the theme is different. Instead of Napoleonic warfare, we have Middle Earth warfare. Naturally, the board is also different. Instead of continents from the Earth that we know, (Africa, Asia, North America, etc.) there are regions from the Middle Earth (Gondor, Mordor, Mirkwood, Rohan, etc.). The regions function the same way as continents from Risk – you control the entire region, and you get bonus troops. One of the key differences in this regard is that in LotRR, there are 9 different regions; in regular Risk there are only 6. Thus, in LotRR, it is easier to control at least one region than it is to control one continent in regular Risk.
But the map adds additional complexity by designating certain territories as fortresses, and others as ‘sites of power’ (more on ‘sites of power’ later). Fortresses aid in defense, by adding 1 to the defender’s highest die roll of each round of combat fought in the territory where it is located. Fortresses also generate 1 free unit every turn, and are worth 2 victory points at the end of the game. Because of these advantages, fortresses tend to be pretty important, and territories that have a fortress become key areas in a region.
Thirdly, LotRR only allows for 2-4 players, rather than the 2-6 of standard Risk. Although there are several different modes that can be played if there are 4 players (Standard, Team, or Alliance), the game really suffers by not having a better range of playable configurations. After many plays, it became painfully obvious that 4 players was the optimal way to play (and at this point for me, the only way to play).
Additionally, LotRR divides the players up into ‘Good’ players and ‘Evil’ players. In a 2 or 4 player game, half of the players are ‘Good’ and the other half are ‘Evil’. In a 3 player game, 2 of them are ‘Evil’ and 1 is ‘Good’. There are different miniatures for Good and Evil, but aside from that, ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ have little effect in the actual game. The primary effect is in the division of starting territories. Unlike in regular Risk, where territories are either totally random or are selected in turn, in LotRR certain territories are, from the start of the game, designated as either ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’. The Good players get the Good territories and the Evil players get the Evil territories. This is an attempt to give the game at least a passing resemblance to the world of Middle Earth. But after that, the label ceases to have any effect. Good players can fight with each other, Evil players can cooperate with Good players, etc. The whole Good/Evil distinction leaves you with a “Huh?” feeling.
Fourthly, LotRR incorporates Leaders. Leaders are special units that move along with other units, but they can’t exist except as an attachment to other units. Their primary effect is to add one to the highest die roll of each combat round in which they take part. Thus, they are pretty powerful. Each player starts with 2, and cannot recruit additional leaders unless they have lost one (or both). In addition to providing a valuable boost in combat, leaders also allow you to both collect and play Adventure cards.
Fifthly, LotRR uses Adventure cards in addition to the traditional Territory cards. Adventure cards are a combination of random events, mission/objectives, and one-off bonuses. Each player starts with 4, but can only draw more by capturing a ‘site of power’ with a leader. Since Adventure cards provide victory points and other in-game advantages, having a leader capture a ‘site of power’ at least once per turn becomes a crucial aspect of each player’s strategy.
Sixthly, LotRR is won by accumulating victory points. This is primarily done by capturing territory, but can also be done by holding fortresses and playing Adventure cards. There are no secret missions, and (thankfully) no one is forced to try and capture the entire map. Whoever has the most victory points at the end of the game is the winner.
Speaking of which…LotRR has a built-in time limit. Yay! 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. The Fellowship’s path is tracked by a dotted line that runs from The Shire all the way to 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. This is why a player’s territory always expands during his turn and then contracts during other players’ turns. When the Ring reaches Mount Doom, the game has a 50% chance of ending. If it doesn’t, then it has a 50% chance of ending the next turn, and a 50% chance of ending for each subsequent turn. 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). Thus, at the end of the game, each player ‘goes for broke’ and makes an all-out attack in an attempt to grab territory. 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.
What I Don’t Like About this 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. That doesn’t necessarily happen in LotRR. Indeed, the Evil players have just as great a chance of winning as the Good players when the Ring is destroyed, despite the fact that it flies in the face of the entire theme of Tolkien’s work! This is because Fellowship’s path to Mount Doom is purely a time limit – it serves no other function. This is totally unlike the Fellowship’s path in other Middle Earth themed war games, such as War of the Ring, in which the Fellowship’s path is integrated into a total war-against-evil-effort. Here, the Fellowship is added as an afterthought. Again, you are left thinking “Huh?”.
The Adventure cards also leave something to be desired. As mentioned before, the Adventure cards are a combination of random events, missions/objectives, and one-off bonuses. 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. For instance, each player starts with 4 cards in his hand – but no one is allowed to have an Adventure card that says “Play Immediately” in their hand (these are the ‘random event’ cards). 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. I can easily envision a game that uses different types of cards – Event cards, Mission cards, and Resource/Power Cards – with different triggers for drawing each, and the need to make meaningful decisions as to which to draw. But ah, it is not to be, at least in this game.
Another thing I don’t like is the mechanic that allows you to draw Adventure cards – capturing a site of power with a leader. 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.
Unfortunately, this mini-game requires a great deal of strategy to set up correctly, and can be extremely frustrating for new players who aren’t used to how the mechanic works. Many times a new player would say, two-thirds of the way through the game, “So how do you draw more of these cards?”, or “Wait, you have to capture a site of power with a leader?”, or “Wait, I have to have a leader here to play this card?”. The game, inadvertently I think, places great emphasis on your ability to position your leaders. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that, just like in standard Risk, you only have 1 reinforce move per turn, which means that it is very difficult to re-organize your forces and move your leaders from one territory to another. 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 other thing I don’t like about the game is that, while it divides up the players into “Good” and “Evil”, these sides aren’t balanced! 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.
What I DO Like About this Game
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. Also, the time limit mechanic, while frustrating in its tendency to arbitrarily determine the winner, does ensure that the game won’t take forever, which is a nice consolation.
Conclusion
This is one of those games that has some real nice qualities to it, but leaves you thinking, “This game would be better if the designers had done _____.” There are a lot of real head-scratch-worthy design decisions in this game that make you question whether the designers even took it seriously. You can easily tell, after only a few plays, that the game has some serious flaws. Why the designers didn’t see these and change some basic aspects of the game is beyond me.
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. If you like neither Risk nor Lord of the Rings, then you definitely won’t like this game (but that begs the question…why are you still reading this review?).
Final Score:
Most People: 5/10
Risk Fans: 7/10
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