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(More customer reviews)I used to hate Risk. A couple of my friends back in high school tried to get me to play a few times and I absolutely hated it. Seriously... playing with little tiny men, cannons, and horses; rolling dice to take over the world? NO thanks! But a funny thing happened. Fast forward 20 years and someone breaks out Risk at a small gathering. Begrudgingly I accept the offer to play, and wonder of wonders, I had a great time! After that night, a small group of Risk fans began to gather once a week to play Risk together. During one of our sessions, we discovered some rule variations in the back of the instruction manual, things like "Commander Roll" and "Capital Conquest" mode. We incorporated these rules and a few others and Risk only got better!
We were all quite excited when we recently saw a commercial on TV for a new version of Risk. It had a fresh new look to it and had new rules for playing that promised to speed up the game. So I bought it. Some of the new rules are the same as the rule variations from original Risk. The new guide book doesn't mention anything about "Commander Roll" but it does have new objectives and a very unique reward system that compliments the objectives. Rewards range from an extra attack dice, extra defense dice, an airfield, a guaranteed country card at the end of your turn, extra strategic maneuver at the end of your turn, and my personal favorite, an extra strategic maneuver at the START of your turn (can you say surprise attack!?).
Visually, the new game board is dramatic. Everything is a little darker but very bold. Gone are the soothing blue oceans and seas. They're now blood red with subtle stripes radiating from the bottom corner. Most of the countries have remained the same but a few names have changed. There also appears to be a few extra land bridges connecting some territories, which is helpful (unless you reside in that territory!). The playing pieces have changed. Gone are the diminutive soldiers, cannons, and horses. They are replaced with simple flat arrows, a short one indicating one troop and a longer one with three stripes on it indicating, that's right- three troops. They're roughly the same color as earlier versions of Risk but they are a lot harder to pluck up off the board during skirmishes and I don't think there's enough of a difference between the two arrows. This new version of Risk also has cities that are randomly placed about the board at the start of the game. If you control a territory with a city in it, you get to add a "+1" to your territory count before you divide by 3 to see how many troops you draft at the start of your turn.
Another change I really like is the country cards you receive at the end of your turn (if you defeated a neighboring territory). They no longer have soldiers, horses, or cannons on them. Instead they have either one or two stars. When you have at least two stars you can turn them in for troops. You can also collect as many cards as you want and turn in a larger number of stars for exponentially more troops. (2-stars=2 troops, 3-stars=4 troops, 4-stars=7 troops, etc).
There's a few other minor differences, but overall we all loved the new and improved Risk. I can't say that the game went any faster. It still took 4 of us over 2 hours to finish a game. Granted it was our first time playing this version and it will probably go faster next time. I think that next time we'll add some of our older rules to the mix which will help speed things up. Here's one of our favorites--the Country Card Re-Roll: when you receive a country card for winning a territory, if you later attack the country on the back of one of your country cards, you are allowed to re-roll one of your attack dice on each roll. It doesn't work when defending, but it can really help you overcome the defender advantage. And in case you don't have original Risk and have never heard of the Commander Roll, you must try it at least once! Once PER TURN (not per attack) you are allowed to change one of your attack dice to a six. This is kinda symbolic of your commander being present at that particular battle and helping deliver a more decisive defeat. It's great when you just wanna pop over to a neighboring continent and take one of your opponent's territory so they don't get the continent bonus at the beginning of their turn!
For more info on this new version of Risk, be sure to click on the "Watch it in action" link at the top of this page to see a great Flash overview.
UPDATE: Having played this new version of Risk many times since I wrote this review, I have to say I'm still a big fan! The game does go a lot faster (especially using our rule variations described above) and it's a lot more fun. Still don't like the little arrow pieces presenting soldiers. We still pull out an old version of Risk and use the soldiers, horses, and cannons from it. Parker Brothers: please change the army pieces!
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