15 April 2011

Random Friday Wargaming: Risk. Yes, Risk. Specifically, Risk: Balance of Power

Look, everyone played Risk growing up. Admit it, you did. It was the one of only two military-themed games you could find at Wal-Mart or TG&Y or Roses or whatever (Stratego was the other one...) Well thank heavens that they've decided to produce a variety of Risk variants, many of which fix two inherent problems in the basic game: no differentiation of units, and no real scaling of production. Sure, you could house-rule it, but then you end up arguing over house rules. How about just redesigning the game? The variants for GodStorm, 2210AD, and Lord of the Rings were all actually pretty good. Now comes the new variant, Risk: Balance of Power.


OK, so the arrows look goofy and you probably want to swap them out for A&A minis or something else cooler. But it is a better game than the original Risk.

You can actually discuss Risk at ConsimWorld Forum, but tellingly, it's filed in the "family games" section...

Check out all the variants at Hasbro's RISK page.

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...

By: Brant

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found the little arrows very hard to pick up and move around. As is evident in the photo, the map is undersized as well.

But I got my copy for $8 new at the drugstore, and even got my wife to play it once - we just replaced the arrows with little wooden cubes from an old set I had.

Rex Brynen said...

Well, there's always Iraq RISK....

http://social.consimworld.com/photo/iraqrisk-1