After a bit of discussion and and some shuffling of games, it was decided to thrown down with Risk Legacy.
I had heard a little about this game before and what I had heard was pretty cool.
Nothing, however, prepared me for what I had in store.
Risk Legacy shares only little with it's original title. In the game, each player chooses an army. These include mutants, robots, and Braveheart style warriors. This is one of the handful of options that are drafted for before starting, including starting army size, first placement on the board, starting money, and starting actions.
Once this is all settled, players place their armies starting from their territory, chosen in order drafted, and moving out from there. Each turn they get more people to add to their army and attempt to spread out across the board, gaining resources and keeping their opponents down. This is all similiar to Risk and this is where the similarities end.
When players choose their specific army at the beginning, they get a cardboard card with any special abilities for that army and sign and date the back. If certain things happen during the game, stickers are pulled off from sheets in the box and added to the card for use during the current game and later plays of that game.
The goal of the game is to collect stars, five needed to win. These can be recieved in a variety of ways. Also, when you start the game, if you have never won, you start with a star and those who have, start with a missle. During the game, there are chances for other customizations of the game depending on certain actions taking place.
In the end of the game, depending on what happened, major and minor cities can be placed in owned territories if you have earned them. These effect armies later in future games. Also, the winner signs, dates, and comments on a portion of the board designed for this function and the players all track their success level on the back of their cards. This keeps track of what has happened with the games in the past.
There are a specific number of possible plays on each board and once this has been reached, the owner opens a sealed pouch in the box and the game should not be further played. A new game should be purchased at this point for additional plays. I have even read online of people burning the board and box along with other destruction methods.
So, in our game, I played with Gene, Eric, Matt, and Paul. Eric chose the Mutant army and quickly expanded in North America, which had become very beneficial for them due to previous stickers or "scars" on the board.
Matt started in South America, Paul in Africa, Gene in Australia, and I in Asia. Paul consolidated most of Africa and made some early pushes into South America and Asia. Gene tried to push into Asia and using a house rule created by a previous victor, used the bridge from Australia to South America to make his presence there as well. Matt did all he could to hold on as he was being swarmed from three directions. I tried to hold on to my majority of Asia and build for later defense.
We were just starting to get into a bit of a groove when Paul makes step one of his devious plan. He turns in cards he obtained from winning a battles in previous turns to gain a ton of troops. He spreads through Europe and Asia. On his next turn, he decides to try to stop Eric in North America who is starting to form quite the Mutant army. He ended with two opponent's bases, and triggered an event for another star. Everyone did a double take, as Paul had managed a win without anyone realizing what had happened.
We all had a good laugh and finished our duties in the game by marking our cards accordingly. Paul signed the board as winner and was able to create a new minor city.
Final Thoughts: This was my first group game with the Unterspielstadt and it was allot of fun. It was a little bit goofy at times, but it made for a never dull game. I definitely want to play this one again in the future and see what else happens.
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