Risk Legacy

I wanted to spill for just a little bit about Risk Legacy. This was brought to CabinCon for the first time, a kind offering from Bill, and was cracked open for the first time Thursday night. Pretty sure it was Thursday night. Over the course of CabinCon 2012, we played a total of three games. If I remember right, each game was five players.

A brief aside - I'm pretty sure Bill picked this up at Phantom of the Attic in Oakland. Bill and I have both dropped a bunch of cash over the years at POTA. They, along with the Comic Swap in State College deserve some credit as "unofficial sponsors" of CabinCon.

I was very impressed with Risk Legacy. The "legacy" features of the game were very rich. Even over the course of three games, it evolved tremendously. It is still very much Risk from the first through third playings, but the game definitely added more depth to the rules changes and scars placed throughout the world. And let me be clear - these changes are not purely cosmetic. There is a feel of increasing depth to the game as rules are added and changed. I don't know if the game is purely balanced - for example, as we left it, two races had two powers (they got their second power from being knocked out) and the other three only had one power. I am fine with this level of imbalance. In fact, it seems that the metagame can do a nice job of informally "balancing" these types of discrepancies.

I am a little disappointed that we did not get a fourth game in. A the end of the third game, we opened a new pack that offered some substantial rules changes to the game - mostly for the set-up/starting phase of the game. I am very interested to see how these impact gameplay. Honestly, I think game four will be a much better game than games 2 and 3 were. (And I really have no substantive complaints about how 2 and 3 played out)

One final note is that the game is rather tight - games typically lasted about 90 minutes, give or take a little. I think this is perfect for a game of this type. I honestly approach a game like this a little more casual - I like to have fun with it. Mayhem, combat, dice rolling, petty vengeances, you know, all that good stuff. I think it lends itself very well to fast, fun, and loose play.

A big thank you again to Bill. This was a great addition to CabinCon and I am sorry it will sit in wait for 11 and a half months.