Risk: Europe Playtest

Was happy to get Risk:  Europe for my boys this Christmas, and we broke it out and kicked the proverbial tires.

This guy looks ready to invade.

My boys have played Medieval:  Total War II a fair amount, so this was historically familiar to them.  There's already an excellent write-up over at The Stronghold Rebuilt on the miniatures, so if you want to use the included four factions of medieval miniatures in about 1/72 or 20mm, go check that out.

The basics:  Four factions fight for control of a map of Europe with major cities giving certain advantages in income when taxed, levying troops, or other resource management buffs.  The game runs until one player gets the requisite number of crowns for owning capital cities such as London, Paris, Madrid, etc.

The game incorporates four troop types - infantry, archers, cavalry, and siege machines.  The latter three go earlier in sequence during a combat and can whittle away your foes' troops before the infantry combat takes place along familiar Risk 3 attackers versus 2 defender dice rolls, with ties going to the defender.  Provinces with castles can only be attacked by armies that contain a siege machine, and siege machines are of course the most expensive troop type to stand up.

We played with three players, and the rules tell you that in such instances the fourth army must be fielded, but as a mercenary faction.  Players bid to control the mercenary faction, forcing them to balance their own force requirements versus the advantage of controlling an x-factor ally.

I recommend following this rule.  We didn't field the mercenary faction, just so we could learn the rules, and quickly saw that the board really does need all four factions for the game to balance correctly.

Game in progress.  At left is the ladder of crowns that players climb in terms of crowns that they've won.  I'm playing Orange, Son 1 is Purple, and Son 2 is Green.  You can see that by now players have bought siege machines and are lining up to invade provinces with castles.

We played for several hours in some back-and-forth exchanges over contested provinces.  We all had fun and want to dive back into the game.

Impressions:
- If you ever wanted an analog version of Medieval:  Total War, this is your game.
- The rules are great.  The crown cities all add buffs that facilitate resource management decisions and sharp competition between players.  The combat rules provide a stripped-down yet elegant medieval combat system.  With some command rules or activation mechanics added on, this could seriously be the basis of a wargame not on a Risk board but on a large gaming table.
- This is a gateway drug for getting your friends into wargaming.  A nuanced version of a game that they already know that could definitely lead them into other tabletop strategy games.