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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Erifnogard" data-source="post: 431407" data-attributes="member: 35">I bought it two weeks ago and have gotten a chance to play it once.  It is definitely cool. The rules are the exact same as Risk with the following exceptions:There are Strongholds and Places of Power marked on the map in various regions.  The Strongholds add 1 to the highest defensive roll made when defending that region from attack.  The places of power are related to missions found in the Adventure deck (see below).There is a new deck of cards in addition to the normal territory cards.  This is called the Adventure deck and contains Events (which are played when drawn), Missions (they designate a place of power that you must take in order to recieve a reward), and Power cards (which let you change play in some way).  These are drawn when you take places of power with your leader (see below).You have a Leader who doesn't count as an army, but adds one to your highest die roll of the territory he is in (whether you are on attack or defense) and who are used to complete missions and capture places of power.There is a path printed on the map that the ring follows.  At the end of each player's turn the ring moves one territory.  In three of the territories, you have to roll to see if the ring continues that turn.  In addtion, several Adventure deck cards affect the ring's progress.  All of this is important because when the ring exits the map, the game ends and whoever has the most victory points (from territories held, missions complete, powers used, etc) wins.Some random observations:The board seems small compared to normal Risk, but this is deceptive because there is effectively no oceans to split the territories up.  There actually is about the same amount of land (though I haven't counted exactly) as normal, but it is split up by Rivers (passable only at bridges/fords) and mountains (crossable only by bypassing or using passes).  This has the effect of splitting the map up about as much as it was in the original Risk.  The board itself is beautiful, though the font used is somewhat hard to read from any angle other than the bottom.  The pieces are excellent with the forces of good represented by elven archers, Riders of Rohan, and Eagles (ones, threes, fives respectively) and the forces of evil represented by orcs, dark riders, and cave trolls (as above).  There are two colors of each and oddly the good guys can battle each other (though I suppose this is not totally unbelievable).All in all it played very well.  The main thing we noticed is that, like regular Risk, it is important to pick an area at start and concentrate.  This is not immediately obvious with the board being so seemingly interconnected, but once you notice all the rivers and mountains, you realize that spreading out over the whole continent makes for a very disconnected force that is hard to reinforce.  All in all I give it two thumbs up.  Next time I play I may even avenge my fallen elves and win.  ;o)</blockquote>

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