@John:
Those are cool.
Is the Lord of the Rings risk game good?
Depends on what you like… if you hate normal Risk and/or don’t like LotR, then no… it’s a terrible game and you should avoid it like the plague.
We are talking the obvious here… it’s basically RISK, played on a map of Middle Earth from LotR. If you like Risk and/or are a fan of LotR, then it’s definitely a fun game and a winner.
Boiled down, it is very much RISK on a LotR map of Middle Earth (if you get the game, there’s actually two versions, make sure you get the “TRILOGY EDITION” or you’ll get ripped off)… the major change/difference beyond map is the addition of Fortresses and Leaders… Forts (Like Helm’s Deep or Minas Tirith) add a +1 to your highest die roll when on defense… Leaders travel with armies and add +1 to your highest die roll on attack or defense (and can be added on top of defending a fortress for a big fat +2). There’s also the ringbearer… which kind of adds a timer so-to-speak so the RISK game doesn’t go on forever… evil kinda wants to win before the Ringbearer makes it to Mt Doom… this prevents a 10 hour game of Risk!
As for my picture above and the “looks cool” comment… realize I did “trick-out” my copy of LotR: Risk… the Dice Towers are obviously not default with the game, Fortresses are just printed on the map, I actually added color-coordinated Fortress pieces to my version, and the biggest change I made… was leaders… in default LotR: Risk, the leaders are generic flags that implies “hey, there’s a leader here”… I added miniatures of famous characters from LotR as leader pieces… so you actually have Gandalf, Saruman or the Lord of the Nazgul as your leader for example… not some plastic flag.
In summary, if you like Risk and/or if you like LotR, yes its a fun game and I enjoy it… but if you hate Risk and hate LotR… stay clear, this game won’t make you magically like them if you don’t already. Like A&A, it was fun to customize the game and make it better than it is out of the box.
I can’t get my kids to play A&A much, but they both enjoy LotR Risk