Revenge!

Born in the crucible of nuclear fire, our vengeance burns brighter than a thousand suns.

(Risk Legacy Spoilers Below)

 

A couple weeks ago we played our ninth Risk Legacy game. I wish I had taken the time to write this up then, as the details are already starting to fade. Much of the game was dominated by the new goodies we opened as a result of the last game, which if you recall also resulted in the destruction of my capital city in Brazil.

I lucked out and got first pick of the draw during setup, and naturally picked the new neon orange Mutant faction in hopes of extracting some revenge on three of the other fours players. The faction is a pretty good choice for me, as they’re completely unaffected by the radioactivity resulting from the destruction of Hy-Brasil. This allowed me to start in South America, which I had named Machination in game seven. The only downside is that the Mercenary scar on one of the territories I placed at the beginning of game seven actually causes me to lose a man at the end of each turn, opposite of its normal effect, but I get three at the beginning of every turn for holding Machination regardless.

This was just one less than the total of three that James was receiving for playing Khan Industrial State in Australia, as he has done for the last couple of games. Killer Pig played Enclave of the Bear as usual, starting in North America once again. The former Bringer of Fire, however, seemed somewhat apprehensive at the idea of playing The Saharan Republic with the Mutants on board, given their bonus against the Saharans. The enticement of a pair of extra missiles to play with the Saharans wasn’t enough to sway her from choosing Imperial Balkania instead, a choice I think she regretted later.

We were also graced once again by our unnamed fifth player, who picked my old reliable Die Mechaniker to play. Die Mechaniker, for getting knocked out during the last game, was the first of our factions to sport a comeback power. In this case I picked the mobile base power that allows them to move their base at the beginning of their turn, quite useful for leveraging their fortified base faction ability, though it didn’t really come into play this game.

Most of the game was strongly influence by the new event cards we received from opening the DO NOT EVER OPEN package. It seems I didn’t shuffle the small event deck as much as I could have, and we ended up drawing a new punishing global effect on every turn, many of which were crippling. As a result, I pretty much just hunkered down in South America and waited for my moment to bust and out kick ass.  If came a turn earlier than I had expected, though it seems I had miscalculated in my favor anyway.

James knocked out Imperial Balkania on the fifth turn, taking from her three resource cards, resulting in a large impressive set of cards in his own had. Enough in fact for him to turn in for 30+ troops and a victory star on the beginning of his next turn, enabling him to open the last unopened pack. Sadly, he never had the chance.

Splitting my forces, I first captured the Enclave’s base in North America, and then marched my garbage truck armada across North Africa, Southern Asia, and into Australia, smashing James meager remaining defenses, taking four territories across sea lanes there by completing the Amphibious Assault mission, and capturing his base, cementing my fourth victory.

My miscalculation was forgetting that the mutants have a special mission, where they gain a victory start by capturing all territories with Bio-hazard or Radation scars. There is only one remaining Bio-hazard scar, in southern Australia, and so I did not need to take the Enclave base in order to win. Nevertheless satisfying to see The Enclave, Imperial Balkania and Khan Industrial state brought low for their previous perfidy.

As my reward, I applied the -1 sticker to Australia, symbolically despoiling the earth with radioactive waste from our garbage trucks. For future games, should James and I start as we normally do, we’ll both have the same number of bonus reinforcements every round.

Revenge is sweet.