Lord of the Rings Risk: Board Game Review

I got Lord of the Rings Risk at Goodwill for only $3.00. It was missing the ring, which is sad because the ring would have looked awesome, but it isn't necessary to play the game, so we got it anyway. The game board depicts the upper half of Middle-earth, excluding the realms of Gondor and Mordor to the south. It has all of the kingdoms and places, including those not directly involved with the Lord of the Rings such as Angmar, the Lonely Mountain, etc. There are four sets of pieces for the players, two with orcs, Ringwraiths, and trolls, and the other with elves, Rohan cavalry, and eagles. The gameplay is exactly the same as normal Risk, with a couple of differences besides the Lord of the Rings modeled board and pieces. The game no longer ends when one player has conquered all of the territories. It ends when the Fellowship completes its journey. The Fellowship follows a marked path around the board, and when it finishes it's a circuit the game is over, and the player with the most points wins. You gain one point for every territory you've conquered, plus "Sites of Power" within those territories. The Sites of Power are scattered around the board and those territories are worth more victory points and give bonus defense points when you are attacked. Also new to the game are Leaders. Leaders do not count as a battalion of troops and die when it has no battalions to support it. If you are using it in an attack, you gain one attack point, and if you are using it in defense, you gain one defense point. The other addition is Power Cards, which you can acquire by conquering specific places around the board. These Power Cards can give you missions, rewarding you with more battalions and points, abilities, or events, for good or ill. The instruction manual also has rules for playing normal risk. 

The game falls into the same pits that the original game does. Attacking is way overpowered. At max, the defenders only get to roll two dice, while the attacker gets to roll three. In the game, we played only two or three troops died when attacking. Therefore, I recommend making a house rule and allowing the attacker and defender equal dice at max, otherwise, the attacker can simply attack with more than three troops and demolish everything in his path, only to have it all demolished by you on your turn, and then to have it demolished again by him, etc. It'sa good game, and with that rule it will be more fun. Thanks for reading!