I've been collecting Transformers for who knows how long, and I've been playing Risk with my friends for ages. TF: Risk? Oh hells yes! It was easily my most anticipated Movie merchandise (well, that and Bonecrusher, both of which I found today).
And now I've played it, and... verdict?
Ok, we've played a lot of themed risk - from ancient Mythology to LOTR to SW, so Risk with modified rules is nothing new to us.
That said, TF:Risk is rather simplistic in comparison to the others (In hindsight, I suppose I should have expected that), but it does have a few unique and interesting gimmicks.
The most noteable is the new Commander aspect. Commanders/Leaders/Heroes/Ect are present in many of the themed Risk sets - mostly, they tend to let you use an 8-sided die or add one to die rolls. In this game however, they're different. Each faction has its own unique leader (Prime, Megs, Bumblebee and Barricade, if you're wondering) each of whom does something rather unique in addition to allowing an 8-sided die. For example, Megatron can attack anywhere on the board- even in the middle of the enemies stronghold! The downside? He has to do it alone. Optimus on the other hand, is able to move to any territory he can get to at the end of the turn (seperate from your normal move). The faction difference is a new aspect to Risk, and that makes it a bit more interesting.
The other new addition is the moving parts on the map. There are two sliding sections that reveal 'War Factories', and two rotating sections that can block off or allow access to certain areas. That sounds cooler then it actually is, since the two rotators aren't stragically useful unless you build a strategy completely around that. The War Factories are a cute touch that lets you double units there (maximum 3) at the begining of the turn, and if you close one on your oppenent, all the units there are 'crushed'. And that is kinda cool, but again, not as cool as you would think.
The board is big, but the spaces are big and unfortunately brightly colored - this is *seriously* Play-Skool colored. Most the space names are Cybertronian locations taken straight from the comics (though they must have been running out, Primus and Unicron are named spaces, and another is seriously called the 'Rad Zone'. We had quite a fight over the Rad Zone, but that's another story).
If you want to follow the rules completely (we never do when it limits our risk games), there are 6 turns before the Allspark is launched, and whoever has the most territories at the end wins. If there is a tie, whoever controls the Allspark Launch Pad wins (even if they have the fewest territories)
THere are cards, but for the most part, they're bonus's you've seen before in Themed Risk games. Nothing spectacular there.
The major downfall as far as I'm concerned is the lack of army pieces. We tend to play on large, epic scales, and they simply don't give you the number of pieces for that. I'm very tempted to buy another set just to have double the pieces.
All in all, it's a decent themed Risk, but nothing superbly spectacular. Mostly for TF fans who play Risk only.
