RISK!

I discovered that there were expansions made for Risk 2210 (which is a version of Risk that I like a lot). There were five expansions made in total, and none of them are, or ever were, available for purchase (they were used in tournaments hosted by the game, and given out as prizes). Two are expansions I can make easily myself, and the rest I can probably make myself but would do a bad job. Here is a list of them and my opinions of them (if you don't know how to play Risk 2210, reading this entry will only confuse you—it is pretty different from regular Risk):

First: Five new cards; one for each commander. Basically they are just good cards. However, since the game comes with blank cards, it would be easy to write the cards down on the spares. Not as pretty, but I'm not going to go planet hunting for 5 cards that look prettier.

Second: Mars. And its two moons. You do this instead of Earth. The Martian board reminds me of the Lord Of The Rings version of the game, where every territory seems to border 6-8 other territories, making paths of attack unpredictable. I don't think I would use this very much if I had it. Unless I had two sets of pieces, in which I would play with Mars instead of the Moon. Or maybe have all three moons as well. That could be awesome, if rather confusing. Point is, I'm not in a hurry to find this one.

Third: Tech Commander. I WANT THIS ONE. All it is is a sixth commander called the Tech Commander, along with his set of cards. But they are awesome cards, and, I, really want this. I found it on ebay. Right now it's at $20, but it may go up to $50-$75, looking at past auctions. However, my brother said he would chip in, so I am tempted to do this. I probably will.

Fourth: Factions. This makes the game more similar to diplomacy, in that everyone has a national, well, not national, but perhaps political identity. Also each faction has advantages and disadvantages, and start with different commanders and cards etc. This would be very easy to do myself, because the only physical thing to copy is a place-mat that everyone gets, showing what their faction does and everything. I mean, I could make them in InDesign and print them off. In fact, I'm going to do that when I finish writing this.

Fifth: Invasion of the Giant Amoebas! Aliens are attacking during the game. Basically at the beginning of every turn, the player turns over an amoeba invasion card, which can do a number of things. Usually, amoebas attack a random territory. They all roll 8-sided dice. Other cards do things like doubling the number of amoebas in every territory, etc. This is something I'd like, but it isn't something I'd use every game, like the factions and tech commander (and special cards). I want this much more than, say, Mars though.

My order of wanting these would be: Third, Fifth, Fourth, Second, First. Matt OUT.