USAOPOLY Risk Themed Game of Thrones Strategy Board Game |for Game of Thrones Fans | Official Merchandise | Based on The TV Show on HBO, Orignal Color

As a fan of both Risk and Game of Thrones (show and books) I was very excited to get my hands on this game. I'm happy to report that this version of Risk is the most enjoyable that I have ever played, and is fun even if you are unfamiliar with the show. I have played the 2-player and 3-player versions of the game at the time of this review.The biggest change to classic risk is the introduction of gold as a resource. At the beginning of a players turn, the player will gain additional armies and gold, based on the number of territories occupied. Additionally, some territories contain castles and/or ports, which give bonus armies and gold, respectively. Gold can be spent at the beginning of your turn to buy Objective cards or Maester cards. Objective cards are just what they sound like - accomplish the mission described by the card, and you are awarded points toward winning the game. Maester cards give you access to a random one-use ability which requires additional gold to use. Some are during your own turn but others can be used during your opponents. The cards have a wide variety of offensive and defensive uses, and can dramatically alter the course of you or your opponents turn. These are a great addition as new strategic options are presented, and the game becomes very dynamic. Power will shift between players quickly with a well timed card. Fans of the show will love how thematic the cards are, as their abilities make some great references that are very much in the spirit of GoT. One player might plan an invasion only to have it derailed by a wedding between the players houses, or a defection of traitorous armies to the opposing player. There were multiple instances during our games where several players were cackling with delight at thwarting an enemies best-laid plans with the perfect card.On top of these one-time use Maester cards, each player controls a House modeled after those in the source material. Each house has 4 character cards which provide abilities that may be used once per turn by spending gold. The abilities are themed to match their characters. For example, Davos Seaworth is a character for House Baratheon whose naval skill gives a bonus in battles involving a sea port. It's a nice touch that gives each army a slightly different flavor. These differences aren't so drastic as to upset game balance, but rather just add a bit of variety to offer differing playstyles.Long time Risk players will notice that armies are much smaller in this version than in classic Risk, and this is an undeniably good thing. Gone are the days of 45 unit armies squaring off for ten minutes of dice rolling attrition. The smaller armies can be upgraded to pack a stronger punch by way of tokens which allow to to add +1 to your die roll or exchange a 6-sided die for an 8-sided one, for example. Having more concentrated armies helps speed the game up without sacrificing the satisfaction of fielding or facing a powerful army. Additionally having smaller armies makes it much more difficult to "hole up" in a corner of the map and play too defensively. This is made even more true by the addition of Ports to some territories. Ports of matching colors can invade one another as if they were adjacent, meaning players separated geographically can still fight if they are connected by the sea.From a manufacturing standpoint, all game pieces are of a very high quality. The two boards, Westeros and Essos, are beautiful, accurate maps. The game pieces themselves are very nicely detailed (particularly the Baratheon Stags, although I fear some may lost some antlers in the future). All of the cards have a high quality print, with high definition character photos.I have one minor quibble with the game, and that is the invention of "House Ghiscari" as one of the playable factions. Other houses are Targaryen, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, Tyrell, and Martell. Ghiscari was created using several (very) minor characters to give an oppositional force to the Targaryens on the continent of Essos for 2-person games, or for 6-7 player games which involve using both boards at once (!). Simply put, as a book or show fan this "House" is pretty lame. The combined screen time of all four of your characters is less than most individual major characters. I understand why they made the decision to create them, but they are definitely the least exciting faction to control from a thematic standpoint.As I mentioned before, I have only played this with 2-3 players. The 3 person games took about 3 hours to complete. Game length is certain to increase with the number of players, especially if several are unfamiliar with the rules. Being familiar with the basic Risk rules will expedite learning, but there is some adjusting to be done with the new rule additions. I suggest playing with the Objective cards that give Victory points rather than playing until all but one player is eliminated, so that you don't end up with a bunch of friends sitting around for an hour while two players duke it out to the finish. One thoughtful rule change was to provide small bonuses to players whose turn comes 3rd or later (such as some starting gold) so that they aren't helpless, watching all of the other players smash them to pieces before they even get their first turn. I thought this was a very clever way of leveling the playing field.Overall, I would highly recommend this game for Risk fans. You don't have to be an avid GoT fan to enjoy it, but being familiar with it will absolutely enhance your experience as you understand all of the references.

This game requires actual strategy, and is infinitely more fun than normal risk. I truly, 100% recommend this to anyone who like long resource games. And if you like risk but haven’t played this, DO IT.A lot of spin off games like this are cumbersome and annoying, but the game of thrones edition truly makes this game better. 12/10 recommend

We love this game so much, we purchased a used set for the extra parts so our extended family could play together!

I have been wanting to buy this for a long time now since before I graduated Highschool. Aside from wanting a video game all of my friends could play, we also wanted a board game. I considered getting Risk Europe (medieval) but ultimately decided on this one since me and one of my friends are huge Game of Thrones fans and the others are familiar with GoT too. I was hesitant on picking this up because of the many reviews I saw about missing cards/pieces but I decided to test my luck and lucky for me everything was there.Anyway on to the review...The game came in your standard Amazon packaging (a nice box that taped up well) with those airbags that are loud when you pop them. That was all it though so in a worst case scenario there wouldn't be much protection to keep it in good condition but mine came out just fine. The game box had very very minor damage in a couple corners but I'm ok with it since you shouldn't expect items you order online to be 200% perfectly fine when they arrive.I opened up to check and see if all the contents were there and I was surprised to see only 4 card decks. At that point I was afraid that I was missing some cards but I opened the wrapper and sure enough they were all there *sigh of relief*. I checked for the game pieces (1 castle, 15 sigil pieces, and 30 soldier pieces) and dice (5 6-sided dice, and 4 8-sided dice) as well, and everything was intact and nothing was missing.The quality of the the game is decent at best. The cards are thin and feel like they could easily be damaged if not careful, same go with the player mats. The game boards feel like monopoly quality boards so be careful when putting it away. As for the map designs, they're very nice and nice to look at. The game pieces are small plastic pieces that are finely crafted. Each army has its own rectangular plastic container to keep them together. My only complaint with the army pieces is that the tyrell (green) and the stark (greyish-white) army pieces are similar in color or at least they appear that way in poor lighting, this could be a problem because you could get pieces mixed up but you shouldn't really have to worry about this problem if you're in a well lighted area.I haven't played the game yet, I'm still trying to memorize the rules but I know from other people that they enjoyed this game very much and they said you'll enjoy it even more if you're a GoT fan.I'm very satisfied with this product and I'm relieved that everything was in there. In case you guys are wondering I ordered from USAopoly and most of those bad reviews were actually from customers who ordered from USAopoly as well. I guess you just have to hope that you don't get unlucky when ordering one of these. I also noticed that some of the bad reviews were from 1-2 years ago so maybe by now USAopoly got their sh*t together.Anyway I hope you guys found this helpful in some way and best of luck when ordering one of these babies 😀