Risk - Europe 3 players variant

So after about 2 years of hibernation we managed to get Risk - Europe to the table again. The game is written for 4 players - but as only myself, Steedo and DK were playing we had to use the 3 player variant, which involved having a mercenary army (green in the pictures), who are controlled by the first player for a round (8 turns of playing order cards, before battles are resolved). The mercenary army starts with 2 cities and 10 footmen randomly chosen.
DK was the purples who placed first(By winning the bidding) in London, then myself (blue) Rome and Steedo Berlin (orange). However I win the bid for the bid for First Player.
The first round saw me reach the heady heights of 6 crowns - needing 8 for the win. However this made me the threat! So they turned on me... I had also made a tactical error by not heading east from Rome, but had headed north to Zurich (only for Steedo to take it).
I had manoeuvred and reinforced the mercenary forces into good positions against Steedo, but less so against DK.

Picture shows action during the at the end of the first round (might be second round) as DK had taken Madrid from me, and the Mercenaries were about to take Berlin from Steedo. By this point Steedo has caught me up, with DK close behind.
The second round saw DK as the first player - so controlling the mercenaries. This round saw major expansion in the east by Steedo and DK getting plenty of tax revenue as he had linked his territories and myself being reduced to Rome and a couple of same enclaves in Europe (and less victory points than the mercenaries..... The embarrassment of losing to the Non Player!).

The start of the 3 round saw DK in an almost unbeatable position, but Steedo in charge of the mercenaries..... DK made a rush for Athens only for Steedo and myself to come up with a blocking plan with the mercenaries out on Constantinople, and a diversion attack on Dublin from Scotland.
So while I was diverted by trying to stop (and extent the game to a 4th round) and DK by trying to win, Steedo manoeuvred the mercenaries out of a couple of cites allowing then to be taken easily by his forces .... and DKs attack on Athens failed, and the purchase of a second crown card, Steedo won with 8 crowns - hopefully not foreshadowing of next week's Twilight Imperium epic ....

A really good game, plenty of talking points - DK had 18 coins, more than enough to win the  game by buying crown card. DK also ran out of footmen because he wasn't buying the Seige engines (which are really good, but you do need to make sure you have some footmen to take the hits in combat). I think Rome is a city to go for at the end rather than the start, as although it is worth 2 crowns (all other cities are worth 1), the bonuses from other cities are better - extra troops or discounts, which are useful earlier in the game. I think Snake-eyes had the same problem the first time we played. The mercenaries were an interesting addition, well used by DK and Steedo - after I had got them into position (having 1st player early on did not benefit me too much). DK's well defined and linked empire was impressive and came so close .... Steedo's build up in the northeast was well managed.

Next time we will use the mission cards instead of being able to buy crowns -  should be interesting.

Good game - hopefully we can fit in another game (either 3 or 4 player) before the end of 2020.

Morts