The main board is sufficiently large and bears a futuristic appearance. It's still a bit bright for my tastes, but no where near offensive. The round lunar board is a bit small and is not mounted, being printed on a thicker cardboard stock. Still, it is functional. Finally, there is a nice sized score track wherein players keep a tally of the current number of territories they control, as well as the current turn.
Commanders: These MODs still need human commanders to lead them. Thus, there are five different types of commanders (mentioned above), each with special powers and attributes. Each player begins the game with a diplomat and land commander. New commanders must be purchased using energy, which is earned in amounts equal to the number of MODs earned each turn.
Certain commanders are needed in order to initiate combat in certain areas. Naval commanders are required in order to invade into or out of sea areas, while space commanders are needed to invade the moon. These commanders need not be in the invasion territory, but the player must have them present somewhere on the board.
Aside from giving some added dice bonuses if involved in combat (rolling an 8-sided die as opposed to the standard 6-sided die), the main benefit of a commander is the ability to utilize command cards. If a player has a particular commander in play, he may use some of his energy tokens to purchase command cards of the corresponding type, but only four per turn (a rule we overlooked in our first game).
These command cards grant a variety of special powers (adding extra MODs to territories, killing opponent's MODs, retreating, etc.), some of which can dramatically alter a battle or even the entire board. A few of the cards do require the expenditure of energy tokens in order to be utilized.
For better or worse, the acquisition and use of these cards is a major part of this new version of Risk. I can already see that some Risk purists will object to the introduction of these cards. They can shake up the game quite a bit and do add some randomness to the proceedings. Of course, the tons of dice rolling is still present, so who can seriously argue about randomness in the game?
Still, I rather enjoyed the presence of the cards as they gave you much more to plan and think about. Clever use of these cards will likely be rewarded and you derive a much greater sense of accomplishment from clever pay than what is derived from simply using the traditional "human wave" method of attacking which dominated the classic game.
Energy: As mentioned, players now earn energy tokens in addition to new troops (MODs). These are earned in amount equal to the number of MODs you receive each turn, which is identical to the traditional method (number of territories divided by 3). Any bonuses for controlling continents and/or colonies earns extra MODs as well as energy.
As described above, energy tokens are used to purchase commanders (3 tokens) and Command cards (1 token each). They can also be used to purchase new space stations (5 energy tokens), which are needed in order to launch expeditions to the moon. Further, space stations also aid in the defense of a territory, allowing all troops located there to roll '8' sided dice. A player can only possess four space stations at any time during the game.
Finally, energy tokens are used to bid for turn order. I really like this addition to the game. At the beginning of each new turn, players participate in a closed-fist bid by placing a number of energy tokens into their hand and revealing them simultaneously. In order of most energy tokens bid to the least bid, players choose which position they wish to move during that turn.
I felt that moving first was a big advantage early in the game as it allowed you to conquer new territory. Your opponents then had to fight to re-conquer lost territory. Thus, even if you lost some of your newly acquired territory, you likely would still have more territory than you began with. Your opponents, however, had to fight just to get back to the number of territories with which they began the turn.
