To wrap up the Christmas gaming period – returned home a few days ago and was promptly struck down with a horrible bug, consigning me to my bed for about 48 hours.

In the meantime, what had happened?  My elder brother mentioned that his son was keen to play Risk, so we dug out the old family edition (about 35 years old) and dusted off the old dice, though updated it by adding some nice Perudo dice of matching colours to the armies and Perudo dice cups (I love a good dice cup).  First game went smoothly, but then we played again later and as I’d had a few glasses of wine I didn’t give enough thought to how to level the playing field, as this time I was playing against two rookies.  I duly played to win, and thus did.  Tears ensued.

The next morning the boys played against each other, and there were mild fisticuffs.  Love Risk.

Upon returning home (before starting shaking and other unpleasant things) I again dug out some Lord of the Rings Risk, this time last used about 10 years ago! 

This is the same as the original, but on Middle Earth, with special figures (for 1,3,5 instead of 1 and 10) and with a few optional special rules to do with fortresses (+1 to defence) and Leaders (+1 to defence and attack).  I also decided some extra special rules where children get 3 extra reinforcements per turn.  Predictably, this time I lost (a bit too heavily, so 3 was probably too many…)

Final gaming addition after the family party on the other side was Holiday Fluxx, lots of fun as are all the foolish Fluxx games.  Back to school on Monday, ah well!