Risk Board Game: The Rules, the Modes and the Editions

What the Risk board game is

Risk is a map, a pile of little armies and a lot of dice. You hold territories on a world map, collect new troops each turn, and attack neighbors by rolling dice against them. Win a battle and you take the territory. Lose and your troops go back in the box.

The version I'm describing comes from Hasbro's current Risk game guide, product code B7404. The box facts, from that rulebook:

• Players: 2 to 5
• Ages: 10+
• Board: 42 territories in six continents, each continent a different color
• Armies: five armies, each with infantry (1 troop), cavalry (5 troops) and artillery (10 troops)
• Cards: a deck of 56 Risk cards (42 territory cards, 2 wild cards, 12 secret mission cards)
• Dice: 5, red for attacking and blue for defending
• Modes: four ways to play in one box

It's competitive, every player for themselves, except for the alliances your table makes and breaks out loud. There's no co-op mode. The rulebook doesn't print a play time, and I'm not going to invent one.

How Risk plays

These are Hasbro's B7404 rules in my own words. The rulebook calls the first mode Secret Mission Risk and uses it as the main game; the other three modes change the setup and the goal, not the turn.

Setting up the map

Each player picks an army and counts out starting infantry. The count drops as players are added: 35 each for 3 players, 30 for 4 and 25 for 5. In Secret Mission Risk, one player acts as the General and deals each player a secret mission card, after removing missions for any army color that isn't in the game.

Then the territory cards are dealt out, and each player puts one infantry on every territory they were dealt. After that, players take turns adding one infantry at a time to their own territories until everyone's starting troops are on the board. There's no limit on how many troops sit on one territory. Highest roll on one die goes first.

A turn, start to finish

Every turn has the same three steps, in this order:

1. Get new troops. Count your territories, divide by three and drop the remainder. That's your reinforcement. You always get at least 3. Add the bonus for any continent you hold completely at the start of your turn; each continent's bonus is printed on the board.
2. Attack, if you want to. You can attack any enemy territory that touches one of yours by a border or by a dashed sea-line. Attack as many times as you like.
3. Maneuver, if you want to. Move troops from one of your territories to one other territory you hold, as long as every territory on the path between them is yours. One move, one destination, and you always leave at least one troop behind.

The reinforcement math is integer division wearing a uniform. You hold 14 territories, you get 4 troops. You hold 11, you still get 3. I teach seventh-grade math, and I've never seen a group of kids accept "ignore the fraction" faster than at a Risk table.

How a battle works

You attack from a territory with at least two troops, because you can never leave one empty. The attacker rolls one die per attacking troop, up to three. The defender rolls one or two. Both roll at the same time.

Then you pair the dice from highest down. For each pair, the higher die wins and the other side loses one troop. On a tie, the defender wins. If one side rolled more dice, its lowest extra dice don't count. That means an attacker can never lose more than two troops on a single roll.

If you wipe out every defender in the territory, you capture it and move your surviving attackers in. You can bring more troops along from the territory you attacked from, as long as one stays behind.

Lucho's take: "Never leave a territory empty. Same as the shop on a Saturday. Somebody stays by the phone."

Cards and trading in sets

If you capture at least one territory on your turn, you draw one territory card at the end of your attacks. Just one, no matter how many you took. Cards show infantry, cavalry or artillery, and the two wild cards show all three.

Three cards make a set: three of one design, one of each design, or two of a kind plus a wild. You trade a set in at the start of your turn for extra troops. The value grows with every set anyone trades in during the game: 4 troops for the first set, then 6, 8, 10, 12 and 15, then 5 more for each set after that. If one of the traded cards shows a territory you hold, you get two extra troops placed there. Start a turn holding five or six cards and you have to trade.

Eliminate another player and you take their cards. If that puts you at six or more, you trade right away until you're down to four or fewer.

How it ends

In Secret Mission Risk, the first player to complete their mission and show the card wins. The rulebook points out that another player can finish your mission for you by accident, for instance by knocking out the army your card told you to destroy.

The other three ways to play

The B7404 box adds three modes to the secret-mission game.

Classic Risk

Players claim territories one at a time instead of being dealt them, then place the rest of their troops. The mission cards stay in the box. You win by eliminating every opponent and holding all 42 territories. This is the long one.

Risk for 2 players

You and your opponent each start with 40 infantry, and a third color plays as a neutral army with its own 40. The territory deck is dealt into three piles of 14. You take turns placing your own troops two at a time, then placing neutral troops to block each other. The neutral army never attacks and never gets reinforcements; when you attack a neutral territory, your opponent rolls its defense. You win by eliminating your opponent, even if some neutral troops are still standing.

Capital Risk

After setup, each player secretly picks one of their territories as a headquarters, then everyone reveals at the same time. Capture an opponent's headquarters and you take its card; lose your own and you stay in the game. You win by holding every headquarters, your own included. The rulebook offers a shorter goal for 4 players (two enemy headquarters) and 5 players (three).

My one opinion for this page: teach Risk with Secret Mission, not Classic. The rulebook puts it first, and a mission can end the game long before anyone holds all 42 territories. A first game should end while people still want a second one.

Risk editions on Amazon US right now

Our data lists 11 Risk editions and versions on Amazon US as of October 2026. The table above shows players, age and play time where each listing states them; a dash means it doesn't, and I won't fill the gap. Here's what tells them apart.

The current Hasbro Risk

Two Hasbro listings are simply called Risk. One lists ages 10+, 2 to 5 players and the contents: a gameboard, armies of infantry, cavalry and artillery, 56 Risk cards, 5 dice and 5 war crates. That lines up with the contents page of the B7404 rulebook I used above. The second listing gives only ages 10+. If you want the game exactly as this page describes it, start with the first one.

Retro and reissue boxes

• Winning Moves Risk 1959: listed as a 1959 reproduction, ages 8+, 2 to 6 players
• Winning Moves Risk, 1980's Edition: ages 8+, 2 to 6 players; the listing names an oversized board, Roman numeral-style army pieces, 3 red dice, 2 white dice, cards and a 12-page rules booklet
• WS Game Company Risk, Vintage Bookshelf Edition: ages 10+, 2 to 6 players; the listing names a folding board, 6 sets of plastic armies, 44 territory cards, 12 Secret Mission cards and 5 dice

All three list up to 6 players, one more than the current Hasbro box. The two Winning Moves reissues list ages 8+, the lowest starting age of any Risk in our data. They come with their own rules booklets, and I haven't read those, so the setup counts above belong to the Hasbro box, not these.

Risk Legacy

Hasbro's Risk Legacy lists 3 to 5 players, ages 13+, 60 minutes and 275+ military units, and is tagged as a legacy or campaign game. It doesn't play like a one-off evening of Risk, and it has no 2-player count on the listing. Buy it for a group that will meet again and again, not for a holiday box that comes out once a year.

Spin-offs and themed editions

• Risk Strike Cards and Dice Game (Hasbro): ages 10+, 2 to 5 players, 20 minutes; the shortest play time in our data
• Risk 2210 A.D. (Renegade Game Studios): ages 10+, 2 to 5 players; the listing names 5 commanders and 5 decks of command cards
• Risk Europe (Winning Moves): ages 14+; no other details in our data
• Risk: The Lord of the Rings, Trilogy Edition (Hasbro): ages 10+
• Risk: Game of Thrones (USAopoly): ages 17+, 2 to 7 players, 60 minutes; the widest player count and the highest age in our data

These are Risk by name but not the B7404 game. The licensed editions are listed under their line names, and that's all I'll say about them. If you're looking for Risk Shadow Forces, it isn't among the editions listed on Amazon US in our data right now.

Which Risk fits your table

A few quick matches, from the listings:

• A first copy for a family with a 10-year-old: the current Hasbro Risk, 10+, 2 to 5 players
• Six at the table: one of the retro editions that lists 2 to 6
• An 8- or 9-year-old who wants in: the Winning Moves reissues are the only Risk boxes in our data listed at 8+
• A short game on a weeknight: Risk Strike, at 20 minutes
• A group that meets every week: Risk Legacy
• Grown-up table only: Risk: Game of Thrones, listed 17+

Lots of small pieces come with every Risk box. Check the age label on the listing. Toys with small parts are a choking hazard for children under 3, and army pieces and dice count.

Who should skip Risk

Skip Risk if your group hates player elimination. In Classic Risk, a player knocked out early sits and watches. Secret Mission and Capital Risk soften that, but someone can still be knocked out of any mode. Skip it too if a bad roll ruins your evening. Every attack is decided by dice, and the rulebook's tie goes to the defender every time.

Skip it if you only ever have two people and don't want to manage a third army. The 2-player rules work, but you'll be placing and defending the neutral army as well as your own.

And if your table's idea of a good night ends by 8:30, plan on Secret Mission or Capital Risk, or pick something else from the list below.

If you like Risk, look at these

Pages chosen by what they share with Risk: maps, armies, dice and long arguments about borders.

• Axis & Allies: a bigger, longer war game with more unit types
• Stratego: armies with hidden ranks, for exactly two
• Catan: territory and resources, with trading instead of attacking
• Strategy board games: the wider shelf for planning-heavy games
• Vintage board games: more retro and reissue boxes

The current Risk box comes from Hasbro; see the Hasbro brand page for the rest of that lineup.

Leave one troop behind. Then roll.