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Hey all,

I've had an idea about using the board game "Risk" as the basis for a long running campaign where the players actually play the battles when they attack each other on the game board. Each "army" in Risk can be used to represent 500 points in 40k terms. The "5 armies" and "10 armies" tokens will need to be reduced to 2 armies and 3 armies respectively as few players can field 5k-10k armies. Apart from this minor change, the rules for playing Risk can be used as normal on the campaign map. I haven't quite ironed out all of the creases yet but I think it could be a fun idea.

What does everyone else think?

Do you have any ideas that I may have over-looked for this?

If you don't know what Risk is click here.

I like it. How would you split up the map? Also would taking over a whole continent give that person a bonus?

I would probably split up the map as you would when playing Risk. For a two player game you could either ignore the neutral faction rules or just have a third 40k army that each player can use to represent the neutral faction defending itself.

I guess you could either keep the extra armies bonus of risk or give them a more 40k bonus. E.g. for conquering the whole of a continent you could get +1 to your seize the initiative roll or a free orbital bombardment to use at the start of the game or an extra 100 points to spend on your army etc.

That would take SO LONG to complete. Playing a normal game of risk to the end usually takes ~3 hours. That's resolving each battle in less than a minute. I agree that it would probably work quite well as a system for 40k and would be pretty interesting to try, but would literally take years

I guess it could take a while depending on how often you can play. If you're lucky and can manage 1+ games a day it would be good. Some of the battle could be quite short though if you only use 500 points to attack so you could probably fit in 2 or more games a day.

I'm quite interested.
But how do you determine the size of the army remaining once the battle is complete?
Will it just be what is left on the table to the nearest x pts?

sounds like a lot of fun for a long campaign though iv only played the futuristic version of risk

being able to reinforce from base points is cool and being able to take over locations of value like sat coms, armories and things that let you use extra assets with your field HQ.

but god that kinda game would take months

I really like this idea. I am also quite intrigued on the battles over territory where it is 1500 points versus a meager 500 points. Sounds like such an amazing set-up, I cannot wait to pitch this to my group! (Stolen Idea, but I will credit where credit is due )

Triple_double_U wrote:
I'm quite interested.
But how do you determine the size of the army remaining once the battle is complete?
Will it just be what is left on the table to the nearest x pts?

Perhaps it is round to the nearest 500 points (per army). Or maybe it could be depending on however many armies you have left you have to use what you have left of your force to meet that limit, be it by adding or subtracting units. (Imperial Guard had 2 armies at start of the Belgium assault, loses one army but has 650 points. To meet the 500 point per army limit, he takes out a leman russ.)

I like the idea, but I would probably just make up my own smaller map, with a few territories that give some sort of bonus, and then let players sort games on their own time. Adjust the map after getting told of results, et voila, simple campaign.

I always tough planet strike was basically this with a plastic re arrangeable map no?

I guess a possibility to make 40k work with the Risk system, would be if you keep the scale rather small.
You keep the figures from "Risk", but attribute a certain number of soldiers to each figure and for each faction. For example 1 Risk soldier translates to 2 Space Marines, or 5 guards men or something like this. The "Risk" cavalry unit could signify a somewhat larger or more elite unit, while the cannon could be a vehicle or monstrous creature. That would give you a rather small scale to fight battles more or less quickly.
As with equipment, I guess using "experience" could do. IE, all units that survived a battle which they won gain 5 points worth of equipment they can buy or save in the hopes of later buying some better equipment. For example, a tactical space marine that survived 3 victorious battles can now buy a plasma gun so he can fry him self with it next turn Alternatively, one could use these points to level up units and gain some usr or become a "better" unit. Again an example, a regular IG unit starts as a recruit/meatshield/PDF (forgot what the cheap dudes are called, you know the really bad ones), after one battle becomes a regular guardsman, after another two becomes a veteran and after another two becomes a Storm trooper. Or a space marine can become choose to become either a sternguard or a tac termi at some point, or take the route of an assault marine and then become a vanguard or assault termi. I think that would make for some fun development.

Finally, to balance attacking and defending, the defender could be given a certain number of points to invest in defenses. These could be from the ones that exist already or some "new inventions" like barbed wire, mine fields or something like that. In exchange, the attacker could be given the chance to, similar as in the actual risk, halt his attack if his losses are too heavy. For example, one could say that if he chooses to, the attacker can call a retreat in which all units fall back and those that manage to leave the field count as having survived the battle.

I guess one would still have to find a point balance for the units and see how many resources one would get per turn, but just writing this, I am actually liking the idea. If I ever find some people willing to waste a couple of hours or days I might actually try this.