Axis & Allies:
Ralph Boerke's Tribute to Axis & Allies

Disclaimer: Axis & Allies is a registered trademark of Milton Bradley. The use of their trademark 'Axis & Allies' by Tacit Memnos Infinitum is not approved by Milton Bradley.

RISK

Disclaimer: RISK is a registered trademark of Parker Brothers. The use of their trademark 'RISK' by Tacit Memnos Infinitum is not approved by Parker Brothers.

Axis & Allies: Expansion: Using RISK Pieces

The Expansion:

What To Do
What The Pieces Represent
How The New Units Work
Opening Additions to the Game Start Up
Example Turn 1
Example Turn 2

Some Words on RISK

If you use this expansion and like it email and tell me about it. If there are any changes you think need to be made or explained email me. Thanks.

The Expansion [Top]

Its free sort of - You already have this if you own the original Milton Bradley Axis & Allies game. But you must own the current (1990's) version of RISK that uses the Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery units.

What To Do: [Top]

Do not use the RISK board. Use the RISK playing pieces. These pieces are Green, Yellow, Grey, Black, Red and Blue in colour. Give the Green to the USA, Yellow to Japan, Blue to the UK, Grey to Germany, and Red to the USSR. So each nation should have 8 Artillery, 12 Cavalry and 40 Infantry (Troopers).

What The Pieces Represent: [Top]

Presently we have:

What these new pieces do is add a few new units:

How The New Units Work: [Top]

All Units: All of these new units can move and attack and can retreat as with the other units. No units are left behind during a retreat.

Troopers: I call these special forces. German Waffen SS, British Commandoes, Soviet Guards, US Marines and Japanese Imperial Marines. They are better than normal Infantry and cost appropriately a little bit more. They defend very well and attack a bit better than regular Infantry. Almost a reverse of the Armour unit!

Cavalry: This is the mechanized force and the slightly mechanized forces that were developed to go with the Armour into battle. They attack fairly well but are bad at defense. They have the range to follow the Armour. These are almost a reverse of the Infantry unit. They can Blitz as well.

Cavalry Withdrawal: After one round of battle the Defender may withdraw one surviving Cavalry unit to any adjacent friendly territory. After the second round the Defender may withdraw a second Cavalry unit to any adjacent friendly territory (can be a different territory from the first round). And so on.
The Cavalry always gets its defensive shot in before it withdraws. If it withdraws it must do so before the Attacker starts the next round of battle.

Artillery: These are the guns, howitzers, artillery, mortars, that are used in the offensive and defensive bombardments. When Attacking they can fire into a neighbouring territory or into the territory that they are in. When Defending they can only fire at enemy units within their territory.
They only move a range of one territory. However they can move one territory and then fire into the next one! These are moved during Combat Movement, similarly to Rocket AAGuns, even though not in an actual embattled Territory. If they move into a battle they can retreat with the rest of the retreating forces. If they do not move into battle they can not retreat even though they take part in the battle.
Once an Artillery unit is fired it does not move (except in retreats).
Unlike AAGuns they fire each round of battle and can be hit and destroyed. They can hit only Land units. They can not hit Fighters or Bombers or Ships (see below). A lone Artillery defending a territory against a Fighter or Bomber will be lost.
You can have more than one Artillery on a territory.

Special Anti Amphibious Assault Gun: If one or more Artillery are defending against an Amphibious Assault they can fire on the Transports before they drop off their cargo! One Artillery can target one Transport and if it rolls a '1' then both the Transport and Cargo are sunk. Each Artillery can fire at only one Transport, two Artillery can fire at the same Transport or can fire at two individual Transports. Artillery fire at the same time (the landing would only take a few hours) and thus can not change targets once picked. However you roll one die at a time for each Artillery.
Move the Artillery along side its target on the Combat board.
Artillery can not fire at ships passing and can only target the landing ships during an invasion.
Artillery must be in the territory that is being invaded in order to fire at the ships. Artillery in neighbouring Territories do not fire. The Western Europe Artillery can not fire on the Transports used in an Amphibious Assault on Norway!
This is in answer to the Battleship shot and also gives Germany the ability to build an Atlantic Wall against an Allied invasion of Western Europe to stop them on the beaches!

Transports: Transports can hold - 1 or 2 Infantry, 1 or 2 Troopers, 1 Infantry + 1 Trooper, 1 Armour, 1 Cavalry, 1 AAgun, or 1 Artillery.

Amphibious Assaults: Transports landing Cavalry or Troopers go normally and all of the units landed can attack on the first round and every round after until the battle is finished.
However Amphibious Assaults that land Artillery do not get to use the Artillery to Attack until the second round of battle although they can take hits on the first round. This represents the added time required to set up the Artillery after the beachhead is established.

Opening Additions: Add these new units to the existing ones already there when the game starts. [Top]

This gives the Allies 8 Troopers, 3 Cavalry/Mechanized, and 2 Artillery units worth 64 IPCs.
This gives the Axis 4 Troopers, 5 Cavalry and 3 Artillery units worth 58 IPCs.

This placement alters the set up between the USSR and Germany and allows the USSR to bring two new powerful attacking units (1 Cavalry and 1 Artillery) into battle against Norway, Eastern Europe or the Ukraine only the Ukraine is given a new defending unit and a bad one at that (Cavalry defends at 1). However Germany can withdraw this Cavalry.

The USSR also gets two new units to attack with in the east against Manchuria. This unit is Cavalry and so attacks at a 2 and a Trooper which also attacks at a 2, however the Japanese also get a Cavalry although it defends poorly at a 1, but it also gets a Trooper which defends very well at a 3. Thus this battle is more even. And the Japanese player can withdraw his Cavalry from the defense of Manchuria.

Germany gets more new units to reflect that it had more Mechanized forces. Germany can use one of its Artillery to attack in Karelia or can use two Cavalry to counter attack in the Ukraine.

In North Africa both Germany and the UK get a new Cavalry units. This gives a slight advantage to Germany as the Cavalry attacks better than it defends. However the UK can withdraw its Cavalry and use it to counter attack from Syria (or run to India!).

The UK gets one Trooper added to India to represent the Gurkhas, and one to Britain to represent the Commandoes. For all the powers they get Troopers on their home territories to represent the special forces. The USA gets 4 Troopers to represent the Marines. Germany gets 2 on Berlin to represent the Waffen SS. The USSR gets one Guard on Russia and one Siberian Trooper on Soviet Far East. Japan gets one Trooper on Japan and one on Manchuria.

Example Turn 1: [Top]

Germany attacks Karelia. Karelia is defended with 12 Infantry, 4 Troopers, 2 Cavalry, 2 Armour, 2 Artillery, 4 Fighters, and 1 AAgun.
From Eastern Europe Germany advances 10 Infantry, 4 Cavalry, 8 Armour and 2 Artillery.
From Germany 2 Artillery advance to Eastern Europe to shoot at Karelia! And also advances 4 Armour into the battle.
From Ukraine Germany advances 4 Infantry, and 1 Cavalry into the battle and leaves 1 Artillery there but uses it to fire into Karelia.
We now have 3 Artillery outside of the battle that still fire in the battle.
We have 14 Infantry firing at 1, 5 Cavalry firing at 2, 12 Armour firing at 3, 5 Artillery firing at 2 for the Attacker.
We have 12 Infantry defending at 2, 4 Troopers defending at 3, 2 Cavalry at 1, 2 Armour at 2, and 4 Fighters at 4. The AAGun does not fire as no German aircraft are used.

Germany gets 12 hits and the USSR gets 9 hits.

After the first round the USSR can withdraw 1 of its Cavalry units to the Caucasus or Russia (or Norway if it is an Allied Territory). It chooses not to and takes both Cavalry off as hits. Germany can not withdraw its Cavalry as only the Defender can.

The battle continues.

Example Turn 2: [Top]

The USA launches an Amphibious Assault against Western Europe.
Western Europe has 4 Infantry, 4 Troopers, 2 Fighters, 2 Artillery and 1 AAGun defending.
The USA has 2 Battleships, 5 Transports loaded with 4 Infantry, 2 Troopers, 1 Artillery and 1 Armour, and 3 Fighters and 2 Bombers.

Firstly the USA does its Battleship shots. It rolls 2 dice and gets a 4 and a 5. One hit. Germany moves one Infantry to the casualty line.
Secondly both German Artillery choose the Transport with 2 Troopers on it as their target. Germany rolls two 1's! The Transport with the 2 Troopers is sunk and all units are returned to the USA unit tray. Germany curses itself for not also targetting the Armour carrying Transport but is happy none-the-less.
Thirdly the German AAGun shoots at the 5 aircraft. Germany rolls a 2,3,3,6,6 - five misses.

The USA lands with 4 Infantry, 1 Armour and 1 Artillery. It also has 3 Fighters and 2 Bombers in the attack. The Artillery does not get to attack this first round!
Germany defends with 4 Infantry (1 already is a casualty), 4 Troopers, 2 Fighters, and 2 Artillery. These Artillery get to fire in the first round even though they fired during the landing phase.

Both sides get 5 hits. Germany now loses its 3 remaining Infantry and removes its two Artillery (it can hopefully get more Artillery there for the next Allied invasion attempt; also the USA only has one land unit (Armour) left anyways and the Artillery can only shoot land units!). The USA decides to remove its 4 Infantry and its Artillery. The Artillery died even before it got a shot off!

The battle continues.

Some Words On RISK [Top]

I have RISK as most of the older A&A players do too. I grew up on RISK in the 70's. It was a later series of RISK that had the plastic * and Y shaped units to represent 10 and 1 Armies respectively. The original had wooden cubes. Later versions had roman numerals. And the most recent version has Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry units to represent 1, 10 and 5 Armies respectively.

I was a bit dissapointed when I bought the newer version of RISK as the units are all the same except that 1 Artillery = 10 Infantry = 2 Cavalry. I wanted the cavalry to be able to move two territories and maybe jump over a teritory. And the Artillery to shoot at a neighbour without having to go there.

I still like RISK even though I think it pales in comparison with Axis & Allies. I also have Castle RISK and the CD ROM version. The CD ROM version is IMHO the best variation of RISK.

BTW RISK is made by Parker Brothers [PB], Axis & Allies is made by Milton Bradley [MB]. Both MB and PB are owned by HASBRO. Check out www.hasbro.com for more information.

To the Next Chapter: Optional and New Rules