The attacking player rolls dice equal to the number of attacking troops minus 1, and the defending player rolls dice equal to the number of defending troops. The defending player can defend with any number of troops, but can only receive up to 2 defending dice. The attacking player can attack with 2, 3, or greater than 4 troops, and can receive up to 3 attacking dice. You can only attack territories that border a space you occupy, and you can only use the army in the bordering space to attack. To attack, the player must declare which territory they’re attacking and with which set of troops. You can only move once a turn and can do it before or after you attack. To move, the player moves any number of troops from one territory to an adjacent territory they already occupy. Once the new troops are added, the active player can either pass, move, or choose a territory to attack. They may place them in any space they occupy to make their army bigger. This is the number of troops the players can place on the board. On a player's turn, they count the number of occupied territories they control and divide that number by 3.
Then, each player rolls a die and the player that rolls the highest number goes first. Once everyone has placed all of their troops, shuffle the Risk cards and place them in a pile on the side of the board.
Players can't place more than 1 troop in a space until every space on the board is occupied with at least 1 troop. Then, players take turns clockwise placing 1 troop at a time. The player with the highest roll gets to place 1 of their troops on the board first on one of the unoccupied spaces. Once each player has received their starting troops, everyone rolls a die. Subtract 5 troops from each player's starting army for each additional player.
If you're playing with 2 players, each player starts with 40 troops. Each infantry piece counts as 1 troop, each cavalry piece counts as 5 troops, and each artillery cannon represents 10 troops. There are 3 unique units that make up an army and represent different numbers of troops. Then, each player chooses a color for their army. To set up the game, lay out the board, which features 6 continents divided into 42 countries. Risk is a fun board game where players try to conquer continents and wipe out their opponent's armies.