Bridging the Gaming Continent: Risktego

Since Dr. Potts and I started this blog, I liked the idea that when we talked about being gamers, that that would also include other areas of gaming besides video games.  Like Penny-Arcade's Omegathon at PAX, I like the idea of branching out into other areas of gaming, but still maintaining our main focus on video games.

So I was talking to Conklederp yesterday about the boardgame Stratego and explaining the rules the the easiest way possible, mainly because I didn't have any visual aids and verbally explaining the rules of a game you've never heard/seen could be confusing.  So I'm talking about the different pieces and ranks and how they're used in battle.  Then my mind goes to the other war based game that I know and have played very little of, being RISK.  I played Castle RISK a bit when I was younger and last year I played one of many RISK variants called Risk Godstorm.  Anyway, the point being that I have a lot more experience with Stratego than I do with RISK, so any hardcore RISK gamers might be upset/irritated/annoyed with my lack of proper RISK terminology/knowledge.  (And just to note, the word "risk" is starting to look like it's not a real word anymore).

My idea for Risktego is a pretty simple one.  You would play RISK normally with almost no alterations to the rules.  The only difference is in how the battles are conducted.  Instead of rolling dice to determine the outcome of the battle, you would then move into a separate game albeit modified version of Stratego.  Right now, one can see a potential difficulty with the RISK battles being run in the Stratego game.  In RISK, as far as I know, there's no limit to the number of armies attacking any given area, whereas in Stratego, you're limited to a maximum of 40 units, including bombs and the flag.  The following rules set for Risktego, will probably annoy any RISK purists, but they'll just have to deal with it.

¡¡¡¡Awesome Logo Splicing Action!!!!

Rules for Risktego

You will need:

• 1 RISK boardgame
• 1 Stratego boardgame

RISK is the primary game being played and only moves to Stratego during skirmishes/battles.  During skirmishes/battles, the following rules apply:

• Each side pre-selects the Flag Tile in Stratego.
• For every single infantry unit in RISK, randomly select 3 tiles from Stratego.
• In RISK, if you are attacking or defending with 13 or more infantry units, you play with all of your Stratego pieces.
• When two pieces of the same rank meet in Stratego, the attacking piece wins.

So those're basically the rules, have fun as you will.

Side Note:  After completing this article, I looked up "risktego" on google just because I was curious.  As it turns out, there's quite a bit about combining both RISK and Stratego together to make one massive game.  Rules from a couple of the pages I looked at vary, but some seem to be built around the "rule" that with any battle, you play a full 40 vs 40 game of Stratego.  Which, for me, then feels like it takes away any strategy in army building.  However, that could be said as well for the rules that I've put up here.  

Whatever, it was an idea I had, free of outside influences that just happens to have been not an uncommon idea.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Disclaimer:  Games Will Last 3 Hours to Never Being Finished.