Risk Junior Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of Risk Junior is to score the most points by acquiring treasure and controlling islands.

Setup

Each player chooses a color. They will take a ship token and 8 pirate tokens that match their chosen color.
Shuffle the treasure cards. Randomly place one card (coin side down) on each island on the board. You will place a card on every space except for the center island.
The youngest player chooses one of the islands (besides the middle skull island), and places one of their pirate tokens on it. The player to their left then places one of their tokens on a different island. This continues until all of the islands except for the middle island have a token on it.
Each player keeps the rest of their pirate tokens in front of them.
All of the pirate ships are placed on the middle skull island.
The youngest players starts the game. Play passes to the left throughout the game.

How to Play Risk Junior

You will begin each of your turns moving your ship one space. You can move it along any of the paths that are connected to your current space. Moving is not optional. You must move to a new space on your turn.

Moving to an adjacent island — To start the game all of the players are on the center island. For their first turn they can follow any of the dotted lines leaving the center island.

If you land on an island that you already control, nothing happens.

The green player lands on an island they already control — The green player already controls this island. They will take no other action on their turn.

After you take the action corresponding to the space you landed on, your turn ends.

Battling for Control of an Island

Should you move to an island that has another player’s pirate token on it, you will battle them to take control of the island. The other player and you both place a die on your pirate ship. Press the button on the back of the ship to launch the die. Whichever player rolls the higher number, wins the battle.

Landing on an island controlled by another player — The red player moves to an island that is currently controlled by the blue player. They will have to battle the blue player for control over the island.

If you (the current player) rolls a higher number, you will take control of the island. Place one of your pirate tokens on the space. The player that previously controlled the space has to take back their pirate token. Should there be a treasure on the island, you will take it and place it in front of you. You cannot look at the card and will keep it face down until the end of the game.

Challenger winning the battle — The red player rolled a higher number on their dice so they win the battle. They will take control of the island by placing one of their tokens on the space. They will also take the treasure card.

Should the other player roll a higher number or you both roll the same number, the other player retains control over the island. If there is a treasure card on the island, they will take the card and place it face down in front of themselves.

Defending an Island in Risk Junior — The blue player rolled a higher number on their die than the red player. The blue player maintains control of the island and also gets to take the treasure card.

Winning the Game

Players will keep taking turns until all of the treasures have been claimed.

At this point all of the players flip over the treasure cards they collected during the game. Each player scores points based on their treasure cards and the islands that they control. Treasure cards are worth the number of coins printed on the card.

Scoring Treasure Cards in Risk Junior — During the game the players acquired these Treasure Cards. The top player scores seven points from the cards they collected. The other players score six, five, and four points.

Each island that you have a pirate token on is worth one point.

Scoring points from islands you control in Risk Junior — At the end of the game the players control these islands. The red player controls four islands so they will score four points. The green and yellow players score three points from their three islands. Finally the blue player only scores two points since they control two islands.

Whichever player has the most points wins the game.

Risk Junior FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

Gameboard
4 Ship Tokens
32 Pirate Tokens (8 of each color)
2 Dice
12 Treasure Cards
Instructions

Year: 2019 | Publisher: Hasbro

Genres: Children’s, Dice

Ages: 5+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 20-60 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.