If you've ever wanted to conquer the world using your superior knowledge of obscure words, here's your chance!

You'll need a copy of Risk, and a copy of Scrabble. Take the letter racks and bag of letters from Scrabble, and the army markers, board, and cards from Risk.

Initial Setup:

Give 20 armies to each player. Remove the two wild cards from the deck (leaving only the cards with countries on them). Deal these evenly to all players. All players take turns placing one army at a time on any country for which they hold a card. Not all countries must receive an army, and no country may receive more than three units to start. Many countries on the board may remain unclaimed. Each player selects 14 letter tiles (sight unseen) from the letter bag and places them on a rack in front of them.

Play:

Play proceeds more or less by the default rules for Risk, with the following changes:

1. Cards are not used after the initial setup.
2. Unclaimed countries can be claimed without a fight, but you cannot abandon a country (you still must leave one army behind to occupy any country you have claimed.
3. Combat is carried out using letter tiles, rather than dice - see "Combat" below.
4. In order for a player to be considered "owning a continent" for purposes of bonus armies at the beginning of their turn, they must have an army in every country on the continent. Just being the only player to own countries in that continent isn't good enough.
5. The winner is the last player to own any countries - owning ALL the countries is not necessary.
6. If you have seven of the same letter in your rack, you may trade those letters in without losing a turn.
7. At the beginning of their turn, a player may play an eight letter (or more) word in exchange for bonus armies (similar to turning in card sets in Risk). The number of armies awarded for this action increases each time a player takes advantage of it, according to the progression listed aong the edge of the board (just like card sets would work). This may ONLY be done at the beginning of your turn, prior to making any attacks.

Combat:

Combat is carried out as follows (This is a little complicated, here's a calculator to help with it):

1. The attacker declares which country they are attacking, and from where.
2. The attacker declares how many armies they are attacking with (Up to one less than the total number of armies in the country they are attacking from). The defender must defend with as many armies as are present in the country.
3. The attacker and defender make words from their letter tiles. When they're both ready, they reveal their words simultaneously.
4. Divide the attacking armies in half, and call these groups A & B. In the case of odd numbers, place the extra army in group A. Do the same with the defending units. If there is only one army attacking or defending, there is only group A on both sides.
5. Add 5 points for each of the player's armies (in groups A AND B) to the point total of their word. Compare these two scores. Whichever player has the lower score loses all armies in their group A. In a tie, the attacker loses their armies.
6. Compare the point totals of the two words. Whichever player's word is worth less loses all armies in their group B. If either player does not have a group B (due to either attacking or defending with a single army), this step is skipped In a tie, the attacker loses their armies.
7. Used letters are returned to the letter bag, and the players draw enough tiles from the bag to bring them back up to 14 tiles.

Combat Example:

Suppose Player 1 has four armies in Egypt, and wishes to attack North Africa, in which Player 2 has 6 armies.

• Player 1 may attacks with three armies, Player 2 defends with all 6 armies.
• Player 1's Group A contains 2 armies, and Player 2's Group A contains 3 armies.
• Player 1's Group B contains 1 army, and Player 2's Group B contains 3 armies.
• Group A (Where Player 1 risks 2 armies, and Player 2 risks 3) will be decided by comparing:
  • Player 1's word score + 15 points (5 * 3 armies)
  • Player 2's word score + 30 points (3 * 6 armies)
• Group B (Where Player 1 risks 1 army, and Player 2 risks 3) is decided by simply comparing Player 1's word score against Player 2's word score.