It’s been a little over a year since I last put this list together, which in board game time feels like forever. New games hit the table, old favorites get dusted off (or sometimes left to gather dust), and my tastes inevitably shift around. Regardless, its time for an update!

Just to be clear, this isn’t a “definitive best board games of all time” as some sort of objective super truth. Think of it more like a snapshot of where of one gamer’s favorites, right now! Everyone loves a good list, so let’s get into it!

If you’re curious, you can check out last year’s list to see what’s changed, what’s dropped off, and what’s managed to hang on.

20. War Of The Ring

Marching triumphantly back onto the list is War of the Ring, the gloriously overstuffed epic that lets you replay the entire The Lord of the Rings saga on your tabletop. One player leads the scrappy Free Peoples, the other unleashes the Shadow Armies, and what follows is an asymmetrical slugfest for the soul of Middle-earth. If theme were lembas bread, this game would keep you full for weeks. It’s basically Tolkien in a box, minus the singing (thankfully).

That said, this is not a casual weeknight affair. War of the Ring is long, chunky, and rules-heavy, with a learning curve steep enough to make even Gandalf sigh and ask for the rulebook. If you don’t play it regularly, expect a fair bit of page-flipping and “wait, how does sieging work again?” moments. For me, that means it lives on the shelf more than the table, but when it does hit the table, it’s pure wizardry.

I actually managed to get a game in this year, and wow, every dramatic dice roll, desperate last stand, and nail-biting corruption check reminded me exactly why this game is legendary. That single play was more than enough to earn its way back onto the list.

Fun fact: I reviewed this game way back in 2015. The review predates my scoring system, my current writing style, and possibly my dignity. It makes me cringe a little, but it’s still out there if you’re in the mood for a nostalgic (and mildly painful) trip down memory lane.

19. Tapestry

Holding firm at number 19 is Tapestry, and honestly? It’s still here for exactly the same reasons as last year, no drama, no surprise plot twists, just consistent excellence.

It’s often billed as a civilization-building game, but in practice, it feels much more like a gloriously thinky race. Every turn is about timing, efficiency, and wringing maximum value out of your actions like you’re trying to get the last drop of toothpaste from the tube. It’s very much a Euro at heart, with players mostly fussing over their own tableaus, but there is more interaction here than your average “everyone quietly solves their own puzzle” affair.

And wow, is it pretty. The production is pure eye candy: chunky components, satisfying boards, and those minis, especially if you snagged the Kickstarter version, are absolute table magnets. There’s also a small mountain of expansions if you decide you want more Tapestry in your life. Bonus points for being playable online for free on Board Game Arena, which makes it dangerously easy to squeeze in “just one more game.”

One of Tapestry’s greatest strengths is how approachable it is. The rules are easy to teach, but the strategic depth really opens up over repeated plays. The downside? Civilization balance can be a little… let’s call it enthusiastically uneven. Once you know the game, certain civs definitely start to feel like they’re playing on easy mode. It’s not broken, just a bit lopsided in a way experienced players will notice.

Even so, Tapestry remains one of my go-to recommendations for anyone who loves a smart Euro with a focus on efficiency, long-term planning, and strong table presence. For me, it’s a rock-solid collection staple, and a game I’m always happy to see suggested.

18. Western Empires

Next up is Western Empires, and… okay, full honesty time: I almost don’t know why this game is still on my list. I basically never play it in person (even though I do own it), it’s been nearly 30 years since the last time, what was back in the day called Advanced Civilization, hit the table. You can play it online, and occasionally I do, but the online games take so long they feel like a mild lifestyle commitment. And yet, somehow, my gut refuses to let it go. Western Empires is such a stone-cold legend that leaving it off would feel like rewriting history. And history, as this game loves to remind you, is already cruel enough.

This is the purest form of an event game. It supports up to nine players, and if you’re feeling truly unhinged, you can combine it with Eastern Empires to create Mega-Civilization, a glorious 18-player monster. Playtime? A casual 12–18 hours. Yes. Hours. Bring snacks. And backup snacks.

Each player guides an ancient civilization across thousands of years, watching it rise, collapse, and somehow stagger onward anyway. On paper, it’s part area control and part economic trading, but in reality, it’s more of a historical survival simulator. Disasters strike. Wars explode. Calamities ruin your perfectly sensible plans. Eventually, you stop feeling like the brilliant architect of an empire and start feeling like a stressed-out crisis manager just trying to keep civilization from falling apart this turn.

But… that’s the magic. Western Empires isn’t just a game; it’s an experience, and a completely unique one at that. There’s nothing else quite like it in the entire board gaming hobby. It’s big, messy, demanding, and slightly ridiculous… and for that reason alone, it absolutely earns its place on this list.

17. Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan

Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan quietly slides down the list this year, and not because it did anything wrong. This one is a victim of circumstance, not quality. It’s a strictly two-player affair, and right now I don’t have a reliably available opponent who’s eager to regularly reenact feudal Japanese power struggles. As a result, poor Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan sits on the shelf, unfairly punished for demanding exactly one dedicated rival instead of a whole crowd.

Which is a shame, because this game is excellent. If you’ve ever been curious about block wargames and wanted a perfect on-ramp, this might be the gold standard. It delivers real depth without drowning you in rules, elegance without stripping away meaningful decisions, and replayability that gently rewards repeat plays instead of aggressively demanding them.

It’s fast, approachable, and refreshingly easy to teach. Sekigahara is one of those rare games you can put in front of almost anyone and be confidently playing in no time. The blocks are satisfyingly chunky, the design is clean and purposeful, and the rules are so clearly written that ambiguity barely even attempts to sneak in. Seriously, this rulebook deserves a polite bow of respect.

While writing this, I keep asking myself why it doesn’t hit the table more often. The theme is strong, the design is razor-sharp, and the experience is consistently tense and rewarding. Sometimes, the greatest enemy of a great board game isn’t flawed mechanics or bad balance; it’s just the cruel logistics of finding the right person willing to sit across the table and scheme with you. Oh, and life… life in general gets in the way of boardgaming.

16. Syncanite Foundation

The new kid on the block, and one I admit I’m a little hesitant to crown so early. Its place on this list feels… provisional. The future is uncertain. That said, good luck prying this game out of my hands right now, because I am completely infatuated. I would argue almost every time I do this list there is a game on it I just recently discovered and frankly not all of them make it to the next list, but for now….its my list people, I do what I want!

Syncanite Foundation is a four-player political slugfest and one of the most unique board game experiences I’ve had in a while. It throws conventional design sensibilities out the window, offering a dizzying array of victory conditions, an unapologetically harsh tone, and a generous helping of “take-that” gameplay. The mechanics themselves evolve as the players do, shifting the ground beneath your feet depending on the choices made at the table. Comfort is not on the menu.

I think it’s a great game, but even if you don’t, any true board game aficionado will find the experience fascinating a the very least. It’s bold, strange, and wildly experimental. In a hobby that sometimes feels a bit too safe and standardized, Syncanite Foundation is a sharp left turn into uncharted territory. If you have any appreciation for originality, this is one you simply have to experience.

It doesn’t hurt that the game is absolutely gorgeous once it hits the table. The presentation alone makes it an easy sell, dripping with visual appeal. While the rulebook could definitely use a bit more love, this is not a light game by any stretch, once you push past the learning curve, what awaits is something genuinely unlike anything else out there.

In my book, it has earned its spot here. While I can’t promise it will still be standing years from now, I can say this: at the moment, it’s the game I want to play!

15. Through The Ages: A New Story Of Civilization

It’s been a very long and happy love affair, but Through the Ages takes a gentle step down the list, not because it’s stumbled, but because it’s simply been lived with. Think of this less as a fall from grace and more as a well-earned semi-retirement, complete with a gold watch and thunderous applause.

At this point, I’ve logged well over 100 games across both physical and digital tables, and it remains one of the most fascinating designs in my collection. I’m always happy to play it, but truth be told, the genre it helped define has grown crowded. With so many newer civilization-building games vying for attention, my enthusiasm naturally leans toward fresh experiences rather than revisiting something I know quite literally inside and out.

That said, if you’ve somehow missed this one, you’re in for an absolute treat. Through the Ages is a towering achievement in civilization gaming, the benchmark, the measuring stick, the game by which all others in the genre are judged. Few titles capture the sweep of history with such mechanical precision and strategic depth.

An expansion released a few years back does breathe some new life into the system, but familiarity has a way of revealing cracks over time. One of the biggest lingering issues is player count. While officially a 2–4 player game, anything beyond two can stretch into an epic, and not always the good kind. Add even a hint of analysis paralysis and you’re staring down a six- or seven-hour session, which is simply too long for what is, ultimately, a regular game night and not a special event.

Downtime is the real culprit here. Turns can take ages, interaction during those stretches is minimal, and the pacing can feel glacial. For that reason, I strongly recommend the digital version on Steam, which dramatically smooths the experience and trims away much of the friction. There’s also a free version on Board Game Arena, not quite as polished, but still far preferable to trudging through a full in-person session.

As a two-player experience, it’s solid. At three players, it truly shines, but everyone needs to be experienced. In a 4-player game, you’re going to have time to do your taxes between turns. Either way, Through the Ages remains a masterpiece, just one I now admire slightly more from a comfortable distance and less often.

14. Dune Imperium

I love the Dune universe. No, scratch that, I adore it. It’s one of my all-time favorite science-fiction settings, standing shoulder to shoulder with giants like Star Wars and Star Trek. The politics, the mysticism, the sand, chef’s kiss.

As a board game, however, Dune: Imperium doesn’t really demand that love from you. In fact, it barely asks for familiarity with Dune at all. At its heart, this is a worker placement and card-management game, and a good one that could work with pretty much any theme with factions in it; the connection to the setting often feels more cosmetic than essential. I find this to be generally true of all worker placement games, so it could just be me, but worker placement games, this one included, simply don’t evoke theme for me.

As it slides down the list, that disconnect is the primary reason. I want a great Dune game, and while this is undeniably a great game, it doesn’t quite deliver a truly great Dune experience, if that distinction makes sense. The mechanics hum along beautifully, but they rarely evoke the drama, tension, or thematic weight that defines the universe. It’s mostly just an excellent worker placement game, one of the best in fact according to me.

I admire the design, I think it’s genuinely brilliant. But I find myself playing it less and less, largely because worker placement as a genre has started to wear thin for me. Looking at this list as a whole, there are very few pure worker placement games left standing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one eventually drifts off my radar entirely before too long.

Still, context matters. If I am going to play a worker placement game, this is absolutely the one I’d choose. The blend of hand-building, measured conflict, solid pacing, and meaningful interaction elevates it well above most of its peers. Even as my tastes shift, Dune: Imperium remains a standout, just not quite the sandworm-sized experience my love for the universe keeps hoping for.

13. Star Wars Unlimited

This one’s a little tricky to explain, considering it debuted at number five on last year’s list, but this isn’t a fall from grace so much as a game finding its permanent residence. Infatuation is a short-term condition. Eventually, games settle into your regular rotation, and that’s exactly where Star Wars Unlimited has landed.

The truth is, I haven’t kept up with the latest releases, not due to a lack of interest, but because collectible card games are expensive. A single booster box can cost as much as two full board games, and at a certain point, the expanding card pool starts delivering diminishing returns. More options don’t always translate into a meaningfully better experience.

I already have a frankly irresponsible number of cards. They’re fantastic. I love them. I will keep them forever. I will happily play Star Wars Unlimited anytime, anywhere, with zero complaints. What I won’t be doing is aggressively chasing future releases, because I just don’t see the benefit anymore.

It’s a bit like buying the ninth expansion for a game you already love. At some point, you have to ask yourself: do I really need more of this, or would I rather explore something new? What is the limit?

For me, the answer is three. Three expansions. That’s my limit. I bought the first three sets, had a great time, and now I’m content. I can build a dozen decks without breaking a sweat, and I don’t feel even slightly under-served for options.

Will I cycle back into heavier play at some point? Almost certainly. But for now, this is a game I enjoy comfortably, not obsessively, and there’s something very healthy about that.

All that said: great game, genuinely love it, and it absolutely earned its place on this list. I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon, just no longer screaming for my wallet’s attention like it used to.

12. Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars is one of those games that never truly leaves, it just waits patiently until it’s time to return. I go through phases where I play it obsessively, largely thanks to its excellent digital implementation, and every time I do, I’m reminded just how absurdly versatile it is. It’s fantastic for competitive play, endlessly accommodating in how you approach it, and, most importantly, it has never “broken” for me no matter how often I revisit it.

It rises on the list this year, a fluctuation that feels entirely natural for a game that’s permanently embedded in my rotation. Some titles come and go. Terraforming Mars simply orbits.

The game is exceptionally well supported: meaningful expansions, strong digital options, and a healthy, engaged community all help keep it feeling alive. Of course, none of that would matter if the core design weren’t rock-solid, and it absolutely is. Deep, rewarding, and genuinely strategic, this is a game that consistently rewards planning over luck. Despite the presence of card drafting, I’d argue there’s remarkably little randomness here; success is earned far more often than it’s stumbled into.

What really sets it apart is the sheer breadth of viable strategies. There isn’t just one path to victory; there are dozens. The strategic well is so deep that even after nearly fifty plays last year alone, I still actively want to get it back on the table. That’s a rare quality.

I named this my Game of the Year back in 2016, and nearly a decade later, it’s still part of my regular gaming life. Very few games can claim that kind of staying power. Fewer still can do it without feeling stale. Terraforming Mars just keeps on terraforming, slowly, methodically, and apparently forever.

11. Hansa Teutonica

I honestly can’t fully explain this one. I don’t even own it, and I probably play it once a year at most, so how does this unassuming cube-pusher keep finding its way onto the list?

The simplest answer is this: every single time I sit down to play it, I’m immediately struck by the same thought, why on earth am I not playing this all the time? There are plenty of games on this list that I actively obsess over, many of them ranked lower, and yet somehow this one keeps quietly, stubbornly inching its way upward year after year.

What sets it apart is the interaction. It’s just a little sharp around the edges. Yes, it’s a victory-point-salad, cube-pushing Euro, but it carries a kind of tactical brilliance that doesn’t rely on the genre’s most overused crutches like role selection or worker placement. It feels smart without feeling scripted. Honestly, if Great Western Trail didn’t exist, this would probably be my favorite Euro game outright.

It sticks the landing in so many ways, and its approachability alone earns it a place here. I’ve played a truly irresponsible number of Euro-style resource management games, there are far too many of them, but this one stands out as something special in a very crowded field.

I think a lot of that comes from how it stretches player interaction. Despite its clear lineage in classic German Euro design, it never feels like a quiet multiplayer spreadsheet. You’re not just optimizing in parallel, you’re actively competing with the people around the table, which is rarely the case in Euro games, and that tension elevates the entire experience.

In short: elegant, interactive, and quietly brilliant.

Great design.

10. Great Western Trail

Kicking off the bottom of the top ten is the great Euro love of my life: Great Western Trail. And what a sordid history we’ve had together. I bought it, bounced off it hard, gave it another chance, kind of liked it… and then, somewhere along the way, it quietly became indispensable. Fast forward nearly ten years, and I genuinely can’t think of a single month in the last five years where I didn’t play it at least once.

It’s a permanent fixture in my rotation on Board Game Arena, where I’ve logged over 100+ games digitally, and that doesn’t even count the physical table time.

Why? Honestly… I couldn’t tell you. There’s just something deeply satisfying about this game loop. Card collection, victory point pressure, constant player interaction, and a dizzying array of viable strategies all intertwine to create game states that feel fresh, tense, and mentally stimulating every single time. It scratches an itch I didn’t know I had until it refused to stop scratching back.

What really seals it for me is how original it feels within the Euro space. I struggle to meaningfully compare it to anything else, and that’s saying a lot in a genre where déjà vu is practically a feature. When you play Great Western Trail, it only feels familiar because you’ve played Great Western Trail before, not because it reminds you of three other games stitched together.

I’ll also admit something slightly embarrassing but completely honest: I think I love this game in part because I’m pretty good at it. I just get it. And being good at this game isn’t easy. Not because it’s overly complicated, but because it’s packed with subtle nuance that takes time to internalize. Even once you do, there’s no way to “solve” it, no dominant strategy, no auto-win formula. It remains fiercely competitive no matter how experienced the table is.

I love it. No qualifiers, no caveats.

Without question, it’s my favorite Euro game.

9. Warhammer 40k 10th Edition

Has something gone terribly wrong with this list? What is a miniature game doing among the best board games of all time?

Fair question, and yes, this one needs an explanation.

At some point, trying to rigidly separate board games, card games, miniature games, and everything in between just became exhausting. I’m a tabletop gamer, full stop, and this list has quietly evolved into my favorite tabletop experiences rather than a taxonomy exercise. If you look far enough back, you’ll see miniature games have appeared here before, Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: Armada both had their time in the spotlight during the 2010s. So this isn’t unprecedented… just mildly controversial.

That brings us to the obvious follow-up question: of all the miniature games I could have chosen, why Warhammer 40,000?

Because it’s been part of my life, on and off, for nearly forty years. This was one of my earliest gaming touchstones, right alongside Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Even during periods when I wasn’t actively playing, its absence from this list always felt… wrong.

In 2025, however, I came back to it in a big way. I played a lot, started a brand-new army, Tyranids, and spent frankly ungodly amounts of time painting tiny space monsters with more care than most adult responsibilities deserve.

Now, let’s be clear: I’m not convinced Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition is a great design. But I am convinced it’s a great experience. And when you combine the gameplay with the hobby aspect, the spectacle of a fully painted army on the table, and the sheer narrative excess of the setting, it earns its place here.

I love the universe; there’s usually a 40k novel sitting on my nightstand, and while the hobby is outrageously expensive (only a fool would enter it without hesitation), the reality is that it’s given me decades of incredible memories. I regret none of it.

It does require a measured approach. You need a sense of humor at the table, discipline with your wallet, and a willingness to manage your enthusiasm rather than surrender to it completely. But approached with the right mindset, Warhammer 40,000 is an unmatched blend of game, hobby, and spectacle.

For that alone, it deserves a spot on this list.

8. Paths Of Glory

Alright, now we’re truly getting into the weeds.

Unlike most genres of gaming, I’m a relative newcomer to historical wargames. My first real exposure came through a wonderful title called B-17 Flying Fortress Leader, but Paths of Glory was easily my most ambitious leap into the deep end.

And it paid off, because I absolutely adore this game.

This thematically rich, card-driven masterpiece spans the entirety of the First World War, capturing not just the scope of the conflict but its drama. Every card, every decision, every front feels weighted with historical consequence, making the experience as narratively powerful as it is strategically demanding.

There’s a significant amount of “chrome” here, using the term correctly, I hope, and for someone not raised on historical wargames, the rules were genuinely challenging at first. But once the core systems click and you begin to engage with the deeper strategic and tactical layers, you discover something truly special. This is a level of tabletop gaming depth that few genres can offer, and even within historical wargames, Paths of Glory stands tall.

It’s also a brutally difficult game to win, especially when you’re a late bloomer facing seasoned veterans. But one of the great joys of this space is the community itself. There’s a calm, thoughtful, almost scholarly atmosphere to historical wargaming, a patience and maturity that makes learning, losing, and improving feel deeply rewarding rather than frustrating.

Over the past year, I’ve made a real effort to learn this game properly. Its nuances, its long-term planning, its subtle interplay of risk and restraint. I’m still far from graduating beyond novice status, but with every play I can feel myself improving incrementally and meaningfully, and that alone is incredibly satisfying.

This is not a game I recommend casually. If you’re merely curious about historical wargames, there are far better entry points. Paths of Glory is a graduation, a title you arrive at once you’re ready for something truly heavy, demanding, and profound.

From front to back, it is brilliant.

7. Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

There’s no question that card-driven influence-control games, niche though they may be, are among my favorite two-player experiences. I own quite a few, and more than one appears on this list, but Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul has enjoyed a recent resurgence for me. In fact, I effectively rediscovered it, and doing so left me wondering how on earth this game ever fell off the list in the first place.

For the uninitiated, this genre, made famous by Twilight Struggle, is a form of area control built around multi-use cards. The core idea is simple, but it has been explored through many fascinating variations in games like Washington’s War, Successors, Hannibal & Hamilcar, and my beloved Imperial Struggle.

Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul earns its spot here for one very specific and very important reason: it’s far more approachable than most of its peers. A common hurdle in this genre is deck knowledge. In many card-driven games, knowing what cards might appear is a critical strategic skill. Until you’ve internalized that information, you’re essentially learning by losing, often repeatedly. Twilight Struggle is infamous for this, and it’s why newcomers can spend a long time getting comfortably trounced before things start to click.

Caesar largely sidesteps that problem. The cards are straightforward, intuitive, and less about surprise timing and more about responding to the evolving board state. As a result, I can teach this game quickly and have a new player competing meaningfully almost immediately. That alone makes it an easy and appealing choice to pull off the shelf.

Beyond accessibility, I genuinely love how it handles its history. The game captures the Roman conquest of Gaul with clarity and flavor, without burying the player under a pile of academic detail. It feels like a proper member of the historical wargaming family, just one that’s welcoming, lean, and refreshingly light on ceremony.

It’s challenging, endlessly replayable, and remarkably easy to get into.

I love it, and it absolutely belongs on this list. It’s also easy to recommend to just about anyone interested in the genre, though I would probably argue for Washington’s War if this is your first segway into the genre; that’s even more approachable and arguably a candidate for this top 20 list, as it too is a fantastic game.

6. Old School Dungeons and Dragons

Alright, this one’s less a single game and more a category, and I’m fully aware that this alone is going to rub a few people the wrong way. The phrase “old school D&D” is hotly debated territory, guarded by a passionate community that often treats it less like a genre and more like a hereditary title. Who gets to claim it, define it, or pass it on is… contentious, to say the least.

For me, old school D&D comfortably includes Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, as well as B/X-style descendants like Old School Essentials (and by extension BECMI). I also include some more modern interpretations that clearly carry the same spirit, Dolmenwood, and yes, I’ll even dare to say Daggerheart.

But ultimately, I don’t recognize old school play by rulebooks or edition numbers, I recognize it by approach.

Old school D&D is a reactive storytelling system. Worlds are invented on the fly. Characters emerge through play rather than pre-written arcs. The game doesn’t care about your narrative aspirations, and the dice certainly don’t care about your feelings. Triumph feels earned because failure is real, frequent, and often hilarious. The mechanics don’t bend to accommodate you, they push back. When you win, there is a satisfaction to it because you know the odds were against you and only through cleverness can you succeed.

I love adventure games that understand when to challenge me, when to obstruct me, and when to simply get out of my way. Most modern RPGs, in my experience, don’t capture that balance. With a few rare exceptions, many contemporary designs lean hard into mechanical power fantasies, highly curated tactical experiences where success is expected, survivability is guaranteed because balance favors the player, and failure is politely escorted out the back door. I find that… dull.

Even stretching the definition further, there are non-fantasy games that tap into the same ethos. Titles like Vampire: The Masquerade, Alternity, and classics like Shadowrun all scratch that same itch: player-driven stories, dangerous worlds, and systems that don’t promise fairness.

Put plainly: I don’t love the direction modern role-playing has taken. I don’t think most modern RPGs are as much fun as these older designs, and I genuinely believe that, archaic mechanics and all, old school games still represent the most compelling form of role-playing available.

They don’t protect you.
They don’t flatter you.
They let you play.
and most importantly, they allow stories to emerge

5. Empire Of The Sun

If Paths of Glory is a graduation in the world of historical wargames, then Empire of the Sun is a doctorate. This is, without question, the most complex, most demanding, and deepest game I have ever played. It doesn’t depict the Pacific War, it is the Pacific War, rendered in exhaustive operational detail and somehow compressed into a single box.

This is the ultimate challenge. It is the most complex ruleset I have ever learned, and I quite literally need to play it two or three times a year just to keep the rules from evaporating out of my brain entirely. Miss a year, and you’re relearning it from scratch.

That warning label firmly in place, Empire of the Sun is also one of my absolute favorite lifestyle games, an endeavor rather than a pastime, and I have loved every frustrating minute of it. Rules layered atop rules, exceptions piled onto exceptions, and a heroic amount of linguistic gymnastics all combine to create an absurdly steep learning curve. But the payoff is extraordinary: one of the most detailed, authentic, and strategically rich tabletop experiences ever created.

I typically manage two full games per year, each taking roughly two months to complete. It’s a massive commitment. That said, if you can manage it, playing the game in a single sitting is the best way to experience it. Expect an extremely long night. Even with two experienced players, you’re looking at roughly six hours. And yes, it’s worth every single minute.

Despite its scale, the game is intensely interactive. The “you go, I go” structure means constant engagement, and because you’re executing the Pacific War at an operational level, there are no small decisions. Every move is a major operation. Every action reshapes the strategic landscape in meaningful ways.

This is not a game you casually try.
It’s not even a game you learn easily.

But if you commit to it, Empire of the Sun rewards you with an experience few games, of any genre, can match.

One of the best games ever made.

4. Twilight Imperium

This game has been on my best-of list since before I was even keeping one, and for me personally, there’s no ambiguity here: Twilight Imperium is one of the best tabletop games ever made.

That statement, however, comes with a lot of caveats when it comes to recommending it. While this game speaks directly to my gaming soul, it is absolutely, unequivocally not for everyone. In fact, I’d argue it’s niche enough that it’s probably not for most people.

So who is it for?

Twilight Imperium is an epic 4X event game for three to six players that takes anywhere from five to eight hours to play. It’s complex, unapologetically dense, and built around a deep well of strategic and tactical decision-making. It doesn’t streamline itself for convenience, and it doesn’t soften its edges to widen its appeal, because it is exactly what it intends to be.

That intentionality is important. When I read critical reviews of Twilight Imperium, the most common complaints are almost always about features that were deliberately designed into the game. Those criticisms usually say more about mismatched expectations than about the game itself.

For the right group, Twilight Imperium is magnificent. It’s a gorgeous, sprawling science-fiction experience that lets you guide an interstellar civilization through diplomacy, warfare, politics, and ambition in a fiercely competitive 4X environment. The variability is staggering. You could play this game a hundred times and never have the same experience twice. When it works, it’s pure joy, when it doesn’t, it’s hell on earth.

To find that joy, you need the right people. Finding five or six like-minded players who want to commit an entire day to this kind of experience is hard. In my immediate orbit, that group simply doesn’t exist, which means the game spends far too much time gathering dust, an unfortunate fate for something this special.

There is, however, hope on the horizon. A digital version was announced last year for Steam, and honestly, there may be no game in existence more in need of a proper digital adaptation than Twilight Imperium. I have high hopes that it will finally connect fans across distance, scheduling conflicts, and adulthood, and that I’ll soon find myself knee-deep in glorious sci-fi chaos once again.

I can’t wait.

I love this game.

3. Lord of the Rings: The Living Card Game

The Lord of the Rings: The Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games is my favorite card game ever made, but probably not for the reasons you’d expect.

I play it almost exclusively solo. While it’s an excellent game at any player count (and particularly strong at two), I rarely make an effort to get it to the table that way. Instead, this is my daily ritual. I set it up on a small gaming table in my office and run a game or two each day. I’ve kept that routine for years now. Occasionally, I take breaks, but for the most part, I’ve been happily cycling through its overwhelming library of expansions again and again, and somehow it never gets old.

That’s the magic of it. I never tire of this game. It offers a fully realized, deeply thematic board gaming experience whenever I want it, without scheduling, negotiation, or compromise. I enjoy the solitude, but even more than that, I love the puzzles. This game is brutally difficult, demanding precise deck construction, careful play, and long-term planning. No matter how many years I’ve invested in it, it never truly gets easier; it just invites you to fail more intelligently.

At this point, I own nearly everything ever released for the game, which means the collecting phase of the hobby is mercifully behind me. That said, it’s worth acknowledging that living card games are not cheap, and I’m always hesitant to recommend it casually for that reason alone.

But if you love The Lord of the Rings, and if you love card games, especially deep deck-building experiences, there is simply nothing else like this. Nothing even comes close.

This is one of the most challenging, elaborate, and rewarding card games I’ve ever played. I adore it, and it earns its place on this list with grace, confidence, and an absurdly large stack of cards.

2. Imperial Struggle

Imperial Struggle is a difficult game to explain, and that, more than anything else, is why it remains such a tough sell and a relative unknown in the wider board game sphere.

At its core, it explores the century-long global rivalry between Britain and France, rendered in an abstracted but highly coherent way that ties just enough mechanical logic to historical reality for everything to make sense. It’s also a member of the card-driven influence-control genre. Either of those elements alone can already be a hurdle for many players. Together, they create a niche within a niche.

Then there’s the learning curve. Imperial Struggle, I would not say is unforgiving to new players, but it’s fairly demanding. Not so much in rules comprehension (though still there is some complexity), but definitely in strategic depth and understanding the core principles behind winning. It’s entirely possible, easy, even, to lose the game by the second round if you misstep early. That kind of punishment, paired with a fair amount of rules overhead, makes it a game that’s hard to table and even harder to recommend casually.

And yet.

If you give it a real chance, if you power through those first few games and reach the inevitable light-bulb moment, a remarkable strategic landscape opens up. The game suddenly reveals an astonishing number of viable paths, long-term plans, and tactical pivots. It’s like stumbling onto an obscure novel series you’ve never heard of and realizing, halfway through the first book, that it’s quietly brilliant. That’s what discovering Imperial Struggle feels like.

It’s not an easy journey, and having a good teacher helps enormously; this is not a game that gently teaches itself. But I genuinely can’t think of another game more worthy of the effort.

Every time I play, all I want to do is reset the board and go again. I want to try that strategy instead. Or this opening. Or see what happens if I lean harder into a card I previously dismissed as useless. And without fail, cards or systems I once questioned eventually reveal their purpose. A few games later, it clicks: oh, that’s how this works. The discovery never stops.

What makes this even more impressive is how tight the design space actually is. There aren’t endless systems layered on top of each other, just a remarkably robust framework that takes many, many plays to fully internalize and master, but rewards you for doing so.

Importantly, while the learning curve can be called “moderately heavy”, the game itself is logical. Hidden information is limited, and it doesn’t lean nearly as hard on encyclopedic card knowledge as some of its genre cousins, including Twilight Struggle. The strategic dynamics are deep, but they’re also coherent.

This matters. When you lose your first game of Twilight Struggle, you often don’t even understand why until you’ve lost ten more and the systems finally come into focus. In Imperial Struggle, the reason for your loss is painfully obvious, even in game one. The board state tells a clear story, and improvement comes immediately. It’s an intelligent game, but it never makes you feel stupid.

There’s no question that this is my favorite game in the card-driven influence-control genre. And honestly, it goes beyond that, it’s very close to being one of my favorite games of all time.

But, as Yoda famously said:

“No… there is another.”

1. War Room

Ever since the day I received War Room, as a birthday gift, the tradition of playing it once per year, on my birthday, has become one of my most cherished gaming rituals. It’s not just a game day; it’s an event. One I look forward to all year.

I’ve sung the praises of War Room on this blog for years, and its position at number one has never been in doubt. Not once. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed is my perspective. After enough plays, the glow of novelty fades and what remains is something far more valuable: understanding. At this point, War Room is a game I know, and know well. I wouldn’t change a single word of the review I wrote back in 2019, but time and experience have added some clarity worth sharing.

First and foremost: War Room is undeniably random. That’s not exactly a revelation, you roll handfuls of dice to resolve combat, but the deeper randomness lies in timing. In War Room, when something happens is often just as important, if not more so, than what happens.

Take the opening round. Whether Japan acts first, or whether the U.S. and Britain do, can define the entire shape of the war from that moment forward. It’s arguably the single most impactful moment in the game, and it hinges on an oil-bidding contest in round one. The same is true between Russia, Germany and Britain in Europe. That decision doesn’t determine who wins or loses outright, but it absolutely dictates the next two to four rounds of the war, what survives, what burns, who the aggressor gets to be and how starved or flush each nation is with resources during the most critical opening moments.

Bidding is usually very close, so often, even with bidding, the turn order is decided randomly due to ties.

You can debate the “correct” strategy endlessly, and people do, but that’s part of the joy. The point is that chance plays an enormous role throughout the game. Yes, you can mitigate it through deterministic choices, but control always comes at a cost. The more certainty you demand, the more resources you burn. That tension, do you invest, or do you gamble? is at the heart of War Room.

And it’s both the game’s brilliance and, perhaps, its greatest flaw.

Because War Room is brutally unforgiving. Despite its enormous scope, you actually make far fewer decisions than you might expect. Each nation gets six moves per round. Most games end in three to five rounds. Over a twelve-hour session, you’ll make roughly eighteen to thirty truly meaningful decisions, and those decisions will define everything.

Here’s the paradox: War Room wants repeated plays. It begs for mastery. It’s an event game that secretly longs to be a lifestyle game. But its size and length make that nearly impossible. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one game per year. Maybe two if the stars align. You never quite get enough repetitions to fully explore its strategic depth.

It took me five years, five plays, to even begin forming basic conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. That’s a glacial pace by any standard. And so, inevitably, players fall back on the one thing the game always allows: luck. Let the dice decide. Hope for the best.

That doesn’t make War Room bad. Not even close. It simply means that most games are played closer to high-stakes gambling than to pure strategic optimization, despite the fact that the system is absolutely capable of supporting that deeper play.

And yet… I love it.

None of this diminishes War Room in my eyes. If anything, it makes me wish I could play it more. I wish I had the time to truly live inside its systems, to explore every nuance and edge case it offers. My only real regret is that this game didn’t exist when I was fifteen years old, with endless weekends and nothing but time.

Fifteen-year-old me would have played the absolute hell out of this game.

So yes, without hesitation, without qualifiers:

The best game ever made. Period.