My Top 10 Board Games of 2018

As the year winds down, it’s time to reflect on the past year and all the fun games we played. I’m not the most prolific gamer, but I’ve certainly played more games this year than any previous year. To celebrate I’ve compiled a definitive, conclusive, and ultimate list of the 10 best games I’ve played — released in 2018.

10. Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig

I don’t have a huge amount of experience with tile-laying games, but the quirky mashup between Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Between Two Cities was too enticing to resist.

And I wasn’t disappointed. This game looks beautiful, has amazing components and offers a relaxing, semi-cooperative game play that’ll draw in newbies and satisfy experienced gamers alike. You can read more about my thoughts in my first impressions post.

9. Brass Birmingham

This original version of this game established a near-mythic reputation for itself, and the 2018 edition of the game brings a different spin on the game with amazing looking artwork and solid components.

Being a relative newbie in the hobby I haven’t had a chance to explore some of the other economic heavyweights of the genre — games like Power Grid or Puerto Rico. But I’m so glad to have tried Brass. It’s an extremely elegant game with relatively simple turns, but that doesn’t make it simplistic. The variety of ways each game can evolve and the dizzying array of decisions you could make are deeply satisfying and enjoyable.

I look forward to playing this game even more in 2019 and suspect it will rise even higher in my personal ranking of board games.

8. Coimbra

Although I’ve played a lot of games with dice, the way these dice have been used has been relatively limited / similar — roll to resolve. So I was pretty excited to try a game with dice drafting.

Coimbra manages to fuse a pretty meaty euro-style game with multiple scoring tracks, and HUGE end game bonuses with a very elegant dice bidding system.

In simple terms, at the start of a turn, all the dice are rolled by the first player. Then players take turns selecting dice and bidding on various rows of character (action and bonus) cards. The elegance and strategy comes with how you select and apply your dice. For most rows, the dice value (1–6) is used to bid for first pick of a row of cards. The higher you bid the better (except for the first row). The twist is that you will also pay for the value of the dice you’ve bid, so there’s a deliciously frustrating push and pull between wanting to bid high, to get first pick, and bid low to limit how much you pay.

Matt over at Creaking Shelf has done a more thorough review which I highly recommend. But this game really excited and delighted me.

7. Space Base

Dice again! I grew up playing a lot of Monopoly and Yahtzee so dice hold a warm and fuzzy, nostalgic place in my heart. But as I’ve gotten more experienced with board games, I’ve come to appreciate more intricate and sophisticated dice mechanisms.

Space Base is a very simple game at its core — you roll dice and get stuff. But that simple description doesn’t quite do the game justice.

Inspired from a well loved dice chucking game — Machi Koro. Space Base enhances the experience by giving you flexibility in how you apply the dice you roll. You can combine the value of your two dice or use them individually to trigger various buildings in your space base (numbered 1–12). These give you various bonuses like income, money and victory points.

But Space Base gets really exciting when other people roll — because you get to trigger some of your own buildings and collect their bonuses when others are rolling their dice. This is a super fun, lighter game with a good amount of crunch. It plays up to 5 and can easily fill up a good chunk of a gaming evening. It’s certainly something that non-gamers could play, as long as someone experienced with the game is there to explain some of the more confusing structure cards. Very solid game!

6. Planet

I’m not usually one to go in for more gimmicky board games, and a game where your individual player board is a 3D, 12-sided sphere certainly stands out.

I’m talking about the relatively new Earth Building game — Planet. I’ve done a full post on this game. But it really took me by surprise. Simple, but tense and competitive with beautiful visuals. Fans of nature documentaries will get a real kick out of the varied ecosystems and animals that you’ll be encountering in the game — and most importantly the 3D player ‘boards’ actually make functional sense in the game and aren’t merely a gimmick.

I’d strongly recommend this one as a great game for gamers and non-gamers alike. The sturdy components and relatively small table-footprints also make it fantastic for the pub or cafe. Highly recommend it!

5. Captains of the Gulf

As I’m still making my way into the wonderful world of hobby board games, there are a lot of heavier games I haven’t tried out. So when I heard about a new game, that promised a meaty gaming experience based on a relatively straightforward ‘pick-up and deliver’ board game mechanism I was very intrigued. Not the mention the relatively fresh fishing theme and stunning artwork.

I’ve written a full overview of Captains of the Gulf but in short it’s a highly enjoyable game with a very well integrated multi-use card system that add a delightful layer of complexity and strategy to the game. Certainly one of my most enjoyable gaming experiences of the year!

4. Underwater Cities

This game was one of the most highly anticipated games of the recent Essen board game conference in Germany. As is quite obvious, the game centres on the concept of rival underwater cities. At the face of it the game system is pretty standard worker placement. You pick various actions available to gain resources and points, as well as construct your own network of underwater cities.

The twist comes from the way you trigger the worker placement locations — by using cards! This is even more interesting because if you match the right card colour with the location colour you get to take a bonus action — opening up an entire additional layer of strategy to the game.

This game reminds me most of one of my other favourite games – Terraforming Mars (despite some clear mechanical differences) but it feels more refined and interesting, despite it running quite long (similar to TM I suppose) and being quite likely to cause you ‘analysis paralysis’ this is a deep, thinky game, with a fun theme and great twist on probably the most popular game play mechanism – allocate a nice healthy 3–4 hour gaming slot and take this one for a dive!

3. The Kings Guild

I just played this game yesterday after hearing a steady, low-level hum about it for the past few months. It also made Tom Vasel’s Dice Tower ‘Top Ten Surprises of 2018’.

This game is simple to learn and play, but it so expertly and smoothly blends multiple layers of strategy and point scoring that you end up with a meaty and satisfying worker-placement experience.

Truly impressed and highly recommend you check it out for a great mid — to-light-weight Euro game experience.

2. Architects of the Western Kingdom

I still haven’t had a chance to play the much admired viking range of games from the same publisher / designer. But the glowing reviews and built-in automated opponent options meant I couldn’t resist this game. I’ve now played it about 4/5 times and it’s a highly enjoyable experience.

I’ll probably write a full review of this game in the coming weeks. But in a nutshell it’s a deeply enjoyable and satisfying mid-weight worker placement game with a fun twist and much more interaction between players than your typical worker placement game as you literally snatch up your opponents workers (and sell them for profit!).

The super simple, yet challenging automated opponent allows for solo play and massively enhances the 2 player experience. It also scales up to five which makes it a great gaming night game. I’m looking forward to the next games in this series and any expansions are probably a no-brainer purchase for me now!

1. Root

Probably one of the hottest games of 2018. I remember seeing the game on Kickstarter but I really didn’t pay much attention to it. The anthropomorphic animals and title of ‘war game’ didn’t really grab me.

But as I started to see reviews and playthroughs popping up online I was thoroughly intrigued. Again, this is a game that I’ve written an extensive overview of, but suffice it to say that it was my number one board gaming experience of the year.

Why? Well I think in simple terms, the asymmetry in this game offers such a depth of game strategy and variety compared to other games I’ve played (to be clear I’d never played a COIN War game prior to ROOT). I actually don’t mind player interaction and direct competition in games, and ROOT enables that in a satisfyingly rich package.

Sadly I don’t own the game as it has been out of stock here in the UK for a few months now, but I’d love to pick it up in early 2019. I’m particularly curious to see how it plays a 2. As my wife really enjoys direct conflict in games.

Finally I would say that this game may not be for everyone, but I think everyone that can should try it out and see how they like it. It really is a spectacular game and one I feel will have a lot of longevity (especially with current and teased future expansions).