Top 10 board games published in the last 5 years

I haven't done a top 10 list since 2019, so I thought I'd take a look at my favorite games from the last five years. Looking strictly at the hours spent playing each game, tried and true favorites tend to have an advantage over newer games, so for this list I'll only be looking at games published since the beginning of 2020.

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10. Pan Am (2020)

I was initially attracted to this game due to the elegant, retro graphic design. As I shop for new games, I am finding that I have less and less interest in the fantasy and horror titles that used to grab my attention, so a travel-themed game that doesn't involve stabbing anyone seemed like a nice change of pace. It's a very clever design, and different from a lot of "empire building" games in that rather than claiming more an more territory on the board, the goal is to anticipate the air travel routes that Pan Am will want to buy from you at the end of each round, with the winner being the one with the most Pan Am stock. Read the full review.

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9. Star Trek: Away Missions (2023)

When I first looked at this game, the goofy looking miniatures were a turn off but I'm glad I reconsidered. Most "miniatures on map tiles" games involve a lot of fighting, but this one is much more about moving your characters to the right spot on the board for them to fulfill their missions, giving them advantages based on the cards you have in your hand. The different factions play very differently, with the Klingons more interested in openly attacking, for example, while the Romulans skulk about in the shadows and the Federation boldly go (or go boldly) about their business. And those miniatures really have grown on me. Read the full review.

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8. Star Wars Unlimited (2024)

I've always enjoyed the collectible card game format. I like the idea of assembling the right combination of cards to win the game the way you want to win it, and there is a definite thrill to ripping open random card packs hoping for that rare card you need for your deck. Star Wars Unlimited is the sixth such Star Wars themed game since 1993, and definitely the most playable. Read the full review.

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7. Ark Nova (2021)

Ark Nova is a bit of a rarity: a game about animals that doesn't feature any cute wooden meeples or other figurines. The game's somewhat dry appearance hides an absolutely fascinating game that combines card drafting, worker placement, and even tile laying. I always get a sense of accomplishment when the game is over, even if I didn't win. Read the full review.

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6. Tiny Epic Dinosaurs (2020)

As I struggle to find room for all our games, I find the Tiny Epic line more and more appealing. And honestly, a tiny box was the only way I was going to be able to justify a third dinosaur zoo game in our collection after DinoGenics and Dinosaur Island, both of which are major space hogs. It's a delightful little game about breeding and selling different types of dinosaurs, sort of a prequel to the larger zoo games that don't stress too much about where the dinosaurs are coming from. As with most of the other Tiny Epic games, this one does a lot with as little as possible, managing to be a full featured worker placement/resource management game in a very small package. Read the full review.

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5. Oltréé (2021)

I bought this board game (apparently based on a French-language roleplaying game) entirely on a whim. I was enticed by the gorgeous Vincent Dutrait cover artwork, and also by the promise of an adventure board game that might be a little smoother than Talisman and/or less fiddly than Arkham Horror, and I wasn't disappointed. Oltréé doesn't necessarily do anything new with this type of game, but it does it very, very well. Read the full review.

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4. Starship Captains (2022)

Starship Captains does Star Trek better than most licensed Star Trek games do. At its best, Star Trek should be about problem solving rather than fighting, and I'm always disappointed when a Star Trek game is too combat-centric, as many of them tend to be. Starship Captains has players assigning and managing their crew in an ingenious variation on the worker placement mechanism, and juggling ship upgrades in a way that would do Montgomery Scott (or Geordi LaForge) proud. Read the full review.

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3. Dune: Imperium (2020)

Combining different game mechanisms has become a popular way to design games, and this one mixes two of my favorites: deck building and worker placement. Most deck building games start each player with a small deck of cards representing basic resources, with the point being to spend those resources to get better cards, and eventually build up an engine of cards that can do whatever it is that needs to be done to win the game. Dune: Imperium takes that idea and adds worker placement, with cards dictating where workers can be placed, and a simple battle mechanism that functions as an additional resource to be spent. It's an elegant combination of elements, and it fits the Dune source material perfectly. Read the full review.

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2. Lost Ruins of Arnak (2020)

Like Dune: Imperium, Lost Ruins of Arnak combines deck building with worker placement, but manages to do it in a completely different way. Arnak has players gaining cards from two different decks, one of tools and items and the other representing archaeological artifacts. As the game progresses, the amount of available tools decreases, increasing the amount of artifacts that players can add to their card decks. Cards are played to gain resources, which are then used to move around the board exploring lost temples, with the eventual goal of moving counters along a track that gives out even more resources, and also eventually leads to victory. It's an amazing game with a lot going on. Read the full review.

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1. Star Wars: Shatterpoint (2023)

This was another one I wasn't going to get into because I didn't like the miniatures. Specifically, I didn't like the size of the miniatures, which are a bit larger than the standard 28mm size used for most wargames and roleplaying games. I don't know why we miniatures gamers are so obsessed with being able to mix and match our figures -- it's something we rarely if ever do, it seems that we just want to always have the option. Anyway, the miniatures for Shatterpoint are actually amazingly well done, and the larger size makes them a little easier to paint. Its an important detail considering that the average miniatures gamer is going to spend a lot more time assembling and painting their miniatures than they are actually playing.

But the game itself is fantastic too. It seems to specifically address a lot of the pitfalls common to other games of this time, avoiding stale game play by emphasizing movement and area control over just eliminating the opponent's figures as quickly as possible. In Shatterpoint it's rare that any figures ever leave the board -- the point of the game is to occupy areas of the board, and the tactical challenge is to be able to adapt when those areas move. It's a great game that really feels like Star Wars. Read the full review.

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Honorable Mention

Blade Runner: the Roleplaying Game

I'm never sure whether I should lump roleplaying games in with board and card games because the experience is so different, although that is changing with hybrid storytelling games like Detective and even some miniatures games like Core Space or Conan. Blade Runner doesn't use a board or miniatures, but it does include a whole slew of prop photos, brochures, and even a newspaper, physical components that aren't common in a lot of RPGs but were absolutely essential to this one. Read the full review.

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So there you have it, my favorite games from the past five years, at least for now. Ask me again in six months and it might be a completely different list...

Final judgment on the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game

I’m a huge fan of the Judge Dredd universe (well, maybe not the Stallone film) and I love miniature skirmish games, so I I really want to like this one.

The miniatures themselves are great. The resin material Warlord Games uses strikes just the right balance between flexible and durable, and it holds a high level of detail. In the five years since the game’s initial release, Warlord have expanded the range of figures to include a pretty good cross section of characters and vehicles from the Judge Dredd comics.

The game’s presentation is excellent. The rule book is beautifully designed, full color with a ton of artwork. The starter set comes with great looking plastic tokens rather than cardboard, plus a full color double-sided 3 foot by 3 foot map to play on. If you don’t believe me, check out OnTableTop’s unboxing videoOnTableTop’s unboxing video, it went a long way towards convincing me to buy the game.

My history with this game has been a little...conflicted. My normal pattern with miniatures games is that I get interested in a game, buy the rules and enough miniatures to try it out, and then if I like it I buy more miniatures and then either play again, or forget about the game for a year or more. That’s what happened here: I bought the Judge Dredd starter set in 2021, played several times over a period of about three months, and never played again. I seem to recall enjoying the first few games but then changing my mind, finding the last few games a little tedious and unsatisfying. So I decided to get the game and miniatures out of mothballs to make a final assessment on whether I want to continue with it or not.

The rule book, while beautiful to look at, is often vague and hard to follow. It was clearly written by someone who absolutely loves the source material, perhaps too much so. The rules are frequently bogged down in colorful descriptions of the setting and characters, what miniature gamers refer to as “fluff,” and while this sets the stage for the game, it also means that you can often find yourself wading through paragraphs of irrelevant background when trying to find a rule or clarification. It was enough of a problem that I went so far as to create a rules summary sheet to help with finding basic rules during play.

Unfortunately, my memory of the game play being a little tedious turned out to be more or less correct. The core of every skirmish game is combat between characters, so a good game needs a good system to resolve that combat. The vast majority do this via dice rolls: when my character attacks, I roll the dice, applying modifiers based on the abilities of the characters involved, and often the surrounding terrain. This can be a roll against a static target number, but in most games it’s an opposed roll, with my opponent and I both rolling the dice to see whether the attack hits or is successfully defended against.

In Judge Dredd, landing a blow is a multi-step process. First the attacker rolls, then compares the result to the target’s Cool rating to see if the target is pinned or not. Then the target rolls to see if they can dodge the attack. Then, if the target doesn’t dodge, the attacker rolls again to see how much damage is done, followed by the target rolling again to see how much of that damage they get to avoid. One attack, four rolls. Four chances to fail.

The target of the attack can come away unscathed, or pinned, and/or stunned or injured. If they’re pinned, they have to roll on their turn to see if they lose one of their two actions or not. If they’re stunned or injured, all of the six statistics that determine how far they can move and how many dice they get to roll in different situations are reduced.

Whew.

I don’t mind a complicated game if the payoff is worth it. In this case that would be an exciting story unfolding on the table, but that’s not what happened in here. Instead, the combat just seemed like a slog, and there wasn’t much else going on in the game. We played two games in a row this time around; the first game ended somewhat abruptly so we decided on a second game with more characters on each side, but towards the end we were both feeling like the game was dragging on, which brings us to my second issue with this game.

At its most basic level, a skirmish game will often come down to “everyone move to the center of the board and fight.” This can be fun, but the novelty of straight up combat wears off quickly. The best games get around this by using scenarios that introduce alternate objectives or win conditions that give players more to do than just pound the hell out of each other. It can be something entirely mechanical like controlling different geographical points on the board (Star Wars Shatterpoint does this very well), or something more story based like rescuing a captive or searching for a treasure.

The Judge Dredd rule book includes three simple scenarios, designed to introduce the game to new players using only the miniatures included in the box. Beyond that are six more that are meant to be the core of the game, offering different setups and objectives to give the game some variety. Unfortunately, these scenarios (at least the two we played, “Ambush” and “Heist”) don’t seem very well thought out. While they offer some interesting ways to start the game by starting one side in the middle rather than each side on opposite edges, the objectives for each player were uneven, making the game too easy for one player, to difficult for the other, and not much fun for either. Our first game ended really abruptly, and the other went on for so long that we called it without finishing.

The game uses cards as a way to inject variety and flavor into the game. Each player starts with a handful of “Big Meg” cards that introduce an unpredictable game effect such as a bystander stumbling into the path of the battle or a circumstance giving a free move or other action. These were sometimes fun but more often than not just annoying and egregious. In the end they didn’t make the game any better.

With the game not really working for me as-is, I am left with a few options. I could just give up on the game all together, but the miniatures are great and I love the Judge Dredd setting – I keep trying to come up with excuses to buy more of the figures even though I don’t like the game. I could try to house rule the game to get rid of its more tedious aspects. That seems like a lot of work, especially when there are so many great miniatures games out there that work fine right out of the box, but it would allow me to keep using the game’s great counters and dice. On the other hand, there are several “miniatures agnostic” games such as 7TV that allow you to use whatever miniatures you want – that seems more like the right direction to head in if I want to keep gaming in Dredd’s world. 

Rating: 2 (out of 5) The game isn’t as much fun as it should be, but the fact that I can find a use for the figures without the rest of the game keeps it from being a total loss.

• Judge Dredd Miniatures Game official website
• Judge Dredd Miniatures Game on BoardGameGeek

A short review of a short game: Dogfight!

Dogfight! Rule the Skies in 20 Minutes is the third entry in the 20 Minutes series originally published by PSC Games (and recently taken over by Floodgate Games). This time it's a different designer, so while the graphic design is consistent with Blitzkrieg! and Caesar!, the game play is entirely new but does retain some of the other games' basic elements, such as drawing tokens from a bag.

I used to play quite a bit of Wings of War, and my main complaint with it was that too much of the game was spent flying around in circles trying to get a shot on your opponent's plane. In Dogfight!, that's the entire game, but in a good way. Dogfight! distills World War One air combat down to its simplest form: the board depicts a simple loop of 8 spaces, plus two extra spots for a special maneuver. Players start their plane meeples on opposite sides of the loop, simultaneously revealing tiles that show a distance and a number of shots. Both players move their planes, then if one is behind and within 3 spaces of the other, they shoot.

It sounds simple, and at its most basic level it is. A special "loop" maneuver makes use of the two extra spaces on the board to allow the plane that's in front to attempt to loop around and get behind its opponent. An alternate board adds the concept of elevation in a very simple way, with different colored spaces restricting when a plane might be too high or too low to make a shot.

Additionally, the game includes ten different planes with different abilities, so once players have mastered the basics (which should only take a game or two) they can try adjusting their strategies based on their new plane's capabilities and drawbacks. Finally, the game introduces several scenarios that provide different win conditions beyond simply shooting down the other plane.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) While not quite a 5, Dogfight! is a little more involved than the other two 20 Minutes games while keeping the simplicity that sets this series apart.

• Dogfight! Rule the Skies in 20 Minutes official website
• Dogfight! Rule the Skies in 20 Minutes on BoardGameGeek