The 10 Best Tabletop Games Of 2024

As the holiday season is well upon us, family and friends gather to enjoy festivities and spend quality time together. And there is no better way to stave off boredom and have fun than to try to win a tabletop game against your friends or family and prove your skills. Dice, cards, pawns, and other tools will help you achieve victory over your opponents.

Whether the opponents are your family or friends, this year has brought an assortment of various board, card, and miniature role-playing games. Going from two to six players, this list has something for everyone, with multiple themes, strategies, and designs that will satisfy even the pickiest players.

9

Disney Villainous: Sugar And Spite

Although Disney Villainous was released in 2018, the new standalone expansions, Disney Villainous: Sugar and Spite and Star Wars Villainous: Revenge at Last, were released in 2024. These expansions enlarge a vast roster of antiheroes and villains with King Candy, Shere Khan, Darth Maul, and Captain Phasma. With these new villains the approach and strategy for victory changes drastically, offering players a serious amount of replayability. They can be played as standalone games or mixed with other Villainous titles.

In addition to these releases, players can enjoy Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil, a smaller version of the original game that features four heroes instead of six. At the start of the game, players have a fate and villain deck from which they draw cards, which dictate the actions available for execution upon performing their move. The game aims to achieve unique win conditions, which vary for every character.

8

Burning Banners: Rage Of The Witch Queen

For those who like fantasy, Burning Banners’ release, Rage of the Witch Queen, is a solid choice. You take control of an army of your choice from a range that includes Orcs, Goblins, Dwarfs, or the Army of the Night and aim to bring the mythical Kalar empire under your command. The player with the highest percentage of territory controlled at the end of the turn timer is declared the winner.

Chris Moller used to collaborate with Magic The Gathering as an illustrator.

Playing on a map designed by Chris Moeller, the game features various terrain effects that will lead players to carefully orchestrate their factions’ tactics and tailor their moves accordingly. Basic and Advanced rulesets are guaranteed to offer a completely different experience for players and, when combined with various scenarios, offer tons of replayability.

7

Life In Reterra

Set in the future, Life in Reterra tasks you with rebuilding communities using building sets, cards, and tiles. Once the tiles are in place, you can choose to add an inhabitant or a building. If you place a building, you’ll receive building cards, which enable you to set a relic, add additional inhabitants, or upgrade your buildings.

After each player has placed 16 tiles in their community, scores are calculated based on the number of buildings, inhabitants, and relics collected. Life in Reterra offers a unique approach to civilization-building games with a narrative of this destroyed civilization.

6

Dune: War For Arrakis

The Dune: War for Arrakis mini battle board game pits House Atreides against House Harkonnen in a quest to prevail and seize control over Spice. Re-enacting scenes, characters, and locations from Dune: Part Two, the movie is captured on the tabletop through immersive artwork and figurines.

The feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen lasts for 10,000 years, and started during the war against the Thinking Machines.

Taking control of harvesters, Fedaykin, Fremen, and Sardaukar players use various event cards to re-enact scenes from movies and books. At the same time, the participants are left to their imaginations regarding multiple approaches to achieving victory.

SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence offers an excellent experience for those interested in outer space and finding aliens. You’ll search for various signs of life and intelligence in the vast universe by combining probe investigation, equipment development, and telescope research.

Aim to make the most significant contribution to outer space science using over 200 cards that offer various equipment, research, and reward boosts. Offering a unique experience in the plethora of board games, SETI is a rare game for players with an affinity for the universe.

4

Civolution

Progressing through cultural and technical developments, Civolution will require you to adapt to ever-changing conditions on isolated continents. Those who collect the most success points after four eras are winners and have successfully led their civilizations from the Dark Ages to modern times.

Players are praising Civolution as one of the most organized tabletop games in 2024.

Through a combination of tech skill trees, dice, and various effect cards, you can develop multiple strategies and schemes to achieve the status of the most developed civilization.

3

Tower Up

For those looking for a more relaxed and clear-cut experience that doesn’t require a lot of strategizing, Tower Up offers an opportunity to play as an architectural firm. The goal is to reconstruct the run-down neighborhood; however, other players have the same aim, and the one with the most points at the end wins.

The game dynamic is straightforward: pick a card that carries with it a set of resources, and then, using those resources, construct the available building by choosing a lot and fulfilling the construction requirements. As time passes and the end draws near, competition increases.

2

The Lord Of The Rings: Duel For Middle-Earth

For fans of The Lord of the Rings series, Duel for Middle-earth lets you experience the Fellowship’s quest while also allowing you to play as Sauron. The goal for Sam and Frodo is to bring the Ring to Mount Doom, while Sauron is tasked with finding the Ring by sending his faithful Nazgûls after the Hobbits.

However, victory can be achieved in different ways with the support of Races, whose conditions are met when a player collects six Race symbols on their green card. Alternatively, you can opt for a domination victory, achieved by presence in all seven regions. Ultimately, at the end of Chapter 3, the player present in most areas is declared the winner.

1

Arcs

Set in a distant sci-fi universe, Arcs pits players against each other, enabling them to outsmart and outplay their opponents through resource gathering, diplomatic intrigue, or the acquisition of rare resources. Cards determine actions that vary in rank, spanning from 1 to 7.

Battles are resolved by attackers choosing their Risk level, while defenders must adequately answer with defensive ships and cards in their possession. The base game can be enriched by adding Blighted Reach expansion and using Leaders and Lore cards for advanced mechanics and more interactive gameplay. A seperate expansion also adds a more thematic experience.