Top 10 strategy board games: the heaviest games in our cupboard

In most of the games in our shop, a lucky roll can save an evening. Not in these ten. These are the strategy board games: games in which your choices decide the outcome and in which losing means you took a wrong turning somewhere along the way.

One thing first, because it is the most important feature of this list: according to the box, all ten take longer than an hour. In practice you set aside an evening, and with some of them the first game is mostly looking things up. Want to head that way but not quite this far yet? Then start with our board games for adults; that is the step below.

We count down from ten to one.

What makes a board game strategic?

Not the absence of chance. Almost all the games below feature a die or a shuffled deck of cards.

The difference lies in what you do with that chance. In a strategy board game you decide what happens with the outcome: you choose how to absorb a bad roll, which of four plans to drop and at what moment to stop building. In a family board game the roll itself decides where you go.

There is a second feature that goes with it. In these games you can lose a match because of something you did in the first twenty minutes. That makes them exciting for those who love that and frustrating for those who do not. We explain exactly what a genre involves in our piece on types of board games.

10. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

1 to 4 players, ages 12+, over an hour.

The board game version of the video game that reinvented deck-building. You climb a tower, fight your way past enemies and along the way build a deck of cards that has to do exactly one thing very well. More games in which a deck like that is the engine can be found under board games with cards.

Of these ten, this one has the lowest threshold: twelve on the box, and if you know the video game, you can skip half the explanation. You play cooperatively or solo, so you need nobody else. We previously wrote a review of it and ranked the characters. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

9. The Castles of Burgundy

2 to 4 players, ages 12+, over an hour.

Two dice per turn, and with each roll you may do one thing: take a tile or place a tile on your own estate. That is the whole structure, and yet every turn you sit there weighing things up.

This is the clearest example on this list of what we meant above. The dice decide what you can do, you decide what you do with it, and making good use of a mediocre roll is worth more here than wasting a good one. Of all ten, this is the one that plays fastest once everyone knows the rules. The Castles of Burgundy

8. World Order

2 to 4 players, ages 14+, over an hour.

You run a world power and try to bend the world to your will with diplomacy, economics and, where necessary, military pressure. Every round the playing field shifts, and what was the best move last turn no longer is.

This is the most confrontational game of the ten. There is no tableau of your own to retreat into; everything you do, you do against someone else. Expect negotiations that are not always honoured. World Order

7. On Mars

1 to 4 players, ages 14+, over an hour.

One of the heaviest boxes on this list. You build a colony on Mars, shuttle back and forth between the planet's surface and the spaceship in orbit around it, and constantly have to choose between strengthening your base and opening up new territory.

Expect two to three hours for a full game and a first evening that consists largely of reading rules. Fourteen is on the box, and here that is no formality. Anyone who buys this game usually knows exactly what they are getting. On Mars

6. Terraforming Mars

1 to 5 players, ages 12+, over an hour.

Each player is a corporation making Mars habitable. You play cards, gather resources and push up the temperature, the oxygen and the water until the planet is liveable.

Its strength lies in the cards: there are hundreds of them and they combine in ways you only start to see after five games. The flip side is that you depend on what you draw, and the hobby does not agree on that. It earned Jacob Fryxelius a Kennerspiel des Jahres nomination in 2017. Please note: we sell the English edition, and there is a lot of text on those cards. Terraforming Mars

5. Scythe

1 to 5 players, ages 14+, over an hour.

An alternative Europe in the 1920s, with dieselpunk mechs stomping across the land. Jamey Stegmaier designed it in 2016 for Stonemaier Games. Each player controls a faction with its own starting position and its own abilities, and takes at most two actions per turn.

The end comes into sight as soon as someone has achieved six accomplishments. Then you count coins for your accomplishments and for the territory you hold, and whoever has the most money wins. The artwork is more famous than the game itself, and that says something: this is the box people stop to look at in the shop. Scythe

4. Agricola

1 to 5 players, ages 12+, over an hour.

Uwe Rosenberg, also the designer of the much lighter Patchwork, built the game here that spawned a whole generation of farming games. You start with two family members, and you can grow your family, but then you also need a bigger house. And at the end of every round everyone has to eat.

That last rule is what the game revolves around. You are constantly choosing between building up and surviving, and anyone who is too ambitious will be counting begging cards in round four. The Spiel des Jahres jury gave Agricola a special prize for complex games in 2008, years before the Kennerspiel des Jahres existed. Here too: our edition is in English. Agricola

3. Dune: Imperium Uprising

1 to 6 players, ages 13+, over an hour.

The same question every turn: do I use this card to place a worker somewhere, or do I keep it back for the final phase of the round? That one dilemma, a hundred times in an evening, is the whole game.

You forge alliances with the great houses, fight battles on Arrakis and gather spice, and whoever is first to reach ten victory points wins. Of these ten, this is the game with the most direct interaction: you are constantly getting in each other's way. It also goes up to six players, more than the rest of the list.

To avoid confusion: its predecessor, Dune: Imperium by Paul Dennen, was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2022. Uprising is the standalone follow-up. Dune: Imperium Uprising

2. Ark Nova

1 to 4 players, ages 14+, over an hour.

You build a modern zoo with cards: attracting animals, bringing in sponsors, putting up enclosures and supporting conservation projects along the way. Mathias Wigge designed it and Feuerland Spiele released it in 2021.

The engine of the game is five action cards whose strength shifts during play. That makes every turn a trade-off between the action you want right now and the action that will get stronger later. On top of that you have to grow two things at once, the appeal of your zoo and your contribution to conservation, and those two rarely call for the same move. Here too our edition is in English. Ark Nova

1. Brass: Birmingham

2 to 4 players, ages 14+, over an hour.

An entrepreneur during the Industrial Revolution. You build a network of canals and later railways, transport coal and beer, set up factories and sell your goods before someone else grabs the market.

It is number one because it is the sharpest: two actions per turn, no waste allowed at all, and every move you make changes what the others can still do. Martin Wallace's Brass games are split into two eras: first the canal era, then the rail era, with scoring at the end of both. That transition is the moment when games tip. Here too, our edition is in English. Brass: Birmingham

The best strategy board games to start with

If this whole list seems too heavy, you are right: it is, for anyone just getting into it. Here are three ways in that do work.

Slay the Spire has the lowest threshold of the ten. Twelve on the box, and if you know the video game, you will feel at home straight away.

The Castles of Burgundy is the best second step. You play with dice, which feels familiar, and yet you decide almost everything yourself. Once everyone understands it, a game is also over faster than with the rest.

And if you would rather work together than play against each other, you can play Slay the Spire cooperatively. More cooperative heavyweights can be found in our best cooperative board games.

Which strategy board game suits you?

If you often play alone, seven of these ten will work for you; Castles of Burgundy, Brass: Birmingham and World Order need at least two players.

If you play with a larger group, Dune: Imperium Uprising is the only one that goes up to six. If you love games in which you really get in each other's way, that is your direction anyway; if you would rather puzzle quietly over your own tableau, choose Ark Nova or Terraforming Mars.

If you have a regular group that will settle in for a whole evening and is not put off by a rulebook, Brass: Birmingham is the best we have in our cupboard. Looking for something lighter? You will find it in the top 10 board games.