Strategy Board Games Bucket List

Central and southern Africa, where matching terrain cards double the value of the route you claim.

Carts through the canals of the Dutch Golden Age, with merchandise bonuses for the goods you deliver.

Haul freight across Europe by lorry, bidding for the contracts nobody else wants.

Say what you will do out loud, then decide whether to be brave or cowardly about it.

Stack blocks into skyscrapers and take over the ones already built.

Expansion 7, and the only one with dexterity in it: a fair tile starts a round where everyone flicks tokens off a small wooden catapult to knock out or steal meeples.

Your workers age and die, and the good deaths score; a worker placement about generations.

The German map, with passengers who ride your finished routes to collect the goods sitting in each city.

A push-your-luck deck-builder about spirits putting out a forest fire.

A cooperative fantasy campaign where the clock is the real enemy.

A double-sided board: India, where a loop of routes between the same two cities scores a mandala bonus, and the Swiss map for two or three.

Build postal routes across Bavaria, drawing cities that fit end to end.

The version for six-year-olds: shorter routes, six tickets to win, and no points to count.

Double-decker buses around 1970s London, and the fastest game in the series to teach.

Spend carrots to move; the first Spiel des Jahres, and still a clean race game.

Expansion 9, now sold as Sheep & Shepherds: hill tiles sit on top of a second tile and break ties, and a shepherd grows a flock until the wolf comes out of the stack.

Build castles upward and score by the level your knight stands on.

Expansion 3, now sold as Dragon & Fairy: a dragon walks the board eating followers, the fairy protects the one she stands with, and magic gates drop a meeple anywhere.

A river, cannons that jump to capture, and generals who may never meet.

Expansion 8 lets a road bridge a field, turns a two-tile city into a castle that cashes in on the next thing scored nearby, and auctions tiles at bazaars.

Expansion 6 is the compilation box: The Count of Carcassonne, King & Scout, The River II and The Cult in one package.

Japanese chess, where captured pieces change sides and come back.

Place settlements on the terrain your card allows and chase the scoring goals.

Draw your own track on the map with a crayon, then race the trains you built.

Manhattan in taxis, fifteen minutes and a board the size of a place mat.

Expansion 4, now sold as Towers & Thieves: stack tower segments to take any meeple within reach hostage, then trade the prisoners back.

A twelve-game campaign west across nineteenth-century North America, where each session changes the board for the next one.

The Ring goes south while armies burn Middle-earth; the best Tolkien game.

A world map on one side and the Great Lakes on the other, with ships as well as trains and a harbour bonus for the ports you serve.

Price your own tiles and hope nobody buys them; a Scottish tile-laying auction.