The Finest Board Games of 2025: My Top 10 Selection

0:00 Hey everybody and welcome to my top 10 board games of 2025. The preliminary uh list. And I want to make that very clear because I've not played all of the games I want to from this year. But I wanted to kind of strike when the iron is hot and release this list because I do have 10 very good games to talk about. And in fact, there were a few that I couldn't quite squeeze onto the list that I'm quite frustrated about because those are great games uh too. So, there's still plenty of great things to talk about, but I will be making a a follow-up list probably halfway through 2026 to see what those final standings are. Now, before I get started on these 10 games, I want to give a shout out to the show sponsor, kienda.co.uk, who are my go-to online retailer. And if you use the link in the show notes or the QR code, then you can get 5% off your first order. Also, if you are in the UK, my first game, Phalamus, is available on eBay. But let's get started at number 10 with Overparked.

1:09 So, Overparked, a game I've not really heard too many uh people talking about. Uh this is a spatial puzzle tile placement game, which I appreciate. There's a lot of those out there on the market right now. But for me, I think Overpart did something special to differentiate itself from a lot of the competition. So in this one, you are drafting these cards which will give you different kind of orientations of these vehicles that you are to take and place on your own personal playerboard. These vehicles are just cars and vans of different colors and sizes. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to chain all of those colors together to try and score as many points as you can. There are also public objectives for you to go for. All very standard fair that we've seen time and time again. But the cool thing about Overpart is this key mechanism where certain actions you can do will get you these key tokens and you can cash in these key tokens in order to move previously placed tiles as if you're driving them to create more space. And of course, if you line things up just right, you can kind of start scooching things around to start tying things together, you know, moving stuff out the way to squeeze more in and so on. So, I just love how congested the board gets, just squeezing every vehicle in. Um, it's just a fantastic example of the genre. There's tons of fun here.

2:35 Every time I've played this one, I've enjoyed it. And if you get the chance to pick it up, um, I recommend that you do. So, that is Overparked at number 10. At number nine, I have Tag Team. So, this is a game that's certainly getting more and more popular by the day. And you know, I'm jumping on that hype train because I think this is a really fun uh design. So, this is a a twoplayeron auto battler game where you and your opponent will both have two unique characters and you are trying to knock out one of your opponents characters. And you do that through this card system where you'll start the game with only two of your kind of default cards that you start with. And as the game goes on, you will take cards from the kind of bespoke decks from each of these characters which have been shuffled together. I think you'll draw three of them. You'll choose one of those cards and you'll slot it somewhere in your existing deck of cards without reorganizing the existing ones. So, as you can imagine, as the um as the rounds are playing through, you might start to remember when your opponent is doing things and try to counteract that. So, for example, if you know that your opponent is healing their characters every at the start of every single round and you get a cancel card, you might put that right at the top to stop them from from um healing again. And of course, they your opponent knows that, so they might do something to counteract that and so on. So, the actual kind of autonomy um that you have over the game is is fairly limited, but it somehow works here. It almost feels like you're

4:07 coaching these characters rather than completely taking control of them. I love how distinct they all are. They all have their own unique quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. I particularly like the one that sets the other players on fire. Um, but still, it's a really fun game that only takes around 10 minutes to play. You know, you can create tournaments, you can do whatever you want with this game. And I'm so excited to see what other characters they bring out because I believe next year they are bringing out kind of more Arthurian legend characters, which is, you know, right up my street. So, I can see why people are loving this one. It's going to be a colossal hit. That is tag team at number nine. Uh at number eight, I have Tales of the Arurian Knights. So, you know, borderline board game. You know, is it a board game? Is it a storytelling game? A bit of both. Uh but this is a reimagining of the Tales of the Arabian Knights. Another storytelling game. This one is of course based on the Arthuran Legends, which again is like my favorite theme and setting in in anything really. I love books on this stuff. I love board games on this stuff. Um, so I had to try this one. I don't have a game like this. Um, so it is a pure kind of storytelling game where you have your own character.

5:23 You're going to be traveling around this map of, you know, England, Scotland, and Wales and so on. um and encountering different people, different um occurrences, different things that you can run into and reacting accordingly. Uh you're improving your stats to try and overcome these different difficulties. And maybe you're a really good marksman or you're very good um a really good horse rider or you're very persuasive and charismatic, which can help you or definitely tilt the um the scales in your favor when it comes to overcoming these difficulties. But the outcomes are always very funny as you're reading this huge book referring to different passages and so on depending on who you're encountering and just seeing where the journey takes you. And of course by the time the game is finished, you've got a great epic tale uh to share and remember. So despite the book being absolutely massive, I am a little bit protective for this one where I don't want to play it all the time because I don't want to overexpose that book. But if I want a games night that's completely different, you know, we're not gonna rack our brains playing some complex euro and trying to smash each other, we just want to enjoy something different, maybe put some candles on, put some thematic music on, and just immerse yourself, then Tales of the Aran Knights is a great time piece uh for that. Wonderful production, just looks great, and the writing is actually very good. So that is Tales of the Artheran Knights at number eight.

6:49 At number seven, I have Flip Tunes. Flip Tunes has been a colossal hit with whoever I've played this with. So, this is almost like a deck builder, um, which is actually a genre I normally steer away from because it doesn't normally do it for me. Um, but Flip Tunes just feels so different because you are each time you're playing this game, you're shuffling your whole deck. You're drawing basically six cards out which will combo each other and score points in different ways and you're trying to race to get to a certain threshold of points and then for your final flip will determine uh the winner. But as you can imagine all these cards do things based on what else is face up, what your opponent has. Um lots of different things you can do here. So, uh, lots of variability and I love that kind of jackpot mechanism or kind of, um, what you call like a one hour bandit where each time you're shuffing everything, you know, do you want to try to get rid of all your worst cards or do you want to chance it um and get those best cards out? It's just so much fun. It's so light and breezy. Uh, the art style is fantastic. Just a great way to jump in to these kind of deck builder, tableau builder, filler style games. And I think if you like games like Castle Combo, then you're going to get a lot from this one despite it being a little bit more wacky and wild and maybe even more random. Um there's a lot of fun to be extracted from Flip Tunes. Now, a big surprise for me. I had always have a ton of fun playing Flip Tunes. Uh at number

8:22 six, I have Toy Battle by the great Paulo Mory, which is another example of how versatile this designer is. None of his games are alike, but Toy Battle, another head-to-head, twoplayeron game, as you are playing these toys onto this kind of a multi-lane battler, and you're trying to either um get your piece or one of your pieces over to your opponent's castle or you are trying to collect a number of stars by controlling certain regions. And you know, gameplay mechanism wise, this is as easy as it gets. All you're doing is you're drawing tiles onto your rack or you are deploying a troop onto the board. All the troops have different strengths. The stronger troops can beat weaker troops in terms of overcoming that certain spot, but also all the troops have a unique ability which can all have their own use in the right scenario. So, for example, you know, your really weak um toy soldiers, they're only strength two, but you can deploy two troops back to back. Or you've got like the monkey which can teleport anywhere rather than just normally coming off from where your base is. You've got like the dinosaur which doesn't have any ability but it's strength seven. So it's all about trying to use the right troop at the right time. Try and find an opening. It can sometimes become a bit of a stalemate but you got to seize those opportunities. Run and grab the win. Um also full props to the design here where

9:54 the game actually comes with eight unique player boards to play with. So you have tons of variability to play on a bunch of different maps and you know you can play on those maps time and time again and they'll feel different each time based on the troops available to you. So this is such a strange game to review because it is so light and it doesn't actually have much going on, but it just seems to have that magical ingredient and it has this weird kind of I don't know. You take ownership of the game here and it feels like your fate is in your hands despite it being so light and kind of whimsical. So, uh, extremely versatile. You can play this one with almost anybody. If you play with two extremely seasoned Euro gamers, they're going to get a lot from this at the same time. You could play with two two kids and they probably still stand a chance.

10:41 So, it's it's quite a wide net that this this game could capture. So, don't be deceived by the very obviously childlike art and presentation. So that is Toy Battle. A fantastic game at number six. At number five, I have Leaders. Another twoplayer only abstract strategy game um where you are trying to capture your opponent's leader by either leaving it nowhere to move or by putting two of your pieces next to it. So very cleancut winning conditions with this game. But what I love about it is that you both start with one one character each with no abilities, but round after round you draft more characters into your lineup.

11:27 Um, all of which have their own unique abilities. Uh, and these abilities are super cool. You know, for example, you know, the archer can capture from two spaces away or you've got this um like grapple hook guy who can grab another piece and drag it towards him or or vice versa. Uh you've got ones that just have two pieces on the board so you have an extra piece and so on. All of which extremely useful and of course whatever you have your opponent wants and what whatever your opponent has you want. So it kind of feels balanced in that respect. Now despite this game being kind of like a pure abstract in terms of feeling like chesslike it's very rigid. it does seem to overcome that and still feel extremely fun, dynamic, um, punchy, uh, at all times. Even from the get-go, you feel like you're in a sudden death scenario. So, it's very tense, a great variability as the game comes with tons of characters, great artwork, plays in around 5 to 15 minutes. So, this one ticks so many boxes with what I want from a two-player game. Again, if you don't like pure abstract games, you know, like your your war chests or stuff games like that, this one might still be an option for you to go for because it does have an elevated fun factor and it doesn't feel so high stakes. So, wonderful design that is leaders at number five.

12:53 At number four, I have the Jewel for Cardia. uh seems to be a lot of two-player only games uh this year, but it's been a fantastic game, a fantastic year for two-player only designs. Dual Fardia is a very smallbox card game uh where you and your opponent have an identical set of cards, but you do have access to a different amount of those cards each time. So, what you're going to do is the the lead player is going to play, in fact, both you and your opponent are going to play a card simultaneously. You're going to reveal them. Whoever's played the highest number will get a signate ring, which is one towards the five that you're trying to collect and win the game. But the person who loses, as in played the lowest number, will get to trigger the ability on that card. And these abilities are fantastic. So, and also the higher the strength card, the stronger the ability is because it's much more or much less likely that you're going to lose with that value.

13:52 So, for example, um some might say, well, you can now put some modifying tokens on existing cards and swing the balance that way. So, you might now be stronger. Or one might even let you instantly win the game because, you know, if you if you lose on your strength 16 card, then that's almost impossible to happen, but it can happen. Um, so there's lots of different ways to win here, little loopholes you can try and exploit. um knowing when to win and when to lose because you can't just win every single round because your opponent's going to have too many powers to um to reverse that. It's so tight, so succinct. I love the game comes with two different decks as well, which you can you can play with each one or you can even chop and change and mix them. Super punchy. Only takes around know 15 minutes to play. But it's the how interesting and how powerful these abilities are which what's really makes this game because of course you want to win but you really want the abilities on those cards as well. So if you like these super streamlined, very cerebral um tense and interesting smallbox card games then dual cardia is going to be right up your alley. I promise you that.

15:02 So again, if you like that kind of um almost like raptor-l like mechanism where you want to try and lose at times, then yeah, Dual Vicardia is fantastic. So highly recommend this one. Dual Vicardia at number four. Uh at number three, another two-player only game I'm afraid with Zenith. Although I do believe there is a way to play with four players, but I would say play this one at two. Uh, Zenith is um a great and I mean that a great tug of war style game um with a great degree of tableau building. So, it's certainly card driven as you are paying currency to play these cards. These cards will pull these tokens or these planet tokens towards you and the objective is to try and get three of the same planets um or five different ones I think. And what you're trying to do or how you're doing that is again by playing these cards down uh not only moving the planet towards you, but also by exploiting the ability on those cards. And these um cards do tons of different things. You know, maybe it'll move this planet or move a planet that's on your opponent's board back to the middle or remove your some of your opponent's cards or give you extra cards and so on. Um, but this has that Hadara mechanism where the more you play the same colored card, the cheaper it gets.

16:26 So, of course, if you're playing your first strength four card, it'll cost you four, but if you play the second one, it'll cost you three and then two, then one. So, it gets cheaper and cheaper as the game goes on. And of course, that massively improves your uh capacity to play those more powerful cards, bringing the game to this big kind of crescendo. Um, there's also a tech tree that you can really invest in which could give you an edge over over your opponent. [snorts] Uh, you've got this like special currency that will let you play your really powerful abilities. Um, it's just a fantastic example of card play, of board manipulation, you know, tug of war, uh, prioritizing cards to keep and to get rid of. It is just so fun, clean, the great iconography, um, and just super fun. Whatever you do, it feels like you're playing a powerful card. You know, one of my kind of nitpicks with games like this is that normally the cards feel so minor and subtle that they're not terribly interesting. In this one, you have like cards you can smash down that just massively uh change the state of play, and that's what I want with a game uh like this. So, I can't really think of anything bad with this game, to be honest. I think I think it's a brilliant brilliant two-player game that's a step above it's a step above like really filler style two-player games but it's a step below something that's super complex so it fits that really nice little narrow um niche for me. So that is Zenith a brilliant game at number three.

17:56 Uh, and number two, I have another card game, but this is not a two-player only game with Citizens of the Spark. So, a hugely uh variable game as the game comes with tons of these character cards. And each game you're going to play with a a fixed number of these cards, and you're going to mix them into a big deck, and everyone's going to have their own hand. And basically on your turn, you're going to play one of these cards and you can optionally trigger the ability. And these cards do tons of different things based on icons that appear or manipulating the market uh and so on. Um, but the cool thing about this game is that it has this kind of um, Twilight, Imperium, Puerto Rico mechanism where once you activate your card, uh, if and if your opponents have that same card available, then they can also piggy back off that and trigger those abilities again. On top of that, the more cards of the same type that you collect, the more powerful those abilities become. So, do you want to really go all in on a certain character, or do you want to diversify and do more piggyback actions, but do it at a weaker level? You know, the sheer combos you can play with this game is is quite mind-blowing. I'm never going to scratch the surface with a a quick overview like this. Um, but if you want to play with the fixed sets, then there's some great combos to be had there. Or do you want to find your own set? or even just randomly chuck them in and try and find and exploit those combos um and play it

19:28 that way instead. Um I love the drafting mechanism as well where the cards come in in pairs or I even think three depending on the player count. Um and I tend to like games where you're drafting things based on sets rather than individuals. So if I really want this card but I don't really want this card, I might have to take it anyway. So I really like that touch. Um, additionally it has this what I call incentive building mechanism where the longer a set of card is not drafted. The more points it builds up, which means it becomes more and more inviting. Uh, a fast game only takes around 45 minutes to play again. You'll never play the same game twice. Uh, you can always go for something different and there's there's viable paths to victory wherever you look. So, this is exactly the kind of game that I enjoy. I think the presentation is lovely. I think the iconography is good. The artwork is it is these anthropomorphic animals, but they kind of feel a bit more elaborate in this one, which is quite a funny aesthetic. So, fantastic design. Highly recommend it. Again, if you like your card driven games with tons of variability um again, little uh power creeps that you can find and exploit, then Citizens of the Spark is going to be fantastic for you. So that is Citizens of the Spark at number two.

20:48 And finally at number one, I have the Druids of Adora. So you it wouldn't be a a chairman of the board list without a Stefenfeld game. Um and this is the newest Stefenfeld design by AA actually. So I think it's been a while since Ala have printed a Feld game. Um but this has everything I want from a Feld. It is one of those true dry dusty euros that is all about the mechanisms interlocking systems and just trying to squeeze every point you can out of every single turn. So, you know, thematically there's no ties here. It's all about just how to score points. But, um, like a lot of other failed games, this one is dice driven. So, your dice are basically your your player pieces that used to activate actions. Um, and the board is this huge modular grid um made of shrines and pathways. And you're going to move your little totem around these different shrines, visiting different actions, deploying dice on those actions, and then triggering what that action is, which can be things such as, you know, climbing tracks, unlocking abilities, uh, claiming personal missions, uh, getting more dice to play with, getting more provisions to play with, and so on.

22:07 But I love this twist on the higher valued dice are are great because they will give you kind of area control bonuses throughout the game as well as giving the option to score endame scoring, but they're very expensive to dep to deploy. Whereas the lower valued um dice, you're probably not going to get much from it in terms of, you know, majorities, whatever. But they are dirt cheap to deploy onto the board, meaning that it's way more affordable. you're not going to have to go to a provision space quite so soon. And it's all about, you know, efficiency. You get very limited turns in this game. Only, I think it's 13 through the whole thing. Um, you need to be very careful with your steady income of actions by making sure you have dice available for you. also provisions available to you, knowing what abilities to unlock, knowing what to prioritize before your opponent gets in there and locks the action out, and also trying to build networks by connecting certain spots of the board to each other to get a huge jump on points that way as well. So, the game really does pull you in a bunch of different directions. Do you want to diversify and get the exact actions you want? Do you want to try and focus on certain areas and unlock further abilities and chain things together? I love these games that spoil you with options. There's no real bad option, but it's just about how efficiently are you going to play, and nobody does that better than Stefan Feld. So, for me, this one feels like a true tried and tested classic Feld design. And this is the kind of game that will stay in my collection forever because it's exactly

23:39 what I want from a Euro. It's not overwhelming. It's u, you know, there's a lot going on, but it's relatively light. is actually like probably a medium lightweight game that only takes around 60 to 75 minutes to play. And you get a lot of bang for your buck here in terms of its time frame, time investment, and it just leaves you wanting more and to play more efficiently next time, which is always something I want from my Euros. So, probably not a huge surprise. You know, I'm a I'm a huge Feld stam fanboy and um you know, Crown uh Druids of Adora is as Felian as it gets. So, that is The Druids of Adora at number one. So, there we have it. That concludes the video. Hopefully, you have uh enjoyed it. It's been really nice talking about these great games. And for me, 2025 has been a fantastic year for uh new designs. And as I said, there's tons of games that didn't make the list that I would have loved to talk about, but I will make a another list um of other recommendations from this year. Um, additionally, I will make a uh a top 10 new to me designs.

24:42 So, these are games that aren't from 2025, but I did play this year. So, that's normally a good video to make as well. So, hopefully you have enjoyed it. If you have, please be sure to hit like and subscribe to the channel and check out my other content, too. But for everybody else, I'll see you next time on Chairman of the Board. Bye-bye.