Sometimes it’s fun to escape the trials and tribulations of everyday life to worlds and lands that are imagined, to fight monsters and discover treasure, and ultimately share a unique and memorable experience with friends and family with a board game set in a fantasy world.
While there are many fantasy board games geared toward hobby gamers, here are the top 10 fantasy board games that you can enjoy with your family and a wide range of age groups.
1. Lords of Waterdeep – Complete Missions and Quests in the D&D World
Set in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) universe, Lords of Waterdeep is a game that puts players in the role of city leaders trying to expand their influence by recruiting adventurers and completing missions and quests. While fans of D&D will definitely appreciate the names and references in the board game Lords of Waterdeep, but if you’ve never played D&D, you should definitely keep reading.
| Game Type Fantasy, City Building, Card Drafting, Hidden Roles, Worker Placement | Play Time 60 - 120 mins | Skill/Complexity (2.5 - 5) Medium |
| Age 12+ | Publisher(s) Wizards of the Coast | Published 2012 |
| Categories Strategy | Players 2 - 5 (3 - 4 is perfect) | Cost $49.99 approx |
| Our Rating 8.4/10 |
The goal of Lords of Waterdeep is to gain the most VPs by the end of 8 rounds, and players do so by placing their agents out onto the game board to gain resources, build buildings, and complete quests.
This is a worker placement game, meaning that once a player places one of their agents onto an action space, that space is blocked off from other players using it until the next round. Players also have hidden objective cards that provide end-game points for various conditions. While the game has a limited number of actions available in the beginning, additional action spaces will become available as players build buildings throughout the course of the game – providing a benefit to both the player who uses that action space and to the player who owns the building.
Since it was released in 2012, Lords of Waterdeep has become a go-to fantasy-themed worker-placement game for many different types of gamers and audiences, including D&D fans and euro-gamers alike. It’s a game you can enjoy with family, and bring along to game nights with friends who enjoy heavier or more strategic games.
2. Fantasy Realms – A Fantasy-Themed Set-Collection Game
If you’ve been on the hunt for a lightning-quick game set in a fantasy world that you can enjoy with just about anyone at any time of day, look no further than Fantasy Realms, a set-collection card game that is all about building up insane combos in order to try and get the most points at the end of the game.
Fantasy Realms at a Glance
| Game Type Fantasy Theme, Card Drafting, Set Collection | Play Time 20 mins | Skill/Complexity (1.8 - 5) Light |
| Age 14+ | Publisher(s) WizKids and others | Published 2017 |
| Categories Family | Players 3 - 6 | Cost $19.99 |
| Our Rating 9.5/10 | Rules Official Rules |
At the end of a game of Fantasy Realms, which is triggered once ten cards are available in the public display, players reveal the cards in their hand, and the points they gain are based off of those cards at that particular moment in time. Players begin the game with 7 cards in their hand, and they will end the game with 7 cards in their hand, but throughout the game, they will be exchanging those cards with cards from the public display or from the top of the draw deck.
On a player’s turn, they either choose a face-up card from the display, or the card from the top of the draw deck. Then, they must discard a card from their hand face-up to the display – making it available to other players on their turn. The cards in a player’s hand provide end-game points as determined at the top of the card, but they also can provide positive or negative points for other types of cards, or specific cards, in their hand. For instance, the Enchantress provides 5 points, but then provides +5 points for each Land, Weather, Flood, and Flame card in their hand. The Elven Longbow provides only 3 points, but also provides +30 points if the player also has Elven Archers, Warlord or Beastmaster in their hand. The Wildfire provides a huge 40 points, but it “blanks” all cards except the specific ones listed on the card.
Needless to say, it can be a challenge to try and get the best possible combination of cards at the end of the game, but it can be extremely satisfying to pull off a huge combo that provides a large number of points.
Given the level of excitement that Fantasy Realms brings, it is a game that can easily be played in 15 minutes (the box says 20, but it can be much quicker than that). With its dead-simple rules, whimsical fantasy-themed cards, and fun gameplay, Fantasy Realms is an excellent card game for families.
3. Cartographers – A Map-Drawing Flip-and-Write Game
You are a cartographer tasked with mapping out the northern lands for Queen Gimnax and for the greater good of the Kingdom of Nalos. But only one player can gain the favor of the Queen, and that will be the player who impresses her the most by gaining the greatest number of reputation stars by the end of the game.
Cartographers at a Glance
| Game Type Fantasy Theme, Territory Building, Bingo, Grid Coverage, Line Drawing, Paper-and-Pencil, Solo/Solitaire Game | Play Time 30 - 45 mins | Skill/Complexity (2 - 5) Light |
| Age 10+ | Publisher(s) Thunderworks Games and others | Published 2019 |
| Categories Family | Players 1 - 100 | Cost $24.95 |
| Our Rating 8.9/10 | Rules of Play Official Rules |
Cartographers is a flip-and-write game, meaning that at the beginning of a turn, one card will be revealed, and players will use the information on that card to fill in/draw their personal player sheet. Since this is a game all about drawing a map with different types of terrain, the game can be significantly enhanced by using colored pencils rather than the standard pencils provided with the game.
Players will simultaneously fill in their maps with the polyomino (tetris-style) shapes on the cards that are revealed. Most cards provide an option of terrain type and/or shapes. The big challenge of the game, however, comes with the fact that there are 4 randomly-chosen end-of-round scoring conditions that are drawn at the beginning of the game. The game is played over the course of 4 seasons, and at the end of each season, there will be 2 scoring cards that will be evaluated (as determined by the season). These scoring cards can provide points for things like forest spaces that touch the edge of the board, or 2nd-largest cluster of village spaces. Because players know which cards will be scored at the end of each round in advance, it can be agonizing to try and maximize points at just the right time for the conditions provided.
To add an extra layer of fun, there are monster cards that, when revealed, have players pass their map to their neighbor, and they will draw monsters onto their map that will provide negative points for adjacent empty spaces at the end of each round. Because all players participate in this phase, however, it’s nothing that feels particularly mean-spirited.
Because of the artistic element and aesthetically-pleasing maps that players have completed by the end of the game, Cartographers is a game that has the potential to appeal to many different age groups and people with varying levels of gaming experience. It’s a very easy and intuitive game to teach, and is just plain good fun.
4. Small World – Lead Fantasy Races to Victory
One aspect of fantasy games that many people tend to enjoy is using the imagination to invent fantasy races with unique powers. Small World is a game that provides a great deal of entertainment as players gain control of one of many different fantasy races that are randomly paired with a unique ability. You might just find yourself leading a band of pillaging ghouls, seafaring ratmen, or bivouacking sorcerers.
Small World at a Glance
| Game Type Fantasy, Territory Building, Area Majority / Influence, Area Movement, Dice Rolling, Variable Player Powers | Play Time 40 - 80 mins | Skill/Complexity (2 - 5) Light - Medium |
| Age 8+ | Publisher(s) Days of Wonder | Published 2009 |
| Categories Family / Strategy | Players 2 - 5 | Cost $44.99 |
| Our Rating 7.2/10 | Related Small World Underground |
The main idea of Small World is that players take turns deploying members of their fantasy army onto the board, depicted by square tokens. For each region they conquer, a player must use 2 tokens plus 1 token for every other piece of cardboard already in that region. If a player conquers another player’s territory, that player removes all their tokens from that region, losing one to the supply, but then having the chance to redeploy those tokens to other regions for additional support. At the end of their turn, a player gains 1 coin for every region they control, but certain abilities allow players to gain additional coins for controlling specific kinds of territories.
The main idea of Small World is that players take turns deploying members of their fantasy army onto the board, depicted by square tokens.
Once a player decides their current race is no longer working to their benefit, they can choose to put it into decline, and then pick a brand-new race and ability from the public supply on their next turn. The player with the most money at the end of a set number of rounds determined by player count wins the game.
Small World is a game that is a little bit on the mean side – ultimately players are trying to vie for control of regions on the board, including those that other players control. However, if you are okay with some direct player interaction, this is a game that will likely secure a spot in your game collection for many years to come.
5. Welcome to the Dungeon – A Bluffing Card Game
Who will be the one to run into the dungeon and try to defeat all of the monsters? In Welcome to the Dungeon, the last player who hasn’t passed must gather their courage and equipment, and try to make it through the monsters in the dungeon in order to try and earn a success scroll and prove their valor.
Welcome to the Dungeon at a Glance
| Game Type Fantasy Theme, Card Game, Fighting, Betting and Bluffing, Memory, Player Elimination, Push Your Luck | Play Time 30 mins | Skill/Complexity (1.5 - 5) Light - Medium |
| Age 10+ | Publisher(s) IELLO and Others | Published 2013 |
| Categories Family / Party | Players 2 - 4 | Cost $14.99 |
| Our Rating 7.2/10 |
Welcome to the Dungeon is a quick and exciting game of bluffing and pushing your luck. In this game, players all share one adventurer, who is chosen or randomly selected at the beginning of the game and comes with a set of equipment tiles. Players’ turns in this game are very simple: they choose to either draw a monster card or pass (and remove themselves from the current round).
If a player decides to draw a monster card, they then have two choices: add the monster card to the dungeon pile, or place the monster in front of them face-down. Each monster has a number on it, and as well as a different object depicted that can defeat them. If a player decides to discard the monster, they must also choose a piece of the adventurer’s equipment to discard on top of the monster card.
Once all players have passed, the last player who has not yet passed must run into the dungeon. That player will flip over the monster cards the dungeon one by one to determine if they can defeat them with the required object. If a player cannot defeat the monster, they lose Health Points (HP) based on the monster’s strength and continue. Once the player has gone through all the monster’s in the dungeon, they determine whether or not their HP is greater or less than what it was when they entered the dungeon. If it is less, they succeed and gain a success scroll. If it is greater, they fail and flip their player aid over to the red side. If their player aid is already on the red side, they are eliminated from the game. The first player to earn 2 success scrolls wins the game.
Because of the fact that players do not publicly reveal which monsters they are putting into the dungeon or putting in front of them face-down, Welcome to the Dungeon lends itself well to bluffing and trying to mess with other players in a very light-hearted way. If you are looking for a fun fantasy-themed card game for your family that provides plenty of laughs, Welcome to the Dungeon could be a great fit for you.
6. Mice and Mystics – A Story-Driven Adventure Game
There’s no doubt that when it comes to adventure-style games that are accessible for the whole family, Mice and Mystics is a game that rises to the top of many people’s lists – and for good reason. This is a story-driven cooperative game that features miniatures and wonderfully-illustrated tiles that are customizable for each scenario.
Mice and Mystics at a Glance
| Game Type Thematic, Fantasy, Adventure, Miniatures, Area Movement, Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling, Role Playing, Storytelling, Variable Player Powers | Play Time 60 - 90 mins | Skill/Complexity (2.8 - 5) Medium |
| Age 7+ | Publisher(s) Plaid Hat Games and Others | Published 2012 |
| Categories Family | Players 1 - 4 (4 is Ideal) | Cost $54.99 |
| Our Rating 7.9/10 |
In Mice and Mystics, an evil queen has taken over the kingdom and cast the prince and his allies into prison. In order to escape, they have turned themselves into mice, and now must race through the castle in order to save the kingdom. Along the way, the adventurers will fight monsters (like cockroaches, spiders, and centipedes), and collect treasures like cheese crumbs and objects that will help them succeed in their mission. The game consists of different chapters, each of which represents a different adventure and provides a story and custom board setup for the chapter. Players will take turns moving, searching their surroundings, fighting, exploring, and recovering health.
Because of the story-driven nature of the game, and the emerging storyline and differing challenges as players move through the different chapters, Mice and Mystics is a game that is bound to become a favorite and memorable experience in your family. There are also various expansions available for the game that help to even further expand the story and increase the game’s longevity in your collection.
7. Dungeon & Dragons: Adventure Begins – A Family Dungeon Crawl
If you’re looking for a great way to introduce your kids and family to the world of D&D, or fantasy dungeon-crawl games, Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins will satisfy your inner desire to defeat enemies and level up your character while remaining simple enough that people of all ages can enjoy it.
| Game Type Adventure, Exploration, Fantasy, Fighting, Cooperative, Dice Rolling Modular Board, Role Playing | Play Time 30 mins | Skill/Complexity (1.6 - 5) Light |
| Age 10+ | Publisher(s) Hasbro and Others | Published 2020 |
| Categories Family / Party | Players 2 - 4 | Cost $12.99 approx |
| Our Rating 7/10 |
In Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins, players take on the role of heroes who work together to try and overcome challenges they will face on a journey through four lands of Neverwinter, including gatekeeper enemies and a boss monster to defeat at the end (there are multiple boss monsters to choose from as part of setup). At the beginning of the game, players have a chance to choose a character, and a personality/special ability for their character.
While in normal D&D, there is a designated Dungeon Master (DM) who guides the players through the adventure, in Adventure Begins, players take turns reading adventure cards to the group and acting out the role of DM by rolling the DM die to resolve various events as depicted on the adventure cards. This helps to give new players a taste of what it is like, in a very lightweight sense, to be a DM but also allows them to participate in the actual journey as well.
There’s no question that Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins is an extremely distilled-down and very basic version of normal D&D, and for that reason it serves as an excellent entry point for people who have never played D&D before, or for families to enjoy together with players of all ages. In these situations, everyone will surely have a ton of fun bringing their character to life and trying to defeat enemies.
8. Blue Moon City – An Area-Majority Game with Dragons
Blue Moon City was once a stunning capital city, but was brought to ruins during an epic war between people of many different races. The people are now coming together to help rebuild the city, including the sacred obelisk, and attempting to gain favor of the dragons. The player who is first to make a certain number of offerings (depending on player count) to reconstruct the obelisk will be the winner of the game.
Blue Moon City at a Glance
| Game Type Fantasy Theme, City Building, Area Majority, Grid Movement, Hand Management, Modular Board, Set Collection | Play Time 30 - 50 mins | Skill/Complexity (2.5 - 5) Medium |
| Age 14+ | Publisher(s) CMON Limited and Others | Published 2006 |
| Categories Family Strategy | Players 2 - 4 (4 is Ideal) | Cost $39.99 |
| Our Rating 8.1/10 |
In Blue Moon City, designed by Reiner Knizia, players take turns moving their piece around the board made up of tiles that represent different buildings within the city that must be reconstructed, and trying to gain crystals that can be used to make offerings to the reconstruction of the obelisk. Players start with a hand of cards, which can either be used for their special ability, or to make contributions to reconstruct buildings. After moving 0-2 tiles on the board, a player can then make a contribution to the building where they ended their turn, or make an offering to the obelisk.
To make a contribution to the building, the player places one of their tokens onto an available offering space and discard cards of the same color whose value is equal or greater to that offering space. If a player places their token on the last available space, the building is constructed by flipping over to the opposite side, and players gain bonuses listed on the tile; the majority bonus goes to the player with the most tokens on the building, the construction bonus goes to all players with at least 1 token on the tile, and the neighborhood bonus is provided from orthogonally-adjacent reconstructed buildings. To make an offering to the obelisk, a player discards crystals equal to the next lowest-valued vacant obelisk offering space and places a token of their color on that space.
What’s more, a player receives a dragon scale for each dragon present on their tile when they make an offering (certain cards allow players to move dragons around the board for their special ability). When the dragon scale pile has been depleted, the player with the most dragon scales gets 6 crystals, and then each player who has at least 3 dragon scales gets 3 crystals.
Once a player has made 6, 5, or 4 offerings (in a 2, 3, or 4-player game respectively), the end of the game is triggered and players take turns making as many offerings as they possibly can. Once all players have passed, the player with the most obelisk offerings wins the game.
In true Reiner Knizia fashion, Blue Moon City is a game with very simple rules but offers a very interesting and challenging decision space. The game is a racing game in the sense that players are trying to make offerings as quickly as possible, and also an area majority game in the sense that players are trying to have the most offerings at a given building in order to gain the best bonus. If you are looking for a card-driven game with an interesting fantasy theme that allows for some turns that make you feel really smart, Blue Moon City is an excellent pick.
9. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – A 2-Player Living Card Game
It’s hard to talk about fantasy-themed games and not mention at least one game based on the Lord of the Rings IP. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a 2-player cooperative Living Card Game (LCG) that provides a huge amount of replayability and an endless number of scenarios and adventure packs to further enhance your gameplay experience. While this may not be a game that a kid could pull out and teach to their friends, kids of varying ages can definitely still enjoy this game with an adult who can help guide the game and keep track of rules.
| Game Type Adventure, Card Game, Fantasy, Novel-based, Cooperative, Hand Management, Solo/Solitaire, Variable Player Powers | Play Time 30 - 60 mins | Skill/Complexity (3.2 - 5) Medium |
| Age 13+ | Publisher(s) Fantasy Flight Games | Published 2011 |
| Categories Strategy / 2 Player | Players 1 - 2 | Cost $39.99 approx |
| Our Rating 8.5/10 |
In Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, each player is equipped with 3 heroes and a deck of cards that contain allies, events, and objects. Players will set up the game as determined by the current scenario, and then must beat the scenario by placing a certain number of quest tokens on the current scenario card before a player’s heroes are defeated by their enemies.
As players progress through a scenario, they must quest in order to move past different locations that come into play, defeat enemies as they engage the players from the staging area, and try to stay alive by cleverly using the special abilities provided by their heroes, allies, and objects. While the game is based on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit universe, it doesn’t necessarily specifically reenact events from the books, but instead offers some new and exciting adventures from Tolkien’s world.
The narrative and story element of the game that the different scenarios provide would make for a really fun experience for a parent and older kid who have a shared love and appreciation for the movies and books of Tolkien’s universe. The game also lends itself to some creative deck-building from the four different factions, which many people can really enjoy. With so many expansions available for this game, it is really unlikely that you will feel like you’ve ever experienced “everything” with this game.
10. Clank! – A Deck-Building Dungeon Crawl Adventure
Clank! is a game that brings together the deck-building mechanism found in games like Dominion and Star Realms, with a dungeon crawl style adventure theme with a main game board. Players will push their luck and see how far down into the dungeon they want to go, defeating enemies and collecting treasure along the way, trying not to make too much noise as to attract unwanted attention from the dragon.
Clank! at a Glance
| Game Type Adventure, Fantasy, Card Drafting, Deck Building, End Game Bonuses, Pick-up and Deliver, Point to Point Movement, Player Elimination, Push Your Luck, Variable Set-up | Play Time 30 - 60 mins | Skill/Complexity (2.5 - 5) Light - Medium |
| Age 12+ | Publisher(s) Renegade Game Studios | Published 2016 |
| Categories Strategy / Family | Players 2 - 4 | Cost $66.99 |
| Our Rating 9/10 |
In Clank! players take turns playing cards from their hand in order to move deeper into the dungeon, fight monsters, and purchase additional cards to add to their discard pile. Like other deck-building games, once a player runs out of cards from their draw pile, they shuffle their discard pile to form a new draw pile. The goal of the game is to have the most number of points, and to even be eligible to win a player must escape the dungeon in time and have discovered at least one artifact. If a player is stuck in the dungeon when the marker reaches the final space on the countdown track, they are knocked out.
As players move through the dungeon, they will take certain actions that will cause them to make noise. If they make noise, they must add a “clank” cube of their color to the clank pile, and if a dragon attack occurs, all players’ clank cubes are thrown into a bag (along with some black dragon cubes), and a certain number are pulled out as determined by the dragon’s current place on the rage track. If a player’s cube is drawn, they place that cube on their health point track, causing them to gain damage.
Clank! is a very easy game to explain, and provides a great amount of fun, both in terms of its gameplay and the theme that is brought to life with the different cards that players can gain into their deck and use on future turns. When a dragon attack occurs, it can be really exciting to pull the cubes out of the bag as everyone sits nervously hoping that theirs is not drawn. Will you make it out of the dungeon alive and with the greatest plunder? One thing’s for sure, once you’ve finished a game of Clank! you’ll likely be wanting to jump right in and play again.
That’s about it for the best fantasy board games category for now. Something new and great comes along, you’ll see it here.
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