Star Wars has invaded each inch of our tradition, together with Star Wars toys, Star Wars LEGO units, and even the tabletop. It might come as a shock, however the slate of board and roleplaying video games primarily based on this fashionable mental property consists of a number of completely killer choices.
The variety right here is powerful. There are smaller, much less advanced choices, in addition to sprawling video games with mounds of miniatures, every its personal compelling expertise that captures elements of this beloved movie sequence. All of those are presently obtainable and may be picked up and performed proper now.
TL;DR: The Best Star Wars Board Games
Short on time? Click the hyperlinks above to take a look at every recreation on the checklist. Read on for particulars about every one.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian Adventures Board Game
Star Wars: The Mandalorian Adventures Board Game
If your love of Star Wars acquired refreshed by the The Mandalorian sequence, now you can put your individual private spin on the very best episodes with this glorious tabletop adaptation. Players take the function of heroes from the present, together with IG-11 and, after all, Mando himself, and choose an episode to play from the ring binder of maps. You’re all cooperating utilizing a novel motion system whereby a buildup of motion playing cards will ultimately set off enemy responses, making certain everybody must plan collectively to regulate the tempo of occasions and counter threats. With a lot of narrative references to the sequence and envelopes of unusual variants so as to add replay worth, every play by way of The Mandalorian: Adventures is a complete new journey to get pleasure from.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters
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If you’ve ever needed to play because the villains and delve into the function of certainly one of Star Wars’ iconic bounty hunters, now’s your probability with this straightforward, frenetic drafting recreation. You draw playing cards from 4 decks: hunters, targets, contracts and the Jawa Market which comprises droids and different goodies. Then you play one and, to combine issues up, go the reminder to your neighbor. The purpose is to have sufficient hunters, which price factors, and droids on a goal to match its protect values and take it down, incomes you factors, with contracts incomes you a bonus for specific combos. Fast, enjoyable and filled with your favourite characters, it’s an excellent probability to discover your darkish facet with some scum and villainy.
Star Wars: Shatterpoint
Star Wars Shatterpoint – Core Set
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Shatterpoint is the latest Star Wars tabletop design. This comes from Atomic Mass Games, the studio that took over X-Wing and Legion, and which conceived the distinctive Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures recreation. Atomic Mass is totally behind this new launch and has already launched many extra miniatures with shiny new content material.
Following within the footsteps of Crisis Protocol, Shatterpoint focuses on a small variety of models with gamers fielding squads from the Clone Wars period. Aesthetically, it’s a extra vibrant and targeted expertise compared to Legion. The larger-sized 40mm miniatures are spectacular and provide a putting presentation. Gameplay is dynamic and swift with a number of distinctive thrives. It is quite detailed, nevertheless, and presents loads of tactical fats to chew on. This comes at the price of complexity, which might sometimes bathroom down play. For these seeking to have interaction on this thrilling new title, you can find a quite refined recreation full of recent touches.
Star Wars: Unlimited
Star Wars: Unlimited
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Following the success of 2023’s Disney Lorcana, the buying and selling recreation format has discovered new life. Disney desires to maintain the money flowing, and that’s arriving courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars: Unlimited. This one hit the market in March 2024 to a substantial amount of buzz. With just a little focus, you possibly can hear the tens of millions of wallets crying out in terror.
Gameplay is comparatively easy and leans into ideas widespread to the TCG format: Spend sources to place new gear, characters, and automobiles into play. One novel idea is alternating actions, following a sample widespread to miniatures skirmish video games. This establishes a novel cadence to play that gives some distinction from its friends. Veering away from Decipher’s outdated CCG, they’ve opted for brand spanking new illustrations versus stills from the movies. This helps to bolster the sport’s character and improve its attraction.
Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter Game
Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter Game
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Love Letter is the favored card recreation that made critical waves in 2012. It’s seen a considerable amount of spinoffs since, together with Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace. This features very like the opposite variants, taking the core framework of Love Letter and including a twist to clean up the expertise.
Players select between two playing cards to play every flip. Each has a unique impact and consists of iconic characters from Return of the Jedi. For occasion, Boba Fett means that you can take a card from one other participant, whereas Salacious Crumb enables you to have a look at their hand. The objective is to outlast your opponents by utilizing a level of instinct and bluffing. This specific version provides a brand new Agenda mechanism which modifications scoring every spherical. It’s a strong changeup that provides some selection and tactical nuance to play. This is an easy recreation, one that’s acceptable for a large age vary. Better but, it’s extremely low-cost.
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game
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If you and a good friend or member of the family wish to duke it out in a galaxy far, distant, Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game is a wonderful selection. Rather than making you purchase booster packs to assemble a deck, this standalone recreation comes with all of the playing cards it is advisable pit the Reble Alliance in opposition to the Empire. It’s an excellent decide for newcomers to deckbuilding video games, however it has sufficient depth and technique for diehard followers.
If you want any such play, make certain to take a look at our bigger checklist of the very best deck-building board video games.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Board Game
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If you’ve got performed Pandemic (and never simply by dwelling by way of one!), you realize the fundamentals for the way this recreation works. Set in the course of the Clone Wars period of Star Wars, this board recreation pits the Jedi in opposition to Count Dooku and the Sith Lord’s forces. It comes with 4 eventualities to play by way of, giving it a lot of replay worth.
Star Wars Villainous: Power of The Dark Side
Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side
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Following on from 2018’s very profitable Disney Villanous, this amped-up model enables you to pilot among the most well-known villains from the Star Wars franchise to reach their evil plots. You’ll must shepherd sources and playing cards correctly as you pursue your character’s distinctive goal, comparable to Darth Vader turning Luke to the darkish facet. But beware: different characters can draw out of your destiny deck and play pesky heroes and deleterious occasions onto your board, setting your plans awry except you possibly can take care of them. With new sources and the potential to maneuver into deep area, this can be a extra advanced and difficult recreation than the unique, however it pays off with crunchier technique and extra partaking theme.
Star Wars: Outer Rim
Star Wars: Outer Rim
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Star Wars video games are inclined to concentrate on the epic battle or the main points of 1 battle. Outer Rim fills the vast hole between with a strategic story of the lives of the scum and villains who ply their commerce on the galaxy’s edge. Except since they’re your scum and villains, it is as much as you ways villainous you need them to be.
As you fly missions and smuggle cargo from system to system, your decisions will form your character. The cleverly linked mission playing cards give every recreation a cohesive however distinctive narrative. You’ll improve your expertise and ship alongside the best way. But whether or not you select to be a heroic rogue or a sky bounty hunter is as much as you. Why not each?
Star Wars X-Wing (2nd Edition)
Star Wars X-Wing Second Edition
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The success of this tactical area warfare board recreation has spawned imitations throughout the passion. But X-Wing has two issues its mimics don’t. First, it is Star Wars. Second, the figures are pre-painted to a excessive customary, so you possibly can have amazing-looking video games for zero effort. And should you collected Star Wars toys as a child, the nostalgia enchantment is unimaginable to disregard.
The recreation turned a sufferer of its personal reputation, bloated with complicated expansions. But a second version has cleaned issues up and added a bunch of cool guidelines tweaks. Now, in addition to the squad constructing and hidden motion techniques of the unique, you possibly can deploy drive powers to help your trigger. Existing gamers can get improve kits with new dials and playing cards for his or her assortment.
And the core recreation stays implausible enjoyable, a fast-paced snapshot of film motion. There are ship strains not just for Rebels and the Empire, however ones from the prequels and newer movies, alongside iconic rogues in Scum and Villainy.
Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Star Wars: Imperial Assault
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Spaceship fight in Star Wars is spectacular, however it’s not the place the true coronary heart of the movies is. That’s within the unfolding story, the Jedi powers, the blaster battles. It’s in Han and Leia, Luke and his father. If that is the place you’re with the films, Imperial Assault is your recreation.
Borrowing closely from the mechanics of dungeon-crawling recreation Descent, this can be a grid fight recreation. You arrange a map of interlocking tiles and play out a battle between Imperial and Rebel forces utilizing plastic fashions of movie characters. Turn by flip it is advisable place your fashions and use their skills to greatest impact with a view to win an edge over the opposition.
That’s solely half the story. This is 2 video games utilizing related mechanics. One is a battle recreation the place you decide your fashions and combat it out. The different is an ongoing journey the place one participant controls the Imperial forces and the opposite performs the Rebel heroes. Over the course of many periods – and with an enormous variety of expansions to increase your recreation – your individual Star Wars saga will unfold.
You can take a look at our information to dungeon-crawling board video games for extra like this.
Star Wars: Rebellion
Star Wars: Rebellion
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If controlling Star Destroyers or AT-AT’s is not sufficiently big for you, how a couple of Death Star? In truth, how about a number of Death Stars? That’s what’s ready for you on this grand board recreation, which helps you to replay your entire insurrection in your dinner desk.
Of course, as befits the films, the Rebel participant cannot hope to carry a holo-candle to the may of the Imperial navy. But they do not must: they must combat a clandestine warfare of insurgency and politics, swaying planets to hitch them whereas poking thorns within the Imperial facet. The Emperor and his minions, in the meantime, merely must destroy the Rebel base to win. Except they’ve to search out out the place it is hidden first.
Rebellion takes a very long time to play, however it’s engrossing, strategic and surprisingly characterful. Players do get to regulate lots of fashionable movie heroes and villains, albeit relegated to a single card.
Star Wars: Destiny
Star Wars: Destiny
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In a transfer as daring as Obi-Wan confronting Grievous, Destiny resurrects the collectible card recreation. You start with a hard and fast starter set, both Rey or Kylo Ren, and increase it with blind boosters. From this assortment you construct decks that span throughout area and time, that includes the likes of Count Dooku pairing up with General Hux.
The distinctive hook is that Destiny is not solely about taking part in playing cards – you’ll be tossing cube round, too. Each character in your deck brings customized cube to the combat, and rolling them partly dictates what you are able to do along with your flip. While this may sound a strategic no-no, it retains the sport diverse, quick and thrilling, very like the battles it seeks to recreate.
Plus, the number of the cube themselves assist construct tactical choices. Dice which might be extra dependable are additionally much less versatile, so it is as much as you ways you construct your drive.
Star Wars: Legion
Star Wars: Legion
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Legion is the ground-based equal to X-Wing, a miniatures title with troops and tanks as a substitute of spaceships. The miniatures do not come painted or assembled for this. But do not let that put you off. Publisher Fantasy Flight has discovered properly from different fashionable miniatures video games and put out a doozy.
At coronary heart, there’s the measuring and shifting, estimating and cube rolling you’d anticipate from a recreation of this kind. Two intelligent tweaks to the system catapult the sport to the subsequent degree. First is the activation system through which you need to steadiness shifting what you need in opposition to once you wish to transfer it: you will not get each. Second is the card-based situation creation which places a tactical twist on making every recreation distinctive.
There are sculpts of all of your favourite characters and automobiles from the films to increase your assortment. The truth they make up a diverse strategic problem to construct an efficient military is only a bonus.
Star Wars Board Game FAQ
What is a miniatures recreation, and the way do the varied Star Wars ones differ?
Miniatures video games share lots of DNA with board video games which, confusingly, usually have miniatures as taking part in items. The distinction is twofold. Firstly, miniatures video games have a lot increased high quality figures and for a lot of gamers, portray and changing them is an extra passion in its personal proper. Second, miniatures video games are usually performed on an open desk with surroundings of your selection, on which you progress items by measuring distances with a instrument or tape measure, quite than a hard and fast board with areas.
There are presently 4 totally different Star Wars miniatures video games, a mirrored image of the franchise’s reputation and visible enchantment. The best one to get into is area dogfighting recreation X-Wing, which comes with implausible pre-painted starfighters, like the enduring titular ship and TIE fighter. It has the best guidelines of the 4, you do not have to do any modelling in any respect, the starter set is enjoyable to play with by itself, and you do not even really want any surroundings. Next up is Armada, which represents fleet degree motion with pre-painted scale fashions of big capital ships just like the Star Destroyer. Although it has a smaller vary of fashions they’re additionally dearer and you will want extra than simply the starter field to correctly recognize what it presents. Some of the enlargement content material comes with miniscule starfighter wings, they usually will not look nice subsequent to your painted fashions except you make the leap and paint them up your self.
The floor fight video games, Star Wars: Shatterpoint and Star Wars: Legion are very totally different beasts, as each include unpainted fashions and the expectation could be very a lot that you will paint them up your self. You’ll additionally want a set of surroundings though each starter packing containers include some so that you can play with. Shatterpoint makes use of greater fashions for smaller-scale motion, skirmishes between well-known characters from the Star Wars franchises. It’s essentially the most advanced of all 4 video games however rewards you with movie-like narrative motion. Legion depicts greater battles and is barely extra nameless within the sense that the majority of your forces might be stormtroopers or insurgent troopers, with the occasional better-known character as a pacesetter. But whereas its simpler to study, you may even have much more portray to do to get these bigger forces tabletop prepared!
For extra, take a look at our picks for the very best ’90s board video games, in addition to the very best traditional board video games.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in tabletop video games. You can attain him on BlueSky at @mattthr.bsky.social.
Charlie Theel is a tabletop video games freelancer. You can comply with him on Twitter @CharlieTheel.
