16 December 2024
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What're the best gifts you can get for a board gamer? We've found and sorted the ultimate guide if you're not sure where to turn – from games for the day, to games for couples, to adjacent gifts for the board gamer who has everything.
Written by Charlie Pettit
With a chill in the air, a suggestion of snow on the horizon, and the dark nights drawing in, we’re enthusiastically counting down until the next big holiday – and excitingly writing our list to Santa for exactly which games we’d like to see under the tree or in our stockings. If you’re struggling for ideas on the ultimate gift for your board gaming loved one, let us take the load off, with our list of the best gifts for all budgets.
In this list:
- The Ultimate Gifts for Board Gamers
- Board Game Gifts for Couples
- Best Board Game for Christmas Day
- Best Board Game Adjacent Gifts for Christmas
- Best Stocking Filler Board Games
- Best Board Games Gifts of the Year
- Best Gifts for Tabletop Roleplaying Gamers (RPG-ers)
The Ultimate Gifts for Board Gamers
Not to toot our own horn, but the Tabletop Gaming Advent Calendar is a true thing of wonder. There’ll always be a place for the chocolate advent calendar, but when you’re looking for something a little more luxurious and a little more tailored to your interests, the calendar is for you. We select and hand wrap 25 board game-related gifts, delivered to your door by December 1st ready for you to open every day in the lead-up to Christmas. And yes, you read that right – 25 gifts, because we firmly believe you should open a present on Christmas Day too!
Now in its fifth year, we genuinely believe this year is our best yet. We’ve got some huge games, some underrated games, some exciting games, and all of these make it the most game-filled box we’ve ever done – and there’s still time for it to be under your Christmas tree!!
The Best Board Game Gifts for Couples
We’re often asked the best gift for your significant other, and there are so many fantastic options. We’d recommend leaning into Duel games however, which are cropping up more and more, and will let one player play against the other in a refined version of a much loved game.
We’ve talked about Splendor Duel in the past, which we’ll recommend here – a fantastic, clever version of Splendor, which comes in a smaller box that loses none of the impact. In it, you’re playing as rival jewellers trying to come out on top by buying gems to allow you to buy more gems, strategically spending them for cards and additional options until you meet one of the three win conditions. It’s a lot of fun.
Another alternative if you’re looking for something a little newer would be Dorfromantik Duel. Dorfromantik is a popular video game, which turned into a board game to much acclaim. The Duel version allows you to play at two players, but also comes with fun extra modes too.
Buy Dorfromantik Duel on Amazon
If you’d rather something cooperative, you should take a look at Sky Team instead, which is an exciting game of piloting a plane. It’s as difficult as you’d expect!
The Best Board Game for Christmas Day
Our game for Christmas Day this year has to be Oh my Pigeons!, a new game from Ravensburger. Arguably, there are a few things that make a Christmas Day game perfect – it needs to be very quick to learn, a lot of fun, approachable for non board gamers, have a decent player count and younger age range, take very little time to go from box to play, and be suitable for playing no matter how much you’ve eaten or drank throughout the day. Oh My Pigeons! ticks the boxes on each count. It’s a low cost game that’s the right kind of party game for the big day, wherein every player is trying to gather pigeons to their bench. With a hand of cards, they’ll be able to take, steal, or place pigeons from other players – or even flick dice to dislodge other players' pigeons to prevent them from winning! It’s a high interaction, super fun game with quirky and engaging illustrations, that makes it easy to pull out every year.
Alternatively, if your Christmas day is more gaming centred, try the likes of Festival or Castle Combo for a light but fun way to play a game on the big day.
The Best Board Game Adjacent Presents for Christmas
For the gamer who has every game, we've got some alternatives!
Gaming Christmas Crackers
Much like the rise of the luxury advent calendar, we’ve enjoyed seeing the rise of the luxury Christmas cracker. Although there isn’t a direct board game version (that we’ve seen!), there are some incredible sets based on TV shows that we’ve found to be super popular with gamers – in particular, Richard Osmans House of Games, The Traitors, and Taskmaster. Each of these have proven themselves a favourites of ours – you may even recognise Ivan Brett, former contestant who is frequently seen running games of Blood on the Clocktower at conventions – and so finding them in a game form that we can enjoy too, taps perfectly into our gaming nature – without being another direct board game gift.
Buy Gaming Christmas Crackers on Amazon
Board Game Books
Books are a great gift for a reader, and as board gaming has become a more prominent hobby, so too has the literature around it. Whether an art book for the likes of Everdell, or a fiction book from Aconyte Books set in the world of board games, there's plenty to choose from. We recommend Tim Clare’s The Game Changers this year, which is a dive into the history of board games and the connections that it offers. It's delivered with the authors ability to bring a story to life, and peppered with his usual wit and intruigue that we've always enjoyed.
Buy The Game Changers on Amazon
Gaming Equipment
If your gaming loved one is a fan of miniatures, knowing their brands of paint or equipment makes for a great gift. There’s always more painting to be done! Alternatives also include offering deluxe components of their favourite games (or merge the two – Flamecraft for example sells their miniatures as an extra), or a great new gaming mat for their table.
Tea, Coffee, and Sweets
If your gaming friend has everything, buying something perishable that they can have multiple of makes life a bit easier. In this case, we're talking about food and drink in the industry. Honey Badger lead the way on this, beginning with sweets and then moving into tea (that we can attest is lovely), and Meeple Design offer gaming themed coffee.
Board Gaming Homeware
One of the best places to check out this Christmas is Meeple Design (the same ones who do coffee above!), where you'll find all sorts of homeware - from prints, to mugs, to cushions and beyond. Because it's all created by a gamers, it covers actual hobbyist games (not just generic Monopoly/Scrabble), and it's all tasteful. A joy to have in your home, and as such, a perfect gift.
Best Stocking Filler Board Games
This could be a list in itself, but the ones we’d recommend based on size and price to put in a stocking include…
Pack O Games
Pack O Games pack a lot into their games – and they’re the size of a stick of chewing gum. Whenever we’re asked which games are great to take away with us, or tuck well into a bag, these are the first we think of. They offer a pouch full of games that you can pick up, or single games on a wide range of game types, themes, and styles.
Kittin/Pusheen The Stacking Game
The two games carry similarities, so we’ll cover both here. Essentially, it’s a pleasingly small tin that encases a range of wooden components in different shapes, both themed around cats. A player will turn over a card, which will give a formation you’ll aim to stack your pieces into, and you’ll aim to be the fastest in order to win. It’s not as easy as it sounds though, as you’ll need to be careful to be fast and accurate without knocking over a piece as you go!
Sea Salt & Paper
Sea Salt & Paper game caused a bit of a stir when it came onto the scene, offering beautiful origami imagery in a simple card game. It’s a set collection game, but where you’ll assemble and place cards and decide if you want to end the round… easy enough, until you add in the fact you’re going to want to do so when you’ve got the most points in your hand! It’s a clever little game that offers a lot for a tiny price – though it’s release in 2022 means you may want to double check it’s not already on their shelf...
Buy Sea Salt & Paper on Amazon
Sosig
Speaking of which, Sosig also gives us a tiny box and yet a lot of fun – small enough to fit in the very bottom of your stocking, or even hung on the tree. It’s a card game of building and sabotaging sausages, with some vibrant cartoonish art that’s pleasing to play.
DroPolter
Oink Games will always be phenomenal stocking fillers because their tiny little boxes offer so much game in return. DroPolter was one released this year which we really enjoyed as a dexterity game. You simply collect some items into your hand, and turn over a card to find out what you need to drop. You cant use anything to help though, which means it’s much trickier than you think!
Find more recommendations in our best stocking fillers for board gamers list
Best Board Games Gifts of the Year
If you’re wanting to purchase board games, there have been numerous wishlisted games this year – as always! Board games are somewhat subjective as there are such a range of styles and themes that it can be tricky to figure out the right one for your recipient. But, if you’ve got an idea of the kind of game they like, here are a few big ones from the last year that they may not have purchased for themselves yet…
Wyrmspan
Wyrmspan is the dragon version of Wingspan, the super popular bird game. Except, it’s that and a bit more. Wyrmspan adds some extra complexities and mechanics to make it feel distinctly different from Wingspan, and yet still comfortably linked. As Wingspan was such a proven success in the world of board games – and with many who had never played modern board games too – Wyrmspan is a fantastic option for the board gamer in your life.
Daybreak
Daybreak was a Spiel Des Jahres Kennerspiel winner this year, which is awarded for the expert board gamer, and that means it’s both been highly sought after and verifiably great. The game is cooperative, all about climate action, trying to decrease the global temperature. Of course, as with real life, it’s not as easy as you might hope, and you’ll need your thinking cap on to make sure everyone is working together strategically to get the very best outcome.
Harmonies
Harmonies is a fantastic game on the lighter end of the spectrum, offering a cosy, fun little game with gorgeous components. In it, you’re trying to create the best habitat for your animals, by taking tiles from a central collection, placing them on your board, and picking up to four animals whose habitats you’ll be building. There are extra points for how you construct it overall, and the puzzle-y tile-laying aspect of it is reminiscent of Azul. We’ve had a lot of fun with this one, and would recommend it as a great choice of gift for a wider range of board gamers.
Castle Combo
Another lighter game that offers a ton of strategy, Castle Combo was rated a must play game by our reviewer – and we know she’s still playing it now! It’s a tableau game of building the best house from the upper and lower areas of the city, creating your own castle, but it packs a whole lot into it’s tiny box. It’s from the creator of Faraway, which was another favourite of many!
Mass Effect: The Board Game – Priority Hagalaz
A fun one that dips into an already much loved franchise of Mass Effect, but it does it well enough to please the fans. It’s not too heavy a game, but lets players dive back into the Mass Effect world in a new way. It’s a new game out this year, and if your gift receiver is a Mass Effect fan, this is a no brainer!
Buy Mass Effect: The Board Game on Amazon
Best Gifts for Tabletop Roleplaying Gamers (RPG-ers)
Dice
Every time I write dice, I always seem to write “you can never have too many dice” because it’s true – there will always be another occasion to be able to use your dice in. Perhaps you pick up fancy sharp edge dice, or ones made of amazing materials. Perhaps you pick up ones that have ducks in. The range of dice available is immense – though you’ll undoubtedly get extra points if you can match a dice set to something personal, like your gift receivers RPG character!
Notebook
It’s a really old style gift to give, but many RPG-ers are note takers, or at least need somewhere to scribble down a few bits about their character on the off chance it comes up again. We’d recommend looking at either RPG specific journals that include trackers, or more so, journals that look like they’d fit into an old fantasy setting – that way the item feels closer to the character.
A subscription to Dropout
We recommend this a lot, but it’s well worth the price of subscription – Dropout is a nerdy Netflix, that not only has a huge amount of brilliant comedy shows, but importantly, a truly phenomenal and expansive series of Actual Plays. Most are led by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and there’s a core of Intrepid Heroes (players), but there are also amazing side series, like Dungeons and Drag Queens (featuring Ru Pauls Drag Race icons) and A Court of Fey and Flowers (led by Aabria Iyengar. We’ve gifted a subscription a few times, and always found the recipient has continued with it after it expired – it’s that good!
Dice Jails, Holders, & Towers
Look, the power of the dice in RPGs is pretty pivotal, so aside from getting brand new dice, the second most fun thing to receive is a way to honour the dice. Dice Towers are fantastic – you drop your dice into them to roll them, so it feels fair but also offers a really satisfying experience. There are also dice jails, where you can banish dice that have been rolling poorly, or our favourite, dice holders. We’ve seen more and more holders crop up over the last few years, which either hold the whole set of dice nicely on your table, or a D20 beautifully.
Maps
If your RPG player is a Games Master, or Dungeon Master, then consider giving them something to make their life easier (comments about sticking to a schedule have been removed for brevity) is a great option. We look to Loke Battlemats for this, as they offer a huge range of gaming maps that lay flat, as well as some funky upgrade options too. They even have a calendar, which is a great option for this time of year!
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