Is It Worth It

Root is BGG #34. It has 66,000+ ratings, a 8.07 average, and a near-mythological status in the hobby - the game where woodland creatures wage asymmetric warfare and every faction plays like a completely different game. Cole Wehrle’s 2018 design from Leder Games has been praised as a masterpiece and dismissed as a teaching nightmare in equal measure. Before you drop £60+ on the base game (and inevitably spiral into the expansion ecosystem), here’s what you actually need to know. ...

Few board games in the last decade have landed the way Wingspan did. Elizabeth Hargrave’s birdwatching engine-builder has accumulated over 115,000 ratings on BoardGameGeek, sits at #38 all-time, and regularly tops “gateway game” recommendation lists. It’s the kind of game that gets non-gamers into the hobby and, sometimes, disappoints the hardcore crowd expecting more bite. So: is it worth your money? That depends entirely on what you want from a game - and it’s worth being clear-eyed about both sides. ...

BGG #2, 400+ cards, 2+ hours, and a price tag to match. We cut through the hype and tell you exactly who should buy Ark Nova - and who should skip it.

Cole Wehrle has earned a rare kind of designer trust. If his name is on the box, a certain tier of board gamer will buy it without reading the rules. Root, Oath, Pax Pamir 2nd Edition - the man has a track record. Arcs arrived in 2024 trailing that reputation like a comet tail. It sold out fast. It generated immediate debate. And now, two years in, it has settled into something more complicated than pure acclaim: a game that inspires real devotion from some players and genuine frustration from others. ...

Brass: Birmingham has occupied the top spot on BoardGameGeek for years. Not one of the top ten - the top spot. That kind of sustained dominance is almost without precedent in board gaming, and it creates a specific problem: a mountain of hype that either pulls you in or makes you suspicious. So let’s cut through it. Is Brass: Birmingham actually worth buying? Or is it a game that suits a very specific kind of player that might not be you? ...

Pandemic is one of those gateway games that never quite leaves the collection. It’s the cooperative game that made cooperative games respectable - a tight, elegant puzzle about stopping viral outbreaks before the world collapses. With a BGG rating of 7.51 across nearly 136,000 ratings and a permanent spot at #174 overall, it remains one of the most-played games on the planet. But Z-Man Games has been busy. Over the years, Pandemic has accumulated six major expansions plus a growing family of standalone spin-offs with the Pandemic brand on the box. Which ones actually improve the game? Which feel like cash grabs? And which should you buy first? ...

BGG Rank: #38 | Rating: 7.99 | Weight: 2.48/5 | Players: 1-5 | Time: 40-70 min | Age: 10+ Wingspan has a peculiar reputation. It sits at #38 on BGG with nearly 115,000 ratings. It won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2019. It’s probably the most-gifted hobby board game of the last decade. And it also generates a specific brand of irritated pushback from experienced gamers who find it shallow, lucky, and overhyped. ...

BGG Rank #6 · Rating 8.41 · Weight 3.08 · 1-4 Players · ~120 min Dune: Imperium is one of those games that earns its position. A top-ten BGG rank is usually something to treat with suspicion - hype, recency bias, and community groupthink all distort the list. This one, though, actually deserves the spot. The question isn’t whether Dune: Imperium is good. It is. The question - especially in 2026 with a standalone sequel and an expansion in the mix - is which version you should buy, and whether any of it is right for you. ...

The Gloomhaven universe sits at the very top of the modern board game canon. Gloomhaven has held a spot in BGG’s top 5 for years. Its successor Frosthaven became the most-funded board game in Kickstarter history at the time of its campaign. And yet somehow Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - the smaller sibling - is often the smarter buy. Which one should you actually get? That depends entirely on who you are, who you’re playing with, and how much dungeon-crawling chaos you can actually commit to. ...

Terraforming Mars has been a staple of modern board gaming since 2016, and with good reason - few games nail that slow-build engine satisfaction quite like watching your card combos snowball across generations. But with six expansions now available, the buy-in can feel overwhelming. Which ones transform the experience, and which ones are dead weight? We’ve ranked them all, from essential to skippable. The Base Game at a Glance Before diving into expansions, here’s where Terraforming Mars stands: ...