Sick of Scrabble? These are the 11 best board games we’re playing this Christmas

Few board games are as satisfying to pick up, replay and invite friends along than Pandemic, a strictly cooperative experience that sees all players work together to eradicate different diseases across the globe.

Each player can take on a role that gives them different abilities and skills while taking turns to try and remove diseases from different countries, in a set number of actions. If players fail to eradicate a disease before it reaches a cerain number, an outbreak occurs, which can cause a knock-on effect in neighbouring territories.

There’s good reason why it’s often featured at the top of best board game recommendations and our round-up is no exception.

From the makers of Obama Llama comes Noggin, a word-association game where players place cards in three piles of letter cards around a table. When an action card is placed on one pile, all the players must quickly come up with a word associated with the other two letters, including initials, word association/disassociation or descriptors. Players can also steal other players’ cards if they spot a three-letter word that can be assembled from the pile.

Assemble a quilt that will attract the most cats, by laying hexagonal tiles on a small board. Points can be gained for matching pattern types with a particular cat’s preference or simply having three adjacent colours.

It’s an easy game to set up, with tiles being stored in a drawstring bag before being laid on the table for players to choose to add to their quilt. Calico is easy to learn and challenges each player’s spatial reasoning and pattern recognition.

From the makers of Exploding Kittens, Mantis is a colourful cut-throat card-collecting game, where players can either choose to take a card of a corresponding colour from a deck, or steal a collection of cards from other players.

It’s very simple to set up and learn, well suited for larger groups and can lead to some interesting high-risk strategies to successfully steal cards from other players.

For fans of Articulate who want to step things up, Hint is a party game where two teams race around the board by guessing what teammates are either drawing, miming, humming or talking about but there is one word on each card that is forbidden.

If another teammate accidentally says it, the round immediately ends and the other team has a chance to guess what the forbidden word was to score extra points.

If you remember ‘choose your own adventure’ books, where different pages take you down different paths of a branching narrative, this game works in much the same way. There are three decks of cards, each with their own story of varying difficulty. Once the first card is drawn, each new card directs players through the deck until the story is resolved, but there are a few twists.

At certain points, each card will task players with completing a “mini-game” of sorts, such as assembling puzzle pieces in a set amount of time, locating different-shaped items in a blind bag or pushing a puck on a miniature shuffleboard. Players also have to be wary of “peril pieces” – essentially stackable cairn stones – and if players knock them down, it’s game over.

Naturally, the different story paths players can take also means each of the three campaigns can be replayed to explore different options but this can only be done a finite number of times before repetition will set in. The mini-games also offer a more dextererous challenge that gives the game some added flair. It’s fun alone but also works well in a group of four as an accessible party game that’s simple to set up.

In Villainous, each player controls one of Disney’s most famous villians, including Captain Hook, Maleficent and Jafar, as they each try and achieve goals within their own kingdom. Not all goals are the same for each character but players are able to thwart other players by adding heroes and artefacts to other realms.

Don’t let the kid-friendly veneer of Disney Villainous fool you, this is a deeply complex game with high-quality pieces as well as a variety of different play styles for each playthrough. The game can be played as a standalone or combined with other expansions for a wider choice of playable characters. It’s (obviously) well suited for Disney fans but it also has broader appeal among board game fans who are looking for an asymmetric challenge.

One of the most popular board games of all time, Catan is a settlement building game where each player must construct roads, houses and cities on a hexagonal-shaped island.

What makes Catan so endlessly replayable is the different island configurations that players can create in order to play variations of the same island. It’s easy to learn and if you’re hoping to graduate from family favourites like Monopoly, then this is the next step up.

In terms of theming, Wingspan may just be one of the most wholesome board games ever. Players are tasked with attracting birds to their aviary to score points, lay eggs and collect food tokens.

Birds can be summoned to one of three preferred habitats and as the aviary starts to fill up, different effects come into play on the board. If players can combine the abilities of different species of birds, it can create powerful knock-on effects that benefit the player.

Not only are the pieces of excellent quality, but the unique art of each bird card (plus the fun bird facts located on each) makes Wingspan an excellent family-friendly game once everything is set up.

In an alternative 1920s post-war landscape on the fictional continent of Europa, different factions are all vying for control of resources to rebuild their economy, using workers and giant mechs.

Players win by having the most money by the end of the game, which can be achieved through a number of different objectives, such as controlled resources and even their popularity with the common people. It’s a game with a lot of depth and interlacing systems but it is much easier to follow than its setup would have you believe. If you have previously dabbled in other strategy games, such as Risk, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal may look like your standard racing board game at a quick glance, but it’s layered with plenty of depth once you learn the basic rules. Each player controls a racer as they make their way around one of four circuits, drawing and playing cards to determine your placement and keep your engine revving.

However, it’s not just about being the fastest. Players have to keep an eye on their cornering as well as overtaking other cars, all while the other players are trying to out maneuver you. Failure to keep an eye on speed, stress or engine exhaustion can lead players to spin out as everyone else makes it over the finish line.

Once the initial groundwork has been laid, players can delve even deeper under the hood by customising car parts, taking part in tournaments and there’s even a solo mode to race against an autonomous driver.