Highlights
- Tabletop board games have begun to adopt the structure of video games with campaigns played over multiple sessions, offering replayability.
- Legacy games, such as Clank! Legacy and Pandemic Legacy, allow players to alter their copies over time, making each game unique and rewarding.
- Games like Star Wars: Imperial Assault and Oath: Chronicles Of Empire And Exile evolve and change with each session, providing a different experience each time they are played.
Tabletop board games have typically been played in one sitting, no matter how long they take. Games like Twilight Imperium or even Risk can go on for hours at a time, consuming entire afternoons or even an entire day. However, more recently, tabletop games have begun to adopt the structure of video games in the form of campaigns intended to be played over multiple sessions.
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Some board games, known as "Legacy games", have players altering their copy over multiple sessions. Playing through a campaign of scenarios, or simply playing the game repeatedly with different rules, objectives, or components makes campaign and Legacy games some of the most replayable and rewarding experiences on the tabletop.
8 Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated
Clank! is a standalone board game about delving into a dungeon, stealing as much treasure as possible, and getting back out again before being burnt alive by a fire-breathing dragon. Clank! Legacy captures all the same tension and chaos but with Legacy elements.
Clank! Legacy lasts for 10+ sessions in which player success, failure, and decisions can have a permanent effect on the game. However, perhaps the best part of Clank! Legacy is that once players are finished with the campaign, they are left with a completely unique version of the game that can continue to be played.
7 Star Wars: Imperial Assault
This Star Wars tabletop game puts a single player in the role of the Empire, while the other players battle it out as heroes of the Rebel Alliance, attempting to defeat the Empire by fulfilling their objectives across a campaign of distinct scenarios.
Star Wars: Imperial Assault has similar mechanics to Descent, but prevents the Empire player from ganging up on one player by removing permanent death. In Star Wars: Imperial Assault, the Rebel players can't die, instead being exhausted and made weaker for the rest of the scenario: once all players are exhausted, the Rebels fail the scenario. This makes Star Wars: Imperial Assault friendlier and more accessible than other games of its ilk.
6 The King's Dilemma
This narrative-focused Legacy game can only be played through once, but it's an immersive and thematic experience that can be extremely rewarding if played with the right group.
The King's Dilemma is a game of politics and negotiation in which players gamble, bribe, and coerce their way through the several "dilemmas" of a fantasy Kingdom by voting on how to handle them, all the while keeping their best interests in mind. The King's Dilemma's mechanics are simple, but its Legacy elements are both thematic and fun to interact with. It's a game best played with large groups of close friends, and although its campaign can only be played once, players are likely to get upwards of fifteen hours out of the game.
5 Oath: Chronicles Of Empire And Exile
This beautifully illustrated game from the designer of the hit war game Root is best played with a consistent group of at least four, though its official player count is 1-6. While games of Oath are standalone, the way the game is played morphs over the course of multiple sessions, slowly changing the game into a completely distinct state.
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Because of this slow evolution, Oath is most rewarding when played repeatedly with the same group, though it doesn't require this in order to play. Furthermore, the game can be reset at any time, making Oath much more replayable than most Legacy games.
4 Gloomhaven
As one of the biggest board games on the market, Gloomhaven is a behemoth Legacy game in which players battle through various dungeon-crawling scenarios, fighting monsters and puzzling through random encounters as they make their way through an overarching cooperative campaign.
Gloomhaven is notable for its dual-use cards that make for crunchy, tactical combat, as well as its plethora of secret unlockable characters, all with their distinct playstyles and unique cards. Gloomhaven is so massive and contains so much content that it takes more than just a few sessions to complete its lengthy campaign.
3 Undaunted: Stalingrad
This WW2 tabletop game is a Legacy version of the previous installments in the Undaunted games. In Undaunted: Stalingrad, casualties taken in battle can be permanent, replaced by weaker reserves throughout an arduous, back-and-forth campaign in which players upgrade their healthy troops and unlock new regiments as they progress.
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Throughout Undaunted: Stalingrad's campaign, players battle for control over Stalingrad's various territories as either the Germans or the Soviets, even changing the cityscape with tank explosions and bombers, removing precious cover and fortifications.
2 Arkham Horror: The Card Game
This "Living Card Game" from Fantasy Flight Games is a cooperative experience best played with two players. The game features a rich and horrifying Lovecraftian theme, deck-building elements, and frequently challenging scenarios structured around various campaigns.
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The core game contains a campaign of three scenarios, but there's a large back catalog of more expansive campaigns in the form of expansions. Furthermore, the direction of each campaign is affected by the actions players take in each scenario, to the point where leaving a horrific creature alive in one scenario can come back to haunt players in the next.
1 Pandemic Legacy: Season One
Based on the hit cooperative game Pandemic, this Legacy version of the original contains an overarching story across a campaign of 12-24 sessions. Like in the original Pandemic, players will work together to battle diseases and find cures under a time pressure.
However, unlike the original Pandemic, this Legacy version of the game tasks players with completing two objectives every in-game month. Characters can gain new skills and negative effects, or even be retired and unable to play again. Furthermore, new rules and components are slowly added to the game as players progress.