2015 was an amazing year for games but here are our top 5 board games of the year.

Blood Rage is all about creating a unique clan as Ragnarok looms. It’s a game about strategy; adjusting how you use your upgrades, pillage towns, wage battles, and summon amazing looking monsters. Will you go all out with brute force, be sneaky, or overwhelm them with numbers? The choice is yours!

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a deceptively devious game about setting little lights on the water. It’s a game about matching colors, gaining points, and making sure you make your opponent’s lives very hard. It’s very beautiful and easy to get into, but has a depth that can challenge even the most experienced players.

Codenames is a game about creative communication… one word at a time. Spy Masters can only say one word clues while their teams need to guess which cards on the board relate to that word. In most spy games, you’re trying to deceive, but in this game, you’re trying to be absolutely clear with your team members your intentions. And it’s simply magically when people are able to communicate in ways you’ve never thought possible.

XCOM: The Board Game is a fantastic co-op game where every role matters. Everyone has to pull their own weight and it’s up to you to save the world from an alien invasion… and probably yell at your friends in the process.

And finally, Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is the kind of game other games always claim to be. Meaningful choices. Persistent world. Surprising and Innovative. And by the end, you will have a story, unique to anyone else who has played the game.

Those were our top 5 board games of the year. Was there a game you played that didn’t make the list. Let us know in the comment section.