It's odd to say, but I've recently started to feel that it's the complex board games, not the dead simple ones, that really seal the deal when you're trying to win friends over into the hobby. That's not because complexity appeals to noobs; as a Warhammer evangelist, I can tell you it doesn't. It's because the experience of feeling a complicated, beautiful game fall into place is far more addictive than replaying straightforward ones over and over. And no game in recent memory has shown me this more plainly than Leder Games' magnificent new board game, Arcs: Conflict and Collapse in the Reach.
In this board gaming golden age, our community focuses a lot on so-called 'gateway games': starter titles compelling enough to demonstrate that modern games are a cut above Candyland, but quick and simple enough that they don't scare away folks used to two page rulebooks.
Quite right, too. Those games are phenomenally valuable, not just for making the hobby more approachable, but on their own merits too. Ticket to Ride and Catan aren't just on our list of the best board games of all time because they sold a lot of copies; they're on it because they rock. Easy breezy rounds of Codenames at Christmas and ice breaking Werewolf sessions at the local gaming café are part of the lifeblood of the industry, and long may they continue.
But I've been thinking about what really hooks people into the board games hobby for the long haul, and I don't think it's them. Your first games are crucial, of course, and get you through the front door; but what keeps you there? What entices you to go further inside, wander through the library, and make yourself at home? What turns regular folks into honest-to-goodness board game hobbyists - the sort of people who join local clubs, back Kickstarters, and read Wargamer reviews?
In my experience, it's not the ease of picking up something simple. It's the profound moment of joy that comes with trying something complex and elegant which looks incomprehensible at first - and then, in one transcendent instant, getting it. And for me, one game delivers on that more than any other: it's Arcs, baby. Arcs.
If you haven't tried the game, you should read our Arcs review, and then buy it immediately. Released in 2024, it's one of the best strategy board games ever made: a carefully intertwined mix of familiar mechanics and script-flipping innovations, with gorgeous aesthetics, satisfying emergent storytelling, and an expertly tuned balance of theme and gameplay that lets the game evoke great scale and depth during play, despite fitting comfortably into one of the smallest boxes on your shelf.
It's also a game that, at first, completely bewilders almost everyone who tries to play it, including me.
Arcs is a territory control board game about moving pieces into new sectors and rolling dice to fight your neighbors, but it's also a trick taking card game about blocking your opponents' actions and controlling the turn order. It's an open ended strategy game with multiple possible paths to victory - but it's also an unpredictable strategic kaleidoscope where the victory conditions you're shooting for morph and change every single round, depending on the players' whims.
Your range of possible strategies is wide. You can build up your economy and generate resources peacefully, or watch others do so and then raid their fleets to steal their riches. You can despatch agents to secure powerful special ability cards, or build a mighty space navy and take those hard-won cards from rivals by force. You can do a bit of both, and more besides.
But your actual tactical choices are constantly being limited by the cards you have available, and how well you play them in the trick taking game, such that you almost never have a clear, direct strategic path to follow. And if you neglect the 'Ambitions' (those ever morphing victory conditions I mentioned), you're forever at risk of winning the Star Battle, but losing the Star War.
For the first 30 minutes or so, Arcs looks and feels like a chaotic explosion in a gameplay mechanic factory. None of the basic, fundamental questions required to understand a board game (what can I do on my turn, how do I win, what's the point of that, and so on) have simple answers that remain the same throughout. Instead, everything feels constantly in flux, and that's extra confounding because the game seems so enticingly simple: no giant box, no inch thick rulebook, no dials or trackers or clunky admin.
But then - and this is the important part - it clicks. Suddenly, the trick taking game isn't a bizarre, cardplay carbuncle clogging up the gameplay; it's a shockingly succinct gamification of great power politics, with the leading empire getting to set the agenda of the hour, and rivals able to diverge from it only at calculated cost to themselves.
In an instant, you realize those shifting Ambitions aren't a confusing lack of direction; they're a vehicle for misdirection and subterfuge, a way for you to keep your true intentions hidden until the moment the crocodile jaws of your master plan snap shut - if only you can plan ahead and pre-manage your tactical options well enough.
Just like real empire building, uncertainty is baked into the game, and the rules of engagement keep changing. Arcs doesn't give you a firm, predictable, mechanical system to optimize for; it presents a shifting mass of intersubjective systems, and challenges you to navigate them as best you can. It doesn't matter how many board games you've played; you won't 'get' this one right away.
That kind of game won't be everyone's jam, of course. But what stood out to me recently, playing through it with a group of friends with widely differing board game experience levels, is the amazing leveling effect it has. One of them barely plays board games at all, but left the table considering ordering themselves a copy. It's down to that 'click', I'm sure of it.
Great design is great design, whether the game is a multi layered strategic ballet like Arcs or a perfectly balanced fidget toy like Codenames; they're both masterpieces in their way. But, of the two, it's the complicated one that gives you the biggest rush when the picture comes into focus and the game's wheels start turning.
I think, now, that this moment of personal revelation is the real high I'm chasing in each new board game, and I haven't tried a board game in a long while that delivers it like Arcs can. For that reason alone, it's just become my number one board game to convert newbies; not in spite of its complexity, but because of it.
These things are highly subjective, though, so I'm keen to hear your thoughts on this. What games do you bring out for friends' first forays to the tabletop, and what do you think is the best second game, to really get the hooks in? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community to let us know; we're in there chatting all things tabletop every day, and we'd love to have you with us!