Amazon has a whole host of board game deals on sale right now, for the limited time Prime Day promotion - only available to Prime subscribers, and only until midnight on Friday July 11. I've trawled the digital shelves to find the best board game bargains available to buy right now.
There's genuinely great stuff up for grabs this year - I found several titles from our guide to the best board games ever, and many other games that the members of team Wargamer rate. I've picked out three recommendations to cover in a little detail, and after that is a chunky list of other great games that I just don't have time to write about!
Azul
Azul is a modern classic, one of those games I'm happy to recommend to just about anyone. It looks and even sounds gorgeous, with the game focusing on drafting stacks of clickety-clackety colored tiles, then placing them into your own mosaic to complete patterns and maximise your points.
Casual board gamers will find it a satisfying brain teaser, but there's real depth for strategically minded gamers. It's also a great couples board game, though it can become incredibly cut throat if you both know what you're doing!
Azul released in 2017, but editor Alex wrote our Azul review in 2023 - and he thinks it still stands head and shoulders above most modern board games.
Mycelia
Two board games called Mycelia released within one year of each other - this is the less well known game, a family friendly game with lovely art and great components, and I think it's a real sleeper hit. Mechanically, this is a classic deck building game - you start with a basic deck of mushroom folk that you'll upgrade throughout the game, while using tit to clear the dew drops from your personal section of forest floor.
That gameplay, of carefully manipulating dewdrops with your mushroom folk cards, is what makes this such a great introduction for genre newcomers. You're not just building a deck so that you can build your deck, you're using it to shuffle shiny beads out of the way faster than the other players - it's concrete, and easier for newcomers to the genre to understand.
Check out my Mycelia review for my full thoughts. I tested the game with real mushroom farmers, who knew all sorts of interesting facts about the species that inspired the cartoony mushroom folk in the game.
Nemesis
Nemesis is a semi-cooperative sci fi horror game about a disaster on a space ship involving an alien killing machine. It's an unofficial Alien board game, basically, a premise that it absolutely delivers on. The players are completely outclassed by the alien biomorphs on the ship, and must work together to have any chance of completing their objectives… but who says you're working towards the same goal?
Nemesis is a real maximalist game. Its rules are as plentiful and as detailed as its miniatures - it demands your time and your table space. If you were thinking of backing a new big Kickstarter game, consider Nemesis instead - you'll get that same satisfyingly massive packaged delivered to your door, but you'll get it years faster.
I've found so many more Prime Day board game deals than I could write about. Here's a quick list of some more promising titles:
Dune: War for Arrakis
Courtisans (US deal only)
Heat Pedal to the Metal
Everdell
7 Wonders
Ticket to Ride
Horrified Greek Monsters (US deal only)
So Clover (US deal only)
Star Wars Villainous
Mysterium (US deal only)
Star Wars Unlock
Found something equally excellent in Prime Day? Did we miss a deal on one of the games from our guide to the best strategy board games? Let us know about it in the official Wargamer Discord community!