10 best tabletop games and TCGs to play for summer 2026

This summer sees the launch of a host of exciting new board games and role-players, as well as new expansion sets for Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon.

Any time of year is a good time to be playing tabletop games, although, just like with video games, it’s also good for announcing and previewing upcoming new titles, with lots of buzz already around talk of a new edition of Warhammer 40,000.

The UK Games Expo 2026 is in May – the country’s biggest celebration of cardboard, miniatures, and imagination – where gamers will head to Birmingham to try thousands of different board game prototypes and take part in tournaments. I’m especially looking forward to previewing Night In The Zoo, with its stunning hand-drawn art from the designers of the award-winning SETI: Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

For now, though, these are the most exciting new games and expansions due in the next few months, covering everything from Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar and Star Wars Unlimited to Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

Warhammer – Spearhead: City Of Ash

Games Workshop keeps insisting Spearhead is the quick way into fantasy world Age Of Sigmar, but City Of Ash is the first time that actually feels true. It’s a new quick play mini-game format featuring the Skaven race of rat creatures, that sees the world of Warhammer at its most volatile.

The Cities of Sigmar warband is about clever positioning, with the character Jorvan Kreel darting around the board, pulling off tidy, tactical plays. Opposite him, DeathMaster Crixxit hits like a truck but folds just as fast. Spearhead City of Ash is messy, swingy, and far more fun than initial offering Spearhead: Sand & Bone.

What really lands is the structure based on relics, which are small objective tokens. Battle tactics doubling as one-use commands force you to make awkward, interesting decisions every turn. Do you score now or survive long enough to matter later? It’s not a radical overhaul, but it’s entertaining enough it doesn’t need to be. Spearhead, especially with its beautiful boards, finally feels like something worth playing and not just a stepping stone.

Release date: June 2026
RRP: £134.00

Star Wars Unlimited – Ashes Of The Empire

Ashes Of The Empire is Star Wars Unlimited’s eighth expansion and lands players in a tight meta defined by efficiency, control, and swing-turn leaders. At the top end, decks built around Luke Skywalker (Hero of Yavin) and Obi-Wan Kenobi continue to dominate the competitive scene, rewarding precision sequencing and resource denial over raw aggression – as you’d expect from the Jedi.

Ashes Of The Empire aims to disrupt that balance, introducing new Imperial-focused mechanics that punish stalled boards and rewards player unit development. Competitive play has got serious with events happening around the world and all feeding into the season-ending Galactic Championship, which was held for the first time in Las Vegas last year.

Don’t be put off by what can seem like a complicated meta; Ashes Of The Empire is a good entry point for a mid-cycle trading card game, especially with the new Luke versus Palpatine starter decks. Or you can just collect the cards for their artwork, such as the one with Mon Mothma having a sneaky cup of tea.

Release Date: 17th July 2026
RRP: Spotlight Deck £19.99

Terraria: The Boardgame

This brings the chaotic charm of the digital sandbox classic to the tabletop, translating the loop of exploration, crafting, and boss hunting from Terraria into a structured co-op experience that still retains the chaotic energy of the original game.

You start with basic tools before branching into distinct build paths such as melee tank, ranged DPS [damage per second], and summoner style support – mirroring the game’s class flexibility. The early game revolves around resource gathering and biome exploration, but the real tension kicks in with escalating world events like Blood Moon raids and dungeon incursions, which force rapid gear progression.

Boss encounters are the headline act: multi-phase fights against threats like the Eye of Cthulhu and Skeletron demand coordinated movement, upgraded armour sets, and carefully timed consumables. Crafting remains central, with modular weapon upgrades and armour sets that evolve between sessions reinforcing the ‘one more upgrade’ loop the digital game is known for.

Release Date: available now
RRP: £69.99

Magic: The Gathering – Secrets Of Strixhaven

Spell-slinging gets a sharper, more competitive edge in Secrets Of Strixhaven, returning you to the arcane campus of Strixhaven with a clear focus on spellcraft synergy. Magic doubles down on instants and sorceries, with mechanics like Magecraft triggering bonuses whenever you cast or copy a spell to the front and centre.

Early standouts include cards like Archmage Emeritus, which turns every spell into a card draw, and Velomachus Lorehold, which features a splashy spiky-nosed Elder Dragon that cheats spells straight from your deck and into play. The Expressive Iteration card by Mark Poole also caught my eye and continues to shape tempo strategies, reinforcing this set’s emphasis on careful sequencing.

Each college still defines a play style, such as Prismari’s explosive turns and Witherbloom’s life drain loops, but the real hook is how fluidly these strategies overlap in game. Commander deck players will find plenty to experiment with here. For Magic fans it’s a fun evolution of a fan favourite setting and for newcomers it’s a spell-dense sandbox that rewards creativity.

Release Date: 24th April
RRP: £45 for a bundle box

Riftbound: League Of Legends – Unleashed

The third expansion for League Of Legends spin-off Riftbound is built around three defining mechanics: experience points, Hunt, and Ambush. Hunt expert Mosstompter fuels the set’s levelling engine and unlocks stronger abilities as your play scales. Inferna embodies Ambush, dropping into play mid-conflict as a reaction, often swinging a fight on arrival thanks to built-in pressure mechanics like Assault 2.

There’s also plenty of impressive new champions who focus on hidden strength and patient transformation. Kha’Zix, Voidreaver gains XP when you win combat and can spend it to buff units or reposition the board, while Master Yi, Unstoppable becomes cheaper and eventually un-targetable as you level up.

With this expansion Riftbound gets faster and more reactive, making it less about building a board beforehand, in what continues to be one of the most promising new trading card games on the market.

Release Date: 8th May
RRP: Champion Deck around £20

Disney Lorcana – Set 12: Wilds Unknown

Wilds Unknown focuses on some of my favourite Pixar characters, from movies such as Toy Story (Buzz, Woody, Jessie), The Incredibles (Mr Incredible, Elastigirl, Jack-Jack), and Brave (Merida). New cards like Mr Incredible help your deck to take control of the playmat, while Frozone brings an aggressive ‘rush’ tempo to the table, immediately impacting gameplay.

The new Untamed keyword mechanic rewards stripped-back decks with no items or locations, which is interesting when usually play involves pushing out as many of those as possible. The You’ve Got a Friend in Me card helps ensure Synergy decks are front and centre, so you can mix and match your Toy Story characters with Encanto for winning combos.

Even if you’ve never played before, it’s hard not to fall in love with the beautiful cards, with many people collecting them just for the Disney artwork. This set is likely to make games shorter, more dynamic, and a bit less predictable, so it’s an easy jumping on point for newcomers, as well as a way to shake-up the meta for existing fans.

Release Date: 15th May 2026
RRP: starter deck around £20

Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft

Set in the cursed domain of Ravenloft, home of the iconic vampire Strahd von Zarovich, this light co-op strategy board game has overtones of gothic dungeon-crawling tension and looks like it’s going to be perfect for newcomers to tabletop gaming.

Highlights include the Shadow Dominions ability to restrict movement across cursed tiles, while escalating fear levels each round, forcing players into tighter, risk-heavy gameplay. It’s classic Horrified, with new layered dungeon mechanics and branching encounter paths, that challenge teams to balance monster containment with artefact retrieval.

This will fly off the shelves even before we hit Halloween, as it so far looks to deftly bridge accessible co-op design with Dungeons & Dragons atmosphere, without needing 12 hours to roll everyone’s characters.

Release Date: July 2026
RRP: £29.99

Vaesen: City Of My Nightmares

There’re more spooky goings on with the new Vaesen tabletop role-playing book, which brings the investigative horror of the series into an even more oppressive urban form. As a player, you’re invited to a sprawling metropolis where myth has learned to hide in plain sight. Civic decay, faction pressure, witness reliability, and ‘urban noise’ mechanics complicate clue gathering in this new setting.

Non-player characters such as The Hollow Magistrate enforce impossible laws through the Verdict of Silence, erasing evidence mid-investigation and forcing you to act on incomplete clues. The Lantern Wyrd appears only in peripheral vision, using False Guidance to misdirect travel routes and split parties across the city.

This expansion deepens the game’s core Investigation Move system, adding consequence chains where failed rolls don’t just stall progress, they actively reshape the city’s threat map. What captures my attention is how confidently it scales Vaesen’s intimate horror into something systemic without losing its grounded folklore tone. It’s still about belief, fear, and the unseen but now the real monster might be the city itself.

Release Date: 7th April 2026
RRP: around £35

World Order

Made by the team behind 2023 breakout hit Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory! there’s massive hype around this game already. You couldn’t come up with a more timely theme for the tabletop, as World Order demands you think like a superpower. Players take control of blocs like the USA, China, the EU, and Russia – each with asymmetric economies, military reach, and political leverage that shape how they approach play.

World Order looks like a tight loop of action points and card-driven play. Cards can be spent for events or discarded for resources, forcing constant trade-offs between short term gains and long term positioning. The Influence system drives area control, with players placing markers across regions to secure dominance, while alignment tracks determine whether countries lean toward your bloc or drift toward rivals.

Combat is deliberately blunt, with a costly, high risk option often making economic pressure, sanctions, and diplomatic agreements more effective than outright war. Add in global scoring rounds tied to objectives like economic strength and regional control, and every decision carries weight.

Release Date: June 2026
RRP: £50

Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising

It’s Pokémon’s 30th birthday this year and you can’t get away from the little blighters at the moment. Chaos Rising is built around a new wave of mega evolution pokémon ex with high HP, high impact cards that can dominate a match but hand your opponent a heavy reward if they’re knocked out. Standouts include Mega Greninja ex, a fast, aggressive attacker designed for explosive turns; and Mega Floette ex, which leans into disruption and battlefield control. Mega Pyroar ex brings raw offensive pressure, while Mega Dragalge ex focuses on interfering with your opponent’s set-up.

Returning heavyweights like Mega Gardevoir ex and Mega Lucario ex emphasise scaling damage and synergy, rewarding players who build decks around them. For card collectors my favourite chase card for this release is definitely the legendary pokémon Xerneas, a card designed with a flurry of floral colours and spiralling leaves. Just like trying to get your hands on these cards, this box signals a high risk, high reward shift, where a single mega can swing the game, or cost you everything.

Release Date: 22nd May 2026
RRP: £49.99

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