Fantasy settings are a wonderful fit for board games. There's something about orcs, elves, and magic spells that translates perfectly to cards and cardboard. And of course it doesn't hurt that the Venn diagram of people drawn to wizards and people drawn to board games is basically a circle. As you might expect, board game designers have caught on, and there are so many good fantasy-themed board games out there as a result. There are plenty of sword and sorcery adventures. But in the world of board games, fantasy can mean anything from imaginative intrigue to alchemical academia.So, grab a sword and a spell book and head into the unknown as we explore what 'fantasy' meant to a slew of different designers — and the best board games that came out of it. The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth.

In Dungeon Lords, you are an evil dungeonlord who is trying to build the best dungeon out there.You hire monsters, build rooms, buy traps and defeat the do-gooders who wish to bring you down. From the publisher's webpage: Have you ever ventured with party of heroes to conquer dungeons, gain pride, experiences and of course rich treasure?

Fantasy Flight has a history of putting out great tactical dungeon crawl titles, the best of them being Descent. It's still a great game.

But Journeys in Middle Earth grabs its best bits and combines them with ones from other titles in the publisher's oeuvre to make something better. It uses an app to make the game fully co-operative. But as well as the standard exploration and battles, it uses the digital facade to add narrative, puzzles and mysteries to the mix.

The rules have had a cracking overhaul too, with multi-use cards deepening the strategy. It doesn't make that much use of the Middle-Earth license but that doesn't stop it being a cracking fantasy game.

UK readers:Alchemists. At the other end of the scale we have Alchemists, a game about publishing academic papers on potion-making. Powered by a companion app, players must gather and test ingredients to determine what magic effects each might have. Fittingly, it's a strange brew of mechanics, borrowing bits and pieces from other heavy strategy games. The foaming head, though, is the race to publish, pressuring players to invent wild - and often incorrect - theories and hoping no-one will debunk them. It's part satire and part strategy but all evocative of an unusual and engaging corner of fantasy life.

UK readers:Wildlands. Martin Wallace is best known for his punishing and brilliant economic games.

So it's a surprise to find his name on this lighter fantasy skirmish. But he's lost none of his skilled touch in this move to magic and mayhem.

The box contains four factions, each with a pre-built deck that links to a unique play-style, so you can get stuck in quickly. Players pick one then hide their units on the map, revealing them one at a time in a hunt for opposing heads and magical crystals.

Multi-use cards make planning each turn a delicious smorgasbord of strategy. And an interrupt system borrowed from heavy war games keeps cranking the tension until the conclusion. UK readers:War of the Ring. Now for some more Tolkien. It took a few false starts but in War of the Ring, has delivered what might be the ultimate gaming version of Middle-Earth.

It's a game of two halves: mighty armies clash across the face of Arda, while the fellowship races to dunk the One Ring into Mount Doom. By keeping two sets of distinct but linked mechanics, the game offers an epic scope without skimping on detail and character.

The adventures of Gimli and Merry are every bit as important as the battles over Gondor and Mordor. UK readers:A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. While we're on the subject of fantasy literature, it's no surprise to find there's a fine Westeros-themed game too. The tight, corridor-shaped map and deterministic combat rules make it hard to gain resources without help or without taking them off another player. And that ensures the focus of the game is, like the books, on dirty tricks and double-dealing.

Yet this isn't allowed to detract from strategy, or the portrayal of a rich and realistic fantasy world. There's plenty of mechanical levers to pull, and too much player squabbling will unleash the Wildlings to pillage the whole kingdom. UK readers:Gloomhaven. Gloomhaven is the ur-adventure, a game that packs the whole role-playing experience into a box, with a side of added strategy. It's a legacy game, meaning you physically change your copy as you play, ensuring your adventures are unique. It's got a choose your own adventure style book for branching narrative.

It's got strategically challenging combat together with rewarding long-term campaign rules. About the only things it doesn't have is competitive play and a reasonable price tag. But if you can afford the time and the money, this may be the ultimate in thematic thrills.

UK readers:Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave. 'Fantasy' tends to go with 'epic' but Shadespire shows it doesn't have to be that way. Simple and fast, Shadespire sees warbands duking it out for control of a lost city. But don't let its accessibility fool you: amidst all the cards and dice is a tight, tactical engine.

It rewards advance planning, good positioning and clever card play. You can customise your play deck from the included cards, offering impressive replay value.

And it's speed is addictive, letting you play, tweak your deck and adjust your strategy then play again in record time. The latest entry in the series, Beastgrave, is the best so far with amazing figures, clearer rules and fun new options. UK readers:Terra Mystica.

If you want a tortoise against Shadespire's hare, check out Terra Mystica. The box blurb suggests it's a fantasy empire builder and so it is. You'll choose a race and then try to grow and develop them in a hostile landscape, altering the terrain to make it suitable for their needs. At the same time, you'll be overseeing their religious rites to please the Gods for points. What sets this game apart is its heavy strategy and lack of randomness. To win, players need to balance a host of different factors and make the best strategic choices.

Getting to build a realistic fantasy world as they do is just the icing on the cake. UK readers:Mage Knight. Putting strategy into fantasy adventure has been a long-standing design bugbear. To have strategy you need player agency, and agency is the enemy of exciting, unexpected stories. Mage Knight is the only game to date which squares this circle, using a grab-bag of smart design tricks to do it.

Although slow and complex, it allows players to explore and conquer, fight and grow while still taxing their tactical nous. Perhaps best of all is the wealth of game modes. You can enjoy Mage Knight solo, competitively or cooperatively as you choose and still enjoy a thrilling adventure every time. UK readers:Blood Rage. The final station achievements. If fantasy is all about the impossible, then Blood Rage is the ultimate fantasy. It's an area control game, which means you win by crowding out your opponent from key parts of the board. These games reward slow building and careful planning and Blood Rage is no exception.

Yet with a fistful of clever design ideas, it also manages to be fast, slick and brutal at the same time. Huge melees resolve themselves in a flurry of cards and catastrophic body counts.

Armies rise, fall and get replaced in the blink of an eye. Most impossible of all, though, is the quantity of brilliant art and miniatures packed at this price point. UK readers:Lords of Waterdeep.

In fantasy, as in real life, success often means getting other people to do the dirty work for you. Such is the case in Dungeons & Dragons board game Lords of Waterdeep. Instead of the adventure role-playing you might expect, it puts you in the role of people who hire adventurers. As a city lord, you'll recruit heroes and send them off to troubleshoot the cities' woes. At the same time it's down to you to build both the city and the game by paying for new buildings that add new strategies as you play.

The result is an easy to grasp yet strategically nuanced game, with the added bonus of plenty of skulduggery and backstabbing. UK readers:Vast: The Mysterious Manor. Asymmetry, where players have different roles and powers, is common in fantasy games. Vast pushes it to an extreme with each of the game's five roles having entirely different rules. That makes it awkward to teach but also a unique strategic experience. The play unfolds like a paper puzzle, with tactics falling out of the parts where different roles intersect.

You can play as a questing paladin, annoying skeletons, a powerful sorceress or warlock and even the manor itself. The variety of characters and playstyles all add to the replay value and the sense of this being a singular oddity, in a very good way indeed. UK readers.