UKGE 2022 Awards: The best RPGs and board games of the year

The UK’s largest and one of the most significant gaming conventions in Europe is over, and the UK Games Expo is done for another year.

The busy event has many attractions, one of which is the influential UK Games Expo Awards.

The UKGE 2022 Awards has two categories, Judges and People, which means two winners for each title, although sometimes the People agree with the Judges.

Coming mid-year, the UKGE Awards help showcase the best RPGs, dice, card, miniature and board games of the year. You’ll see from the medals available that it’s expansive and thorough; nothing is just a board game. 

2022 UK Games Expo Award Winners

In preparing this list and adding the retail links to the winners, I noticed how many of the board games are on pre-order, sold out or somewhere in between with a phased rollout.

Some of these UKGE Award winners are the board games we’ll be fighting to get for Christmas 2022. We’re all buying games these days, even those of us not native geeks, and I guess that’s why a £100 Boardgame Backpack swept the wins for the best accessory!

Best Abstract Game

• Judges Award: Deckchairs on the Titanic Silverbirch Games
• People’s Choice Award: Deckchairs on the Titanic Silverbirch Games

Best Accessory

• Judges Award: Tabletop Tyrant Boardgame Backpack Tabletop Tyrant
• People’s Choice Award: Tabletop Tyrant Boardgame Backpack Tabletop Tyrant

Best Board Game (American Style)

• Judges Award: Unfathomable Fantasy Flight Games
• People’s Choice Award: Unfathomable Fantasy Flight Games

Best Board Game (European Style)

• Judges Award: Bitoku Devir
• People’s Choice Award: Lost Ruins of Arnak Czech Games Edition

Best Board Game (Strategic)

• Judges Award: The Thing Ares Games
• People’s Choice Award: Get on Board iello

Best Card Game (General)

• Judges Award: CULTivate Pops & Bejou Games
• People’s Choice Award: Dungeon Decorators Slugfest Games

Best Card Game (Strategic)

• Judges Award: Lord of the Rings LCG Revised Core Fantasy Flight Games
• People’s Choice Award: Lord of the Rings LCG: Revised Core Set Fantasy Flight Games

Best Children’s Game

• Judges Award: Quacks & Co: Quedlinburg Dash Schmidt
• People’s Choice Award: Quacks & Co: Quedlinburg Dash Schmidt

Best Dice Game

• Judges Award: Under Falling Skies Czech Games Edition
• People’s Choice Award: Dice Theme Park Alley Cat

Best Digital Hybrid

• Judges Award: Destinies Lucky Duck Games
• People’s Choice Award: Trouble In Folklore Falls The Detective Society

Best Expansion

• Judges Award: Undaunted: Reinforcements Osprey Games
• People’s Choice Award: Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders Czech Games Edition

Best Family Game

• Judges Award: Akropolis Gigamic
• People’s Choice Award: Akropolis Gigamic

Best Gaming Novelty

• Judges Award: Terraforming Mars: In the Shadow of Deimos Aconyte Books
• People’s Choice Award: Polyhedral Dice Holder – Forgotten Graveyard Gelatinous Cute

Best Miniatures Range

• Judges Award: Victory Battlefleet Set Warcradle Studios
• People’s Choice Award: Frostgrave: Blood Legacy Miniatures Range Osprey games

Best Miniatures Rules

• Judges Award: The Silver Bayonet Osprey games
• People’s Choice Award: The Silver Bayonet Osprey games

Best Party Game

• Judges Award: Secret Identity – Funnyfox
• People’s Choice Award: Last Message – Iello

Best Roleplaying Game

• Judges Award: Twilight: 2000 – Free League Publishing
• People’s Choice Award: Shiver Core Book – Parable Games

Best Roleplaying Adventure

• Judges Award: Odd Jobs – MacGuffin & Co
• People’s Choice Award: The Dee Sanction: Adventures – All Rolled Up

Best Roleplaying Expansion

• Judges Award: Root RPG: Travellers and Outsiders – Magpie Games
• People’s Choice Award: ALIEN RPG Colonial Marines Operations Manual – Free League Publishing

Best Variant

• Judges Award: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King – A Pandemic System Board Game Z-Man Games
• People’s Choice ward: Zombie Kittens – Exploding Kittens

Congratulations to all the winners and riders. It’s a competitive field, and a UK Games Expo Awards badge is well worth displaying if you can.

In fact, congratulations and thank you to everyone who attended the event this year. Geek Native went for the first time before the pandemic and intended to return again. Hopefully, next year.