Nothing makes for a great time with your small group fellowship more than a board game night. It comes with good times, a lot of laughs, and some friendly competition. Throw in some snacks and beverages and permission to hang out late and you’ve got a small group board game event that will be remembered for years to come. 

What board games should you plan on playing? Don’t bring lame games from the 1980’s you played as a kid like Chutes and Ladders. Don’t bring games that are too complicated and require a seminar on how to play the board game. Also, try to include games that either supports a lot of people playing or a couple games you can divide and rotate the small group between at random so everyone gets a chance to game with others. 

Our favorite board games for a small group are:

1. Code Names

2. Settlers of Catan

3. Telestrations

4. Sequence

5. Bang! The Dice Game  

6. Pictionary

7. Guesstures 

We’ll dive in and give you an overview of the game, how to play, what makes it fun. 

1. Code Names

Manufacturer’s Description:

Codenames Board Game is a social word game with a simple premise and challenging gameplay. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the table. Their teammates try to guess words of their color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. This social word game works very well with four players if you prefer to guess without help. Or you can add more players if you prefer lively discussion.

Players: 2 – 8 (but you can play with more, we’ve played with 12 people)

What We Like:

We can include the whole small group for this game. Our favorite is to divide between men and women teams. This fits the theme of the game very well. We also like we can play this game if these teams are uneven, it doesn’t impact the success of the game if one team has fewer players than the other because you make decisions as a group, not individuals. It’s really easy to pick up and learn. Engaging play can happen while conversations continue and create a really fun banter and competition between teams. You see peoples creativity and mental mapping skills come out and shine. It’s also a small card game that’s easy to store and easy to travel with for bringing to game nights. We highly recommended Code Names for your next small group board game party. 

2. Settlers of Catan

Manufacturer’s Description:

Catan is the original strategy board game. Your adventurous settlers seek to tame the remote but rich isle of Catan. Start by revealing Catan’s many harbors and regions: pastures, fields, mountains, hills, forests, and desert. The random mix creates a different board virtually every game. No two games are the same! Embark on a quest to settle the isle of Catan! Guide your settlers to victory through clever trading and cunning development. Use resource combinations – grain, wool, ore, brick, and lumber – to buy handy development cards and build roads, settlements, and cities. Acquire your resources through trades, cards, or lucky dice (even outside your turn). But beware! Someone might cut off your road or buy a monopoly. And you never know when the wily robber might steal some of your precious gains!

Players: 2 – 4, but you can purchase the expansion that increases to 6 players. And what we’ve done is formed two-person teams, so that brings the game up to 12 players. The only challenge to doing this is that this board game is a strategy game, and it can be beneficial to keep your plans quiet. So forming teams increases the talking and thus can reveal your strategy. Another thing we’ve done is had two Settler’s of Catan board games going simultaneously at two tables and divided the small group across the games. The only issue we’ve found here is that the games never seem to end at the same time so it can be difficult to figure out when to rotate people. 

What We Like:

It’s a thinking game where you tend to think about yourself. And even though this is a strategy game, where you should also be considering what everyone else is doing, people don’t tend to do that. That translates into a pretty relaxing game where you can keep the conversation going, but the game is still important enough to capture your attention and have people fully engaged and having fun. It can be a little overwhelming for the first time player to figure out how to play, but the best way is just to jump right in with people who have played before and they get you started and before you know it everyone is having a good time. We highly recommend Settler’s of Catan for a small group board game night. 

3. Telestrations

Manufacturer’s Description:

A super fun family-friendly game, your weekend just got a lot more fun. The Telestrations Board Game from USAopoly is a hilarious sketch, pass and guess game that will have the whole group laughing out loud.

A great party game, Telestrations has each player simultaneously sketches a word and, when the time is up, passes their sketch to the next player. That person guesses what the drawing is, then passes over their guess for the next player to sketch, until everyone gets their original sketchbook back. Don’t be surprised if the last guess is completely different than the original word!

Players: 4 – 8 – 12! They have a version that is 2 – 4 players and have another that is up to 8 players, and now they even offer a 12 Player Party Pack that is for twelve players. 

What We Like:

Bottom line, it’s hilarious. It’s so much fun to laugh at someone narrating the storyline of their picture unfolding. You see drawn image after another drawn image and the original form take a mutant shape as other people misunderstood what was happening. You will be laughing out loud. And because the drawing gets passed around, you’re not laughing at any single persons ability to draw, you’re laughing at the journey the shape took. We highly recommend Telestratiosn for a small group board game time. 

4. Sequence

Manufacturer’s Description:

It’s all fun with this super exciting board game! Sequence from Jax is a challenging game of strategy. Start the game & have players play a card from their hand and go onto place a chip on the corresponding space on the games board. Make use of the four colored corners on the game board. Every player must use these four corners as though they are their color marker chip is in the corner. Look to be the first to get five sequences in a row. The first player or team to score a sequence of two before the other team or opponent goes onto win the game. Make sure to have a good game plan, it always comes in handy in any strategy board or card game; each player should look to score the required amount of sequences before any other team. As you progress through the game and proceed to pick cards from the deck you should also look to block your opponents or remove their chips, and watch out for the Jacks – they’re wild! With a little strategy and luck, you’ll be a winner. 

Players: 2 – 6. This game comes with three colored player chips you put on the board. But it’s easy to have two people on a team and still keep it fun. Playing as teams of two bring the game up to six players. 

What We Like:

It’s super easy to play. You can unfold the board game and be up and running in under two minutes. If you have a bunch of board games for your small group board game time, this can be a great one to start with. Everyone gets to start playing something fast and easy and gets in the gaming groove without hesitation. This is a classic, and we find there is almost always someone int he small group that owns a copy of this game. And if they don’t already own it, because it’s a classic, it’s cheap. You can get this board game for a bargain. The other fun thing is that they’ve released a bunch of updated version of this game that adds flavor to the classic, like a dog version and cat version, letter version. It’s a good team game, but the disadvantage is we find people don’t socialize very much while playing. Instead, they tend to be looking at their cards figuring out their next move. It’s not that funny either, so there isn’t a lot to laugh about during play. But again, we like it because it’s super easy to play, everyone can be up and rolling fast, and it helps small group members that are newer to board gaming to acclimate them to the board game time and open to moving to a game that’s a notch harder to play. 

5. Bang! The Dice Game

Manufacturer’s Description:

This Da Vinci BANG: The Dice Game keeps the core of the card game in place. At the start, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team of the sheriff and deputies or the outlaws and renegades. Either the sheriff and deputies eliminate the outlaws, or the outlaws win by defeating the sheriff. The renegades want to be the last players alive in the game. This kids’ dice game is designed for three to eight players and lasts for 15 minutes.

Players: 3 – 8 

What We Like:

It’s a lot of fun sitting around the table trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad. Using your skills of deduction to try to figure out who’s the deputy, the renegades, or the outlaws. It can also be hard to play shoot someone in this game that you really like in real life. This game keeps the attention and fun alive as everyone is always actively engaged and really gets into character. There tends to always be twists and surprises. It’s a small boxed game that is easy to pack and bring along. The other things I like about it is that it’s a kids favorite too. 

6. Pictionary

Manufacturer’s Description:

Count on big laughs when you and your friends get together to find out who’s an artist and who really isn’t! In this quick-draw classic, the guesses can be just as hilarious as the sketches, making it the perfect way to get the party started.

Players: The more the better. Let’s say up to 14

What We Like:

This is another classic game that we just can’t call the list complete without having included this one. Most of you have hopefully played this classic by now and know how much fun this is. Ton’s of laughter while people scramble under the pressure of time to communicate with drawings. While some struggle, I’m always shocked when someone hits a stride and the team just seems to tune into to the same frequency, and they just start rocking them out! 

7. Guesstures

Manufacturer’s Description:

Act and guess as fast as you can in this hilarious, high-speed Guesstures game! All you have to do is pop four cards into the Action Timer, then set it and start acting fast! The words may look easy, but you only have a few seconds to use classic charades techniques to get your team to guess each one. Did your team guess right? Then you’ve got to grab the card out of the slot before it gets “munched” by the Action Timer! Easy cards are worth 1 point, Medium cards are worth 2, and Hard cards are worth 3. When the game’s over, will your team have enough points to win?

Players: 4 – 12

What We Like:

The pressure! It’s a time game where these cards are dropping fast, and when the actor gets too far behind it’s hard for them to pick up the pace and start capturing cards again. I think it’s hilarious to watch the other team try to act out a bunch of cards. And I like trying to interpret my teammate’s attempts and really to get into the groove of crushing it. I like the ability to step it up a notch and choose cards that are harder but worth more points. This is one of my favorite board games for small groups. 

Conclusion

Plan a board game night for your small group as soon as possible because it’s a great time. It will increase your friendship and allow you to see your small group members in a different light of fun and laughter. We’ve listed some of our favorites here, but there are a lot of others out there. It seems like the whole board game scene is becoming a sub-culture and there is a lot of new stuff coming out. 

Do you have a favorite? Let us know below in the comments and we’ll try to play it at our next board game small group party.