Pandemic is $25 on Amazon Prime right now. Prices change fairly often, so now would be the time to buy it if you are interested.
Shadow Hunters is great. I’ve only played twice, but I really like it. It’s far faster and lighter than BSG. It seems to be frequently overlooked, but very enjoyable.
My wife and I play games for two fairly frequently. The two we play most are Dead of Winter and Legendary. Both were designed to play more, but they deal with two very well. The next two on the list are probably Abyss and Mr. Jack in New York. Abyss is a lightweight but deep (hah!) game with very simple decisions. I wish some elements (locations) had a better balance, but the game is overall good. Mr. Jack is a deduction game where one person is Mr. Jack and tries to escape the city while the other tries to figure out which of the 8 characters Mr. Jack is and arrest him. Both are by the same designer (Bruno Cathala), but they play very differently. Abyss has a lot of press-your-luck and managed risk, while Mr. Jack is a mostly open information brain burner.
Depends on what you’re looking for. Twilight Struggle is a really well-done game, and is only moderately complex.
The Columbia wargames are a lot of fun, but are also more difficult to learn. My favorites are Crusader Rex and Hammer of the Scots. The good news is that once you learn the core mechanics of one, you can easily learn other games they make. Kind of like learning a Romance language.
One good two player game I have is Carcassonne: The Castle:
Carcassonne: The Castle | Board Game | BoardGameGeek.
It has a similar tile placement method to all Carcassonne Games but has walls to contend with and is quite quick to play.
If you want one that the kids will be able to enjoy soon, too, I suggest The Best Treehouse Ever, a nice little card game that plays well with 2-4 people and has adorable art. If you’re OK with a 2-player-only game, take a look at Hive, an abstract game that has a chess-like feel, but plays out much faster (but it will take longer for the kids to grow up enough to be able to play).
What game(s) would you guys recommend that I obtain as a last minute Christmas gift for a 12-year old whip smart girl who’s 1/3 daredevil 1/3 cardsharp and 1/3 dancer? She played as part of a 5-player Apples-to-Apples adult game version over Thanksgiving and more than held her own.
Small World is a good “gateway” game. The mechanics are easy to learn, but the game has a surprising amount of strategic depth. Power Grid is another good game for newer gamers, but I’m not sure whether the theme would appeal to a preteen girl. Ticket to Ride would be a third option. Maybe check out all three and see which theme you think would appeal the most to her.
I mentioned Codenames early in the thread. Highly recommended.
Thanks for the help. I choose Ticket to Ride for her as her family has been lucky enough to travel quite a bit so. 
I haven’t actually played Twilight Struggle, but it has held the #1 spot on BoardGameGeek’s giant rankings for a really long time, and it’s 2-player.
For cooperative gaming, I really enjoy Sentinels of the Multiverse. It has numerous expansions, which really help the variety, and each deck has very distinct flavor. The art style is a little different, but it grew on me…the game has character.
For competitive, it’s hard to beat Puerto Rico, which does a great job of keeping everyone involved and not looking at smartphones during someone else’s long turn.
Manhattan Project is a nifty worker-placment gem with a strong theme and great period look.
Twilight Struggle is an excellent 2-player game, highly recommended. It’s a semi-historical depiction of the Cold War, with the two players as the two superpowers. Strategy can get somewhat deep.
My only caveat for it is that though it has randomness it’s relatively mild- it’s important that your opponent is roughly similar in skill or neither of you will enjoy it as much as it will usually be a walk for the better player. It’s not a game that an experienced-in-other-games player should get to try to interest someone with little game experience.
For the broader question, with a larger group with a long play session (~4 hours, say), I’d recommend Arkham Horror. The pseudo-sequel Eldrich Horror is good for a 2 hour slot. They’re good games with good atmospheric flavor text, which can be a big plus if your group likes that.
Twilight Struggle is rated as the #1 board game/#2 strategy game on BoardGameGeek, and possibly rightly so. It does take a time investment, though sloppy play can lead to a quick game. We have a game scheduled for tomorrow!
It’s hard to wrap my head around those rankings, that the single best game is the 2nd best strategy game. The Geek’s rating system can be a little wonky.
I guess strategy games have their own separate ranking subset, since strategy **gamers **can definitely be their own user subset. I don’t spend enough time over there to know how it works.
I do know that Twilight Struggle is an amazing game. The problem isn’t really the learning curve - it’s pretty easy to grok the rules. The problem is the knowledge curve. A lot of strategy revolves around knowing which cards are in which of three “era” decks. Some of the cards have enormously potent affects in very specific regions, and it’s possible to waste lots of resources trying to influence an area that the other player is going to be able to flip with minimal effort at some point in the game.
Still. Really excellent game. And it’s two players! It’s not easy to find a game that’s two players, has good strategy, and isn’t a straight-up wargame.
They’re indeed being wonky, as Pandemic Legacy has been racing to the top of the leaderboard and will shortly be first in all categories (that #1/#2 disconnect for Twilight Struggle is new, and won’t last long). I haven’t played PL, and have been somewhat disappointed by Risk Legacy, so it’s hard for me to imagine it as the most enjoyed game of all time, but mileage does vary.
Bumping this thread as we’ve unwrapped Pandemic for Xmas and I have to say our kids (10 and 8) are loving it.
We’ve had to tweak a few options to find a comfortable difficulty level but with a few nibbles on the table, wine and beer for mum and dad, it really is a fun hour or so with the option of ramping up the difficulty when we can beat it regularly.
We’re on a ski holiday and go swimming after hitting the slopes but even with those attractions on offer they are still eager to get to the apartment and play the board game. There’s something quite heartening in a couple of techno-age kids wanting to shuffle around plastic pieces on a board.
I’d highly recommend it as a family activity.
My sons and I have played through Pandemic Legacy and I personally feel its ranking is deserved. My sons probably did not rate it as highly as I would, but they all enjoyed it and were almost always eager to play the next game. We had played Risk Legacy before that and did enjoy it, though. One of my sons may have enjoyed Risk Legacy more than Pandemic Legacy.
I haven’t seen anyone mention “Dead of Winter”. Its an incredibly fun game. Its one of those that is a game where the goal is that everyone try to beat the game (unless you are the traitor).
I also like “King of Tokyo”. It is quick, and incredibly fun and very competitive.
I played Castles of Mad King Ludwig the other night. It’s a very euro-y Eurogame, but has some really interesting mechanics that make it fun - particularly the bidding mechanics. Each round, the player who is first in turn order sets all the prices for the various rooms, and all other players have to pay that player for the rooms rather than the bank. So you have to balance “what room do I want to make sure I get?” vs “I need to make decent money on this round of purchases.”
It’s pretty good.
I wanted to try this one but I had Suburbia (which I enjoyed) but my wife did not have any interest in it whatsoever. She didn’t even want to try it. So I figured “Castles” is pretty much a non-starter.
I just got the new Through The Ages and I’m really excited for it. In order to convince my wife to play I’m going to have to know the rules up and down so she doesn’t get frustrated.