World of Warcraft: The Boardgame and all WoW board games, availability, rarity, and more!

Warcraft is a vast, expansive franchise with dozens of titles tied to it, including World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, Hearthstone, and more, including a few board games. Of course, the most obvious is the now infamous and rare World of Warcraft: The Boardgame. But beyond this, there are a half dozen attempts to adapt WoW to a board game, with varying success. Below we go through all the World of Warcraft board games and details of how to obtain them.

The first World of Warcraft board game and perhaps the most remembered and sought-after. This mammoth box gives you the chance to play 16 different characters, encompassing the eight races and nine classes originally released with World of Warcraft. The game board is a detailed map of Lorderon, and is essentially a re-creation of the MMO in a turn-based fashion.

But critics and avid boardgame fans have panned the WoW: The Boardgame for its overly complex systems, low-quality miniatures, and difficulty to get into. Really this is either a collector’s piece for die-hard fans, or a novelty you can break out occasionally rather than a must-play. What’s more, with only a second-hand market for it, it’s expensive, hard to obtain, and perhaps not worth your money. The game had two expansions, Shadow of War (2006), and The Burning Crusade (2007), which were equality maligned.

A fantasy civilization game built off Days of Wonder’s Small World system, Small World of Warcraft puts you in control of the rival Hoard and Alliance factions as they attempt to carve out a piece of Azeroth. Being an adaptation of an existing system, this is a much better playing game, although it lacks some of the charm that miniatures and big world maps give. However, this is definitely worth trying, with a pretty high rating, a relatively low price point, and some good reviews.

Another game built off an existing system, Pandemic: Wrath of the Lich King, uses the critically acclaimed Pandemic system to allow you to relive the story of WotL. Released to capitalize on Wrath of the Lich King Classic, this game has perhaps some of the nicest-looking official miniatures ever released for World of Warcraft. The game also had a booster pack/promotional add-on adding Brann Bronzebeard to the game. It seems that there were big plans for this game overall, but nothing has materialized in the past 18 months. 

A slightly odd choice for a World of Warcraft tie in, this escape room box capitalizes on a trend while drawing on the resurgence of WoW in the 2020s and beyond. The game seems to require some surface-level knowledge of the Warcraft universe, but not so much that casual fans or non-fans couldn’t enjoy the fun. Still, the game is definitely targeted at WoW super fans rather than general escape room players, as the rating shows.

The second major attempt to adapt WoW into a board game, World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game drops some of the complexity of the original World of Warcraft: The Boardgame, in favor of a more traditional format. Advance your pieces through dice, and go on an adventure in a somewhat linear fashion. Collect Valor points to win, and earn them by completing quests. It’s a standard if not overly simplistic, board game catered to WoW players.

World of Warcraft attempted to capitalize on the huge overlap between its audience and those who loved games like Warhammer and other wargames. But the World of Warcraft: Miniatures Game was caught in the mid-2000s obsession with Clix and self-contained miniatures, pushed by WizKids. What results is a rather forgettable miniatures game that has some really nice-looking figures, but nothing worth playing.

It’s Monopoly, but WoW! How could it go wrong? Somehow, the most slam dunk easy board game adaptation fails to deliver. It could be because Monopoly isn’t a very good game, especially if you’re an avid board game fan. But really, this, like many of the Monopoly tie-in games, is really just a collector’s piece. Buy it to stick on a shelf to look good, and never play it.

A true test of your WoW lore knowledge, this adaptation of Trivial Pursuit is perhaps one of the most specialized versions of the games ever put to print. The issue with this game comes not from the quality, the adorable baby murloc pieces it uses, or the trivia, but finding enough players with the knowledge to compete. Trivial Pursuit's basic game thrives of relevancy and variety. Your biggest problem will be finding three to six players who can field the questions!

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