The Best Team Building Board Games
The Best Team Building Board Games
Board games have always been a great way to pass the time, socialise, and give your brain a strategic workout. Board games designed for team play take this hobby to the next level, encouraging you to work together to beat the other team, or sometimes, to beat the game itself.
In theory, most board games will let you work in teams if that’s how you want to play the game, but the best team board games are designed from the ground up to pit one team of players against another. Winning alone is good, but winning together is much more fun!
We also have some inspirational quotes about teamwork to get you in the mood.
What is the difference between a competitive and cooperative board game, anyway?
All board games are competitive, because you are either competing against each other or another team, or against the board game itself.
Cooperative board games still include a competitive element, but you must also work alongside other players to achieve your goal. Some board games are designed for team play (like Captain Sonar), but others require you to work together as individuals. You might win individually or as a team – that depends on the game.
Our list of best team board games includes some of the best cooperative board games we could find, and we have played! Here is a selection of our favourite board games perfect for team play.
The Best Cooperative Board Games
- Captain Sonar
- Codenames
- Axis and Allies
- Pandemic
- Betrayal at the House on the Hill
- Articulate
- Pictionary
Captain Sonar
Captain Sonar is an excellent cooperative strategy board game. At first glance, Captain Sonar looks like a complicated game of Battleship, but it is definitely going to be a unique gaming experience. To get the most out of it, you will need two teams of four people to play.
The game sees two teams piloting submarines in a game of cat-and-mouse. You need to stay hidden behind islands while tracking the other team’s movements. The full crew consists of,
- Captain: The Captain’s job is to navigate the submarine to outmanoeuvre their opponents. Leadership skills will be important here.
- First Mate: The First Mate operates the subs’ weapons, such as torpedoes and drones, tracking their readiness and making sure the Captain knows their options.
- Radio Operator: Just as in real life, communications and information are vital. It’s the Radio Operator’s job to listen to the other team’s orders and plot their suspected route so the Captain can hunt them down.
- Engineer: The engineer must monitor the sub’s systems for wear and tear and warn the captain when something is in danger of breaking.
If you’re brave enough to play the game as intended, you can play it in real-time instead of taking turns. Trying to win this game, or even understand where your opponent’s submarine is, is much more challenging when everyone is shouting orders and updates at the same time.
Codenames
Codenames is a cooperative game of deduction and communication with players trying to identify a unique, secret list of codenames from a selection of 25, which both teams can see.
Players compete in teams, with one person in the team providing clues to the rest of the team. Their teammates must then interpret these clues to work out which of the codenames are theirs without giving anything away to the other team, or even worse, accidentally picking one of the other team’s codenames!
It’s a very simple idea, but it makes for a hugely fun game, especially for teams who know each other well and know how they think. When your team wins the game with an obscure clue that no one else understands, it is a moment to remember.
Axis and Allies
Axis and Allies is a classic World War II strategy game, originally released in 1981. It features a world map similar to Risk, but the gameplay is much more detailed.
Players have to manage resource production to build units of soldiers, ships, and aircraft, as well as plan their strategies to give them the best chance of winning. Conflict in the game is decided by rolling dice, but your logistics, tactics, and teamwork will all be important factors when it comes to getting that competitive edge.
Whereas Risk sees all players fight with each other for world domination. Axis and Allies works best when players team up to manage the different nations represented in the game.
Axis and Allies is a slower-paced, more traditional strategy game, but it has a big fan following and has been on sale for 45 years!
Pandemic
We have previously included Pandemic in our list of the બધા સમયની શ્રેષ્ઠ બોર્ડ ગેમ્સ, but it’s worth including again here as a challenging team board game, except here, the players are cooperating as a single team against the board.
The aim of the game is to stop a global pandemic. The players represent a group of experts fighting to contain a deadly disease. Players can move around the world to fight outbreaks and counter the spread, and each team member has their own ability.
The gameplay itself can be challenging, with new diseases breaking out sometimes faster than players can react, but what makes this game a real challenge for cooperative play is working independently to accomplish the team’s goals.
There’s a real risk in this game of one player taking over and deciding what everyone else’s actions should be, but that’s not the spirit of a team game. Instead, learn how to plan and support each other for when things inevitably, and hilariously, go wrong.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a cooperative board game with a twist. The game begins with the players exploring a strange old house, discovering its rooms, and the secrets they contain.
But one of the players is hiding something! They are the villain of the game (the ‘traitor’). When their plans are revealed, the game turns into a competition with the traitor working alone, and everyone else, who now have to work together to survive and win, on the other side.
But the real twist is that, until the traitor is revealed, no one knows who it is. It could be anyone, at any time. Once the betrayal is revealed, players suddenly have to work together as a team to overcome the traitor’s plans. It’s not always easy, but it’s often good, silly fun. With good teamwork, anything is possible.
Articulate!
Articulate! is a fast-paced, high-energy description game that tests how quickly you can get your teammates to guess a word without actually saying it. It’s a staple for parties because it thrives on frantic shouting and the inevitable “it’s on the tip of my tongue” moments.
The challenge is trying to describe the word your team has to guess without accidentally saying all or part of it. You are also not allowed to rhyme.
Articulate! is definitely more of a party game than a strategy game like some of the others on our list, but it’s quick, casual fun that encourages team play.
Pictionary
If Articulate! is about talking your head off, Pictionary is the opposite. This is a game about frantic scribbling and realising your friends can’t draw a circle to save their lives. Think of it as charades on paper.
Teams have to nominate one of their members to draw something from a random category. This could be a person, place, animal, object, or action. There’s no talking and no sign language allowed, and your drawings can’t include letters, numbers, or other clues. You are entirely at the mercy of your artistic talent.
We didn’t include Pictionary as one of the benefits of art, but after playing your first game, you’ll wonder how we ever left it out.
આર્મી કેડેટ્સ સાથે આગળ વધો
Teamwork magnifies individual contributions, and you can achieve greater things together than apart. That’s as true in games and team sports as it is in all areas of life. Teamwork is essential to the success of our Cadets, whether that is working through the આર્મી કેડેટ અભ્યાસક્રમ, or taking part in our સાહસિક તાલીમ.
આજે જ તમારી નજીકની ટુકડી શોધો, and discover your new team.