While I’ve never been too into the boss battler genre of video games, I love them on the tabletop. You and your friends, working together, to take down a powerful enemy. And there are actually a LOT of unique choices in this genre. So many that it was actually really hard narrowing down the list.

So to help focus the list a little bit, I added a criterion. The rule is that the boss battler has to let you attack the boss starting in round one. Right out of the gates you can punch that big meanie in their face. So, while a game like Marvel United may be a great boss battler, you can’t actually fight the boss until you’ve saved enough people and arrested enough thugs. Other than that, the rest are fair game.

Top 10 Boss Battlers

10. Bullet ❤️

Bullet is a great game built in the style of the retro SHMUP video games. In it, you are drawing tokens from a bag and placing them in your sight (grid). You will then manipulate them to make patterns, activating powers to damage the boss. While Bullet is great, its primary play mode is actually as a VS game. The coop mode adds in a boss battler, which is still very good, but as it’s not a pure boss battler, I couldn’t rank it higher on my list.

1-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 10-20 minutes • $49

9. Primal: The Awakening

Primal: The Awakening is a fully cooperative monster-hunting board game set in a fantasy world where humans struggle to survive an untamed wilderness. The gameplay is centered around a boss fight with a large portion of the boss in the center of the board. Players will move around to different flanks on the boss to try to optimize their damage and prevent attacks. One of the best things about Primal: The Awaking is that the boss doesn’t take turns; it reacts to character actions, which keeps things flowing for some intense combat.

1-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 60-90 minutes • $259

8. One-Hit Heroes

One-Hit Heroes is a cooperative boss battle game where your team has only one hit point. So as soon as you take damage, it’s game over. Players will play cards to not only damage the boss, but also manage their “aggro” .Each battle lasts only about 20 minutes, but is full of action and lots of card play. Then, after each win, you get to open up booster packs, which add to your arsenal. Note, these packs are included in the game, this is not a TCG.

1-4 Players • Ages 8+ • 15-60 minutes • $59

7. Leviathan Wilds

I was debating whether Leviathan Wilds should count as a boss battler since you aren’t actually trying to kill the boss, but save it. I ended up deciding yes, because at the end of the day, you are still fighting the boss (just one gone crazy). In Leviathan Wilds, you’ll be moving your hero around a giant monster, trying to destroy the crystals that are enraging it. Meanwhile, the boss will attack at the end of your turn, trying to damage you and shake you off. There is a large variety of bosses and heroes, and the game uses cards for all of its action and damage. This is definitely one of the more unique titles on this list.

1-4 Players • Ages 10+ • 45-90 minutes • $79

6. Final Girl

The standout solo board game is also a great boss battler. In Final Girl, you play as the last survivor in a horror movie. You’ll combine an evil monster and a location to create your battleground. You’ll need to move around the area, collecting supplies and saving bystanders, all while trying to take down the villain. What Final Girl lacks in player count, it more than makes up for in customization. There are tons of different villains, locations, and heroes, all of which can be mixed and matched with each other.

1 Player • Ages 14+ • 20-60 minutes • $23

5. Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze/TMNT

Unmatched is a standout skirmish game where you have a main fighter (and sometimes a sidekick) and are facing off against your opponent’s fighter. However, the Unmatched Adventures system took the core of Unmatched and turned it into a boss battler. The first was Tales to Amaze, which let players face off against the Mothman and a Martian Invader. Last year brought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-themed game that let players fight Shredder and Krang. The bosses use a simple card system to handle their attacks and defense, and it actually works quite well. These bosses are no pushovers. And what’s nice is that you can use any Unmatched character to fight any boss. So if you want to see how well Bruce Lee, the T. rex from Jurassic Park, and Luke Cage do fighting against Krang, have at it!

1-4 Players • Ages 10+ • 20-60 minutes • $52

4. Ashes Reborn: Red Rains

Much like Unmatched above, Ashes Reborn: Red Rains takes a VS game and turns it into a cooperative one. Red Rains will have players taking their phoenix born deck and fighting against a monster. The gameplay is actually quite elegant as the monster has its own unique deck that is basically minions there to soak up damage and cause you issues. But the nice thing is that you play the game mostly the same as you would if you were playing the standard VS mode, so the learning curve on this one is really light. And every Ashes hero can fight against every boss, giving this one a lot of replay value.

1-2 Players • Ages 12+ • 30-60 minutes • $24

3. Boss Fighters QR

A relatively new game, but one that has shot up the list for me. When I first got Boss Fighters QR, we played it for about 4 hours straight—about 8 total games. It was an instant hit with our group. The basics of the game are that you have a hero, comprised of a class and race, and you are fighting off against a unique boss. This is an app-assisted game, and as the name implies, it will have you scanning QR codes on the cards to activate them in the app. It may seem like a gimmick, but it works surprisingly well. The app handles all the bookkeeping for the boss and can throw curveballs at you that you might not expect. I’ve almost blown through all the bosses in this one, and they have already released a seasonal one. Hopefully, they keep the app updated with new bosses to keep things fresh.

2-4 Players • Ages 8+ • 40-60 minutes • $49

2. Kinfire Chronicles: Nights Fall

This one may surprise a few readers as Kinfire probably seems more like a dungeon crawler than a boss battler. But at its heart, it’s about fighting a boss(s) on a small map. While there is an exploration phase in this game, that’s mostly narrative-based. Once it’s down to combat, it’s your fighters and the boss on a small map. Tokens are drawn from a bag to decide initiative, and the fighting is all handled via card play. This is an extensive campaign game with tons of interesting decisions to make. If you aren’t looking to just battle a boss, but get a more immersive experience in general, Kinfire Chronicles is the way to go.

1-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 45-60 minutes • $179

1. Marvel Champions

For Marvel fans, it doesn’t get much better than Marvel Champions. This one hit the gaming world like a hammer back in 2019 and hasn’t slowed down since. In it, you create your superhero deck, which at this point has options for just about every Marvel hero you can think of, and take on a villain of your choice. The villain will also have its own scheme they are trying to progress, so you’ll need to divide your time between attacking the villain or their minions and thwarting their scheme before it progresses too far. I’ve lost count of how many expansions are out for this game, but the replay value is off the charts. Each hero has a partial deck that you get to customize with one of four aspects (aggression, justice, defense, or leadership), and the deck-building options are endless. If you are a fan of the Marvel universe, it doesn’t get much better than Marvel Champions.

1-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 45-90 minutes • $55