#63: Nemo's War (Mark's Top 100 - 2026)

Nemo's War

BoardGameGeek

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Why It's On The List

A solo "wargame" that is brimming with thematic touches (from the event deck to some of the unusual ship choices)... and an impressive level of variability created simply by changing Nemo's objective.

Tips & Tricks:

Nemo’s War was designed as a solitaire game – everything from the unidirectional layout of the board to the theme of the game scream “low player count”. That said, there are variants in the rule book to play with more players… my one play with more players worked fine, but at its heart, it's a solo game.
Nemo’s War reminds me a bit of old school wargames – ships have attack and defense values, there are a lot of dice rolls, and there is even a printed CRT on the board for the various actions. At the same time, it incorporates action expenditures, bag draws, ways to mitigate bad die rolls, etc. from the more modern game designs.
Each objective demands different play styles and trade-offs, which I find endlessly fascinating. So far, I’ve proven to be the most successful at exploration – while all-out war with the nations does not seem to be my forte. I must also note that I play on the lowest difficulty setting – I cannot imagine cranking this up to the highest level… I’d be fish food in a few turns.
The game runs about 90 minutes now that I’ve internalized the rules and the order of play – it isn’t unusual for me to play a couple of times in a night if I’m stuck in a hotel on a business trip. And I’m always eager to play it again.

Extras

There are multiple expansion packs available - I sprung for all of them. The Bold & Caring pack adds 2 new objectives, which makes the game even more varied.
The Journey's End expansion is well worth your time & money! (Of course, if you're just jumping into the game, the Ultimate Edition has all the content along with really great rulebooks integrating all the expansion content.)