The shortlist for the UKGE 2026 Judges' Choice Awards is live, and it's a proper spread of heavy euros, indie story games and miniatures kit. After months of judges grinding through submissions, the full lineup across 20 categories is now public ahead of the winners' announcement on Tuesday 12 May.
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See how it worksBest Boardgame (Euro-Style) is the headline scrap this year. Alley Cat Games' Ada's Dream, a medium-heavy dice-rondel game about helping Ada Lovelace finish Babbage's Analytical Engine, squares up against Osprey's Ayar: Children of the Sun, an Inca-inspired Fabio Lopiano euro from the team behind Merv. The third nominee is Paverson's Luthier: The Art of the Instrument Deluxe, a 90-150 minute hidden-bidding worker placement game where you craft instruments for Mozart and Bach. Luthier's Kickstarter pulled $790,541 from 7,104 backers in 2025, so it arrives with the loudest crowd behind it.
Best Story, Legacy or Adventure Game is just as juicy. Stonemaier's Vantage, Jamey Stegmaier's eight-year passion project that drops 1-6 cooperative players onto an entire planet to explore, faces Cozy Stickerville (a Corey Konieczka legacy village builder from Unexpected Games that uses 800 stickers across ten linked games) and The Cats of Mont Saint Michel, a solo or co-op book-driven adventure from Raybox Games where you play cat swashbucklers fighting rats in revolutionary France. Vantage is also a finalist for the Origins Awards' Cooperative Game category in June, so the trophy cabinet might be busy.
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Set up your group for freeElsewhere, Hegemonic Project's World Order, an area-control follow-up to the politics-heavy Hegemony, joins Epochs and Zenith in the Best Boardgame (Strategic) shortlist. Mantic's Kings of War 4th Edition leads the Best Miniatures Rules pack, while Days of Wonder's Battle of Hoth swings into the American-style boardgame final three. Even Worms the Gift Calendar Game gets a Best Gaming Novelty nod, a 24-door advent calendar from Mantic that builds up to a full turn-based game by Christmas Eve.
Winners get announced on UKGE's social channels on 12 May, with trophies presented at the show itself. UKGE turns 20 this year and runs 29-31 May at the NEC in Birmingham, with 42,000-plus attendees expected. If you're heading down, see who else from your community is going and sort lifts before hotel prices spike.
Sources: UK Games Expo | BoardGameWire | Kickstarter | The NEC
