8 - Ticket to Ride - With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in under 15 minutes, while providing players with intense strategic and tactical decisions every turn. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfil Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.
"The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn you either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets," says Ticket to Ride author, Alan R. Moon. "The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor."
Ticket to Ride is a big format board game featuring high-quality illustrations and components including: an oversize board map of North America, 225 custom-moulded train cars, 144 illustrated cards, and wooden scoring markers.
Since its introduction and numerous subsequent awards, Ticket to Ride has become the epitome of a "gateway to indie board games game" -- simple enough to be taught in a few minutes, and with enough action and tension to keep new players involved and in the game for the duration.
3 - . Wrath of Ashardalon - A cooperative game of adventure for 1-5 players set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
A heavy shadow falls across the land, cast by a dark spire that belches smoke and oozes fiery lava. A cave mouth leads to a maze of tunnels and chambers, and deep within this monster-infested labyrinth lurks the most terrifying creature of all: a red dragon!
This board game features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and cooperative game play.
Each player selects a hero; a rogue, thief, warrior, cleric, or wizard. On their turn, each player can explore further into the dungeon (turn over new tiles), move through the already explored parts of the dungeon, and fight monsters. When a new dungeon tile is revealed, there is typically an encounter of some sort, and new monsters to fight are added. Slain monsters reward the players with treasure, and experience points, allowing them to level up and increase their skills during play. Players must cooperate to stay alive, slay the monsters, and achieve the goal of their quest. There are several scenarios and quests to play through and the random nature of the board ensures that no two games will be the same.
There are a few of these D&D board games available all with different themes and I think they are a nice gateway into 'proper' roleplaying without the time consuming character and quest creation elements as they are all pre-made for you.
An actual pic of me playing this....we encounter Ashardalon for the first time and I am scared!!!
My pal Gina looks non too impressed by my cowardice 
One more for me. Ashardalon sounded just like some of my favorite fantasy series. Just the name intrigued me. Now reading about the game, I know it was a good choice. So I am now up to 4/10 and wondering where I can find some people who want to try some of these games out. But then I'd be giving up some stitchy time. Decisions, decisions, decisions. 
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