Arkham Horror, Last Night on Earth, Pandemic, BattleStar Galactica and Nightfall i find always go down well with a good crowd.

Hannibal:Rome Vs Carthage a is good 1Vs1 tactical game and the Command and Colors series are easy to learn but good solid tactical games.

Small World (board game), that is all.

EDIT: I used to play Car Wars as a kid, it's great, but no one plays it. Ogre was also a great SJ game, word is he's working on a revised ruleset but taking his sweet time because he wants it perfect.

For tabletop Warmachine is the cheapest option (and will probably be one time as an investment; i.e. your army won't get outdated like with Warhammer) and they're a cool company anyway.

Will second this. Small World, Advanced Civ(Out of Print), and age of renaissance(also out of print) sound like what you're into.

As of boardgames I'd like to recommend Kingsburg. It's a fairly simple game with dice, but requires some strategy. The board and the components are colorful and well designed, so it's a pleasure to look at the game too. I use this game as The Introductional Game to board games. And everyone I tought the game loved it.

Last night on earth is a nice addition, also colourful and with loads of theme.

Some people also like Carcassonne, a little family game with colourful wooden pieces. There's not much player interaction in there, though.

Once I get back home I'll look at my gameshelf and see if I can come up with anything else.

Just adding my vote to the Arkham Horror suggestions. It's a great game and it has a lot of expansions to prolong the fun :)

To second some others that I saw above:

Conquest of Nerath is like Risk but D&Dized.
Arkham Horror is an awesome Lovecraftian coop game.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a coop game until a certain point. And then suddenly it's 1vs everyone else. High tactics is needed for everyone. It's a great game.

Mansions of Madness is another Lovecraftian game, but it's much smaller scale than Arkham. It's 1 vs a group where the group has to solve a mystery in a mansion. There are mini-puzzles and a lot of strategic play.

The D&D Ravenloft and similar games are also great for dabbling with RPGs with light RP elements. Easy to set up and play in a few hours instead of needing the same group of people every week.
P.S. This Civilization game completely ended my family's Risk play.

http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Comic-Dist-StarSys-EAG14/dp/B000075B7E

It even has a really good price ($42) for a used game.

Board games? More like bored games :Z

You forgot Broadsides and Boarding Parties!!! Which you can in fact go wrong with... Pirates and all but no strats at all. If you enjoy Risk I would say Shogun is the best match.

I just NEED to recommend Dungeon Twister, which is really good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e014IZzG0vs

Thanks for all the recommendations, in particular the RPG ones. Is GURPS really that hard? Maybe I'll start with D&D 4E after all.

For board games, right now I have my sights set on, in addition to the OP's, Arkham Horror, Car Wars, Descent Journeys in the Dark. The Battletech one looks worth considering. Giant robots ftw!

Also thanks to Judas Is Carrot for the Fallout RPG. That is the one designed by Sawyer right? Skimmed through a bit of it, and it looks suitably complex. I wish there's more than one adventure though.

I have the PC version of this and it's pretty awesome

http://www.montjoiegame.com/en_boardgame.php


EDIT

Never mind the video on that page - it's confusing and I have no clue what they're on about.

"GMs are encouraged to make up their own
ending using the characters and locations provided, or make up their own adventures for
the characters to become involved in." from the PDF.

Looks like you can make up your own campaigns like in any other PnP game, so why not just do that?

As far who designed it, I am not sure. There's an "unasoda@hotmail.com" email address, if I look at the properties of the document in Adobe Reader it lists a Jason Mical as author.

Try F.A.T.A.L and let us know!

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Worst_RPGs_ever#F.A.T.A.L.

edit: review here:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml

Its not "hard" for people who can be relied upon to draw breath without thinking about it. But it is more complex than D&D. If you were to use it just have people read the base ruleset beforehand, problem solved. Not to mention, if you run into a gameplay problem, youre the DM, blow sh*t up!

Found this on Yahoo today...

"Ditch: Risk
Play: Ikusa

Critics haven't been kind to the classic world domination game, Risk. Some feel it favors the lucky rather than the strategic; some feel the map isn't balanced; some find over-defensive players can turn a game into a multi-hour slog.

If that sounds familiar, or even if you just feel like a change from the same old Risk, give Ikusa a go. A remake of a classic 80s Milton Bradley game called Shogun, Ikusa takes place in feudal Japan, and introduces an assortment of different troop types, ninja assassins, and generals who gain in strength as they win battles. It's way deeper than Risk, and although it isn't necessarily any shorter, it sure feels a lot less tedious..."

Ikusa sounds interesting.