Paul's Games Night

Last night I went round to Paul's for a games night - I had high hopes after a disappointing Beyond Monopoly session on Saturday. There were four of us: Spencer, Paul, Andy and I. First up was My Dwarves Fly by Michael Palm and Sebastian Jakob.

This felt very similar to Munchkin - another silly fantasy game where players fight monsters for treasure. The game supposedly lasts up to an hour, but our game went on for an hour and a half - I think we were all too keen to accrue massive collections of creatures, which meant the battles that earnt you the gold needed to win were few and far between. In the end Andy got to fifteen gold first, I came second with ten, Paul had eight and Spencer four or five. I made good use of my Medusa card wreaking havoc on my opponents creatures, until Spencer very wisely used Doppelganger to ape it and destroy it. Should have seen that coming really. It was an entertaining game, but I'm in no rush to play it again.

The second game of the evening was Alhambra by Dirk Henn. I'd heard of this one, though I'd not played it before. It's another Spiel Des Jahres winner, which is usually a sign of a game I'll thoroughly enjoy. I read through the rules (none of us had played before) and while they weren't as simple as Ticket To Ride, it was still pretty straight forward and we were underway very quickly. I could see from the intricacies of the scoring there was a lot of potential strategising over which tile to buy, but I tended to go for the ones I could afford (I was strapped for currency cards throughout the game). As a result I ended up coming last (although not by as much as I thought I would - maybe twenty-five points behind the leader), but I still enjoyed the game. It's definitely one that I think I could improve at with a few plays. I'd definitely play it again.

It was a good evening's gaming - thanks Paul!