Session Report: Dinner & Games at Paul's

Last night we went round to Paul and Lisa's for dinner, and both adult games (not as dodgy as it sounds) and kids games with their daughter, Ellie. After playing shop with Ellie and the most amazing toy cash register imaginable, a fantastic feast for dinner and bedtime stories we settled down to some adult games.

I'd brought Codename: Monster on the off chance someone would want to play it and both The Wife and Paul were keen. So we set it up and I explained the game to Lisa who hadn't played it before. The first game was won by Lisa, while the second was won by The Wife. Final scores: Lisa 51, The Wife 44, me 43, Paul 37 and The Wife 57, me 45, Paul 38, Lisa 34. In both cases the person who completed their set won, which is not always the case.

Next up was Carcassonne, The Wife was keen to play, both Paul and I consider it our favourite game and Lisa had never played with four and was keen to try a more populous game. We played vanilla Carcassonne, and with the official farmer scoring rules (I usually play the rules in my edition which are wacky and involve 4 points per). I got off to a very slow start (I was on 7 points about three-quarters of the way through the game), while the others raced ahead, with The Wife getting to 50 points before the final pieces were scored. Fortunately I acquitted myself much better in the final reckoning, but not well enough to win. Final scores: Paul & The Wife 59, me 56, Lisa 53.

We had time for a few more short games so we chose to introduce The Wife to Diamant and Guillotine - both favourites at Paul's Monday night games. First up was Diamant, which we played a couple of times. The Wife and I were scarily in tune - both running away fairly early to capitalise on left-over jewels, while Paul and Lisa both brazened it out to the bitter end. We had lots of runs during the two games where all five disasters came out very early on which makes for risky play. Final scores: Lisa 42, The Wife 39, Paul 35, me 25 and Paul 28, Lisa 23, The Wife and me 20. My tactics again fail to work for me. Must get some balls.

We ended the night with a couple of games of Guillotine. It was my destiny to get sorely creamed it seems. After failing to win a game all evening I was utterly lamped at Guillotine. Still, I really enjoyed it - that's my only real criterion for game quality, if I get crushed and still enjoy it's a good game. Final scores: Paul 27, Lisa 18, The Wife 17, me 9 and Paul 20, The Wife and Lisa 17, me 11.

It was a great evening - thanks Paul and Lisa.