New table, new vistas

Tonight Sam and I met up for a little writing session. And then after a whole hour we decided we could reward ourselves with a little game. It was time to test the new big table that I'd just bought, which is in my Room Of No Distractions (ie, no internet or TV) which will house any future games nights I may host.

Sam had thoughtfully brought along Alhambra, and such seasoned players as ourselves set it up quickly. But right from the start, something seemed odd. Despite being thoroughly shuffled, we began with a lot of low cards to pick up. This must have contributed to a flurry of "exact buys" during the middle of the game, which meant that we soon had two sprawling complexes in front of us and we ran out of tiles immediately after the second round of scoring. It was almost Alhambra as it was meant to be played. Fast. Efficient. Deadly.

Our sprawling metropolii

Maybe not "deadly".

Unfortunately for me, Sam had the game wrapped up by round two, so there was no chance to catch him up. And Dirk's uncanny ability at specialising in types of buildings frustrated me, despite my nice long wall.

Sam 155
Andrew 124
Dirk 88

After this we decided to play Roll Through The Ages – the one game that I actually bought myself. It rarely gets a spell on the table top, but I enjoyed it. Lots of thinking, but not so much that you seize up completely. Luckily I checked the rules as Sam closed out the game with his fifth development, and it confirmed all players were allowed the same amount of goes. In my last roll I netted fourteen points, pushing myself past Sam.

Sam points at dice

Andrew 38
Sam 30

With the sultry evening drawing to a close, we parted with honours even. I would've gone home rejoicing in our joint victory, but I was already there.