Board game of 2006 - Alhambra

Last year we were introduced to Alhambra and its various expansions. It quickly replaced the regular Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights, Tigris and Euphrates, and Carcassonne and its variants as our game of choice for 2006. Currently in NZ only the basic game and the first expansion are available in English, with the expansions we use being in German (and requiring the presence of our regular German-speaker game player). The picture on the right is of a game we played with all four expansions simultaneously - great because it was a real brain stretcher trying to work out a winning strategy with so many ways to play and win it.

Alhambra links:

• Queen Games: German creators of Alhambra
• Alhambra - Winner of 2003 Spiel des Jahres: Uberplay - English distributors
• Alhambra at Boardgamegeek
• Alhambra (board game) at Wikipedia

Other games for 2006 which we also enjoyed included the card games Mamma Mia and Coloretto, and the older boys like Oceania.

And for 2007? We’ve started playing Ticket to Ride (Marklin edition) and San Juan, both of which we really enjoyed. And maybe we’ll have a look at Metro.

See also: Greenflame: Carcassonne Extreme