So, we checked out El Grande last week. I was coming into it with kind of cold feet because of the amount of shilling it receives from certain types, but, after playing it, I will say it's an obviously good game.

The action selection mechanism is great, the turn order determination is great, and it does what it says on the tin - area majority baby. I was a bit afraid that it being simply about area majority with no combat mechanics would turn off my group, but it didn't happen, which was a welcome surprise.

The way the actual game turned out was a bit weird. I started off leading the game due to a couple of scoring actions with me in 1st place, and another guy was right on my ass the whole game through by placing a couple of cabrons everywhere and scoring consistently. Starting from the 7th round though, a third guy started galloping from behind and ultimately won. I'm not exactly sure how that happened though. His meeple placement seemed bad throughout the game as he always had a mass of pendejos in a couple of highly contested places, so he wasn't scoring many territories or even the castillo. Part of it was due to another guy making a completely egregious turn and giving guy 3 a bunch of free points, but as we counted up the points after, it seemed like he would've won anyway. Is it all just down to upgrading the scoring tile and moving the king to the spot with your grande? Is it down to the luck of which scoring actions become available when? Hopefully not.

So, bit weird and bit swingy, but not enough experience to get a good feel for it as we only played it once. I definitely see it being pulled out another time we get 5 people together though. Thanks for the recommendation.