Paladins of the West Kingdom

Paladins of the West Kingdom is an intriguing entry in the West Kingdom line: heavier than my beloved Architects, with rather more work taking place behind your small personal board. On first acquaintance it felt a touch dry and, after a while, too predictable; the sort of game that asks for your full attention without immediately earning it.

At its heart it is almost luckless, which makes every choice feel as though it ought to matter. Yet your progress is strongly shaped by the order in which your twelve Paladins appear, so the clean sense of control suggested by the rest of the design is never quite as complete as advertised.

From there, the game builds a gradual career and asks you to find its rhythm through the options in front of you. In a less successful play this can become repetitive, rather like following a route already pencilled in; in a good one, there is more fight in it than the first impression suggests, and the whole thing starts to tighten nicely.

It is not the game I would reach for automatically on a tired evening after work, nor is it as immediately welcoming as Architects. But Paladins rewards repeat visits more than I expected, and my first reservation did not survive very many of them.

Updated session

Later plays changed my view quite plainly: I did not initially think it could unseat Architects, but the best of them made it feel, quite easily, like the strongest game in the trilogy. Perhaps the tomes helped a little, but the table shared the good impression and a further play confirmed it; it is not nearly as dry as I thought.