I've tried two lanterns for this type of purpose.
The bigger of the two is the River Rock 4AA 1xJupiter Led. Nice output and solidly built. Using NiMh batts we got at least a couple of nights use out of it (4-5 hrs a night appx). The light was bright enough to illuminate a fairly large area but one drawback was that it only shines out horizontally, and to illuminate a dinner table for food or cards etc., we would angle it or place it on the table, which, as it's quite bright, monkeys around with your night vision (The light is quite blue and harsh - I would think tissue used as a diffuser would improve things overall). But this in no way means this lantern is useless.
Recently we purchased a Gerber Bonfire ( 2AA, 2 x white, 1 x red leds). This is smaller than the RR but actually more useful. It shines a diffuse soft light downwards so is ideal to hang up and illuminate your meal,scrabble,hold'em,boggle,collection of torches etc.,though not as bright as the RR, it has more than enough light for most tasks. We got not quite as much output from it, in fact a little over half as much as the RR depending which mode you were in (White has shorter runtime than red!), but as it uses half the amount of batts, why worry! It's not as sturdy and the switch is annoying, but it is very cheap and so far hasn't let us down.
Incidentally, Peak AAA or ARC AAA lights on short lanyards hung inside coloured beer bottles (Empty!!!) are way cool and cosy too!
We like lights in the dark...
Be lucky...
