Of Castles and Saraglios

Tonight once again saw the four core members of GNN arrive for their weekly board game fix. We did wonder if it was some personal hygiene problem that was keeping other people away. I thought perhaps the blog posts describing complex battles over intricate games was putting off the casual gamers, and maybe something lighter was needed to bring in the punters. So I was ready to suggest a game of tag and bobbing for apples this evening, but by the time I’d arrived Torres had been chosen as the evening’s opening game.

The rules for this kind-of-3D-draughts (where you build up the board yourself) were described by Sam, and we began. Before long Adam was asking chillingly pertinent questions and I was convinced that he had instantly acquired a deep understanding of the rules. He found himself in an early tussle with Sam, which had the advantage of them giving each other points as they built up their shared castles.

Joe, meanwhile, concentrated on the more affordable end of the castle market, with some dainty little castles that no one bothered to challenge him on. Instead, he got his points from the King’s Bonus (hur hur, he said "boners") which a knight would receive if the King stayed in his castle.

I played a middle road, mostly sneaking some points off Sam and Adam by joining in with their castles. But Sam played the board like a master. Or at least like someone who’d played before and paid attention. He got points from the big castles and for also receiving the King’s Bonus. Final impressions of the game were that Joe thought it was too abstract, and Adam thought it wasn’t abstract enough. We counted up the scores, with Joe’s dog adding sighs of approval/disappointment as we did. The final scores favoured those who’d played before, but only just:


Sam 204
Andrew 177
Adam 175
Joe 168


Next we chose Alhambra since it was still early. Although it’s not often that we begin a game of Alhambra when we’re already tipsy, and thus the game took longer than usual. Sam went for his usual tactic of a long, snaking wall. Adam had a very neat and symmetrical set of tiles, and I sort of bumbled through the game without really paying much attention. I did get lucky with a couple of tiles which helped me connect my wall and score me points, though, so that was nice.

Sam’s concentration was almost ruined by me referencing a Genesis song during one of our many witty exchanges. Since Joe and Adam were keen to hear more about this "worst song ever written", Adam found it on the internet and we had the displeasure of sitting through a live version while we played the game. (You can hear the album version here, but you may hate me afterwards if you do.)

The final scores were added up, and for once Sam’s long wall didn’t get him first place, but only by the slimmest of margins. It was Joe’s balanced play that won the evening. Meanwhile Adam cursed me and Sam for picking up the wrong kind of tiles in the last round, costing him dearly in points. Oh well.

Joe 101
Sam 100
Andrew 87
Adam 85

Not a great night for Adam in the controversial new leaderboard. Perhaps new rules will be brought in for the new year. In the meantime I think my position on the Form Table is as good as it’s going to get, unless I can return to winning ways. Adam drops to a very uncharacteristic fifth.

(JB butts in)
At the end of the evening, Sam and Andrew were so busy discussing the intricacies of the latest form table, they failed to notice Joe using his cardboard-mage skills.

The Form Table...

						Points
Quentin	1	1	1	2	1	6
Andrew	3	2	2	1	1	9
Sam	2	1	3	3	2	11
Joe	1	4	4	2	3	14
Adam	4	3	1	4	3	15
Jonny	3	2	4	5	5	19
Dan	3	1	5	5	5	19
Steve	3	2	5	5	5	20
Andy	2	4	5	5	5	21
Sally	2	5	5	5	5	22