Unfortunately, the non-English rules meant that we couldn't really play it properly. It is very similar to Contract Whist with a couple of extra types of cards, so whenever we were unsure about a rule we always found ourselves using the rules from Whist. In short, we were playing Contract Whist. And, as with Tichu, I am not keen on games which are based on already popular games and, frankly, while playing Whist I've never thought it could be improved with a few giants and dwarves.
We ended when Steve and Anja arrived and split into two groups. Sam, Anja, Steve and Joe went for Lords of Waterdeep, while Adam, Hannah and myself chose Manila. We went into the front room, and reacquainted ourselves with the rules. We also tried to remember where we went wrong last time, and decided that we'd all bid too low for the Harbour Master.
As such, the bidding was fast and furious from the beginning. But the real decisive aspect of the game were Adam's nemeses: dice. They took real delight in leaving his boats becalmed at the harbour mouth, or landing in the lap of a pirate or two. Unless he was the pirate, in which case they'd glide by serenely. In the end, I think that mine and Hannah's successful pirating helped, with Hannah winning with a strategy of hardly ever being the Harbour Master.
Hannah 196
Andrew 175
Adam 121
Maybe we paid too much to be the Harbour Master...
Then we rejoined the other group in time to watch the final round of Lords of Waterdeep. Joe was in a clear lead, and couldn't contain his satisfaction. Sam was in last place, bemoaning his fate of owning another game he liked but was bad at. Steve and Anja fought for second place like tigers (playing a board game).
I'll leave it for them to explain the cries of anguish/victory that we heard through the walls while we played Manila. Meanwhile, the scores were...
Joe 128
Steve 114
Anja 109
Sam 104
Then we decided on a last game with all of us together. We chose 6nimmt as the only one that could accommodate all seven of us, and we began. Although the game almost came to a premature end, as halfway through Steve innocently asked if he was supposed to have just one card left.
No one could work out what had happened, but I'm willing to bet that Joe's bottle of 6%+ ale had affected his dealing. Steve was given enough cards to fill his hand, and we continued. 6nimmt is a hard game to get a hold of. I was constantly undone by people choosing to take the row of cards that I was going to add to. In one go, I simply shuffled my hand and chose a card at random. Didn't do too badly, either. But I guess we all have our sob stories. Adam, though, squeezed into first after two almost clear rounds and an abysmal final round.
Adam 29
Steve 33
Andrew 42
Hannah 43
Anja 50
Joe 55
Sam 62
An excellent evening of high drama concerning quests, intrigue, betting and Pringles. Thanks for hosting, Adam and Hannah.
No change on the Form Table, except for Sam's precipitous drop. Oh well, there's still time to turn that round. Or, failing that, there's always next season.
| Points | ||||||
| Steve | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| Hannah | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| Adam | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 11 |
| Andrew | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 12 |
| Joe | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| Anja | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 18 |
| Quentin | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Jonny | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Paul | 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Sam | 7 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 19 |
| Sally | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
Mmmm, Lords of Waterdeep! My strategy was to just complete as many quests as possible and ignore building anything, but I made a grave error in establishing an early 20pt lead - suddenly I had a mandatory quest in front of me and Steve was stealing my fighters. I swiftly dropped to 4th and never recovered... despite my cries of fury though, I remain very much enamoured of the game and would happily play it next week.
ReplyDeleteJoe went to for buildings and after a couple of rounds of sitting empty they began to pay off, in points, gold, and the odd Cleric. Steve had some Intrigue cards that had the adventurers flocking to his tavern, while Anja and I fought to keep up with them. Joe insisted he'd watched "just one video" about how to play the game, but his web of deceit unravelled and ultimately he confessed that his weekend discussing tactics at the designer's house had paid off. In the end he looked unstoppable.
Then there was 6Nimmt. There's a theory going around medical circles that the appendix does actually perform a role in the body; that of storing beneficial bacteria to aid the body in times of illness. But clearly my post-op form shows that the oft-ejected organ is the home of the gaming gene. Can you get one put in?
If that was true Sam then surely Joe has about 6 appendices (Appendixes?). Anyway "weekend discussing tactics at the designer's house" moves Joe up from hobbiest to whatever the next level is....!
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly we embellished Joe's revision up from the video to the fictional weekend. But only The Knowledge actually preps for games night. I would ridicule him (some more) but actually I'm jealous.
ReplyDeleteIt's not TRUE though Chris!
ReplyDeleteI found myself unable to amass adventurers for the first couple of rounds, so my buildings strategy was a fallback from Caylus days, where it can really pay off in a game of three or more people.
I like the intrigue cards, mandatory quests aside (sorry Sam). There are some interesting opportunistic ones in there, like "each other player has to put back a rogue if they have one. For each that doesn't you get 2 gold". So you're looking for that special moment when no-one has any rogues to play it and rake in some money.
And the ones that force you to offer another player some benefit - Sam had to give someone a rogue, and I was sure it wasn't going to be me, as I was amassing them like crazy to send on a 25pt quest. I said I had more than enough rogues, thankyou, which prompted him to give it to me, ha ha!!
That only worked because I hadn't yet picked up the quest card, and was sure the cards would get flushed before I had a chance to do it, but no-one spotted it, or had better things to do.
I enjoyed it a lot, well of course I did, but would have even if I hadn't won. It's a very neat, satisfying resource management game, and the sort of fantasy theme I can enjoy since it doesn't dominate.
I looked up the rules to Wizard, by the way. The top card turned over is the trump suit for the round, and first card played in each trick is the lead suit, just as in Whist, as Sam and Hannah rightly assumed.
As for the scoring, if you make your bid for tricks, you get 20pts plus 10pts for each trick - if you miss your bid, you simply lose 10pts for each trick you were out. Ouch!
Now that we know the rules I'd like to have another crack at it; I get your point Andrew, that it is simply an already very good card game dressed-up, but I'm intrigued by the added nuances - using Jesters to throw tricks you don't want, and using a played sorcerer to throw another sorcerer that would otherwise guarantee you a trick etc.
A lovely evening, and a great game of 6 Nimmt to round off; thanks Adam and Hannah for excellent hosting!
This is the video I watched, see if you're still jealous Sam . . .
ReplyDeleteI don't normally come that prepared, but I do hate learning a game on the fly - I never really enjoy games where I'm struggling to fit it all together in my head whilst playing, though given that LoW is very close to Caylus in mechanics I would probably have picked it up no problem.
Having watched the video I find my inner thought processes discombobulated... He looks and sounds like he should be in the Fast Show, but then again he is explaining the game quite well. And the fact I put those two observations in that order shows how far I've been led astray. Stay on the path, gamers! Don't look at the beardy man!
ReplyDelete