Perfidious Albion

In this hastily arranged tête à tête à tête, Sam hosted Ian and I for a little games night. I arrived, for once sans rucksack, since Sam had offered yo buy me beer as a thanks for me recently looking after his son one morning.

I suggested Concordia and since no one else had any objections, it was brought to the table.

We played on the British map, and before long we were all experiencing that familiar feeling of never having enough time to do what you want. Ian said he had no real plan, and was just doing whatever seemed right at the time. Sam went for the meeple multiplier, and I sort of went after the bonus for different types of city.

No one was hugely confident of the win but surprisingly it went to the most pessimistic player, Ian.

Ian 99
Andrew 91
Sam 90

After this we got down good old 7 Wonders. This old reliable never lets us down. Every game is different. This time Sam was resource-rich while Ian and I went for a more streamlined approach. The consequence of this was that at the end of the game he scored a whopping 14 points for money. Ian and I could not keep up after that.

Sam 58
Andrew 48
Ian 46

Next up, Sam suggested Small Print or Fair Play or whatever name it'll finally have. Keen to try it with three players, Sam started explaining the rules to Ian before realising the problem he and I had found when we played it (a lack of reward for anyone playing honestly) would be even worse with three. In a surprisingly accurate re-enactment of the opening scene of our sitcom pilot, Sam started putting it away, saying “It's not ready.”

So instead we went for another old familiar: Love Letter and whiskey. Ian won the first two rounds and shot into an early lead. Mind you, the second win was mostly due to Sam being away from the table making toast. As such, he was unaware the Ian had seen my card. I swapped with Sam who then picked up a new card and looked at his hand without knowing what his original card was. When he played a different card to eliminate me, it was child's play for Ian to pick him off with a guard.

Perhaps it was harsh for him to lose while he was making us food, but as the old gaming adage goes: He who leaves Love Letter loses logic and lies last.

But Sam wasn't down for long. He and I got the score back to 2-1-1, but then Sam won two in a row to wrap up the game.

Sam 3
Ian 2
Andrew 1

Finally, as we left, Sam offered us some cereal that he received for free and had stacked high in his hallway. Ian took a few. I'm not big on cereal, but I might have taken a couple if only I had my rucksack with me. Oh well. What you gain in alcohol you lose on the breakfast table, I suppose.