Wednesday 15 July 2015

Blocked and Bound

This week’s regular board-brawl featured a new face: Hollie. Visiting Bristol for a short period, this was her chance to experience for herself what she’d only seen in fictionalised form since she was one of the crew in the sitcom pilot we made last year.

Apart from Hollie, we were Adam (host), Martin, Sam, Andy, Katy, Ian and myself. We began with a nice game involving all of us: 6nimmt! If, that is, 6nimmt can ever be called “nice”. We were using Adam’s Living Dead pack, which brought a little sneering from the purists. But at least, thematically, it’s quite apt because I noticed that during the game we were saying things that could easily be dialogue from a zombie film: “This is horrendous,” “We’re screwed,” etc.


It was close, with me in the lead until the final round. Martin and Katy both posted what they thought were their worst ever rounds (42 and 35 respectively). But most of all, at least you can’t say we make special efforts to be nice to the newcomers.

Andy 19
Adam 20
Andrew 22
Sam 39
Ian 50
Katy 62
Martin 65
Hollie 79

Next up was a game designed by a friend of Martin’s. In this, you draw a card which has an instruction (eg, right palm face down, or always touching nose) that you must obey. During the game, you pick up more cards and end up looking increasingly stupid. Cards against physicality, you could say.


Sam was out first but, ironically, seemed to be the one having most fun. Martin managed to successfully fulfil the wishes of nine cards before he failed. Well done him.

Martin
Hollie
Adam
= Andrew, Katy, Andy
Ian
Sam

Next up we played A Fake Artist goes to New York. We only played one round and Adam cleverly evaded detection by simply copying other player’s drawings of feet. Katy fooled everyone by saying "What is this supposed to be?" and she got most votes as the fake artist, if that means anything.

Then we spilt into two groups of four. Hollie had mentioned to Sam earlier that day a fondness for Dungeons and Dragons, so Sam put two and two together and got Lords of Waterdeep, the D&D themed Eurogame. Andy, Adam, Martin and I went for Blockers.

Unlike LoW and its evocative quest names and locales, Blockers does not lend itself to exciting descriptions. Halfway through, Sam came in to see why we were all so quiet (and also to complain that everyone was stealing his rouges). Meanwhile Martin tried to liven things up by saying “Blockers!” in a singsong voice whenever someone player their Blockers tile. In the end, I did best.


Andrew 4
Martin 5
Adam 6
Andy 7

As for Lords of Waterdeep, Sam lack of rogues undid him while Hollie must;ve felt right at home as she took the win on her debut game.


Hollie 122
Ian 114
Katy 106
Sam 105

Meanwhile, we’d started on Hogger Logger, a game where you simply have to guess whether the next card will be higher or lower than the showing card. Except that the other players are trying to put you off by changing the card (you can change your guess too) or executing actions to try and make things harder.


Adam had no luck, and in his two guesses he had what looked like a safe bet, only to be undone by some unlikely cards. Martin managed to win while I was in the toilet. Martin played a card that made everyone pass their cards (or, in this case, lack of cards) to the left, so he got my card and was the only player with a card. Since no one could stop him, he was able to make a bet on the final card and he was correct. Two victories is enough to win.

Martin 2
Andrew 1
Andy and Adam 0

Then Adam got out Carcassonne. Now, this is a game that I’ve happily been avoiding for the past five years but who can resist Adam’s homemade version. Especially now the fimo meeples are starting to fall to pieces. Well, I sort of pottered about a bit and didn’t do much, while the more experienced players shot off into the lead.

Martin 108
Adam 104
Andy 96
Andrew 56

In the next room, they finished off with Pickomino.

Sam 8 + most tiles
Hollie 8
Ian 3
Katy 2

So, farewell then, Hollie. Will we see her again? Who can say? But she has left us a marker to match on points ratio.


7 comments:

  1. Blockers!!
    Didn't bust out Baseball Highlights, Martin? I'm keen to give that a whirl :)
    Not so sorry to have missed Carc, even if it was Adam's lovely homebrew version. Oh it's okay I guess...

    Sorry to have missed it all, sounds like a fun night.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I brought Baseball Highlights along but didn't get a bite. Played it solo tonight though, and it's really fun that way too!

    You guys are too harsh on Carc. It was the game that started this whole crazy thing for me and that's got to be worth something!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nobody stole my rouges Andrew, they are safely ensconced at home.

    I'd like to blame explainers curse for my performance at Lords but the fact is - rouges/rogues aside - I never really got any kind of engine going. Hollie on the other hand seemed to have twice as many goes as everyone else, courtesy of some serial Intriguing and a Lieutenant. A Fake Artist In New York was fun, but I'm not sure the game is better than the name of the game...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I did enjoy Lords of Waterdeep, it's been a while since I last played it so it was nice to see it again. We did pretty well keeping it thematic, only occasionally slipping into "black cube / white cube" speak.

    I'd like to give A Fake Artist... another go. In a Bind is silly, but certainly amusing. I enjoyed it, but I might have enjoyed it even more if I had imbibed another beer or two before playing. I can't help but think Sam was the real winner in that game.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes me too. REVERSE THE POSITIONS. Andrew Adam's points ratio looks higher to me but I guess that's a typo?

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We played the King & Scout expansion wrong in our game of Carcassonne - the tiles go to the player who completes the longest road or biggest city, and not (necessarily) to the person who gets the points for that road/city.

    (Deleted previous (identical) comment in an attempt to subscribe to this thread.)

    ReplyDelete