Wednesday 19 August 2015

Seven Lords a-leaping

This week’s Tuesday happened at Sam’s house. Of course, it happened in lots of other places, too, but the most important bit happened at Sam’s

We began as a quintet: the host, Sam and then Martin, Katy, Andy and myself. While we waited for the final two of the group to arrive, we played Abluxxen. Katy said she’d hated the game the last time she played it, but she decided now that her work-life balance was better than it was back then, she was willing to give it another go.


Katy did enjoy it more this time, but that could be because (a) we only played one round, and (b) she came second. I couldn’t get my five threes down on the table without them being abluxxed back into my hand, and Sam started the game with seven out of his initial thirteen cards as singles.

Martin 12
Katy 9
Sam 8
Andrew 7
Andy 2

Then Sam’s family came back from wherever they’d been and Ian arrived. Stanley wanted to play a game, and so Midnight Party was brought to the table. Andy had to make a call, so the five of us circled around this oh-so-familiar corridor before dashing into doors in a sort of tabletop version of Musical Chairs. Notable events were four Hugos in a row, wiping out half the board and also Katy’s full lap that she had to do with Hugo chasing her after she carelessly wandered past the final empty room. And she did all this without swearing.

Ian 17
Andrew 28
Martin 38
Stanley 40
Katy 53

After this, we split into two. Joe was now in attendance with his usual touting of Lords Of Vegas. Sam suggested Lords of Waterdeep as an alternative, and when Andy said he hadn’t played either, he was recruited to Waterdeep, complete with the Skullport expansion. The left the almost impossible task of Martin and Katy playing a quiet game of Lords of Vegas together, with Ian and Joe making up the quartet.

In the front room, rules were explained and before long we were off, recruiting and questing and picking up skulls (minus points) for choosing the most powerful actions. Or, as Sam put it, “going dirty”.


Despite it being Andy’s first go, he took to it very quickly, and we all stuck together pretty close as we went around the scoretrack. Andy, however, cursed his indecision when he didn’t pick up a quest in the seventh round, thinking he couldn’t complete it, only to realise that he could’ve done after all.

My best move was probably taking a 40-point quest, with no intention of completing it, just so the others couldn’t get it. Sam collected and then returned skulls. He was disappointed that he had the plot quests that involved owning buildings, but he never built any buildings. “The complete opposite of building an engine” he said, and we all chuckled, fluent in gaming terminology.

Andy 158
Andrew 140
Sam 138

Meanwhile, in Vegas the big winner was Ian who must have done something good in a previous life as two mega-casinos dropped into his lap when another player rolled a bunch of dice to gain ownership of them. Add to this that each time Joe sprawled into a vacant lot, its real owner turned up later to claim it, and it must have been a typically cruel game.


Ian 44
Katy 23 (plus cash)
Joe 23
Martin 16

Then, while we were finishing off Lords of Waterdeep, they squeezed in a quick game of Imperium, one of the games from the Knizia compendium. I didn’t really get it, but Joe understood it well enough to win the final two big-scoring rounds and end the game in a comfortable first.


Joe 26
Martin 20
Katy 16
Ian 15

At this point Katy and I bowed out, leaving the remaining five to bang out a couple of games of Pairs.

Ian 22
Sam 21
Joe 10
Andy 8
Martin 4

Andy 24
Joe 20
Ian 18
Martin 11
Sam 7

On the Division, Martin ends my bafflingly long stay at the top, and Sam loses his points ratio lead to Adam.

6 comments:

  1. I urged Joe to push the endgame trigger card a little higher in Lords of Vegas as it can outstay its welcome, and then ended up cursing it when it came out on my turn. How Ian managed to hang on to the huge casino with 4 of my dice in it I just do not know! Excellent fun as ever.

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  2. Replies
    1. The triple-post was a mistake? I thought you were just really excited :)

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  3. Lords of Vegas!
    Now I wish I'd counted how many cards were under the game over card - anyone remember? Can't have been much over ten, which would be the norm.
    Couldn't believe all three of my sprawls getting tooken over. Bah!

    I liked Imperium too - clever doctor...

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  4. I think the answer to 'how many cards were under the game over card' is 'all of the fucking brown ones' :)

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  5. That was a great game of Lords of Vegas. I really was a lucky sod.

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