Wednesday 6 April 2016

The lesser spotted Martin

With the usual bloggers unable to make the regular Tuesday games it seemed to fall to me (Ian) to write something and keep track of scores. So here it is; if this entry seems a bit more shambolic than usual, that is why,

Katy, Andy and I arrived at Hannah and Adam's at 7.30, and after the usual discussion about what we to play we decided to start with Celestia. Adam said he hadn't played it before, so Andy explained the simple rules and we prepared to sail off into the sky.
But then there was a knocking at the door, and it was Martin! With a tiny human strapped to his chest, making this baby Effie's first appearance at gamesnight. Martin remarked that somebody had given her first boardgame already.
It was a fairly standard game of Celestia; including a few rounds where our intrepid Captain was defeated by a single chicken. The scores ended up thus:

Adam 61
Ian 55
Katy + Marting 48
Andy 35
Hannah 32



Whilst Martin pondered if he could stay for another game, Effie started to awake, effectively making the decision for him. After bidding her and Martin adieu, we settled on a game of Fauna. Katy remarked that Hannah always wins Fauna, and after a couple of rounds this seemed a likely outcome.
With that in mind, the general strategy seemed to be "see where Hannah plays, then try and go adjacent". One round featured the yellow-spotted rock hyrax, which saw people expend cubes making estimated guesses at it's location; the Rocky Mountains, The Tibetan Plateau and Australia were all chosen, the later possibly because the yellow-spotted rock hyrax's Latin name is the Heterohyrax brucei.

Only when we had depleted our cubes did Hannah start placing her location cubes in the otherwise untouched Eastern Africa locations. She was correct, of course, and as predicted, Hannah won easily:

Hannah 116
Katy 76
Adam and Andy 57
Ian 40


Looking for some quicker games, we settled on Why First? I do enjoy this game, but it's rather silly. Adam took an early lead with 6 points, and Andy and I followed with 1 point each. As you have to come second to win, that meant that Andy and I were winning. But then Katy scored 3 points, putting her in the winning second position going into the final round.
The final score was this:

Ian and Adam 6 points
Katy 3 points
Andy 1 point
Hannah 0 points


But as the points in Why First? don't equate to winning, the final result comes out as this:

1st. Katy 
2nd. Andy  (closest to the winning score)
Joint 3rd. Ian, Adam + Hannah (all equally far away from the winning score)


Still having time for another game, we turned to No Thanks. I have to admit I can't remember much about the game; it was enjoyable as ever but specific details elude me. Coincidentally, I accepted Katy's offer of gin around this time.

I did note down the scores, however:

Katy 31
Andy 41
Hannah 46
Adam 43
Ian 48

After  No Thanks, Katy departed to get the last train home and Hannah retired to bed, leaving me, Adam and Andy to play a quick game of Raj. As with No Thanks, I'm afraid I can't remember the finer details, other than me and Andy picking the same card three  times in a row.
The end result came out as:

Andy 49
Adam 41
Ian 36

Thanks to Adam and Hannah for hosting and thanks to everyone else. I hope this report wasn't too painful to read; hopefully service will be back to normal next week!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing the blog, Ian. It's a shame I missed everything (especially Effie) but I didn't want to risk spreading my germs around. Well done to Hannah for her excellent Fauna tactics.

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  2. Delightful report Ian. No pain whatsoever; quite the opposite!

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  3. You didn't miss much, Effie stayed firmly asleep and tucked away inside her sling. Nice to see a few of you and play a rare game :)

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