Wednesday 29 November 2017

Play it again (and again at) Sam(’s)

Under a chilly cloudless Bristol sky, six gamers braved the weather to congregate at Sam's house for the week's regular gaming meet.

We started as a group of five (Sam, Joe, Ian, Matt and me) so we whiled away the minutes until Martin arrived with a quick game of Cartegena. This is a simple game of maximising your inadequately small hand of cards to get your band of pirates out of jail and into a boat.


It soon became apparent that positional play was everything. Knowing when to shoot ahead and when to fall back is key, and Sam had a better idea of when than the rest of us.


Sam: all 6 pirates escape
Joe 4
Ian 2
Andrew 2
Matt.0

Martin had arrived mid-game and once we were done guiding pirates down tunnels, we split into two groups of three. Ian, Sam and Martin chose The Quest For Eldorado, a Knizia game of racing through various types of terrain.

I didn't really follow it, since I was busy learning the rules to Azul, another new game. In this game, players take turns picking up tiles to fill their five by five grid. But in order to get a tile onto the grid, you have to fill up a row (of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 tiles) with all the same colour. If you pick up tiles that won't go on a row, they count against you as negative points.

It had, for me, just the right amount of analysis paralysis. Thoughtful but not an ordeal. In the first game Joe, the only one who'd played before, won with a strong final round.


Joe 82
Andrew 52
Matt 44

The Quest For Eldorado was still being quested. I remember, in the early stages, seeing Ian firmly in last, apparently distracted by every cave he went past.

But I was soon consumed by a second game of Azul. This game was far more combative. At least, that's how it felt to me. Matt, though, seemed to have spent the first game learning, since he scored well in end-of-game bonuses and pushed Joe into second place.

Matt 97
Joe 88
Andrew 60

The Quest For Eldorado had ended long before we had, and Ian's early obsession with caves was paying dividends, as he was now in a strong first place. Sam appeared to have stalled mid-game while Martin ran Ian a respectable, but very definite, second place.


Ian
Martin
Sam

In the interim, while they waited for our second game of Azul to end, they played three rousing games of Eggs Of Ostrich. Each one remarkable for the cries of anguish from Martin, unable to predict his opponents wily ways.

Game one ended...

Sam 17
Martin 8
Ian 6

Followed by...

Ian 8
Sam 7
Martin 5


And finally...

Sam 7
Ian 3
Martin 3

And so, with the rueful observation that they had become worse at the game the more they played, all six of us were together again.

However, there was no appetite for a big six player. Instead, we simply swapped ends of the table, with the Eldorado Questers taking up the Azul challenge. Me, Joe and Matt decided to play Ra as our approximately Azul-length game.

Matt, though, merely continued as he had during Azul. He had a poor first round that gave me a glimmer of hope, but while I built up my Nile and Joe went for buildings and civilizations, Matt played for buildings, pharaohs and got the sun tile bonus.

Matt 56
Joe 40
Andrew 34

Their game of Azul had ended


Ian 56
Martin 54
Sam 40

They even had enough time to squeeze in a little NMBR9. Martin's quote "Once you get a hole, you're fucked" proved to be an accurate assessment of his situation.

Sam 90
Martin 56
Ian 47

And so ended the evening for most. Joe was offering lifts to the Eastonites, so they sped off and I was happy to call it a night at 10.40.

But Sam and Matt had one more game inside them. I got a text from Sam as I was getting ready for bed, telling me that Matt had beaten him at Tokyo Highway “by a car.” I’ve no idea what that means, but I hope to try it on Friday.


Until then, it’s good night from me, and it’s good night from them.

Wednesday 22 November 2017

From Milk Production to the Milky Way

Tonight Chris joined me for another bash at two-player Clans of Caledonia. Ian was going to join us, but with a big move coming up at the weekend, he had things on his mind other than cheese, bread and whisky. Well, maybe not whisky.

Before we could play Clans though, Stanley joined us for a bash at the lesser-spotted King of Tokyo. I realised we'd been playing a rule wrong - quelle surprise - but not a major one, fortunately, and long enough ago that Stan didn't think to tease me about it. Chris went on the attack, establishing himself in Tokyo and refusing to be budged, right up until the moment I killed him. One down, another to go.


Unfortunately the other in question was me, as Stanley kept poisoning me until I too expired. As ever, Stanley's comeuppance for this cheek was to be packed off to bed.

King of Tokyo: Stan

On to Clans. We'd played it a couple of weeks back so the rules were still fresh for Chris. He played as the Clan Who Build Next To Lakes, and I was the Clan Who Angle. We checked what the ports did and what the scoring was for each round, and we were off!


An hour and a bit later we were done. Despite Chris's late surge on importing sugar cane, my extra exports and proliferated settlements meant I claimed the win.

Chief of the Highlands: Sam

I have glossed over the rest to reach the high drama of the evening, which was the also lesser-spotted Cosmic Run, which after a flurry of plays on arrival has sat underneath Knitwit for the best part of a year.

I began well, conquering the cheapest planet as Chris ate my dust. But as well as hoovering up my dust, he was also hoovering up points in the form of alien cards and those other things that score points, whatever they are. Mining chits?

And suddenly Chris was surging up the planet tracks too. Four times I exhausted all my dice trying to chase him and ended up achieving nothing. The only time I managed to roll four of a kind was when I had ludicrously gone after the five-of-a-kind planet. In the end, it was a utter whitewash with Chris in the high eighties and me barely breaking 40 points.

Overlord of the Galaxy: Chris


And with a win each for the participants, the lesser-spotted Wednesday Night games also came to an end. Thanks Chris and Stan!

Feeling Gravity's Pull

What happened to tonight? Were the planets out of alignment? So many minor things went wrong. For example, Tuesday night was at Joe's this week but, in total auto pilot, I was halfway to Sam's before I remembered. Then there were the many occasions of people dropping bits of games (hence the blog title), and now I come to write this up, I cannot find the piece of paper I wrote the results on! It’s all down to my memory today. Sorry about the lack of numbers.

Luckily, despite my detour, I wasn't late and I arrived after Sam and Katy but before Martin and Ian. We began as a six, with a game of Stroop - a quick fire Dobble/Snap style game where the cards have words on them, possessing certain qualities like colour, size, solidity. The aim of the game is to get rid of all your cards by quickly putting them face up on a pile in the middle, but only if they obey certain rules such as the meaning of the word on the card must describe a characteristic of the previous card. Or not.

Six. Blue. Small. Hollow. Oh, and three letters.

So we played. Well, at first we watched Martin play as he put down one card after another. By round two some of us had roused ourselves enough to clear our draw piles too. I was quite pleased with my third place until I realised that Sam and Joe had stopped playing, and Ian hadn't started at all.

Martin
Katy
Andrew
Sam, Joe and Ian retired, unimpressed.

Next, Katy angled for a game of Yokohama, reasoning that if we left it much longer, we'd have to learn the rules from scratch again. And nobody wants that. Joe and I joined her, leaving the other half of the table to play something "more fun".

They played Sagrada, a game that Sam compared favourably to Roll Player in it's dice-based puzzling qualities. The dice, of which there are ninety, were new and shiny and - judging by the number of times they were dropped on the floor - apparently frictionless.


Meanwhile, we set up Yokohama as swiftly and efficiently as possible, with Joe scattering the game money across the table in his haste. We were underway before too long. But any fresh memory of the game had not helped Katy. In fact, maybe it hindered her, as the sharp pain of a recent defeat lead her into analysis paralysis in the opening few rounds. One of her turns was long enough that I was able to  get up and help in a search for scattered dice on Joe's kitchen floor.

As the game progressed, the moves quickened, and we were heading up the score track, quicksticks. We all took turns in last place, but found myself drifting further behind as the game went on.


The other three played Capital Lux, which I've seen played before, but it's a game that doesn't make much sense from a distance. Ian seemed to know what was going on, though.

Ian won, somewhere in the eighties I think.
Sam and Martin trailed in the sixties. Could be more. Could be less.

At this point, we told them we had another hour before we finished, so they played Flamme Rogue. I was absorbed in Yokohama by now, so I missed a lot of the race. In fact, I had to text Sam just now to find out who won.

Flamme Rogue in the background

Sam won
Martin a close second
Not sure if Ian crossed the line.

Suddenly, Joe ended the game by putting the fifth assistant in the Customs House. Both Katy and I had not expected that, and we suddenly had one turn to maximise whatever resources we had left.

Katy did not have a great final turn, but her lead at that time was enough to keep hold of first place.

Katy 120ish
Joe 110? Maybe?
I was stuck in the nineties. Story of my life.

Since Yokohama and Flamme Rogue had ended more or less simultaneously, we ended the evening as a six. Martin suggested another new game House of the Borgias, which we said in a broad New York accent because that meant “Borgia” sounded a bit like the surname of our genial host Joe. How funny we are.

The theme is that the Pope is dead, and we each have a cardinal that we’d like to succeed him. We have to sneakily get influence counters on our cardinal without anyone guessing who we’re supporting.



The game itself is Perudo, but instead of simply surviving if your guess is not challenged, you get to carry out an action. The action depends on the suit of dice that you chose. It was quite tense and I found it a lot of fun. Trying to judge a guess that sounded plausible that you’d get to do an action, but quickly became implausible as the bet ramped up, so almost no one else got an action, was pretty difficult.

I had a lot of fun, but I have no idea who won. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.

If any of you can help, pop it in the comments.

Update long after anyone has stopped caring...

I have found the piece of paper I wrote the scores on. And they were:

Sagrada
Martin 57
Sam 37
Ian 32

Capital Lux
Ian 82
Martin 70
Sam 65

Flamme Rogue
Sam 1st
Martin 2nd
Ian 3rd


Yokohama
Katy 128
Joe 116
Andrew 106

(so I did go past 100. I’d completely forgotten.)

House of Borgia

(or “Seven Bribes for Seven Brothers” as we quickly dubbed it)

Ian 19
Martin 16
Sam 15
Andrew 11
I think Katy and Joe were both found out.

Wednesday 15 November 2017

Get Cartel!

Barely 48 hours after the Games Weekend, three hardy gamers, Sam, Ian and me, met for the regular weekly session along with non-weekender Martin.

I arrived a little late, and found them deep in a game of Funf Gurken, another example of Martin's beloved trick-taking genre. And the trick to this game is that you don't want to win the last trick, because if you do, you'll pick up gherkins. Get five, and you're out.

I was dealt into the second hand with Sam already looking perilously close to going out. And so it was, with Ian then myself. Martin won, without picking up a single gherkin.


Martin
Andrew
Ian
Sam

Next to the table was Ethnos, a game that fits the rare sweet spot between deep/strategic and swift/short. At the start of the game when choosing the races, we deliberately discarded any that we were too familiar with, and Ian made a special request for no halflings. And so, we did battle with mermaids, giants, minotaurs, etc across a map that Martin reliably informed us was based on Slovakia.


I started very slowly. In fact, I barely scored at all in round one. "It's very close," said Martin, clearly referring to the three-way battle for first in the mid thirties, and not me on six points.

And it stayed close until the end. Martin, Ian and Sam all battled to the end, with Sam just scraping a win.

Sam 120
Martin 118
Ian 104
Andrew 77

After this, we chose another new game. Star Cartel, with a neon font on the box that suggested tatty eighties nightclubs, not intergalactic trade. But that's beside the point. The game involves picking up various goods and putting them in your ship, a bit like Medici.When your ship is full, you have to make a delivery. The item you have most of goes up in value. The item you have least of goes down, but you don't keep either: you keep one of the items in the middle.


It was a lot of fun, although maybe I didn't quite get the hang of it. Ian, though, almost pulled off a Derren Brown-esque piece of misdirection. When it came to count up, he revealed one red item after another and no one had noticed him take them. Almost a tactical masterstroke.

Martin 94
Ian 93
Sam 69
Andrew 59

There had been talk of Polterfass, but Martin had yet another new game to set before us. And it's a Knizia! It was Voodoo Prince, another trick taking game. This time, the theme was once you'd won three tricks, you were finished for that round. Your score was the total of all tricks won by everyone else. But, if you are the last one in after everyone else is out, you only score your own tricks. In other words, you have to judge it so you go out third.


There are a couple of other rules to liven things up a bit, but it's pretty simple. But devilish, as you'd expect from a Knizia. Ian took an early lead, and then Sam was first in the fourth round out of five. It looked hopeless but in the final round I was out third (for eight points), while Sam was last man standing (for two). This pushed me from second into first.

Andrew 26
Sam 24
Ian 21
Martin 21

Maybe it was half past ten by now, but none of us showed any signs of slowing down. The aforementioned Polterfass was brought out and we played a remarkably even game. No one crashed out early with hopeless bets and no one stormed into an early lead on blind luck. By round six, the score was 32, 33, 35, 37. It could barely be closer.


But then Martin got hit by an unfulfilled order and fell away, so in the latter stages it was a three way race. In the end, Sam won when he bet just enough to hit 75, while I bet low and Martin unfortunately (for me) didn't bet high and go bust, giving me lots of points.

Sam 76
Andrew 70
Ian 52
Martin 29

It was now 11.30 and time to call it a night. But what a night. Four corking games for four cracking guys. If I had been apprehensive about gaming so soon after a weekend, my doubts were firmly dispelled. Thanks all. It was special.

Sunday 12 November 2017

We’ll always have Powys

GNN games weekends are the semi-regular binge of board games that allow us to experience things that simply wouldn't happen during a typical evening session. Such as a hungover Ian trying to sleep in a nook by a window while all around him is chaos, or Katy swearing loudly at noon or my attempt at playing a dense, convoluted eurogame while also making pizzas.

It all began on Friday. I got a lift there with Sam and Stanley. We off at four o'clock, and the journey was pretty straightforward, taking about an hour. No such luck for Joe and Katy who had left Bristol at one, but managed to get lost three times, meaning it took them three hours. "We were so lost, we found a games shop in Monmouth," explained Joe.

Either way, when we arrived at Crickhowell (in Powys), Joe Katy, Hannah, Adam and Arthur were already there. And, far from chucking our stuff into rooms and getting straight down to some serious gaming, we stood around and chatted, apparently oblivious to the neat stacks of games in the corner of the room.


The earliest sign of our competitive spirit was a brief spell on the table tennis table while Joe and Katy cooked. After a delicious meal, we finally started gaming with Bandu. Stanley impressed us with his withering look since Katy made no allowances for his young age, handing him some terrible pieces.

Adam
Joe
Sam
Stanley /Andrew
Katy

This was followed by Hannah beating Joe and Katy (77, 71, 68 respectively) at Isles of Skye, and Sam beating Stanley, me and Adam (130, 128, 112, 107) at Ethnos, with its irritating base-60 score track.

Ethnos

During these games, Steve and Jon arrived (Jon, without Power Grid! For shame) and kids were put to bed. There were a couple of games of Happy Salmon, an action game that involves drawing cards and then trying to find someone else around the table who has the same action, while everyone else is doing the same. It looks absurd, and the silent version doubly so, but it seemed popular throughout the weekend.

At first, we split into two groups of four, for Ticket To Ride and Clans Of Caledonia on offer. Then Jon made the switch across the table to TtR, leaving Clans as a three-player affair.

This was possibly a wise move, since even as a three-player (two of whom were novices) Clans of Caledonia lasted a long time. Long after Ticket to Ride ended, and they were deep into Tumblin’ Dice.

Ticket To Ride
Hannah 176
Jon 164
Joe 138
Katy 113
Steve 92


Tumblin’ Dice
Jon 138
Joe 112
Katy 102
Steve 39


Two remarkable an inexplicable defeats for Steve, who only escaped negative points in Tumblin’ Dice in the final round.

Clans of Caledonia was a struggle for me, and I probed the various options with all the timidity of a man pushing a button in a wall, convinced it would open a trapdoor under his feet. Adam, despite yawning through most of the rules explanation, had a much better idea about what was going on.


Adam 136
Sam 127
Andrew 89

By now it was late, and travel-weary and somewhat tipsy, we all got together for a game of Dead Man’s Chest, the game where explaining the rules is never quite enough. Steve and Jon were newbies, and they seemed as baffled as we once were. And sometimes still are.

As for the game, it had three Dead Man rolls (i.e., a one and two). One of which cost me a life on the very first roll of the game. Then the next two both hit Joe, one of which he opened by accident (“Oh. I looked.”). Sam finished in first, with both lives still intact.

Sam
Joe
Katy
Jon
Steve
Andrew

That was that for day one. On Saturday morning, people arose in the following order: Hannah, Stanley and Arthur at 7.30 (probably earlier), then me, Jon, Joe, Sam, Katy, Steve and then a big gap before Adam finally emerged at 9.45. The first game to be played, after all the various breakfasts, didn’t get going until 10.25, and it was Junk Art.


Steve 16
Adam 13
Joe 9
Katy 7

Meanwhile, Jon introduced me to Patchwork and won 15-2, but I was impressed by the game. Ian was collected from the station by Sam and they played a tight game of Heck Meck with Ian winning 13-12.


Next up was a true challenge: A Feast For Odin. Adam, Stanley, Ian and I all set off on this epic undertaking. Adam, though, had a trick up his sleeves: the rules. He’d watched a review or two and noticed that no one else builds up from the corner as we do, and he discovered that that rule only applied to calculating the income. Everything else was a free-for-all.

I had suggested playing a six-round game, but Adam quickly insisted on a seven-round one. I didn’t think anything about this at the time but looking back I remember that, although Adam had populated two islands, his main player board had almost no minus points covered during round six. Without that seventh round, things could’ve been very different. But we did have a seventh round, so things were all too familiar.

I went for animals, Stanley went pillaging and Ian started slow before suddenly filling his board with blue tiles.

Adam 111
Stanley 86
Ian 72
Andrew 65

In the kitchenette area, a game of Downforce was played, with the general consensus that the two-car strategy was a non-starter, with the eight-wheeled Jon and Steve trailing.


Sam 27
Joe 14
Steve 11
Jon 7

Steve was keen to get back on this horse, as it were, and another (five player) game of Downforce was set up. Again, Steve ended up with two cars, although I don’t think he had planned it that way. The race ended with both of his cars still on the track, racing each other for fifth place, until Steve ran out of cards and they both ended with a DNF.


Katy 24
Jon 20
Ian 18
Andrew 17
Steve 6

At this time, a game of Flipships was underway with Hannah, Joe, Stanley and Sam trying to keep the invading aliens at bay. My notes for this game read simply “Earth died.”

Meanwhile, Steve taught Katy and Jon the card game Tenbo. Possibly because he likes it or possibly because he wanted a game he knew he’d do well in.

Steve 21
Katy 15
Jon 13

Then, if last night’s Clans of Caledonia weren’t enough of a warning, I allowed myself to be recruited to another long game beginning with a hefty rules explanation: Yokohama. Even though I’d played it before and had some idea of what it entailed, I needed a rule refresher as much as the two beginners: Steve and Jon. Joe was the rules-explainer, but even he’d forgotten a great deal, and the rule book was never far from hand.

Yokohama

During Yokohama, Ian, Katy and Hannah comfortably played two medium sized games: Mad King Ludwig (Ian 95, Katy 89, Hannah 63) and Hit Z Road (Ian and Katy both survived – I don’t recall who won – but Hannah died early on).


Also Sam and Stanley played Near and Far. According to my notes, it was a draw.

As for me, I had to start making pizzas while still playing Yokohama. This made things difficult, not least because the layout of the kitchen meant a lot of walking back and forth, and I had to keep washing my hands before making my move.

My efforts at making pizza outlasted the game, and lead to a largely game-free period as people got their food one after the other. The scores for Yokohama were:

Jon 116
Steve 111
Joe 78
Andrew 60

The last of the food was being served (and thanks to Joe for knocking together some burritos to make up the shortfall in my pizzas) at nine o’clock and some restless gamers were after some gaming.

Hannah, Katy, Joe and I chose Lords of Vegas while the others set up a much-requested (by Stanley) game of Captain Sonar. Captain Adam, Steve and Jon were up against Captain Stanley, Sam and Ian. This game ended with a victory for Captain Stanley after Radio Operator Steve admitted he missed one of their movements and, from then on, didn’t know where the other submarine was.


In Lords of Vegas, it was a surprisingly swingy game. Katy started well, building lots of one-tile casinos of many colours, but then stalled as she couldn’t convert them to two-tile casinos quickly enough. So Joe took over, surging into a lead. But then he was undone by some reorganising from Katy and especially Hannah, who reduced his previously presidential presence in a five-tile casino to two miserable one-pip dice. I, meanwhile, faced early frustration in the lack of brown casinos paying out. My luck turned towards the end but too little, too late.


Hannah 40
Andrew 36
Joe 26
Katy 23

With Stanley off to bed, the other five played Tortuga. Ian won. “He was Dutch” says my not very helpful notes. “Everyone else lost. Weird conversation about nationalities” it continues.

Tortuga

People slowly peeled away to bed, leaving six players refusing to buckle under the weight of fatigue. Myself, Jon, Joe, Steve, Katy and Ian stayed up for more. And, just like last night’s Dead Man’s Chest, we chose to introduce Steve and Jon to a game that never seems to make sense, no matter how much you try to explain it. Namely, Bemused.

Ian pours himself a beer for Bemused

This game of adopting personas is more an event than a game. A chance to throw insults at people according to which muse they’ve been dealt. Painter, Thespian, Actor (who, invariably, is accused of never being able to play The Dane), Musician, etc. This time, though, I was the Dancer and I must’ve been pretty good since I was largely ignored. I made no secret of my animosity to my gemina, the musician (Jon), because no one else was going after him. And it worked. I finished the game sane and healthy, with my gemina safely “not sane” (i.e., dead, in this case. Actually killed by Katy, who finished him off while Jon was having a rule explained by to him by Joe. Harsh).


Andrew 8
Joe 6
Katy 5
Jon 3
Ian 3
Steve 2

Midnight had come and gone, but we all felt we had one more game in us. Katy asked for something she could play while lying on the sofa under a blanket. Joe suggested I Crossed The Border. This is a simple word game where one person thinks of a rule regarding things that people can take across a border. They then give an example of it, followed by everyone else trying to get stuff across the border. The rule-maker tells them if they’re successful or not. And we go round and round until one person is still clueless.

For example, Joe’s first rule was “Words with ‘oo’ in them” so “I crossed the border with a pair of boots” would be fine but “I crossed the border with a copy of Vogue magazine” would not.

Katy chose items that began with K, A, T or Y. Ian’s rule was that you had to have your hand against the side of your face when you crossed the border. Jon’s rule was don’t hesitate when you cross the border, which I totally failed to get.

My rule was that you had to say the item with a rising inflexion, like a question. Oddly, this meant Ian did very well at crossing the border, since he always framed his crossings as questions, whereas the others were more confident and made their crossings as statements. As such, Ian crossed back and forth, but never really knew why but the others didn’t. It wasn’t until Katy got it that it slowly dawned on the others what we were doing.

We ended at 1.10 on Sunday morning before we tore ourselves away from the buzz of competitive conversation and went to bed.

Sunday morning, and we slowly crawled from our rooms. The first game was played before 9 o’clock so, in that respect, we did better than Saturday. But the game in question was the lightest of games: The Pyramid’s Deadline, a new game I’d bought in Japan from Oink Games (Deep Sea Adventure, Fake Artist, Insider).

It involves building a pyramid-y shaped structure before the pharaoh dies (indicated by the last red square being chosen). The selection of building materials is determined by the roll of some dice, so obviously the speed at which the red squares deplete is random.

This might be why in game one, none of us (Hannah, Sam and me) completed our “pyramid”. Then in game two, Hannah was too cautious since both Sam I and completed our buildings after her, and I won. But, then again, in the third round Hannah won when neither Sam nor I finished.

By 9.15 everyone except Adam was up. Well, Ian was up, but seemed to be in constant danger of falling back down again as he struggled under a hangover.

At some point around now, I introduce Steve to The Pyramid’s Deadline, but I made no notes about the outcome.

Eventually, Katy took pity on Ian’s attempts at a nap on a window seat, and arranged for him to get some sleep in a proper bed (rather than the mattress in the utility room he’d had during the night).

Then we played Deep Sea Adventure. At least, Joe, Steve, Katy and I did. We began quickly and it wasn’t until it was Steve's turn that he asked for a rules explanation. It hadn’t occurred to us that he hadn’t played before!



Luckily DSA is the kind of game you can explain while you play, so it didn’t hold the game up too much. There was a remarkable lack of drownings, apart from Katy and I in round three.

Joe 42
Steve 35
Andrew 24
Katy 13

Sam, Stan and Jon played Near and Far, with Stan running out a clear winner, but that didn’t stop Sam from saying he’d enjoyed it more than the other night when he and Stan had tied for first.


Stanley 79
Sam 42
Jon 38

Next up was a game of Downforce. I ended up with three cars in my team, which was not my plan even if I had boasted beforehand that it was. If two cars is a curse, then surely three cars is a death wish! But, no! Thanks to some clever betting and keeping an early lead, I did okay. Not first, but pretty good.

My team in Downforce

Sam 13
Andrew 12
Ian 10
Stanley 8

While this was happening, another game of Yokohama was being played. Joe was keen to try it again while the rules were still fresh and he was confident that he could teach it better this time, too. Katy was drafted in to the game, along with last night’s conscripts Steve and Jon.


They kept saying it’d be quicker than last night, and maybe it was. But not by much. After Downforce had ended, Sam and I played Clans of Caledonia again. It was much quicker as a two player, and I did better, too.


Sam 126
Andrew 118

Hannah put together salad and cold meats and cheese for lunch. Still Yokohama kept going.

People started getting anxious about not having enough time for a walk. But Yokohama wouldn’t be rushed.

Finally it ended. Scoring was calculated, and it turned out to be the same person who won last time!


Jon 123
Joe 98
Steve 95
Katy 91

After that, it was time for the walk before being ferried back to Bristol by Sam. Five other gamers stayed on for one more evening, and I hope they’ll add their comments to the end of this post.

Meanwhile, thanks all. It was special!



A bird! In the sky!


Adam reports the final scores...

Capital lux
Joe 80
Adam 65
Hannah 39




Mysterium


We all won. But I won most and Katy won second most. Because we're overcompetetive. Joe was an excellent ghost.


Ticket to ride
Adam 178
Hannah 161
Katy 145
Joe 142
Jon 138


Apparently Katy isn't going to play with Hannah or I ever again.


Kingdomino
Jon 53
Adam 51
Katy 46
Joe 29




Team play
Adam & Joe 25
Katy & Jon 24

Good night folks!

Wednesday 8 November 2017

I don't need a lava

This Tuesday evening saw yours truly back from travels and keen to get back on the gaming horse. Joe was hosting and Sam, Katy, Martin, and Ian were also present.

We began with a six-hander, Auf Teufel Komm Raus, a recent new arrival and already making waves as the new luck-pushing game of choice.


Ian found he had very little luck to push. He tried his best to throw caution to the wind, only for it to blow back in his face. "No reason for me to stop now," he said, hoping for a run of luck. He immediately turned over a devil tile.

After a disaster of a second round, he had to go all-in on round three. Luckily it paid off, and the Deal With The Devil rule (those solely in last place get money every time someone goes bust) he was pushed back into contention.

Less lucky in his dealings with the devil was Joe. On those rounds where he was last, the rest of us played safe and few went bust.

Sam successfully guesses what he's going to pull from the cauldron

Martin successfully campaigned against any tactic that would benefit Katy, convinced that she was about to win. "I promise you I'm not going to win." When Sam asked if that was a genuine promise, she clarified "this round."

The final result found that Martin had not lost his touch in hedging his bets.

Martin 1600
Katy 1420
Andrew 1370
Sam 1290
Ian 750
Joe 450

After this was, we split into two groups. Martin, Joe and Katy chose Capital Lux, a card game about which I know nothing. They set themselves up on the green baize card table and got down to work. Katy looked pleased with herself when Martin responded to her tactics by saying "that was the only card that could have fucked me." Katy's delight was to be short lived as Martin stole the win by the narrowest of margins.

Martin 68
Katy 67
Joe 63

Meanwhile, we on the big table decided on Downfall of Pompeii as a fun way to pass the time, despite its unpleasant theme.

The only thing we needed to be reminded of was how to set up the deck of cards. But with that fiddly bit of detail done, we were off, populating the doomed city with carefree abandon.


It was a close game but, then again, most games of Downfall of Pompeii are. It was all down to the tie breaker, based on the number of Romans in the volcano.

I drew the majority of the omen cards and Ian, it seems drew the rest. While we both tried to be very fair in alternating between attacking our opponents, it looks like we would invariably lean towards the more populous Sam. With no further tie breaker, Ian and I shared the victory.

Ian 9 (7 in the volcano)
Andrew 9 (7)
Sam 9 (12)

When we'd finished, we found Capital Lux only five minutes from completion so we cooled our heels and waited. I recognised the singer on the stereo and I asked Joe "Is this Jonathon Coulton?"

"Yes," Joe replied.

"He's being more serious than usual," I remarked, referring to the poignant lyrics.

"Not really," said Joe, "it's about a giant squid."

So now we were six. Games were suggested until we agreed on the plan to end with three short games.

The first was For Sale, the game that Sam always agrees to, thinking they mean No Thanks.


The cards 30 and 29 came out in the first round, meaning the tense stand off began early. Luckily for me, Martin cracked first and picked up the lowest card for free. This set off a series of people grabbing cards which ended with me getting the 29 for half price while my neighbour Katy paid for the 30 in full.

Having a 29 and most of your money left is a good way to start For Sale, and played it out with little to worry me.

Andrew 55
Ian 47
Joe 41
Katy 39
Sam 37
Martin 35

Next in our late evening trilogy was Bemused. It intrigues us with its opacity. What are the best tactics? Nobody knows.


Maybe Ian does. He was a deserved winner, dismissing Poet Sam with the words "No matter how hard you try, orange does not rhyme with fromage." A devastating barb, that no one could match.

Ian 7
Katy 6
Sam 5
Andrew 4
Martin 3
Joe 2

Finally we played Chameleon. A guessing game that involves spotting which player knows nothing. Kind of the opposite of Insider.

We played three rounds. In the first, Joe was successfully unmasked as the chameleon. Although afterwards, Katy said she had known nothing about the subject (Stuart Little) and was kind of bluffing.

The second round was geography. Ian was the chameleon, but he was able to correctly identify the target word: Mountain.

In the third round, Wedding Anniversaries, I worried that my word was too obvious. The target word was Paper and my clue was First (ie, the first wedding anniversary is paper). But most of our attention was taken by Joe, whose clue made no sense, but he insisted he wasn't the chameleon.

He also couldn't understand our clues and, as suspicion against him grew, he realised he'd misread the dice, thinking the 7 was a 1. But we checked our cards telling us which dice rolls indicated which word only to find that, either with a 1 or a 7, Joe should've got the same word. Joe then said he'd looked at the wrong word on the card. Yes, that's what had happened.

But just as Joe was doing a riveting performance of a man hell-bent on incriminating himself, Sam quietly opined that Ian's clue was pretty vague.

Ian had said "leaf" which I had thought perfectly reasonable and not given it a second thought. But Sam had noticed that "leaf" could apply to a number of words on the card. This sparked a revision of our suspicion and it was enough to sway people. I think I still voted for Joe, but Ian was the majority choice and he was indeed the chameleon. He couldn't even identify the word - he'd guessed Gold. So, a win for most of us to end the evening, thanks to Sam's keen eye.

We set off into the chill of the night. Next stop, the games weekend on Friday!