A night on the tiles

With an unusual amount of thinking ahead, this week's venue had been arranged a full two weeks in advance. Steve and Anja were hosting and Joe, Katy, Ian, Martin and I were attending, with one extra in the shape of Bekah, friend of Steve and Anja's. I don't know what they said to her to convince her that it was a good idea, but she knew enough about gamers to recognise us on the street as Joe hauled his Ikea bag of games out of my car boot, giving us a friendly wave as she drove past.

Once all inside, the eight of us came perilously close to having a conversation when Martin asked what we were playing. Since four copies of Tichu had been brought by three different people (Joe brought two) that was clearly a front runner from the start. Martin corralled Katy into a rematch along with Ian and Joe.

Meanwhile, Anja's eye had been caught by Azul in Joe's bag. I sold it as a puzzley combative game, so she needed no further persuasion and the rest of us set up to play.

Admittedly, a game of Azul with three newbies was never going to be that aggressive and I had to explain that the combat part comes with experience. The experience in question being playing against Martin. One of the main attractions of the game for Steve and Anja was that the tiles matched the tiling around their fireplace. This meant if they ever wanted to play Azul, all they had to do was take a hammer to their fireplace and they’d have (almost) everything they need!

The game was a pleasant affair and any attempts I made at ruining one player's options usually ended up benefiting the next player. Anja shot into an early lead, getting four in a column in the first round. Then my experience paid off and I edged into first until the closing stages when Steve's logical mind kicked in, giving him a clear win by the end. Bekah, though, became obsessed with her yellow tiles and filled up a row of them one by one. Not a winning strategy, but it was her first game. Everyone liked it, no matter how well or badly they did.

Steve 68
Anja 58
Andrew 56
Bekah 43

On the Tichu table was, I assume, the usual examples of luck-defying game play. Whenever I popped over, Joe always seemed to have called Tichu and I think he and Katy had an early lead. I could be wrong, though.

But the award for Hand Of The Evening was won by Ian who had a run of all fourteen cards, going from the Mah Jong card (value 1) all the way up to Ace High. Astonishing. And he had the presence of mind to call Tichu.

They ended when we finished Azul, so no one hit the 1,000 point target, but one team was notably closer than the other.

Martin and Ian 940
Joe and Katy 260

So now we were all together, we discussed what would happen next. Joe's new split level dice arena needed a run out so Joe, Martin and Katy chose Kribbeln, while the rest of us went for 7 Wonders.

7 Wonders is one of those games that I'm so familiar with, that I forget how impenetrable it is at first. I had to explain to Bekah and I did as good a job as possible but it's not a very intuitive game, and there was a certain amount of in-game coaching.

I didn't realise, though, that Anja hadn't played in years either. Once the game began she expressed regret that she hadn't taken the chance of a rules refresher, and was struggling a bit. To illustrate her situation, mid game, she pointed to an icon on her Wonder that she'd just built, asking what it meant.

"It means you can buy basic resources for only one coin." we explained.

"Ah," she said, "so I didn't need to build these," referring to the East Trading Post and West Trading Post in her tableau, which replicated exactly what her Wonder was now doing. Definitely not a great move.

Steve, ever the optimist, said maybe she'd get a Guild that rewards having Yellow cards. Anja did not look reassured.

Meanwhile, Kribbeln ended thus:

Katy 18
Joe 15
Martin 13

Then they played a three round game of Eggs Of Ostrich. All I know about this is hearing Joe's plaintive cry of "I've burst my two-sack."

Martin 33
Joe 31
Katy 29

7 Wonders was drawing to a close. Ian and Steve had both gone for a resource-lite approach and, since they were sitting next to each other, it was a risky endeavour. Anja had the only cloth in the game, making things difficult for Steve and me who were not her neighbours.

Other than that, the final round consisted mostly of people building armies since it was all they could afford. Everyone did that except Steve who, thanks to chaining together buildings or just affording to buy resources from me, built science after science. And an unchallenged scientist is a victorious scientist. Mind you, we were glad that science had won out over opportunistic military campaigns. It seemed morally appropriate. Poor Bekah spent most of the third round clarifying that there was no way she could get one more brick, so she could keep building her Wonder. If she'd finished it, it would have got her 13 extra points and a potential second place.

Steve 59
Ian 48
Andrew 46
Bekah 36
Anja 32

As we were packing up, the last game was wrapping up, too. Joe, Martin and Katy had squeezed in a quick game of Qwinto. I walked over to them just as the scores were being totted up. Joe seemed very disappointed, since he thought he'd definitely won. "I thought I was doing rather well," he sighed as he saw his certain victory turn into a decided last place.

Katy 55
Martin 53
Joe 52

Martin said something about "if only I hadn't rolled those double ones," or something. I was too tired to pay too much attention. It was quarter past eleven and time to hit the road. Thanks to our gracious hosts and hello to Bekah. Can’t wait for next Tuesday!