And so it gheos

This week's games event was at Sam's place, and it began with six avid gamers huddled around the kitchen table. Sam was joined by Stanley, Joe (the grown up version, not Stanley's brother), Ian, Martin and me.

On one half of the table sat Sam, Stanley and Joe, getting ready for a game of Root, the new craze that swept the world of Sam and Stanley. At this end of the table, Martin had a new game to try, Gheos.

It had an interesting way of choosing the starting player; the one who can refrain from laughing the longest.

This game involves building a the playing area using triangular pieces with water and land, to create continents to put civilisations on. We don't control these civilisations in any way but, as gods, we can share in their success by picking up cubes of the same colour. We can also force the them to fight or migrate, by replacing parts of the world with new land masses, thus connecting or separating previously established continents.

This aspect of joining civilisations to make them fight reminded me of Tigris and Euphrates, and the game got a similarly cold reception from me. Ian said he enjoyed it and that he was expecting it to be more combative. I had to remind him that both he and Martin had killed off civilisations that I had a large stake in, in consecutive moves. Martin liked it, despite having to pay a cube if you want to be a dick to someone and change their continent.

Ian 70
Martin 69
Andrew 53

Meanwhile, in Root, after some debate whether Joe should choose an easier faction to play, the game was well under way. Stanley caused early upheaval by being hostile towards his dad, and wanting to hit Joe with a hammer. Added to this were strange discussions about battles in rabbit land or something. It looked nice but was all very opaque to an uniformed spectator.
Stanley won with what was, apparently, his favourite faction, while Joe managed to get into second and afterwards had nothing but praise for it.

Stanley 31
Joe 19
Sam 15

While we waiting for them to finish, we whipped off a quick round of Divinare. This game of psychic divination is rarely seen (because I never bring it) but is usually well received when it is.

We began with Martin saying he could hardly remember how to play. Suffice to say, it all came back to him.

Martin 10
Andrew - 1
Ian - 2

Afterwards, Martin explained his winning strategy, which is to remember what cards you hand your neighbour, because you'll see everything else. Not psychic powers, then. How disappointing.

Now, after so much ponderous gaming, we were in the mood for something riotous. We chose Decrypto, with our teams being Knackers All (Martin and Joe) against The Angry Stoics (Ian, Sam and I).

By round four, we had one error each, but then Knackers All got an interception. As we entered round five, I was in a fix, since we were sure that they had worked out three of our secret code words. Luckily, the combination I had to communicate to my fellow spies had the one word they knew least about. I entered a significant reverie that was long enough to be called a Joe Turn, and for reference to be made to Paul's epic contemplation on round nine of Lords Of Waterdeep.

In the end, it was all for nought, as they guessed it anyway. However, they failed to communicate their final clue, giving us hope that we might win on fewest mistakes. We didn't. Ian showed some talent by working out two of Joe and Martin's words, but those were just consolation goals in the football game of espionage.

Knackers All, loud and clear
The Angry Stoics, too much noise on the line.

Next was every quantity surveyor's favourite party game, Illusion. Last time we played, we were amazing in our accuracy. Today, not so much. Martin was distracted by a video of Huddersfield's wonder goal from the half-way line (into their own net, unfortunately) while I had a game where I neither challenged nor was challenged. Eagle eyed Ian took first place.

Ian 3
Martin 2
Joe 1
Sam 1
Andrew 0

Next was Face Cards, another new favourite. Just like Gheos, this game also had an ingenious way of choosing starting player: draw a card and the person who most resembles it begins. Apparently, I most resemble the Mona Lisa.

This game saw an audacious strategy by Joe. In his first round, he attempted to get us to match Mozart with Bach and he was amazed when no one chose it.

Then, in the next round he hoped that by playing Beethoven into the middle, that we would remember his fondness for dead composers and assume that was his card, despite the completely dissimilar card (a sheik) he had in front of him.

This plan was foiled when he accidentally put the Sheik in the middle and kept Beethoven in front of him. There was no way any of us could put those two together in those circumstances, especially since the author Goethe was among the six choices (which was my guess). But, to be honest, even if he'd got it right, I still don't think that it would have worked. Still, as I said, an audacious idea.

Joe also wondered if the game might be improved by betting real money on whether or not your pair is guessed. Maybe there's a variant on the Geek.

Martin 11
Ian 10
Joe 10
Sam 10
Andrew 9

Then we played a new very simple roll 'n' write, Kriss Kross. Roll two dice and write them (next to each other) in a five by five grid. Points are given for two, three, four or five in a row horizontally and vertically.

I omitted to pay much attention to the verticals, but luckily my horizontals scored so high, they didn't matter.

Andrew 29
Martin 28
Ian 26
Joe 25
Sam 25

Finally, with a win under my belt, I set off for home. Ian, despite flagging, was tempted to stay for a game of continuous Pairs. Joe lost the first game (since there are only losers in this variant, no winners) and Sam lost the second game on the last card in the deck.

Nice to be back at Sam's, and thanks to all for another fun time.

Taking Root

Earlier this week Stan and I played Root, and since then he and I have talked - gaming-wise - about nothing else. And today we played twice more!

In the first game, I'd helped Stan over the line somewhat as the Eyrie, whilst I juggled control of both the Marquise de Cat (myself) and the Vagabond (absent Joe, who left us before his first turn was over! We kept the Vagabond out of interest). It was very much open warfare across the Woodlands, with the Vagabond flitting between us completing quests, until he turned hostile against me and starting cutting down my warriors before flitting into the woods again...

This morning at 07.30, I told Stan there would be no such assistance as we went for a straight-up head to head, with Stan replaying the Eyrie and me the Marquise. Stan immediately began a plan of expansion from his corner of the forest, whilst I focused on building - as the Marquise, you want a regular supply of wood to build with, so I needed sawmills. But with the Eyrie spreading their wings aggressively in the southeast, I also needed to build recruitment stations. If I wanted to craft for points, I also needed to build workshops.

I was so bamboozled I basically neglected to address the building threat of the Eyrie, and by the time I turned my attention to Stan, they were looking almost unstoppable - it was a procession to victory in under an hour!

Stanley (The Eyrie) 30
Sam (The Marquise) 15

After a long interim, we played again at 3pm. This time, I was the Eyrie, and Stanley tried his hand at the Vagabond; the lone raccoon.

I began expanding just as Stan had in the morning: the Eyrie demands it as you have to follow the Decree: recruit, move, battle, build. Only I didn't play a card to the battle decree all game, as it would have been too risky - all Stan would have to do is end a turn in the woods and the Eyrie would be in turmoil: the leader deposed, a new one installed, and points lost.

Stanley explored the ruins on the board and started completing Quests: only the Vagabond can do these, and to do so he simply gets to the correct part of the forest and uses the stuff in his backpack to complete them.

But as I was building more roosts across the forest, my points were ticking over rather too nicely, and we realised that it would have paid for Stan to turn hostile against me as soon as he could: it would make it harder to enter any clearing I was in, but he'd score points whenever he kicked one of my warriors off the board.

So he did - and the game turned into a series of guerrilla attacks from the trees as I got roosts down and warriors recruited only for Stan to slip from the trees and cut their feathery throats.

But it wasn't enough to make up for his slow start, as I was still turning over points on a regular basis and headed for a relatively stress-free win. But out of interest, I changed my winning condition by playing a Dominance card - now, instead of hitting thirty points to win, I needed to control three 'mice' clearings at the start of my turn.

When I played the card I did control three mice clearings, so the game changed complexion again as the pressure was on Stan to repeatedly eject me out from a mice clearing - and me to rebuild. He lasted three turns before his luck ran out: unable to stop me winning on my next turn, he needed to win instantly. He scored points for the damage he did and completed another quest. One more movement available to him, and he would have claimed an unlikely win from another crafted card.

Sam (The Eyrie) wins
Stan (The Vagabond) 28 points.

Great game. We still haven't really grasped the nuances of each faction, and how they need to be played slightly differently depending which factions your opponents are playing - and how numerous they are. Can't wait to play again!

Maximus Frustratus

Dear reader, I bring you sad news from the war. Not news of lost lives or tragic fate, nor of excitement and derring do, but one of quite stoicism and sparse opportunities. And spicy crisps.

My unconventional opening

Rather than being a time of great turmoil in the history of the Roman Empire, we saw Ian become Emperor in round four and then stay there for almost the rest of the game. It was an uneasy but remarkably persistent reign. First, let's see how he got there.

Ian began in Hispania and with 3 blue and 2 red, he expanded south into Africa (buying a 2-level blue card). Then, with 3 yellow and 2 red he built a Basilica and reinforced his army, both in Africa (bought a 2-red). Then, despite weakening the neutral emperor in Rome for Martin's benefit, Ian decided his next hand of 5 blue, 1 red would be best spent on a new 3-level governor and being voted into Thracia.

As expected, Martin then became emperor using exactly the same sequence of cards (3B 2R, 3Y 2R, 5B 1R) and then I unseated Ian in Thracia, crucially giving him a spare governor to use on his next turn. Joe sportingly sent an army into Italia to weaken Emperor Martin's army there, despite him having no chance of becoming Emperor. Ian capitalised on the moment and with his fourth hand of 3R 5B, he recruited a Nomad in Africa, crossed the sea to Italia and defeated Martin's army (“after I'd loosened the lid,” as Joe pointed out) and was duly voted as Emperor.

In retaliation, Martin took Africa from Emperor Ian and then put a mob in Hispania. Joe retreated from Italy back to Gallia, and built an army in his otherwise defenceless Syria. Previous games had seen the Middle East as a pit of turmoil and he (and I, with my Limes in Galatia) were expecting the worst. Oddly, nothing of the sort happened, and the massed Sassanids didn't cross over into our regions at all.

Ian unseated me in Britannia – the first of many such occasions when this country would change hands – to regain support in Rome while Martin, with only 3 yellow and 2 red, simply reinforced and boosted support in Africa. The score was currently Martin 24, Ian 23, Andrew 20, Joe 18.

The board after round five

Ian had somehow clung on for another Emperor turn, but how long could he hold out? Remarkably long, that's how long. On his turn he was always able to get a third region back, and his three-strong army in Italia made any election prospects very slim.

During the game, Joe pondered thoughtfully over choosing his next hand a couple of times. The first time was long enough for the three of us to finish a bag of wasabi crisps. During the second time, Martin mentioned that everyone has a Joe turn at least once during the game, and Joe refused to believe that “a Joe turn” was actually a thing.

My one chance at glory (when I had 5R, 1Y and 5B and was gearing up to reinforce Pannonia, move into Italia, defeat Ian's army and get voted in on a tide of populism) was actually spent on invading fighting Barbarians and dealing with Ian and Martin both sending mobs into my regions.

First sight of Kniva and the Goths. A pretty average indie band.

Joe's chance was snatched away even more cruelly, as we all forgot that a Pretorian Guard ignores any army units in a region when counting votes to become Emperor. How we forgot that, we cannot say. Perhaps we were too distracted by Martin going online and working out the odds of Joe's plan of splitting his red points to attack Franks in Frankland as well as running for the Senate. Joe did so, and beat the Franks for points before turning his mind to political affairs. He needed 9 votes with 7 dice, but he only rolled 7 votes. A plucky attempt.

Of course, later, when Martin played his own Pretorian Guard, he remembered the rule and we all realised Joe had only needed six votes so should have been Emperor by now. In the final reckoning, it would've been only enough to get him into third on the score track, but the injustice of it all certainly put a dampener on an already pretty damp game.

As the game came to a close, it was only eleven o'clock. Martin was on 49 points and it was his turn with 5 blue and 9 red (including a Pretorian Guard) his prospects were good. “Martin could end the game,” said Ian. “I hope so,” said Joe.

Martin used three blue to get voted into Gallia. Then he recalled his governor from Britannia. How ironic: it had changed hand with almost every turn and now, at the very end, it went back to being neutral. Then his army from Macedonia moved into Pannonia, foederatied an Alamanni and then defeated the other Alamanni there, before using eight dice to try and get six votes. He succeeds! His total at the end of the round is exactly 60 points and after the points for Emperor Turns was added on, it could hardly have been closer.

Pointing!

Martin 66
Ian 65
Andrew 48
Joe 46 (but should be up in the mid-fifties)

It was a shame that the game never really caught fire. The consensus among us was that the expansion cards really can't come soon enough.

Since the night was still young(ish) we played one more game – Lost Cities: The Rivals. This game was described by Martin as Reiner Knizia remixing his greatest hits, as the familiar mechanics of bidding, money recycling and set collecting all seemed to be taken from previous games.

It was okay, although I was quite tired. It's all about managing your luck and somehow knowing when to go big. But, as Joe said, “You don't know it's too late until it's too late.” He did not go on to say “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Joe 44
Andrew 43
Ian 36
Martin 25 “or something”

And so we were done. I drove Joe home in a very different mood from last month. Back then it was the triumphant return of the conquering hero. This time, Joe must've wondered if he'd accidentally angered an ancient god during a recent visit he'd made to some Roman ruins.

Rootling Around

Last night then I played through a few rounds of Root, the assymmetric game of 'might and right' by  designer Cole Wehrle. I suppose the first thing to note is that despite appearances - the illustrations look like they're out of a 1970's childrens book - it is a war game, of sorts.

And it'd be a war game that was easy to digest if all four of the factions worked the same way, as the rules for each one are relatively light. But as they don't, it isn't.

The game takes place in a forest (or woodland, to use the game's parlance) where clearings are divided by clumps of trees and paths. One faction, the Marquise (cats), have taken over from another, the Eyrie (birds) and are kind of running the place. If you're the Marquise you begin with a big presence on the board: cats in every clearing bar one and three buildings pre-built: sawmill, workshop and recruitment station. Your goal (like all factions) is to score 30 points, and to do that you need to keep building buildings or crafting items. Both score you points, and the sawmills provide you with wood (for building with), workshops let you craft, and recruitment stations recruit more cats to keep the status quo.

The Eyrie, of course, want to win the woodlands back under their control. They begin with six warriors in the only clearing the Marquise don't occupy, and swiftly set out to build more roosts on the board. This faction scores points at the end of every turn, but how many depends on how many roosts you've built. They can also craft items too.

The catch with the Eyrie is that they are very militarily minded and slaves to their own decree, which dictates where you can recruit, move, battle and build (in that order) in each round. You can manipulate the decree with cards, but you must always carry the whole thing out, otherwise your current leader is deposed and a new one steps in. This is called Turmoil, and it's bad because you lose points. But it's also almost inevitable, so your strong start will at some point hit a substantial hiccup.

The third populous faction is the Woodland Alliance, all the smallfolk trampled underfoot and pissed off about it. They operate in a different way again, sowing seeds of discontent by adding sympathy to the board. You can turn a sympathy token into a base (you start with no bases!) this is a revolt: and a well-timed one can have an obliterating effect on opponents, as all warriors present get hooked off the board and your own get added instead. The Alliance can also craft, using sympathy.

All this crafting has two purposes: to score points, and to entice the Vagabond to give you cards...

The final faction is actually just the Vagabond himself; a raccoon who flies solo, and the only character who can slip into the woods and leave the paths and clearings behind. He operates very differently from the others - he can fight, but his m.o. is trade - because he can complete quests by using equipment items, he'll visit other players and give them helpful cards in exchange for items they've crafted. Then he can cash them in. He can score points in other ways too; by having a good relationship with other factions, or conversely, by killing them off as well if that faction is hostile to him. The Vagabond can even ally himself with whatever faction is lowest on the score track, teaming up for the rest of the game to - hopefully - share the victory.

There's a fair bit more, with each faction having certain individual strengths and/or needs, but that's the gist. Each turn is actually very quick, or seemed so to me. Your actions go through three phases: Birdsong, Daylight, and Evening, and must be taken in that order (although outside of the Eyrie, there's some flexibility in the order you take actions within a phase).

The cards are a kind of economy for everyone - each clearing on the board is populated by foxes, rabbits or mice, and each card has a matching icon. When you have things to do, you usually have to play a card with a matching icon to the icon of the clearing you're active in. But they can also be used to craft things, in which case they're discarded.

Despite starting a play-through feeling fairly tired, I found it quite addictive and played several rounds. The Marquise and Eyrie are relatively straightforward, although the Eyrie's decree can swing from brutally effective to brutally implosive! The Woodland Alliance seemed a bit trickier, but timing a revolt is clearly key to their success, and removing a warrior allows you to place more sympathy, which can be quicker and cheaper than trying to snag the right cards, as it gets harder to drum up sympathy the further you go up the 'sympathy track'. I guess this reflects the fact you can't be too downtrodden if your faction is in a clear lead...

The Vagabond I found trickiest of all, but this was partly due to playing all the factions myself, as he is so much about interaction. Often the other factions are in need of cards, and as he tends to have more than anyone else, he can come to their aid and take items in return - which is why it's worth the other factions crafting them in the first place. Like all factions, he can potentially win without reaching 30 points if he changes his winning objective - there are four cards in the deck that do this, but they are tricky to complete, and I didn't actually encounter them.

I can see a first play being rather long, but not as long as our Cuba Libre experience. I can also see why Root is getting rave reviews everywhere: it's reasonably accessible (maybe not quite as much as intended) has a lot of nuance in the play, and it really does look beautiful.

Pics courtesy of publisher and illustrator from BGG

Junk Junkies

After two weeks of trios, GNN swelled in size to a whole quintet of gamers. Initially, there was Joe, the host, Sam, returning from holidays, Ian, returning from illness and me, again. Later Andy M was expected to join us.

We began with one the games that Joe bought in Germany; Kimono. This is a Mammut-esque card game of dividing a group of objects (in this case, pieces of Japanese finery) in two and then players secretly choose which one they are interested in. If you're the only one who's interested in a group, then it's yours. Otherwise it stays on the table and is divided again. And so the process repeats.

On top of this, any group that can't be shared goes into the bin, as does any group chosen by no one. This is important, since one of the cards on offer each turn allows you to collect whatever is in the bin. This may, of course, be nothing. You score points for sets of things up to a certain number, but anything above that number and the collection will count against you.

The only photo I took of the game that was in focus.

It's quite a thinky game and I didn't really get to grips with it. I like to blame Joe's German beer, which he was drinking from a chilled glass. This left little puddles of water wherever he put it on the table and it seemed no matter how often we cleaned up, there was one more patch of water. Very distracting.

Ian had a great third round, picking up lots of stuff from the bin. Joe and Sam ended the last round with a selection of things that would score Sam negative points, no matter which he chose. He cleverly chose the same that Joe did, meaning he wouldn't have to pick anything up at all.

Ian 46
Sam 40
Joe 36
Andrew 18

During this game Andy arrived. We pondered something a bit meaty and substantial, but before we chose one we decided on a quick game of Illusion.

This game of area judgement made its debut last week and Sam and Ian were both intrigued. Its a bit longer with five, especially since we began with four incorrect challenges, all being made by different players. We were amazed at how good we were at working out the ares of things, even if we did all have to make a conscious (and sometimes verbal) effort to remind ourselves to change colours from round to round.

In the end, another incorrect challenge (this time by Joe) finally gave Andy that crucial third point.

Andy 3
Andrew 2
Sam 1
Ian 1
Joe 0

Next up was Skull King, a trick taking game in a similar vein to Voodoo Prince. In this card game each player has to bid on how many tricks they will take this round, not unlike Contract Whist. Except, that the deck contains certain Special Cards, pirates, mermaids and the Skull King himself, which are more powerful than the usual suited cards.

The other difference to Contract Whist is that bidding for and winning no tricks gets you the Round Number x 10 in points. As such, the longer the game goes on, the more powerful it becomes.

I set off into an early lead and maintained it, keeping a hundred point gap between me and my nearest rival until round eight.

My nearest rival being Andy who was, at one point, in a distant last with -30 but had since put together a run of form. His early confusion was gone and we'd quite forgotten how he'd asked to change his bid after everyone else had bid and we had to remind him that, technically, that would be cheating.

Instead now he set up a grandstand finish, with him on 190 and me on 210. I bid an exceedingly possible three tricks and, since he doubted he could get four, he went for no tricks at all.

It was tense. At least, it was for us two. The other three weren't in contention, although we should note Sam's last minute dash into third place at Ian's expense. In the battle for the top, both of us completed our bids, but mine got me 60 points and Andy bagged a cool ton.

Andy 290
Andrew 270
Sam 140
Ian 80
Joe -20

Next was a request from Andy, who was keen to try Junk Art. This "Bandu with benefits" is fun but I always feel it overstays its welcome. While I don't dislike it, I prefer Bandu's simplicity.

Joe, meanwhile, admired Junk Art's aesthetic qualities and it's hard to argue. From my brutalist architecture to Joe's forgotten shelf in a garden shed, the structures were nice to look at.

Brutal

Joe's shed in the distance

Since Joe's table has a bit of a wobble, there was a strict No Elbows On Table rule. Sam also observed "Bandu breathing" (breath out with you head turned up and away from the table) in times of high excitement. Andy's habit of sometimes slamming cards down on the table often caused some consternation but no actual collapses. Joe, despite losing the cooperative round, ended with most fans.

Joe about to topple the tower

Joe 16
Andy 14
Andrew 12
Ian 12
Sam 8

Time was ticking on but we had enough time for one more game: Face Cards. This recent arrival also raised some interest after the blog post for last week, and now it was time to see how it played with more players.

Well, it was a bit slower. With Ian and Andy both on their fourth beer, there was a bit of analysis paralysis. I (still sober, teetotal for the night) lacked imagination with my chihuahua/lynx pair (both animals) and geisha/bride (both women) but I did get chosen, more often than not. Others were more ingenious, with Karl Marx being successfully linked to some kind of owl. I didn't take too many notes, but the scores fell in quite a orderly manner.

Andrew 11
Ian 11
Joe 8
Andy 8
Sam 8

And with that we were done. I slipped out, apparently unnoticed, into the night and home to bed. Thanks for the entertainment, guys. Let's do it again next week.

Afternoon Struggle

Stanley's intrigue with Twilight Struggle seemed to end at the high rating on BGG, as repeated threats to play it with me had morphed into a kind of bedtime-avoidance meme. I couldn't ask Sally - she'd once suggested that 'the twilight struggle' was what preceded 'the insertion of the twilight imperium'. Instead we all played Burgle Bros a couple of times (great game!)  before I set TS up again at Sally's folks house this afternoon.

Just like when Kevin Costner cut the grass in Field of Dreams, baseball players Stanley materialised, hypnotised by the chits, and played a couple of open hands before we graduated to standard hidden-cards play.

Stan was the US and I the USSR. Over forty-five years (or ten rounds) we play cards to grapple for influence and control of the political world. There's very little actual fighting - any open warfare has a cloaked feel to it, as one side or the other (possibly both) funds battles in climes far-flung from their home territories, for ostensibly unrelated reasons. In fact if you get too cantankerous and cause nuclear war - a danger tracked by the DEFCON status - you instantly lose.

So it's less melee, and more slippery political machinations. At the start of each round both sides play a 'headline' card, which is an event that - when played optimally - you hope swings the game, or at least a region, toward your control. Then players take turns with the rest of their cards playing them either as operations points (the number) or the event, with a crucial caveat - if you play a card for operations but it contains an event 'owned' by your opponent, it gets triggered anyway. Played events usually go from the game, whereas cards used for points will be reshuffled into the deck when it runs out.

All the events and operations are geared towards the same goals though - adding (or removing opponent's) influence from a country, or having enough influence there to turn it into outright control.

Some cards will score a region You can win by reaching 20 victory points, or having total control of Europe.

 Light side up is influence, colour-side up is control

My mini-playthrough last week (4 rounds) stood me in reasonable stead at the outset, as I focused my efforts in Europe and took an early lead. In fact Stan was convinced I was going to win, until I pointed out to him that my strong position wasn't enough for an outright win - but it would be a dramatic points swing. However when the Europe scoring card it came into Stan's hand, and I didn't realise that his chipping away in Europe was anything more than stubbornness. Suddenly Europe was scored and I realised that my near-total-control was nowhere near what it had been.

Meanwhile Stan had been spreading himself across the southern hemisphere and hot on the heels of Europe, he scored southeast Asia and catapulted himself up the score track.

I knew it was coming

As we entered mid-war, my stranglehold on Europe was deteriorating and Stan was sitting pretty on 11 points. I pushed into Central America and waited impatiently for Africa scoring. Stanley was developing his space flight technology, which acts as a kind of grease to the wheels of politicking, giving him little advantages on the map and triggering small points rewards. He also played Central America scoring which gave me a measly three points before I could do anything more exciting with it.

He was on the receiving end of some rough luck though when no less than three times a decent die roll could have given him victory, either by moving him up the space race track or winning a battle on the map. But when the end came in round eight, it was self-inflicted on my part as I gambled - despite my controlling more regions than Stan, he won the Summit battle and claimed a victory for the US.

Africa never arrived.

Both Joe and Martin really rate Twilight Struggle and I can see why. Compared to our COIN experience with Cuba Libre the play is very speedy and I would never have guessed how funny it is - Stan's cries of despair on his appalling dice rolls were matched by both us gnashing our teeth at having hands full of the other side's event cards. There's a slight lack of control (dice rolls, card hands) I found much more appealing than a heavy-thinking, zero-sum approach. That does mean fate can crap on you from a height at times, yes, but the game moved so fast we could forgive it that.

Stan gave it an "8.5, maybe 9" saying he liked how you're forced to change plans during the game. I'd agree! And be keen to play again.

Take it to the Bridge

Notwithstanding Sam's epic journey through gaming on his holidays, it has been and remains a quiet summer here at GNN Towers. This week, like last week, we were three in number. Martin and I were returners, while the ailing Ian was replaced by Joe, back from his travels across game-friendly Germany.

I was late in arriving, and caught the second of two games of Omega, the game of surrounding your enemy that's a bit quicker than Go. In this game, cards are placed according to certain matching rules. You have to make a path behind your opponent while, of course, stopping them from doing the same to you. The game was notable for its tension, for Joe's lightning quick blitzkrieg at the end, and for the roll of kitchen towel that delineated the edge of the game.

Joe and Martin: one win each.

Next, Joe enticed us into trying Welcome To Centerville. This game of dice rolling and point collecting had its debut recently. Joe explained the rules to us and we were off.

I had no idea what a winning strategy was, so I just did what the dice told me. This lead to me being big in the world of politics despite my lack of ambition. Joe made an early grab for the media tile, only for Martin to steal it from him immediately.

Joe got hit by explainer's curse badly, as he saw his score shrink in the first round down to $8 and 4 Prestige while Martin and I were up in the twenties.

Then there was some luck for Joe as disaster struck, but he had the tile that kept him safe. Martin and I lost three buildings in the city, which meant Martin had no presence there at all. If that weren't insult enough for Martin, Joe repaid Martin's earlier deviousness by pushing him off the high scoring bridge and putting himself there instead.

This seemed to help, as the next scoring round was triggered and Joe suddenly had more money than any of us. He was still lacking in Prestige but his then current level of 18pts was a huge improvement.

As the game entered the final round, Joe turned into a new political movement, at one point controlling five of the six offices. I turned my attention to trees and buildings while Martin's tactic was thrown into disarray when Joe kicked him off the bridge again. It ended...

Andrew 67
Martin 52
Joe 47

It had a mixed reaction. Martin found it too Points Salad-y and called it "Long Yahtzee", and I was bemused for most of the game although I did find it quite tense once I realised I might actually win. Joe liked it.

I requested a game I already knew so the next up was Azul. It was a low scoring game. I entered round three with a very loaded board, and Joe and Martin were not forgiving in their tile choices. I maxed out the negative points row, with -14. Even though, I found myself at the end of the round in joint first, 20-20-17.

But by the end, the tiles eluded me. Martin got two colours and a column, Joe got a colour while I got a mere couple of rows.

Martin 66
Joe 51
Andrew 50

Next was Illusion, the fun game of area surveying. The game consists of a pack of cards. Each one has an abstract pattern consisting of red, green, blue and yellow. In each round a colour is nominated randomly and then the players have to play their card to the table, in a Timeline kind of way, in order of amount of that colour on the card. Or, you can challenge if you think that someone's made a mistake. Then the cards are turned over, revealing the percentage of each colour, and any mistake counts in the challenger's favour.

Green is the colour...

Are these really ascending amounts of green?

It's insane and you find yourself squinting at cards or trying to squash the shapes mentally to guess if one card has more red circular area than another card's multiple thin red lines.

In round two, I forgot what colour we were playing and Joe challenged me immediately, but I was right! That was the only point I got. Otherwise, it was between Joe and Martin with Joe finally winning. Still, since he could apparently discern a difference between 23% and 24% in the amount of a colour, so perhaps he deserved it.

Joe 3
Martin 2
Andrew 1

The next game we chose was Kribbeln, and so Das Exclusive was brought to the table in all its pomp. Just like Welcome To Centerville, Joe suffered a poor first round with it ending 8-8-2.

And, also just like Welcome To Centerville, his spirited mid game revival wasn't enough to get out of last.

Andrew 20
Martin 17
Joe 14

By now we'd all won two games, so what was the tie breaker? It was Face Cards, a strange game of trying to make pairs out of your six-card hand of completely dissimilar faces.

Separated at birth

Each player takes two cards from their hand that they think match. They keep one card in front of them and the other goes into a communal pile with the other players' and a few cards from the deck.

If your pair is successfully guessed by another player, then you both get a point. If your pair of faces come from different categories (ie, human face paired with animal face) you both get two points.

It was a lot of fun. I can't believe no one got my Martin Luther / Manta Ray pairing. I thought it was obvious.

Martin 17
Joe 16
Andrew 9

A very enjoyable evening. Thanks, guys.

Homer and Away

Forgive the epic post. I thought I'd keep tabs on the games we played in our week in Cornwall, but it turned out we played a lot of games. A lot.

Saturday

Mine and Sally's annual getaway with Katie and Mark fell just outside Penzance, specifically overlooking the train track that we became obsessed with during the week. As a present, Mark and Katie had the Trainspotting Log Book delivered on the Sunday and we began recording our debut week as 'foamers'. As we weren't sure about some of the terminology, Length was often recorded as 'Long' and Place Seen might be 'Balcony' or "next to the kettle'.

Excitement peaked early when Sally coaxed not only a wave from the driver, but a horn as well. He went in the book as 'Ledge'.

Games-wise though we began with JamSumo on the Saturday we arrived (Peppa won Sumo, Mark won Jam) followed by, post bed-time, a great game of Decrypto which Sally I won partly due to our obtuse clueing and partly down to sheer luck, when we speculated wildly on an interception and pulled it off - twice.

We followed that with Push It, which Mark and Sally won with a series of deft flicks, mostly notable for Sally's sideways karate-chop technique that started off chaotically, but improved. All of us suffered at the hands of the undulating tablecloth. But Katie definitely provided all the high spots of with her high-velocity attacks, that usually sent some element on the table careering into my midriff.

Mark and Sally 21
Katie and Sam 8

A great arrival evening, surely to be followed up by a day of rain and heavy euros.

*

Sunday

Sadly I rose (at six) on Sunday to find a gorgeous day in the offing, so the most gaming I could engineer in the morning was a game of Ganz Schon Clever against Peppa. It's a more-ish and fast-moving play with two, and Peppa gave it 7.75 out of ten, as opposed to El Dorado which she played with us recently and gave a 9.

Then we went to the beach and some stuff happened there.

After lunch, Mark, Sally, Peppa and I sat down for a game of Azul and everyone loved it (Peppa: 8.5) I made some early hay off the back of Mark (to my left) not doing anything mean to me, but as they all became more cognizant of what was happening in the game, these breezy, benign moves dried up and my possible all-blues or all-yellows or even possibly-both-down evaporated into neither. Mark's quiet contemplation proved to be the key.

Mark 75
Peppa 66
Sam 59
Sally 41

After watching Jumanji (the new version) there was another beach sortie, before Peppa and I played the debut game of Skull King. I recall Joe and Martin were familiar with it - or its mechanics - but it was new to me. A trick-taker where there are three basic suits, a trump suit, but then some pirate cards that trump everything; with an additional catch in that the strongest pirate (the Skull King himself) can be trumped by the 'weaker' mermaid.

The scoring is what makes Skull King interesting though - like contract whist you bid tricks, but you only score if you meet your bidded trick target, and if you're out you gather ten minus points for every trick you're over or under. Bidding no tricks at all gets you the round number multiplied by ten.

It was neck and neck until round ten, where Peppa's slender lead fell foul of my five-trick targeted haul!

Sam 240
Peppa 140

After tea Lula and the boys retired to bed, and it was Mark & Peppa v Sally & Katie. As with the night before, it was another one-sided battle, only this time Katie was on the winning side.

Sally and Katie 11
Mark and Peppa 3

Then the main event of the evening was The Quest for El Dorado. Mark and I had played this with Peppa recently and they were quite taken with it, so we embarked on another dash for the mythical city with nothing but forschers and was auch immer zur Holle to get us there.

It was a mixed success. Katie was rather tired and not quite in the puzzly mode to figure out the best routes. Sally didn't mind the puzzling but her northern belt-tightening ways meant she didn't like buying cards and then keeping the money. "It feels weird" she said. Weird or not, she still found a way to surge past the pioneer Mark and claim a victory in most Ian-like fashion.

Sally - makes it to El Dorado
Mark - watches Sally from a nearby lake, unable to find a paddle
Sam - trapped behind a mountain
Katie - has a nice view of Sam

We stepped out onto the balcony where the much-talked-about game of Mooning the Trains finally began, as Mark rolled back the years - and his trousers - to give the late-night commuters an unexpected view. He insisted afterwards he had only done it to impress Katie, although these motivations were revisited the next day when he realised it was his first mooning. I guess as we move through life, different things give us pause for reflection.

Mark 1
Everyone else 0

We ended the evening with a couple of games of The Mind. Or to be accurate, three games, after the first level of our first game was so disastrous we reset and started again. Both had their high spots with, at one point, a 7-8-9-10-11 going down rapid fire from all angles. But neither saw us past level 5, as shurrikins couldn't save our bacon.

Monday

Daytime Monday was a trip to St Ives. I am never going to St Ives again.

On our return I reacquainted myself with the rules of Lords of Vegas by playing through a few rounds, but I couldn't quite generate enough momentum to get four players to the table. Instead Peppa and I blasted through another ten rounds of Skull King. Peppa's initial few rounds were successful bids of zero, whilst I picked up minus points. But such is the swingy nature of Skull King that a couple of big wins put me back into contention - and as with the day before, it came down to a decider in round ten:

Sam 70
Peppa 20

In a later rematch, another round ten showdown went the other way rather more spectacularly:

Peppa 90
Sam -10

Before the children migrated to bed, and Mark and I cajoled Katie into another game of The Quest for El Dorado as Sally made tiffins. Katie was hesitant, but susceptible to coaxing, and so we set off once more, in German, for the land of gold - or to use the German, gold.

Just as before, Mark hurtled into an early lead whilst Katie and I dawdled. But just as before, he was to be overhauled in the final reckoning - despite pulling off a spectacular final move to get himself to El Dorado, Katie followed him through the gates and the cheering masses turned their attentions to her, seeing as she had the most chevron-shaped tie-breakers. Meanwhile, I was cursing my Forschers for turning up at the wrong time. It's a bit like Lignum, this game.

Katie - El Dorado!
Mark - El Dorado!
Sam - El Perazoso

With that humiliation out of the way, we moved on to the next one - Decrypto!

It was Sally and I versus Katie and Mark. Our words were DUST, EVENING, GLASS and COMPUTER. But we had a miscommunication immediately when I guessed Sally's clue of Buffy related to the evening, not dust. While Mark bamboozled us with clues comprised of words we'd never even heard of (doubotrons, opinel) Sally and I were helped that for four rounds straight we didn't have to clue 'evening' at all, as all our code cards were variations on numbers 1, 3 and 4.

They were getting closer, twice getting two out of three clues right. But when the end came, it came through another miscommunication - my clue of No relating to the Little Britain computer sketch that Sally wasn't aware of. She guessed Dust, reasoning that No would be her answer if I asked her to dust.

Mark and Katie win
Sally and Sam go to bed.

Tuesday

Skull King!

Peppa 200
Sam 140
Stanley 10

I worked in the morning whilst the others headed to the beach to christen Stan's wakeboard.

Later in the day I - appallingly - couldn't find anyone to play a game, and ended up tackling Ganz Schon Clever by myself. I didn't do great, scoring 152 points and then a very shabby 120-something. Then I realised I was selling myself short by not picking up dice from Dirk, as you're meant to with the solo game. I played again, but it didn't improve my score much.

Sam 158

Better than Dirk's zero, I suppose. I also headed into Penzance to check out the local games shop, but sadly Google was not quite as up to date as we'd like. And gaming-wise, neither was Penzance.

Skull King got played again after Joe and Lula went to bed, and this time Stan eked out a win with a low-bid strategy that, once more, was a last-round decider:

Stan 240
Sam 230
Mark 50
Peppa -30

Then after the older children also retired, I tried to convince the grown-ups to play Lords of Vegas by sheer force of will. Or at least simply repeating the words over and over. But we played Push It instead. With the tablecloth removed it was a more pleasing surface, and the game's narrative was dramatic as Katie and I surged into the lead, were overhauled, then surged back, to leave both sides poised for a win on 20 points...

Sally and Mark 22
Katie and Sam 20

I got the yips.

Then Decrypto returned to the table, this time with the teams split by gender. How Mark and I survived as long as we did I don't know, as the ladies seemed to have identified half of our words by round two. And we swung perilously close to miscommunications more than once - luckily I guessed that Mark's canopic related to Pyramid, and not to Oasis. But with Katie and Sally seemingly onto us, we had to go more and more obtuse, until my clue of Benson (for Butler) flummoxed Mark and we picked up our second miscommunication.

Katie and Sally - win!

And we finished with The Mind. After our crash-and-burns of the previous evening, this was a triumph, with Level 12 achieved with three lives and three shurrikins. I advised everyone to play the Dark Mind at the same speed they would the Light Mind, but didn't follow my own advice, and we crashed out on round three.

Mark then mooned another train.

Mark 2
Everyone else 0

Wednesday

Whilst the kids started the day watching Harry Potter and the Saucer of Something or Other, my solo ascents of Ganz Schon Clever finally reached something more respectable.

Sam 273

According to the solo game rules, that makes me equivalent with Einstein. Probably in his post office clerk phase, I guess. Post-breakfast, I had to go on a mission of mercy (dishwasher salt; lemons) whilst Stanley and Peppa played a head to head of the current game of the moment, Skull King.

Stanley 150
Peppa 100

Before Lula instigated a few games of Insider. In the first two, the insider (Joe and Sally respectively) got away with it, as we collectively accused Sally (when it was Joe) and Lula (when it was Sally). In the third game the insider was Peppa, but she was undermined somewhat by the word being 'trashbox' which we were all so unfamiliar with it sounded strange when she guessed it!

Then it was back to the beach. While Stanley and Peppa zoomed up and down in the water...

Mark and I made a face.

Then, post-lunch, after another few games of Skull King, I finally managed to get a quorate for Lords of Vegas!

Stan was still preferring to roll around on the floor like a puppy wearing a hat, so it was myself, Peppa and Mark. And things began rather badly for me when Mark took control of my first casino in short order, getting himself a two-tile gold casino on the strip. My attempt to reorganise blew up in my face like claiming a 1gold card in Biblios (although I didn't make that reference at the time) before Peppa surged into an early lead.

Like the guy in the VW advert, I put all my money on silver, whilst Mark did something similar with purple. Both of us gnashed our teeth as lots of non-silver and non-purple cards flipped over, and Peppa was first to turn the corner on the scoretrack.

Then purples began to surface, and Mark overhauled her, and as we entered endgame Peppa ran out of dice and seemed happy to simply amass tonnes and tonnes of cash.

It was looking like a two-horse race for a bit as I brought up the rear, but I was saved by fate when two Strip cards popped out in a row, benefiting all of us - but me in particular on the Game End card, as I'd just sprawled to create another four-tile casino, pushing me into the slenderest victory.

After another trip to the beach (we made a dragon)

...a dog wanted to use Stan's wakeboard...

...we came back to yet more Skull King, with Lula now another convert. Not sure how many games the kids played, or who won them all. It went on for a couple of hours!

Then there was a quick game of Doodle Rush which Stan and I shared a win on, and after Lula's bedtime Stanley, Joe, Peppa and I played Now Boarding.

This is a Tim Fowers game, he of Paperback, Fugitive, and Burgle Bros. It's got the same UPA illustrative style and like Burgle Bros, it's co-operative. Unlike Burgle Bros though, there's a time element: players are working together to carry passengers around the USA in their planes, and although you can plan as much as you like, when each round starts there's a mere 30 seconds to do all the doing, and you need to quickly factor in the new passengers who've rocked up and messed up your plans.

At the end of each round, any passengers still in the airports get an anger cube - four anger cubes and they flounce out of the game. Three flounce-outs, and the players lose. Get through all the passengers with two or less - you win!

It looks great. It plays absolutely nuts, and I found it quite stressful, even having played it a couple of times at home with the boys. 

We lost!

The grown-ups evening was relatively short, as we were all exhausted by now. but we still squeezed a couple of games in: in El Dorado my dumping cards strategy (thanks Adam) saw me claim a convincing win as the others cursed their cards.

Then on The Mind we were so out of sync that Sally realised she was listening to the radio, and I thought I was holding a card from a previous round.

And so to Bed.

Thursday

The distractions of the outside world meant the first game didn't game played until the shockingly late time of 7.30, when we played Destination X. Joe was the spy, and hid out in Uganda.

Then Peppa was the spy, and we found her in Singapore.

Joe and I went off to do stories whilst the hectic sounds of JamSumo came echoing through the floor above us. Not sure what happened, but Sally said later she'd done enough JamSumo to last her a good while. After that they introduced Sally to Skull King, but it was a baptism of fire:

Peppa 240

Stan  190

Sally 10

The evening was also games-light, with only two of them hitting the table. Azul was first. Katie's understandable reticence at learning yet more new rules was overcome by Mark and Sally insisting that she would like it, and my setting it up while they did so.

And she did like it! 

Although Sally's triple-column board aligned with all the blues meant she took a pretty convincing win. The rest of us duked it out for second.

Sally 86
Mark 74
Sam 73
Katy 67

We ended a reasonably early evening with Push It, the Gods of seating once more pitching Katie and I versus Sally and Mark. Katie's elegant 'Queen's Butler' pushing style was hitting the high spots, but my mojo wasn't on and it was another victory for Sally and Mark.

Friday

Our last day was another games-light spell as we headed to the Minack theatre for a kids show, and followed that with the beach.

In fact, bar a final outing for Skull King (I saw off Stan and Peppa) we almost didn't play games at all, until a bizarro-world style changing of identities occurred, as I speculated that I was gamed out, only to be cajoled into it by Katie. Whatever next!

With the aid of Mark's margarita and a succession of fatty snacks (and only mildly dispirited by a hiccup attack) we ended the holiday with a final blast of Azul!

Re-energised by margaritas and a reckless sense of hedonism - or as close as I get to it - I suddenly found my inner tiler, channeling Andrew's clustering to push me into the lead, and triggering enough bonuses to hold it to the drunken end:

Sam 90-something
Katie and Sally - in the 80s
Mark - in the 70s, thanks most likely to picking up no less than eight red tiles!

And with that, we were done. A gaming marathon! And a fun week.