Snacks Entertainment

This week's games night missed Hallowe'en by a day, but landed smack on Martin's birthday. And, boy, did we celebrate. We were five in total: Martin the host, Sam, Ian, Chris and me. Sam came bearing a gift of a second hand Reiner Knizia game. Chris came bearing gifts of sweets, personally selected by him and put in individual fun party bags. Thus began our snack odyssey.

First up was a new game from Martin, fresh out the wrapper, making its second appearance on GNN: Circus Flohcati. This collection game is all about getting "trios" (three of a kind) or trying to pick up high cards in each of the ten suits. The game ends when one player has one card from each suit (a Gala Show) or the draw deck is used up.

Ian and I seemed to spend a lot of time going bust, while Chris had issues with the similarity of some of the colours. Sam managed to achieve a Gala Show just a few cards before the draw deck was exhausted, but the ten point bonus was not enough to make up for his lack of trios.

Martin 53
Chris 49
Sam 37
Ian 37
Andrew 33

An inaugural win for Martin. Happy birthday indeed. I'm not sure if anyone worked out a strategy, although there were prolonged thoughtful silences punctuated by the sound of happy chewing.

Next up was Druids, another trick taking game where your points are the value of the lowest card in the trick you won. If you later won a trick with the same suit, then that card would be replaced. You have one value per suit in front of you, but if anyone has a value for all five suits, then the round ends and they score minus three.

It all seemed a bit hippy-ish, with the rules talking about "domain cards" and "gaia cards". But the game itself had opportunities for a wide range of dickish behaviour and ways to attack your opponent.

We played just three rounds and Chris's win came courtesy of a round two windfall, when he won a trick that helped him score highly in four of the five suits. An optimal result.

Four suits. Don't want another!

Chris 35
Andrew 25
Martin 19
Sam 14
Ian 5

During this game we tore through some wasabi crisps and then straight onto the lime and chutney (I think) poppadom type things.

Next up was Decrypto. Sam and Martin teamed up again in an attempt at removing the hex that appears to hang over them whenever they play this game together.

Talking of hexes, there must have been one over the third word in our quartet, since it only appeared once for us in six rounds. This made the sixth round a real problem for me as I had to give clues to three words that had already been clued to death.

Sam pulled off a magnificent literary clue that went "The party was a hoot / I decided to strip off / Everybody stared at me with massive eyes." A great effort, but we intercepted the signal to give us a real advantage, since they'd miscommunicated earlier. The words he was trying to convey were Owl, Comic Book, and Frog.

Ian, Chris and Andrew – George Smiley from Smiley’s People
Martin and Sam - Guy Smiley from Sesame Street

We were sustained through this with some "two for a pound" salt and vinegar crisps. And we still had further to fall. Oh yes.

Finally, we played Skull King. This Contract Whist with knobs on is a tricky one to judge. There are plenty of special cards to render the normal suits redundant which makes guessing how many tricks you'll take a bit of a shot in the dark.

Notable events were: Martin bidding only one trick each round (until a last minute bid for glory) and, apart from once, always getting it; people bidding No Tricks despite having a pirate in their hand and, the main feature of the game, Ian's crazy roller coaster of luck which mostly involved him wiping out whatever he'd scored in one round by a terrible following round. It was a sight to see when, in round seven, he successfully bid Zero to put himself right back in contention only to fail with a Zero bid in rounds eight and nine to send him right back into negative figures. I guess this was karma since, by now, our snacking had moved on to Ian's two (two?!) packs of pork scratchings. Mind you, while we told each other how unhealthy they were, we kept munching away in a kind of The Rope's Around My Neck, I May As Well Kick Away The Chair kind of attitude.

Everyone is ready to bid while I struggle to take a photo

I played a fairly cautious game until I saw Ian gain 70 points for a zero bid. I had a safe round eight thanks to that pirate/escape card. In round nine, inspired by Ian I also went for zero (with a pirate in my hand, of course) and got it. This put me in pole position in the final round and when I got my four tricks with my Skull King card beating two pirates, I was untouchable.

Although, in the last round, Martin had a dilemma. He could have used the escape/pirate card to win or lose a trick. If he won, he'd screw himself and me. If he lost, he'd pretty much hand victory to me. When we totted up the scores we realised that Martin could have gifted Sam a win as he snuck up at the last minute thanks to him (and Chris) scoring zero tricks in the final round.

Andrew 360
Martin 270
Sam 250
Chris 190
Ian -90

A very enjoyable game, mostly thanks to Ian's wild swings of (mis)fortune.

By now it was ten to eleven. We'd played, drank and snacked as well as anyone could expect five aging gentlemen to do on a weekday, so we called it a night. Thanks to Martin for hosting and thanks to everyone for joining us.

Goodbye Frieling

After my recent joy soloing with Nemo's War I branched out into the highly-rated Skies Above the Reich, where you take control of a staffel of German fighters and try to break down the allied bombing formations as they fly in and out of Germany. Spending a lot of time at home thanks to my crap feet has allowed me to wallow in retail freed up some time to take on what is a campaign game, spread across the latter years of the second world war.

I chose Skies Above the Reich because everything I'd read about it waxed lyrically about how easy was to pick up and play, but breaking open the box also broke that illusion - SAtR might be simple for wargamers, but to me it was a bewildering array of rulebooks and situation manuals and player aids. Nevertheless I ploughed on, reasoning that I get a lot of rules wrong anyway, so what's a few more.

 First mission

I began in 1942, playing the basic game. A few d10 rolls set me up on board A (there are three boards) following an outbound formation of bombers, one of whom was already nursing a hit from flak. Another d10 roll gave me some tactical points to spend - more on them later - and I began the game with six experienced pilots - experienced meant that each one had a special ability, such as dealing extra hits (when successfully hitting, of course) or being 'lucky'. Not sure how you train for that.

Then the game resolves over a set number of rounds (I had six) made trickier in the latter stages by the arrival of a suddenly-alert Allied escort, as Spitfires (in this instance) swarm around you dealing blows.

Before then, you try to do as much damage as you can following a series of phases in each round. One of them involves checking the cohesion of the bomber's formation, which you kind of want to degrade, as it makes them easier to attack.  Then manoeuvre your planes into attacking position - nose, tail, or flank - via a high, low, or level elevation. Attack in groups for certain advantages, but also certain risks (collision check!) or from the angle of the sun to make your approach harder to spot.  Then choose each pilots mode (determined for a more likely success, evasive for more likely survival) - and let rip!

Grimm leads a schwarm attack on the rearmost bomber

Depending on what part of the formation you attack, there'll be a lethal level to deal with - how likely you are to be hit by the bomber's defences - and results are revealed by card draw. Compare your elevation and lethal level for what you hope will be a hit (annoyingly rare) and not damage to yourself (annoyingly frequent, including debilitating results such as running out of ammo, or your gun jamming). Then your planes peel away (if they didn't balk already) to regroup and repeat the process.

Knocking out a bomber degrades the formation and makes it easier to attack, so there's an escalation to things as you run out of rounds and attacks are getting more and more fruitful. Then the bloody escort show up and start getting in the way.

I managed to avoid the worst of the escort though, forcing two bombers out of the sky and destroying another. What's more three of my hit pilots made it safely home (the others gave up after running out of ammo) and we sadly had to say goodbye to Frieling, who died. That's war, though.

Also war: gaining victory points (3) and experience points for my more zealous pilots, who can up their game for the next mission. Frieling has been replaced by a new pilot (Falke) who is zealous in a bad way - as a greenhorn, his 'zeal' is actually a drawback, as he is young and dumb and under the illusion he's indestructible. I fear he may go the way of the more measured Frieling, but that's war as well.

The advanced game looks a bit harder, as the damned allies take continuing fire at you as you fly away. Hardly sportsmanlike. But you can also go after any fallen bombers and finish them off, which is... nice?

It was a slightly insane experience. The board design and angles of approach stuff is all really clever. There is a lot to think about though, and I would argue the weight rating on BGG (lower than Macao!) is skewed alarmingly by brainy, chit-loving Paths of Glory players comparing it to a zillion wargames. I packed it away puffing my cheeks a bit yesterday... but today, I find myself thinking about Frieling. How do we honour his memory? By trading it away on BGG, or going out there again to our inevitable doom...?

*

This morning we set out again, my savvy pilots in their bf109s aided by headstrong Falke. Now on Map B, we had 12 bombers to think about, instead of the measly four of our first mission, and lethal levels on such a large formation climbed as high as 4. I took care to think a bit more about my attacks, choosing an evasive approach for many pilots - and had a great first round, taking a bomber out of formation.

chunky blue blocks help you remember elevation

With no escort to worry about, the skies were my oyster, as I could zigzag across the formation dealing out - in theory - death. But a rule clarification meant that I was being hit by my own flak as gunners on the ground also fired on the bombers, and this was a bit of a pain.

Speeding up considerably, I blasted through the six rounds in less than an hour, to the loss of a single fighter - sadly, it was Falke, who took a hit in the final round and although he tried to nurse the plane home, exploded without bailing out. My other pilot's grimaces and reliance on gallows humour hardened another few degrees...

Falke, wearing Frieling's old jacket

What's more, I'd only managed to knock three bombers out of formation, which was pitiful. As I pondered on where I'd gone wrong, the inevitable Missing Rule hit me - I'd neglected to roll for operation points at the start of the mission, which could have afforded me extra pilots! Which was pretty embarrassing, as we would arrive back at the Luftstutzpunkt to find them playing Scrabble in the mess... oh well. Another oversight by the top brass... that's war for you.

Giving up the ghost

I write these blog posts on my phone and I like it when the predictive text on my phone suggests words for this report. I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of another reality: in this case, a reality where Simon and Mary joined us for games night this week.

Tonight we were at Joe's and we were six in number: Joe, Martin, Ian, Sam, Adam and me. Sam was running a little late, and Martin made a pitch for Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game but the mood around the table wasn't amenable. Joe brought in a stack of options, with Welcome To Centerville hiding at the bottom. It caught Adam's eye and Martin's description of it as Yahtzee crossed with Sim City didn't put him off so we had to clarify that it had most of the Sim City bits taken out.

When Sam arrived, we still hadn't made a decision. He remarked on Centreville's presence on the table in a tone of voice that suggested he wouldn't be choosing it. Instead we went for a completely different style of game. Mysterium.

In this game of clue giving and deduction, Martin was the ghost. He couldn’t talk to us directly, but his mutterings about how shit his hand was told us that death hadn't changed him.

It's a hard game to describe but, as I recall, Martin The Ghost liked giving clues based on dominant colour, Sam was usually one step behind us in solving his clues and in the final round when we had to choose one scenario out of five, we got it completely wrong, despite spreading our choices across three of them. In fact we hadn't even discussed the correct option at all, much to Martin's annoyance. And, once he'd explained it, his clues did make perfect sense.

In the post-game wind down he also told us that we'd usually start off on the right track with our clues until Adam suggested something wrong.

Martin made another attempt at persuading some of us to play Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game, but with little success. Next up was another six player game: Team Play. Despite their lack of bonding over Mysterium, Adam and Martin paired up. The other teams were Joe & Sam and Ian & me.

It was a close game, and Sam played the eighth trick to trigger the final round. We were all very impressed when, after Joe had handed Sam two cards, Sam was able to complete his last trick (two pairs) with the last play of the game.

Sam & Joe 26
Ian & Andrew 23
Adam & Martin 22

It was still only 9.30 and we wondered what to do next. Sam asked if it was time for another discussion about Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game. Martin, Adam and I went for Azul. Joe went to get some roll and write games and discovered his dog had done plops on the floor again. Oh, Sybil.

They chose Kribbeln for their entertainment, and brought out the Das Exclusive dice arena to host it.

We played out a slow, thinky game of Azul. When tiles were pulled from the bag, there were almost no triples of the same colour on a tile for the whole game. Instead, we had to slowly put together our rows of four and five from the doubles and singles that were available. When Adam went to the toilet, I took the chance to watch some Kribbeln but I noticed Martin, deep in thought, scanning Azul and trying to find the optimum move. And it worked too, as he edged ahead in a close game.

Martin 63
Andrew 57
Adam 54

Kribbeln ended with Joe throwing caution to the wind, trying to catch the runaway leader Sam.

Sam 20
Joe 15
Ian 10

And they also squeezed in a game of Kriss Kross. This roll and write game has an air of Take It Easy about it, as point scoring opportunities are ruined by bad luck. Sam looked to have won it until he remembered a rule and demanded a recount. Such sportsmanship.

Joe 38
Sam 32
Ian 32

Now we were a sextet again, and there was some discussion about the next game. Vegas had been perched on top of a stack of games for the whole evening and I was keen, but instead we chose For Sale. Such a great game and it always throws up a surprise or two. As shuffled decks of cards so often do.

In this game, we had a round of all low cards, a round of all middling cards and a round of all high except one low card. Oh, and Joe picked up the 1 card. No surprises there. Sam’s win was all the more impressive since he picked up a $0 cheque in the second round. All his others were well into double figures.

Sam 51
Adam 50
Martin 45
Joe 38
Ian 36
Andrew 35

After this, Sam and Ian set off home and the remaining four of us pondered how to end the evening. Someone suggested Tichu and since we all knew the rules, we all agreed. The thought of starting a game Tichu at 10.30 was almost too exciting and GNN hasn't seen such decadence since that time we started Lords Of Vegas after nine o'clock.

It was, of course, a shortened game of just four hands. Martin and Adam overturned their previous poor form and ran into a 500 - 0 lead by the end of round two. Thankfully, Joe flexed his Tichu muscles and put us back into more respectable territory. He called Grand Tichu in round four because "why not?" and he made it too. Martin's failed bid of Tichu in that same round dragged them back towards us making the score look even better.

Martin and Adam 510
Joe and Andrew 390

And finally we were done. What an evening, and what a finale. Thanks all.

The Alms Race

Tonight's games night began with a real rarity: a crossword puzzle. Specifically the crossword that Joe had devised and posted on GNN. Sam and Martin were poring over Joe's clues and, with help from the quizmaster himself in times of difficulty, they finished it off. It was an impressive creation by Joe, although he was disappointed in himself for letting a couple of mistakes slip by.

As a quartet, we filled the time until Ian arrived with a game of Orongo. This game, like San Marco, has a name that prompts people to adopt Australian accents. This is despite, also like San Marco, the game has nothing to do with the land down under.

Instead, it is set on Easter Island, where each player is a tribe eager to build their statues (or moai) before the others. This is done by placing a trail of counters on the map, connecting suitable resources to a space on the coast. And the placing of these counters is decided by secret auction. The winner loses all of their seashells (putting them in the reef where, hopefully, they won't roll off the board) but places first and puts down three counters. Second place keeps their seashells and places two tiles. Third and beyond place just one. But if you bid no seashells at all you get to take whatever is in the reef, which is usually the winning bid.

Except if more than one player bids zero they share what is in the reef and Joe and I demonstrated our synchronicity by bidding zero together on several occasions. It would have been touching were it not so annoying.

Sam, meanwhile, began in a corner of the island that saw few resources being drawn early in the game. Martin built a statue with his very first move, and always looked good for the win. In fact, if he'd bid a little lower a couple of times, he could have wrapped up the game earlier. He still wrapped it up, though.

Martin 0 statues left
Sam 1
Andrew 1
Joe 2

It was a nice game, containing plenty of Reiner Knizia's finest ingredients. In fact, Martin brought a whole pile of Knizia games, leading me to remark wittily that it could be called a Reinerssance. Any pleasure I had from my pun was dashed by learning that several people, including Martin, had already used it in the past.

Ian arrived at the dying stages of Easter Island's flawed social system and next up was Chickwood Forest. This game has been offered as an option for some weeks and now, thanks to its ability to accommodate five players, it got its chance to shine.

After a rules explanation, where we learnt that you have to specialise in treasure chests, gain unique garments, and grab as much jewelry as possible. This is done by playing cards to one of six castles, some face up and some face down, and then choosing them. Are the face down cards evil (such as henchmen, bust chests or maybe even a kind of chest/garment you'd rather avoid) or are they rather good and just pretending to be evil? That's the dilemma.

At first, with all this talk about treasure, I said it was very "inchesting" which, for a short while, was the front runner for the blog title. Then we learnt about the part of the game where you get points for alms. At first, my quip of "two alms to hold you" had unseated "inchesting" but then Ian remarked that it was a bit of an "alms race" and the decision was made. Thanks Ian.

The almshouses were an interesting part of the game. The player with most cubes got most points, but ties were broken according to who was in last. So it was possible to ignore it for the first part of the game and then pepper the village with your cubes in the final stages.

This is what Joe did and this strategy, coupled with his collection of five green chests (worth 25 points), gave him the win.

Joe 70
Sam 67
Martin 64
Ian 52
Andrew 43

There were cautious murmurs of approval for the game. If I recall right, Martin called it "a perfect example of a modern eurogame," which is as non committal as you can get.

Next to the table was Voodoo Prince. This game, perfect for five, is usually played in a truncated manner at the very end of an evening. This time, though, it was given the full five rounds.

I got a bit of luck in round one, putting down the purple 15 thinking I was bound to win, only to see Ian had put down the purple 0: the only card that could have saved me. Then in round two, Joe tried to flush out the black cards by leading with high blacks in the first two tricks (and winning them) and then playing a low black in the third trick. Unfortunately for him, no one else had any black cards left and no one trumped him, so he got his third trick in the shortest possible time. At the end of the round we checked the undealt cards and saw how unlucky he was: there were four black cards in the ten unused cards.

Round three was very cagey and, at one point, everyone was on two tricks. Joe was able to redeem himself somewhat when he netted the maximum twelve points for that round. Then in round four, it ended with Martin versus Sam. Martin had the seven in the trump suit which would see him go from one to three tricks, thanks to the seven’s special power. But Sam had the 15 and 14 in the trump suit and Martin’s plan was foiled.

Round five was just a case of me waiting until enough points were available to win, and then bailing. Which I did.

Andrew 45
Martin 38
Sam 36
Ian 26
Joe 21


Lastly, we went out on Dead Man’s Chest. A remarkable game, as they usually are, in which I got my first Dead Man and we witnessed luck at its most peculiar: Joe bid 2-2 and handed to Sam. Sam shook the box, looked, shook the box again and handed it to martin, bidding 3-3. Martin challenged and it was 4-4. Amazing.

Ian out first, challenged Martin’s 1-1
Sam out, challenged Joe’s 6-1.
Martin out when I challenged his 6-5
I went out when a wrongly challenged Joe's 2-2.
Joe wins!

Thanks all for another great evening. Will the fun never stop?

This is a photo of fun not stopping.

Finding Nemos

I (Sam) have been besotted the passing week or so by my solo adventuring in Nemo's War - a game in which you play out the adventures of Captain Nemo, aboard the Nautilus, inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. But which Nemo are you? You can play an explory Nemo, a warlike one, an anti-imperialist or an enquiring scientisty one. Whomever you choose will affect how you play the game, as there are different avenues (both watery and otherwise) to take. Play the war guy and you basically prowl the seas obliterating warships. The anti-imperialist wants to incite uprisings amongst the oppressed. The adventurer wants to have adventures, etc.

You begin the game with your chosen captain, some eminently expendable specialist crew members, and three aspects of the Nautilus in near tip-top condition - the hull, the crew, and the mental fragility of Nemo himself are tracked on the board. Also tracked is your notoriety, which can trigger a defeat if you sink too many ships.

too notorious!

Each turn is pretty simple. An adventure card is flipped with a test or event on it. Sometimes you can squirrel them away for later, but often the challenge is immediate. As with almost everything you do in Nemo's War, the challenge is met with a dice roll. But you can skew the odds marginally towards you by 'exerting' some aspect of the Nautilus - the aforementioned hull, crew, or Nemo himself. Succeed, and the Nautilus returns to its previous (hopefully healthy) state. Fail, and whatever you leveraged on the dice is lost - and these exertions slowly take their toll on the boat as the game continues.

the world filling up with boats

Having negotiated the card, you now roll for two things - foreign ship placement on the board, and how many actions you get this turn. Actions can be spent in a number of ways - the adventures are expensive to do (two actions!) particularly as you may decide not to bother once the card is revealed, but you can also search for treasure, incite uprisings, refit the Nautilus, replenish the hull/crew/Nemo, or ram boats and use them for tonnage or salvage. Ramming is tempting because you want lots of salvage to pimp the Nautilus out with stuff like fog machines and armoured hulls. But of course, if you keep sinking ships, your notoriety is only going to increase...

torpedoes are cool

All of these actions use dice. Despite Nemo's War's fairly dry-looking board, this is a crazy dice-chucker supreme, where as you continue flipping cards and chucking dice, things get increasingly desperate. You can lose by having your notoriety top out (warlike Nemo is less concerned by this than scientist Nemo) but you can also lose by letting the hull, the crew, or Nemo himself reach the point of disintegration/mutiny/madness. Or by not sinking enough ships - if there is nowhere left to put them at the start of a round, this is a militaristic defeat, as the view is taken that the oceans are so crowded now, the Nautilus can longer exist as this free-roaming, violent anarchist-hippy of the seas.

Dangerous waters

So how do you win?

Well, the Adventure deck is seeded with cards that ramp up the adding of hostile (or potentially hostile) ships, and in the bottom five cards - if you reach them - there is a finale: a final test to pass. When your resources are stretched, this is tricky, and can just as easily see Nemo and company disintegrate to Davy Jones' Locker as sail to X in glory.

I've played Nemo's War four times and perished in three of them. In my third game I managed to see off a mutinous crew at the end of things and win - only to find that according to the Epilogues book, my victory score was 'inconsequential'. Considering I sank 33 ships and started 14 uprisings across the globe, not to mention the building of the Suez canal, I felt Nemo was setting his standards a little bit high.

Nemo reflects on his life

Primarily a solo game, Nemo's War can also be played either as a straightforward co-op or a semi-competitive one where players can wrestle the captaincy from each other. I don't know if that brings a worthy extra dimension to it, but it's been a lot of fun so far. Most of the rules are on the board...

And the sense of adventure is palpable, with a little snippet of the novel (often involving the raging of Ned Land) on each of the cards. On my first play the scoring felt rather salady for such a chance-based endeavour, but subsequently I realised that the system is what gives Nemo a lot of depth - depending on which Nemo you are, you want to get up to different kinds of mischief. I've been the explorer, the anti-imperialist and the scientist. Next up is warlike...

GNN Cryptic Crossword 001

In honour of impending Novocon2018, or autumn, or nothing in particular - I give you the inaugural GNN-themed cryptic crossword. It will appeal to some more than others, and don't feel obliged to give it a go if you don't fancy it. It's actually the first ever crossword I've written, so there may well be mistakes but I've tried to be thorough in my checking - it was a great way to distract myself on a bumpy flight to and from Frankfurt this weekend.

Not all the clues are relevant to games, but I've tried where possible to make some connections.
And the instruction 'Eight solutions (four across and four down) are of a kind, and lack further definition' means that as well as the general theme, eight solutions are of a specific type, and their clues only have a cryptic definition, no literal.

Comment if you want hints, or anything needs explaining, and I hope you enjoy it!

Indian Plumber

Last night Chris joined Andrew and I for our occasional sorties into Euroland, this time picking Rajas of the Ganges as our main meal. It had been a while, and we needed a quick refresher on set-up before diving into the business, where we construct all manner of buildings like the most exceedingly competent handymen

I like Rajas a lot - there are a multitude of options and combining them in the best possible way shuffles your markers (money, and/or glory) along two opposing tracks - when the twain meet, the game ends. I seem to recall Adam schooling us on how he'd won convincingly, but I couldn't remember what he said. Always have dice, probably, as although there's a worker-placement thing going on there's also dice, dice, and more dice. Just like real Rajas, if you want to build a market, and trigger a glory bonus, you need to roll high. If you want to move your boat, roll low.

I focused my efforts on two dice colours (green and blue) and, though success may have been coincidental, it worked:

Sam - Raja!
Chris - Raja's assistant
Andrew - Raja you than me

Then we overcame Chris' misgivings about Cryptid and set it up again. Chris was as bamboozled as I was on my first play three plays, but now on my fourth outing to Cryptoworld, I finally had enough familiarity with the clue types to forge a sense of what was going on on the board.

I figured out the other clues and actually won the game with a proper deduction, rather than a random guess. Andrew cursed his hesitation, as he was on the trail too and nearly made the same search I did!

Sam - Crypto!
Andrew - Pipt-o
Chris - Transfixt-o

We ended a fine evening with Chris' request of Ganz Schon Clever, Wolfgang Warsch's game of bonus overload. There's no real narrative to describe here, as we are basically parcelling out dice and getting (eventually) a zillion bonuses in return. But it's a fun dice-chucker all the same.

My misspent summer playing solo paid off. it was looking a close-run thing with Chris, until - classic GNN sentence finish coming up - my fox heads came up trumps.

Sam - 271
Chris - 226
Andrew - 158

Chris pointed out I'd won all the games and for a brief moment we speculated as to whether, including Tuesday, I'd won a 'spectacular' (me) or 'smug' (Andrew and Chris) six in a row, but then we remembered that I only won one game on Tuesday. C'est la vie.

Thanks for making the trip, guys, much fun.

Monster Hunch

Tuesday night, and with Andrew a late withdrawal due to a cold, it was myself (Sam) Joe, Andy, Ian and Martin sat around the table. Joining us for the first part of the evening was Stan, and whilst (big) Joe coaxed another game of Carta Impera Victoria out of Martin and Andrew, our trio began the night with Welcome To... which I'm beginning to feel could be continued with ...the mildly underwhelming roll-and-write. But as we didn't play the entirely proper rules, I could be doing it a disservice...

The game sees you as rival developers building estates and scoring points for pools and trees and pleasing the city planners. Like Avenue, it's a roll-and-write with no rolling. Unlike Avenue, it's a mite fiddly and we had to keep referencing the rules. It feels a teeny bit bland - for me the fun of a roll-and-write is all about that sense of frustration and hoping your numbers come up (literally, in this case). It doesn't need this amount of options. I don't think my opinion was influenced by the score, but feel free to draw your own conclusions...

Ian 87
Stan 60
Sam 52

On the other half of the table, CIV was in it's final stages, and a second play didn't seem to be really changing Joe or Martin's mind. Martin said it was clever, but not much fun. Joe was quietly reflecting on the opinions of Space Biff, whose review had convinced him to buy the game. I'm not sure what Andy thought.

Martin 3 (wins on tie-breaker)
Joe 3
Andy 1

With those palette-cleansers out of the way, and Stan off to bed (in theory, he snuck down later) we combined into a five to play Cryptid.

Like CIV and Welcome To... this also had its GNN debut over the last week, but possibly to a more appreciative crowd. The board is set up; the cryptid occupies a single hex on it; no-one knows where. But everyone has some information, such as the cryptid being on one of two types of landscape, or in proximity to a bear. And a picture of its location is gradually revealed over time. That's the idea, anyway. It was a bamboozling affair, with all of us scratching our heads. I confess I found it hard to remember my own clue, let along figure out anyone else's. And it came to a sudden end as Joe searched for the cryptid and found it in the first place he looked!

Joe - wins
Everyone else - disappointed the cryptid isn't better at hiding

I was amazed that anybody had any theories at this point, seeing as when I look at the board all I can ascertain is some kind of DNA structure that I can't possibly understand. We all saw the comparison with Zendo, but weren't sure if it was a favourable one.

Now began The Great Ethnos Debate, as Martin disappeared into the front room and returned with the game Katy hates Most Of All. Martin said it needed some love, and I was amenable. But the other side of the table seemed unstirred. Ian said he'd need a rule refresher. Joe said he'd be ok with it, but without much zeal. And Andy said he could play it, in the same way one says I could unblock the sink. It looked like Ethnos was to be packed away again, but in the face of incredible odds, Martin persisted. He kept persisting when it seemed the whole table was swaying towards Beowulf instead. Twice the lid of Ethnos was heading onto the box, but eventually we set it up and played. Kudos to Martin.

In Ethnos we are in Slovakia a far distant fantasy island, struggling for control over six differently-coloured regions by building bands of warriors - in our case, Wingfolk, Merfolk, Giants, Trolls, Orcs and Centaurs. The basic scoring is simple - area majority on the map, and the size of the bands you build, which can be all of a colour, or all of a race. The catch is when you build a band, you must discard all your other cards, which are now available for everyone else to pick up. Do you play patiently, and hopefully? Or do as Joe does and 'whack off a Merman'?

Some extra wrinkles in scoring come off the back of your band's leader - the much-sought-after Centaurs allow you add a second band, Trolls break ties in the area-scoring and so on. It plays really fast, as if you're not playing a band you're simply picking up a card. All of us were surprised by our turns arriving seconds after we'd just had one.

After the first age, Martin was out in front but I was hot on his tail. After the second, we were level and the others seemed far behind. But the third and final age saw Martin streak ahead as I picked up what I could only describe as the Bash Street Kids of Ethnos - very little matching colours or races! Meanwhile Ian went from last to third (and briefly second!) with a strong finish.

Martin 88
Sam 75
Ian 73
Andy 58
Joe 55

Considering the table-wide pre-play reticence, Ethnos seemed to go down pretty well. Joe did say he enjoyed it, but didn't like area majority much. Martin announced that he loved area majority. I said the only thing I didn't like about the game were the plastic markers. Ian and Martin said they loved the plastic markers. Martin tried to get the plastic markers back in the box, and changed his mind.

With the whisky now flowing (a decision my feet are reminding me of regretfully today) we finished the night with Zero Down, Knizier's Rummy-style puzzler where points are bad.

Everyone receives nine cards and begin a series of swaps with a card from the tableau on the table, until people get a decently low score and start knocking, and a second knock triggers the end of the round. Ian began badly with a 23 point haul, whereas Joe set the pace with a piddling 5 points. In the second round Andy thought he'd zeroed (completed a point-free hand, which instantly ends the round) but had miscalculated. Then in subsequent rounds Ian and I zeroed. With a round to to go, Martin led with Ian in second and me third. A dramatic swing saw them fall second and joint-fourth!

Sam 39
Martin 40
Andy 46
Ian and Joe 48

And another GNN came to a respectable 11pm close. Until next time...

We may lose, and we may win

Friday night games briefly threatened to be a four-player affair before settling into a cosy head to head between Andrew and myself. We started with Welcome To... which is a roll and write game with no rolling. Instead, cards are flipped and you choose one of three sets to add a number and a feature to your growing neighbourhood. Maybe you put up a fence, or build a pool. Maybe you plant a tree. It's all points, and though often it's hard to tell from an initial play, we found it a little underwhelming in comparison to the delightful agony of say, Rolling America, or Avenue.

I won, but should mention Andrew allowed me a significant do-over when I realised I'd built a fence in the wrong place.

Next up was Heaven and Ale, such a hit earlier this year and still much beloved by Andrew and myself. It was a very curious game, as I began spending big and realised I'd run out of money with little recourse to more. Instead I had to pick up scoring markers and sacrifice a card in order to get anywhere, and I felt it was all a terrible error as Andrew was moseying along grabbing as many tiles as it seemed he felt like, building sheds and the money rolling in. Weirdly though my early scoring meant I didn't have to fret over picking up scoring markers in the final round, and Andrew's momentum stalled slightly. The scores were close - we didn't write them down - but I nabbed it right at the end. A baffling play that suggests there are still avenues to be explored in this game...

My reward from Andrew was a fortune cookie that said I should learn from my mistakes. Oddly enough this is exactly what Andrew said he should do when next playing Heaven and Ale before I opened it.

The night was still young enough to squeeze in a nightcap in both gaming and whisky terms, so we broke out trusty old Take It Easy.

Andrew called video games and I did board games. It was noticeable for the agony absent from Welcome To... recognisable from every previous play, and our acknowledgement of our terrible maths as we both reached for calculators to work out the scores. My maths was so bad I turned on the torch my accident. Andrew won the first round, but was scuppered by nine-based optimism in the second, when Beowulf came out to stump him... meanwhile I recovered from some appalling hedge-betting as I skirted the edges, before finally having to commit somewhere more central...

Sam 308
Andrew 281

Lovely to play again! And now I have the Eagles playing in my head.