The Comeback King

The rain hung in the air as a fine mist this Tuesday evening, the kind of rain that doesn't get you wet unless you move. I joined the gamers at Joe's place a few minutes late and found them (Joe, Sam, Ian and Martin) playing Destination X, the game of geography and deduction. Joe was the spy hiding in a country and the other three whittled away the options by asking him about this country's biggest export (nutmeg), major industry (food) etc. They got it down to Grenada or Eritrea, and then guessed right.

Ian, Martin, Sam successfully sought.
Joe finally found

Now we were a five (the Familiar Five, you might say) so we broke out Ethnos. Always on the sidelines, itching to come on, tonight it finally got its moment of glory before everyone forgot the rules.

I needed a rule refresher, but that didn't stop me from scoring low in round one. Everyone else had a go on the giants and scored big for the bands of trolls, minotaurs, dwarfs in front of them. Martin went big on trolls in round one to win any ties while Sam pulled off a mega move by chaining together a load of centurions allowing him to place four tokens in a single go.

In round two, I went big on trolls but my best move was to draw the third dragon from the draw deck, instantly ending the round just before Joe or Sam could've unleashed their game changing mega move. Ha.

In round three Sam collected a hand of ten remarkably dissimilar cards, such that his best move after all that was to play a pair. Ian's lack of fingernails meant he had difficulty picking the cards up from the table. In the final reckoning, Martin won, as was obvious from the end of round one, and I was pleased with my comeback.

Martin 92
Andrew 76
Sam 58
Joe 56
Ian 56

Next up was Druids, a trick taking game that made its debut recently and its not immediately obvious strategy made it rather intriguing, even if the artwork is less than appealing.

A druid miming being stuck in a glass box

We played a full five-round game after giving Joe a rules explanation. Sam cursed his unfamiliarity with the rules when he lost in round one having forgotten you can lead with a special card and pretty much guarantee not winning a trick.

Despite being a newcomer, Joe was given little mercy and the game ended on a hand where either Sam or Joe were about to pick up their fifth suit and therefore lose three points. "Who will be kicked in the balls?" asked Martin, rhetorically. At least I assume he was being rhetorical.

It was Joe who was kicked in the balls.

Andrew 46
Ian 39
Martin 28
Sam 13
Joe 9

Joe wasn't sure what to make of it. I think he thought it was tense but without a great deal of control. I'm not sure because I made a dash for the toilet at this point and, when I came back, Auf Teufel Komm Raus was set up on the table. It's a rare sight which is a shame for such a fun luck-pushing game where you pull coals from a cauldron, adding up the total until you reach your bid, hoping a little red imp doesn't appear to ruin everything.

Joe began poorly and did little to improve. He relied a lot on making a deal with the devil by being in last by himself and getting fifty points whenever one of us went bust. I even took a photo mid game to show how little progress he'd made compared to the rest of us.

But to mock Joe is to tempt fate and halfway through the game, Joe stopped timidly picking out the coals one at a time and instead he pulled them out without even thinking about it. And it seemed to work, since he started to make his way up the score track. Still in last, but more on that later.

Ian looked like The Man Most Likely To... after a bid of 200 paid off handsomely but he fell short of the game-ending score of 1,600. In the following round, we all did so badly that we started falling back down the score track so we decided that the next round would be the last.

At this point, Joe was still in last and, as such, had a deal with the devil. The rest of us all went bust, giving Joe 200 points, and then finally it was up to Joe to try and make his absurdly high bid. He plucked coals out so quickly that you would almost think they were actually hot. He got within a hair's breadth of success when he paused. Would this break the mojo? Would the next coal have an imp? He reached for another coal.

Success! Joe's completed bid meant that we all made ours too, but with bonuses and all, Joe got 820 points in the final round to see him take a narrow victory.

Joe 1480
Martin 1450
Ian 1370
Andrew 1220
Sam 1040

From last to first in a single round. Astonishing. It made my Ethnos comeback look tame in comparison.

Finally went chose Zero Down to finish. Three rounds and then home to bed. I admit, the winning strategy for Zero Down eludes me although I'm sure that Martin's mid-game tactic of putting down a card for all to see (it was a blue 1), saying "no" and then picking up it up again probably isn't an optimal strategy.

Joe seemed to have a plan though as he went clear in round one and then only had eight points when someone knocked for the second time in round two. In round three, Ian amazed us by how quickly he got clear, leaving the rest of us with a pile of points to our name. It made Ian's score more respectable, but couldn't dislodge Joe from his pole position.

Joe 27
Sam 38
Andrew 39
Martin 43
Ian 46

And with that, we were done. Off into the evening (maybe it was still raining, I was too drunk for it to register) to recharge our batteries for the first of two games weekends on Friday.