Quantum Surveyor

Friday night. Andrew and I nearly played a head to head of Gugong, only to hear the hearty news that Ian had finished his attack of the crazy golfs and was headed our way. Whilst we waited, I introduced Andrew to the delights of Tiny Towns, which has been something of a cutesy hit, like an adorable puppy whose butt waggles when it shakes its tail before turning into a Nightmare as you run out of room for it in your house. Andrew built a lot of sheds and forgot about his Monument:

Sam 33

Andrew 15

Then Ian arrived, disappointingly sans golfing slacks, and we played again. This time I foolishly built a monument that prevents me from ever being starting player, and suffered for it as Andrew crazily took wood over and over. Ian adapted to the harsh environs of a town built by demented carpenters and took joint first on his debut: 

Ian and Andrew 26

Sam 21

Before we started on the evening's epic. We didn't realise it was going to be an epic, but it truly was: Quantum. We went for a triangular map where we started out reasonably close to each other, and interaction was high from the early rounds. Ian was first to get a cube down if I recall correctly, and Andrew's ships suffered at the hands of both his opponents as he frequently found himself with a solitary 4 flying in the cosmos. 

For a long period Ian's low-numbered ships patrolled the central area of the board picking us off one by one. This meant he was slow to get cubes down as his strategy was all dominance, but while we were effectively shooting targets, slow was better than our sloth-like progress. Because the first advancement he made was Brilliant, he was also adding cards at a rate of knots courtesy of his research advancing two points every turn. In fact I was surprised to find after an hour Andrew and I were still level with him, having sneakily got a quantum cube down against the run of play. 

Then two dramatic turn of events: Ian rerolled all his ships and pursued a different, less aggressive strategy, and then I managed to wangle cubes down on subsequent turns to take the lead.

I was on the verge of a dramatic victory, in fact, but Andrew cannily occupied the only space that could stop me. No matter, I thought, as I engineered another imminent win - only for Ian to pull off the move of the night and claim a spectacular triumph. 

It had been a long game, but a fantastic one. 

Ian - all cubes down

Sam - one cube left

Andrew - two cubes left

We followed that with Push It, which I don't remember much of now except to say I think I won by default, when my discs were shoved into fortunate spots with the scores poised at 10-10-8. 

Sam 11

Andrew 10

Ian 8

And we ended an epic night with Spy Tricks, a rather bizarre but fun mash-up of deduction, roulette, and trick-taking. Everyone is trying to guess the identity of a hidden card, and you get to guess the suit, rank, or both by winning a trick - or indeed losing a trick, if you played the worst card of all. 

As the played cards reveal what isn't the hidden card, slowly more information is revealed about what it might be. It was fun, and rather funny too... in a kind of sweary way. 

Andrew 27

Sam 17

Ian 2

"You'll always have Quantum Ian" we said. And it's true.