Somebody's Poisoned the Waterhole!

Thursday! Adam's suggestion of A Feast for Odin gained short shrift, as both Andrew and I wanted to play a game we had a chance of winning. He tried little one-two by proposing Caverna instead, but we were too smart for that.

But would we be smart enough to beat him at Africana? It's been many moons since Michael Schacht's game of colonial exploitation has seen the table, and - theme to one side - it was nice to revisit it.

It was new to Adam and Stanley, however, so we needed a rules run-through. For the uninitiated, Africana sees you as one of the European powers dashing around the continent in the great carve-up, going on expeditions and adventures. Your options are almost Ticket to Ride-simple: pick up cards, play cards (to move your guy) or go to 'the book' and start an adventure. The books are in the north and south hemisphere, and whichever one you go to, completing the adventure requires some travelling to the opposite hemisphere. As Adam said, it's the game with the "world's largest carbon footprint". Expeditions get you points (and money). Use money to start Adventures, which also get points, but also also combine in set-scorey ways for Extra Points.

You always have the smiling Assistant who helps you move, and you can get more assistants - from the book - to help you move even more, but the more Assistants you have, the more points it costs you; maybe in the game's token nod to the idea that ultimately, you're being judged by God, or History, or maybe Twitter.

It's a game like Ticket to Ride in that many turns are spent picking up cards, before completing a killer turn - Stan, Adam and Andrew (in particular!) all pulled these off. I didn't and could feel my exploitative adventurer guy almost festering in Leopold, as Expedition cards were swooped up around his ears. Adam was convinced it was going to be Stanley's day as his multiple assistants saw him hardly ever picking up cards at all, but instead scurrying around Africa like a boy intent on victory. But his Adventure cards didn't combine in the most alluring ways, leaving Andrew able to return to France the most exploitative player of all!

Andrew 44
Adam 40
Sam 30 / Stanley 30

Stan now retired to bed and we debated our next move before settling on Take It Easy. Sticking to GNN's long tradition of 'calling' the tiles with a theme, I settled on board game designers. Andrew did Japanese words, and Adam computer games. But all three rounds had diabolical aspects to the tiles themselves, as Andrew and I both flipped lots of '1' tiles and with Adam's final draw, almost any other tile would have helped us more than what he turned over. Adam and I scored pretty miserably, whereas Andrew claimed his second win of the night:

Andrew 476
Sam 409
Adam 385

We finished the evening with Kariba, Knizia's waterhole-themed frolic of animal fright: scare animals away to claim them as points. Rather than suggest three rounds for a game, Kariba's rules propose 'three games, and then compare points' which I rather like from a commitment perspective. But we followed that suggestion anyway.

Andrew led after the first game, but in the second Adam swooped in with three mice to scare off all 8 elephants and from that moment it was trying to figure out a way to catch him. I'm not totally ashamed to say we combined to prevent him doing the same thing in the third game, as I played one mouse and shouted "go on, Andrew!" - which he did.

But it was in vain:

Adam 54
Sam 47
Andrew 46

"I like this game!" said Adam. It is a sneaky little thing. Somewhat like Adam. But the hour was fairly late by now, so we all snuck off to bed...*

*don't be silly

The Adam Family

A balmy Bristol evening in late May, and what better way to spend it than cloistered around the Table Of Joe, doors thrown open wide, saying things like "you can activate as many energy nodes as you like, but you can only take your own bonus". So that's what we did: as well as the host, there was Martin, Katy, myself (Sam) and the two Adams.

How to distinguish them - in their absence - was the dominant early part of the conversation, but this was later succeeded by how to stop them, as both embarked on a winning spree that made up almost the entire evening.

However - before we even got to that point, Martin introduced Joe, Ian, Katy, Adam T and myself to Reiner Knizia's Spiel des Jahres-nominated L.A.M.A. Apparently it stands for (in German) something like 'avoid minus points', and with good reason. Like Fuji Flush, you're trying to get rid of your cards, by playing them in ascending order (-you can also play a matching value in LAMA) and if you can't go, you can pick up a card. But unlike Fuji Flush, you can also choose to stop playing when you still have cards in your hand (accepting their number value as minus points) while the other players keep going. In fact, even one player can keep going, if they have cards that don't jump anything on the number line. The numbers go from 1-6 and then the LAMA card links the 6 back to the 1 - but being left with a LAMA card in your hand is bad, as it scores a lot of points:

Adam T 1
Katy/Joe 2
Sam 5
Ian/Martin 8

After one round, Adam H had arrived and so we split into two groups. While Joe, Martin and Adam T set up Res Arcana, the rest of us introduced Adam to Sol: Last Days of a Star. I made sure to mention that motherships move before I explained anything else, and Ian mentioned it again right at the end of the explanation. Despite that though, we all kept forgetting to move our mothership. Even worse was that I forgot that activating stations triggers card draws, but I'm pinning this on having to say things like transmit towers convert energy into momentum within earshot of Joe's family.

Adam picked things up with no issue and we cleared up the activation gaffe pretty quickly. It was a game of elusive patterns as we circled the sun like a quartet of wary boxers, each hoping to... well, here the analogy breaks down. I sped into an early lead but with Ian and Adam hot on my tail. Katy languished on the momentum track ("Again!") and we sped through the instability deck like boxers intent on solar collapse.

On the other side of the table, meanwhile, a more combative battle was playing out, with Martin complaining that Joe was 'sapping his death'. Joe grinned happily. Whatever they were doing to each other, Adam invoked some kind of Darwinian strategy and emerged a convincing victor.

Adam wins.

And they enjoyed it so much, they played again. This time:

Martin wins.

They even snuck in a quick game of Good Little Tricks, and Adam T reclaimed the current-winner status, whilst previous incumbent Martin sank to a sweary third:

Adam T 0
Joe 9
Martin 18

Unfortunately I took no photos of any of these incredible events - we were in a combustive game - endgame, by now - of Sol. Adam (H) had surged ahead of me on the scoretrack, and I needed one more turn to activate my transmit tower for a piddling three points - enough to reclaim the lead. With only four cards left in the deck, however, Katy triggered three of them: and one was the last solar flare, instantly ending the game!

Adam 19
Sam 18
Ian/Katy 12

Whew. What drama! After the death of a star we needed something less portentuous. The groups cross-pollinated with Ian, Martin and Joe going for Ra, while the rest of us perused Joe's game collection. Adam T suggested Castles of Burgundy, but at 9.20 already we felt it might be a little late to start that one. Katy proposed Can't Stop and the murmurs of approval had enough weight to carry.

While we hurled dice on our side of the table - occasionally going bust - Joe was weaving some kind of magic in Ra. By the end of the second epoch he had a collection of buildings so colossal Martin and Ian must have felt like throwing in the towel. And despite his collection of low bidding tiles, he only added more in the third epoch, ending a high-scoring game like some kind of Egyptian contractor with a connection in the council office.

Joe 71
Martin 48
Ian 42

Meanwhile we'd squeezed in two games: belying his reputation as a zero-sum Euro-gamer, Adam H won Can't Stop with time and dice to spare. Katy and Adam found they couldn't stop. I stopped too often, except for when I shouldn't have.

Adam H 3
Katy 2
Adam T 1
Sam 0

We also played a quick game of Winston, the sausage-dog building competition featuring a wooden bone and wooden poo. To be frank, I think that description is as good as Winston gets, despite my phone's insistence on naming the game Einstein.

Adam H 20 (+6 for the bone!)
Adam T 16
Sam 15 (-6 for the poo!)
Katy 0

With the hour fairly late, Adam T and Ian now made their excuses and hit the road. The five remainers decided to return to LAMA, which - now we knew the rules - came into its own a little more. Joe and Adam found themselves locked into a stand-off as they both warily picked up cards, hoping the other wasn't about to quit and leave them with a bunch of non-ascending numbers.

The tension was palpable, and very Knizia-ry. And Adam H's winning run finally came to and end as Joe got rid of all his cards, allowing him to return a ten-point chit to the supply!

Joe 7
Katy 15
Sam 25
Martin 27
Adam H 51

I now made my way home as well, with the final four still keen to play another game. I'm not sure what it was, but no doubt they'll let us know in the comments...

Roman Free Europe

There are some things that aren't meant to be understood by mere mortals. Only the gods are privy to the secrets of the universe: what happened to the crew of the Marie Celeste? Why did the society on Easter Island fail? And how did four seasoned gamers end a game of Time Of Crisis with six neutral provinces on the board. It is a tale of broken dreams and savage luck. And a certain amount of dickishness.

Joe was absent this month but our substitute Crisistian, Sam, was able to join me, Martin and Ian. We began a little after eight, once Sam had been given a rules refresher and got someway back up to speed.

Ian was first to go and he chose Gallia as his starting province. I chose Pannonia, Martin occupied his favourite Macedonia and Sam said he'd "hide over here," in Africa. In round one, we all played two red, three blue and got ourselves an extra province. Ian got Hispania, I took Thracia, Martin invaded Asia and Sam moved east into Egyptus.

So far, so totally normal, apart from a lone Frank moving into Britannia.

Round two, and at the start of Ian's turn, a Goth moved into Asia. Otherwise it was business as usual, as Ian (3Y 3R) built a Basilica in Gallia, hired and placed a new General in Gallia and drew himself an "interesting" hand for the next round.

I (3Y 3R) kind of copied Ian, building a Limes in Pannonia and an new army there too. And another Frank went to Britain. Martin (3Y 2B 2R) was able to tribute the Goth in his Asia thanks to an earlier Pax Deorum. He then built a Basilica in Macedonia and hired a new governor and General. Sam (3Y 3B) built a Limes in Africa and hired his level three governor.

Round three saw the results of Ian's "interesting" choice of cards. Seven blue. In the end, after a few false starts and admitting he hadn't really thought it through, he hired his two and three governors and tributed the Franks in Britannia. I sent another Frank onto the map, this time into Gallia. Then, for my move (3B 3R) I moved my spare army from Pannonia into Galatia and hired and placed a governor there. The neutral emperor was weak now, just on level two, so it was easy for Martin (3B 3R) to kill the Goths in Asia and become Emperor, leaping into an early lead. Sam (2B 3R) took Syria with his governor and then built an army there.

Martin 15, Sam 9, Andrew 9, Ian 9

Ian sent an Alamanni into my Thracia, and then (2Y 3R) attacked the Frank in Gallia. He lost, with no sides getting a hit (Ian rolled 1-1). He tried again with his other army and won. Then he moved an army into Italia. With none of us seemingly able to attack Emperor Martin, I was delighted to see the Priest King of Emesa turn up in Syria. Sam was less enamoured, but it looked like stopping Martin from getting another Emperor turn. I (2Y 3R) tried to attack the Allamani in Pannonia and lost (I rolled a 1-1 and Ian asked me to stop copying him) so I moved my army from Thracia into Pannonia, fought, won and then boosted support back in Thracia. Martin’s 2B was useless, but he boosted Macedonia with 2Y and added a legion to his army in Italia with his 2R.

Sam (7B) hired a governor, a generously paid tribute to the Alamanni in my Thracia, ignoring Ian’s plight in Britannia. Then, after deciding he’d never get into Rome, he decided to get voted into my Thracia instead. Ian expressed thanks that Sam hadn’t helped him in Britannia after all. Meanwhile Syria was lost to the Priest King.

Martin 21, Ian 16, Andrew 16, Sam 13

Round four: Ian (2B 6Y) was able to tribute the Franks in Britannia and then used his Mobile Vulgus to force Macedonia to turn neutral. He then chucked a mob in Martin’s Italia. Finally, in a perfect example of Ian’s own brand of defeatist optimism, he decided he may as well try to get voted into Rome. He needed four votes from 3 dice and he got three.

On my crisis roll, Ardashir arrived among the Sassanids slowly building up on the Syrian border. Then I (6B 4R) reinforced my army in Galatia, moved it into Syria and took down the Priest King. I then used my blues to get voted into Rome! Emperor Me!

Martin, though, had 4B 2R 2Y and two spare governors. He was voted back into Macedonia with one blue and boosted support there, and then strode straight back into Rome. I did a passable impersonation of Theresa May as my governor was handed back to me.

Sam (3R 2Y) moved his African army into the Nomad heartlands to attack the barbarians there, but was wiped out. With his last red point, he put the general back on the board in Africa with a legion. And he boosted support in Thracia.

Martin 28, Andrew 24, Ian 20, Sam 17

Round five and Ian’s crisis roll was a crisis indeed. Three sassanids (including Ardashir, their leader) piled into my undefended Galatia, and a fourth carried on into Asia. Ian stared at the board with little hope for the future. He was especially bitter about the army he’d moved into Italia in some now-forgotten plan of world domination. He used his 3R, 3B to move that unused army from Italia into Thracia where it killed the barbarians there and then got voted in there.

I had 3R 3B and moved my army from Pannonia into Macedonia to attack the Emperor in his homeland. And I won, with my legions rolling 6-6, getting voted in too. But then I lost Galatia to the Sassanid hordes. Martin (3B 3Y 2R) attacked the Sassanid in Asia and won. Then he got voted into Britannia, tributed the Franks there and boosted support too, just for good measure. Sam (3R 3B 5Y) was all about Syria this turn. He got voted back in (clearly on the promise of plenty of public spending) then built a basilica there, added a legion and a militia there and then attacked my wounded army who were still there. It was a draw. Another less-than-productive turn but at least Syria looked more presentable now.

Round six, Ian’s crisis roll put Cniva on the board along with his Goth friends. Meanwhile Ian (4B 3Y) used Mobile Vulgus to turn Martin’s Asia neutral, weakening the Emperor enough to get voted into Rome, getting six votes with five dice.

My crisis roll was Ira Deorum, so now Cniva had even more Goth friends to hang out with. I did very little with my 3Y, 2R and useless 2B: I added a legion in Macedonia and boosted support there, mentally flicking the Vs to Martin as I did so. Martin rolled the Goths onto the board with his crisis roll: three of them joined the Sassanid hordes in neutral Galatia and the fourth carried on into Sam’s Syria. Galatia was no pretty much a no-go area, with two barbarian leaders commanding two barbarian legions each. That’s eight dice lined up against anyone who fancied having a pop.

Meanwhile, on the board Martin (4B 4R and I think 1Y) only had one governor on the board and that was surrounded by the Franks in Britannia. He moved his now unseated army from Macedonia to Thracia and foederatied a Goth into it. Then he killed Ian’s army, got voted in with one blue and then became Emperor again with three blue points. Sam (1R 4B maybe?) killed the Goth in Syria, and was voted into now neutral Britannia, paying tribute to the Franks who’d been there so long they were starting to lose their French accents.

Martin 45, Andrew 36, Ian 35, Sam 31

Round seven: Ian (8R 3Y) built a new army in Gallia, reinforcing twice and moving it into Italia where it fought Martin’s two-legion army there and, despite a flanking maneuver, lost. So he built a basilica in Hispania. I roll my second Ira Deorum in a row. As for my turn (3R 7B) I was going to attack the Franks in Pannonia for easy points until Martin kindly pointed out I could reach Italia with my Macedonian army and fight him there. Maybe he just really wanted me to leave Macedonia so he could take it back. I followed his suggestion, won and then got voted into Rome. I was so excited I forgot to put on my points or buy a card until after Martin had started his turn. Which was a very neat and functional turn (3R 3Y 4B) getting him voted into Africa and taking back Macedonia and then neutralising Britannia with his Mobile Vulgus.

I'm emperor again and, at this point, feeling pretty good about my situation

Sam’s crisis roll dropped a whole load of trouble in his lap as 2 sassanids joined their friend in Syria and a third kept going into the previously untroubled Egyptus. Sam (1Y 1R 3B) attacked the Sassanids in Egypt with no hits on either side, but then was wiped out when he attacked them in Syria, receiving five hits in the process! He lost Egyptus, and tributed the Sassanids in Syria.

Martin 51, Andrew 45, Ian 38, Sam 35

Ian had a fallow round in round eight. His 2Y 1R 3B was not much use for anything. He got himself voted into the Barbarian packed Galatia and then boosted support there. I (1R 8B) foederatied a Frank into my army in Pannonia and then made him turn on his brothers stationed there. I won. With eight blue points, I got myself voted into Martin’s Macedonia even though I’d lose it immediately. I was hoping to distract him from unseating me in Rome. Martin (1Y 4R 3B) got voted back into Macedonia, reinforced his army there and then moved his army from Thracia into Pannonia and wiped out my army.

Sam (3Y 7R 5B) had his move of the game. He foederatied the sassanid from Egypt into his African army. Then he reinforced it, moved it into Italia and, attacked me. His Spiculum killed off my Frank before I knew what was happening and then he decimated me 4 hits to 1. Then he used a Mobile Vulgus to make Rome neutral and sauntered into the Senate. And he got voted into Egyptus as well.He still had three blue left so he recalled the governor from doomed Syria and tried to get voted into Thracia, needing to roll a six, but failed.

Martin 57 Andrew 53 Ian 44 Sam 44

Round nine would surely be the last round, we assumed, as we all loaded up on our best available cards. Ian (2B 3Y 9R) killed Sam’s army in Italia and then used four dice to get three votes. He rolled 6, 1, 1, 1 and then a 4. That was his plan up in smoke. He boosted support in Gallia and used the remaining one yellow point and his Mobile Vulgus to turn Martin’s Thracia neutral. It was then pointed out to him he could’ve used those three yellow points to weaken Sam in Rome and he’d have only needed two votes. He was appalled at himself especially, if my notes are correct, that was exactly the tactic he’d suggested to Sam only a few minutes beforehand. He then built a 3-legion army in Gallia, moved it into Pannonia and killed three barbarians there.

I (5B 2Y 5R) healed the army in Syria that had been doing nothing except sit there bleeding for most of the game, and then moved them into Egypt to attack Sam. But I failed, despite superior numbers and a flanking maneuver. My plans, too, were scuppered. I needed six votes from five dice but didn’t even come close. I had no provinces on the board and scored no points this round! Oh, the indignity.

Martin (6R 5B 3Y) moved his army from Asia into Egyptus and won, and was then voted in too. But wait! That was his spare governor! Had he blown his chances of being emperor? Would the game go on another round? He moved another army from Macedonia into Italia and beat Ian’s army 4-0. He then MVed Sam’s Africa into neutrality before recalling the governor from Asia and becoming Emperor. He passes sixty points and triggers the end game. The state of the board at this moment was a sight to behold: only Martin and Ian had any provinces and there were seven neutral governors.

Sam’s move, the last of the game, (6R 2B) allowed him to get Africa back, kill a Nomad (needs two armies to do it, though) but can’t get voted into Thracia.

And there it was, the end of the game. Six neutral territories and I only had one hapless army on the board.

Martin 78, Andrew 59, Ian 58, Sam 56

So what happened? The Mobile Vulgus was used often as people used yellow points to attack others instead of boosting support or building things. This meant that long-term plans seemed thin on the ground, as we all moved armies around, leaving provinces undefended, once we thought that we might be better off somewhere else. In fact this whole game was played out with only two level-four cards being bought, one of which was never actually played.

As I drove Sam and Ian home through the dense post-festival traffic, Sam said he wasn’t familiar enough with the game to know how strange it was while Ian and I just sighed and shook our heads in disbelief.

Harbour Master Blaster

The recent tradition of gamers just passing through continued this week at GNN. Today's arrival was Garry, a writing chum of Sam. Along with these two were Joe (the host), Dan, Martin, Katy, Adam (the new one) and me.

Early on: crisps and... conversation?!

We begun in glorious co-op mode with Just One. Early on, Joe chose his usual path of obscure cultural references and when he didn't, he kept syncing with Adam. Although, truth be told, there were very few duplicates. Katy had the worst luck when she had to guess "sand" with only three clues. But she did it! Dan’s use of “band” as a clue for “tool” worked wonders when Katy used “Tool” as a clue for “Music” when he was guessing. And we went on to get eleven out of twelve, finally impressing the usually snide score track, which read "Awesome! That's a score worth celebrating!"

And celebrate we did. With more games. Joe and Katy were introduced to Sol by Sam and Martin. Dan and Garry were introduced to Potato Man by Adam and I.

Potato Man was fun, with a couple of evil potatoes being vanquished by Super Potato Man. I, however, felt awkward about referring to the green suit as Sexy Potato Lady in front of three people I didn't know so well. Meanwhile, I had a good couple of early rounds while Adam was stung by Explainer's Curse.

Andrew 25
Dan 19
Garry 17
Adam 10

After that, with the sun on the other side of the table still looking pretty stable, I suggested Manila. This fun game of betting and luck-based piracy was new to our newcomers, so I talked them through the rules. Was I hit by Explainer's Curse? Or was it more of a case of Adam finding a winning formula and milking it for all it was worth. His (almost) monopolizing of Harbour Master, who then invested in blue cloth which sent the share price rocketing up and brought the game to an end sooner than I was expecting.

My attempts at piracy to try and thwart Adam's relentless victory came to nothing, but luckily Brown stuff (coffee?) also hit the highest level which bailed me out.

Adam 168
Andrew 105
Dan 70
Garry 64

It lacked the usual swings of outrageous fortune that Manila is so good at, but I think the two newbies liked it.

But what of Sol? They played the 'vestigial structure' variant, allowing them to build in the outer three rings of the board. It's the same variant that I'd played before but I had no idea it had such a grand name.

Katy began slowly, and was still on two points while the other three had moved into the low teens. Martin hardly built anything but he did build two gates in a row, at the end of which Joe built one of those energy transmission thingies in a kindly gesture of "hey, come on in!'

Katy clawed her way out of last while Sam managed to resist the urge to hurl his ships into the sun and it seemed to work for him.

Sam 26
Martin 19
Katy 17
Joe 13

We were still out of sync at this point. I brought out High Society, hoping to time its ending with the finale of Sol but I misjudged it. The game, new to Garry, was mean as ever. Garry picked up an early "1/2" card, meaning he was rich enough to pick up the 10 card. But he was in the strange situation of always bidding against players who thought that the cards were worth twice as much as he did. As such, despite picking up a "x2" card later on, he lost due to lack of funds. It ended with both he and Dan on one card left in their hands, but Dan's was the $25 million card.

Dan 12
Andrew 6
Adam 6
Garry Out! (But scored 11)

Sol had ended and they banged out a quick Kribbeln. And what a game it was. I only caught the end, but even in those few rolls, drama ensued.

Sam was poised to win, needing to beat 29 with his six dice, rolled 6, 6, 6, 4, 4, 2. So close. He picked up the 2 and rolled it... a one! How cruel.

Then Joe, also needing to beat 29, rolled 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 3. But instead of just picking up the three to roll again, he picked up the three and four. Audacious! And he rolled a 6-6! Amazing. It put him in joint first with Martin and won the game on the tie-breaker.

Joe 22 (plus highest Krib)
Martin 22
Sam 20
Katy 15

Then it was time for Adam to leave. I suggested he could join in by phone if we played Incan Gold, and the mention of this triggered a sudden desire in Joe, wiping aside the previous suggestions of 6nimmt or Tomate Karate. We played Diamant, the new version of Incan Gold, where flimsy paper tents are replaced by sturdy cardboard chests and Zombie Ladies are sadly gone, with rolling logs of spikes in their place.

Katy stayed in longest in round one and got a 17 card all to herself! After that, it was all a matter of trying to catch her. Martin decided the only way to win was to stay in longer than she did. Sam went in the opposite direction, getting out early as soon is it seemed profitable (picking up a rare artifact in round three). And it could’ve worked if the more adventurous among us had had a little more bad luck. Instead, it was a high scoring game.

Katy 54
Andrew 33
Martin 31
Sam 31
Joe 29
Garry 27
Dan 21

And despite coming last, Dan made a note of the game on his phone, declaring that he was going to buy it. A convert!

And then Katy and I departed, with the clock just passing eleven. The rest carried on with Kakerlaken Poker. Thanks to some notes from Sam, I can tell you that “Dan began haemorrhaging stink bugs” was as a remarkably evocative description of the game as you could wish for. Garry, professing uselessness at the real poker, began badly. And just as Martin hit two of something, he passed a card to Dan, saying it was a stink bug. Dan didn’t believe him, but Martin spoke the truth.

Dan loses
Everyone else wins.

Thanks to Sam for the late night results, and thanks to all for joining in for a fun evening. I wonder who our travelling visitor will be next week.

Beginner’s Luck vs. Explainer’s Curse

This week, Joe was the host and we began as a tentative six: five present and one expected imminently. Joe and friend of the family Dan, Sam, Martin and me, with Adam sure to arrive at any second. There was some idle chit-chat as if the presence of a newcomer was enough to put us off our natural inclinations to skip past the small talk and get down to the nitty-gritty.

With Adam surely about to appear at the door step, we decided that Team Play would be a good six player option to take us up to the time when Katy and then Ian were due to arrive. Dutifully, Joe talked Dan through the rules and he was almost finished when there was a knock at the door. It was Adam. And Katy. Too many players for Team Play and Joe put it away with a sigh.

Now we were seven. Katy was angling for a game of Lords Of Vegas, all they (Joe, Katy and Dan) had to do was wait for Ian to get here and they. Adam, Sam, Martin and I played Sol, the recent debutante. Martin looked through the rules as we set up (but he didn't seem keen on reading the short stories that go with it) and clarified a couple more rules.

In the game, Martin and I are both energy rich thanks to our very popular gates. Sam begins hurling his ships into the sun very early on, making him the man to beat. Was he banking on the sun collapsing quickly? He was to be disappointed as card after card was revealed without a red sign indicating the sun is becoming more unstable.

Adam finally got together enough cubes to complete his plan, but then the sun let out a solar flare and his stock of 13 energy cubes was suddenly depleted by half. How we laughed at his discomfort. Then we allowed him a do-over (since other players had been already given the same opportunity) in which he didn't take the optional bonus cube he was entitled to and therefore his 12 energy cubes were safe.

As the game progressed it looked like the sun wasn't going to collapse at all. I hurled four ships in one turn into the dying star and still it didn't end the game. The final red card was actually the final card in the deck. Luckily no one was in a position to catch me, although Adam was able to grab joint second with the last turn of the game.

Andrew 27
Adam 24
Martin 24
Sam 20

The other three played smaller shorter games. First was Kingdomino, a new game to Dan but one he seemed to take to rather well.

Dan 54
Joe 40
Katy 38

After this, they played the only Taiwanese game that Joe owns, apparently. namely, Castle Crush. Again it was new to Dan again, again, he came out victor. He modestly tried to pass off his second win in a row as beginner's luck while Joe tried to tell him about Explainer's Curse and how it is a real thing.

Dan 24
Katy 21
Joe 15

Ian arrived during Castle Crush and was informed swiftly that he would be playing Lords of Vegas as soon as they were done. Something he had no problem with.

The table was heaving with the joys of modern boardgaming and for a while, you could barely see the tabletop for cardboard.

After Sol, Adam, Martin, Sam and I got stuck into Senators the craze that's turning into a tradition. In this game of political bribery in Rome, Martin set off into an early lead while Adam and I fell back. But Adam and I both had a card that would let you steal points from the leading player. With this in mind, I cashed in as soon as I could and Sam and Adam joined me. Suddenly, Martin fell from first to joint last.

He tried to claw his way back but was beset by misfortune. In a blind bid for a senator, he bid seven talents and Sam bid eight, which is exactly how this game should be played. Then I got a stroke of luck in a round where each player has the option of buying a senator for a steadily decreasing value. I passed with the price at nine. Martin prevaricated over eight but then passed. Adam passed on seven and Sam passed on six. I didn't expect to get another chance and I snapped it up for five! Good job, too, because the fourth war came soon after.

Andrew 9
Sam 8
Martin 7
Adam 7

In Lords of Vegas, Dan's beginner's luck seemed to be holding. His first three plots where all in the same block. Katy was delighted, meanwhile, to have a casino on the strip at almost the very start of the game and then spent most of the game chanting "Strip! Strip! Strip!" whenever a new card was revealed.

But for us lot, Senators was followed up by the lighter fare of Spy Tricks. The four greatest minds of GNN clashed over this simple trick taker and deduction game and, seemingly, cancelled and each other out. In the first round, none of us got a single guess right. Astonishing.

In the second round, I guessed the right rank and Sam got the correct suit, but our attempts at finding the right card were hopeless. Any signs of improvement, though, were mere illusion as we bumbled through the last round with only me guessing something right: the suit. And that's how I managed to win a game of Spy Tricks with a score that would normally see you in distant last.

Zero correct

Andrew 7
Sam 2
Martin 0
Adam 0

Adam went home at this point and Lords of Vegas hadn't finished so we cracked out a couple of confused rounds of Sticheln (chosen after Martin checked the remaining cards in Lords of Vegas to get an idea of how much time they had left to play). Despite Martin scoring no points at all in round one, his second round stole the game.

Martin 16
Andrew 14
Sam 12

Lords of Vegas continued with Dan's six tile casino flipping to Ian in an unlikely re-organisation. It didn’t last and, if Ian’s claim to be “floundering” is anything to go by, it was the final bit of luck to go Ian’s way.

Bottom left, Ian has stolen Dan's casino

Katy, though, was in such a good position that she was able to leave the table between her turns and have a conversation with Joe’s wife. That’s confidence for you. And then, later on, she ran out of dice: a first for her. All of this added up to an impressive win, despite the Strip barely paying out at all.

Katy 54
Joe 40
Dan 26
Ian 23

Now we were seven again and, despite it creeping towards eleven o’clock, we had one more game inside us. Pairs. Joe described it to Dan as being like Blackjack in that we were aiming for 21 points. But then he had to admit that, apart from that, it was nothing like Blackjack at all.

I was Mr Cautious and, for once, it paid off. I was the only one to score in every round. Ian sneered at my and Katy’s timidness seconds before he went bust, and similarly Martin cursed himself by saying “I’ve got to go big,” before being dealt a pair.

Andrew 22
Ian 16
Sam 16
Katy 15
Joe 13
Dan 7
Martin 2

And so we were done.Thanks to Joe and a hat-tip to Dan. See you all next week.

A Sol with a deadly weapon

Except there aren’t any deadly weapons in Sol, the new game that Ian, Sam and I tackled yesterday evening. This is a fairly simple strategy where you have to... well, I’m still not sure. Keep a dying sun alive by putting energy into it? Something like that. Use your ships to build stations that give you energy, allow you transmit energy or let you build more ships.

We set off just fine. Ian even had a thematically linked beer, a lovely bottle of Sol. But something just wasn’t working. It felt like three games of solitaire on the same board. The rules allow each player to use other players’ stations, but I couldn’t see a reason to.

Then I asked if our motherships, stationed furthest from the sun where all our ships are launched, are supposed to move? I noticed all these arrows on the board going in an anticlockwise direction and thought they might mean something. Sam checked the rules. Indeed, our motherships are supposed to orbit the sun.

Now the game made more sense, and was a lot more enjoyable as a result. We needed to plan ahead a little bit more this time. However, Sam had to delete the tweet of us playing the game since it was the kind of mistake that is clearly visible from looking at the board.

Spot the mistake

As for the score, I went from not scoring any halfway through the game to suddenly leaping up the track and squeaked a win just as the sun finally died.

Andrew 22ish
Sam 21ish
Ian 18ish

What the game would look like on a real sun

After this it was still only about nine o’clock so we felt there was another big game in us. We went for an old familiar: Tinners’ Trail.

We began like greyhounds out of the traps, with iron and copper both at their highest possible prices in round one. Then, in round two, they collapsed to their lowest. This meant, as round three dawned, there were still a lot of cubes on the board.

Sam went for trains, Ian went for adits, I went for boats, I think. Anyway, it was a close game under difficult circumstances.

Ian 89 (plus 4 cash)
Sam 89 (no cash)
Andrew 83

Next we played Spy Tricks. I fell into last place with no correct guesses in round one and I stayed there, unable to make by Double Agent piece work in my favour. Sam played us all for fools with his clever reaction to Ian’s guess of red five (“I don’t like how quickly you did that”) despite him having the red five in his hand. Ian’s unerring eye for the missing card won through in the end, though.

Ian 22
Sam 19
Andrew 5

Finally, after all that astrophysics, mining and espionage, we had to get a letter to the princess! Yes, we finished on Love Letter. I ran into a 2-0-0 lead. Then Sam brought it back to 2-2-0 before Ian staged a comeback. It was 2-2-2 and Sam won in the final round, meaning we all won at least one game tonight.

Love Letter's version of dead man's hand.

Sam 3
Andrew 2
Ian 2

Cheers for hosting, Sam, and see you all soon.

New gamer passing through

This week, six of us pitched up around Sam's kitchen table for yet another bout of gaming goodness. Sam, Martin, Ian, Katy and I were joined by Katy's friend Reevesie. He was lucky enough to be in town on a Tuesday evening and so Katy brought him along.

Our first game was Just One or, as it soon to be called, Find The Working Pen. We started well, with Pig being the opening word and "shit" being Katy's opening clue. We rattled off the correct guesses until one clue, Vacation, stymied us. We later discovered that four of us were considering "Lampoon" and Sam even wrote it down before changing his mind. In the end, none of us wrote it and Ian couldn't get the word from our sadly generic hints.

I stretched the rules a bit. When faced with "Fitzgerald" my mind went blank. I couldn't think of anything to do with that name so I wrote "nope" indicating that I'd bowed out of this round. Luckily that's how Reevesie interpreted it and he didn't spend ages agonising over how "Ella" and "Gadsby" relate to "nope". Lastly, Katy requested that we should go low-brow in her clues. Alas, her word was "Gothic" and she ended up with "Poe,'" "Shelley," and "Cathedral. " Sorry, Katy.

We got nine correct, but didn't bother checking our rank on the patronising score sheet.

Then we split into two groups. Martin and Katy introduced Reevesie to the joys of Azul. Sam, Ian and I chose Letter Tycoon. A choice that I was all in favour of until Sam leapt into an early lead by playing three seven letter words in his first three rounds. Amazing to watch but also quite galling. He had the decency to apologise after the third. Ian kept in the running with a patent that allowed him to play two words in one turn. I made a revival with the longest word of the game (Ablution) but it wasn't enough. It was a dead heat between Sam and Ian, with Sam winning on a tie breaker.

Sam 53 (34 in patents)
Ian 53 (32)
Andrew 47

Down the other end of the table, Azul ended with Martin remarking that if he'd known Reevesie would be such a threat, he might have been meaner sooner.

Reevesie 93
Martin 76
Katy 60

After this was a pause as we debated our next game while eating crisps standing up. Next, Ian, Katy and Sam played Menara, the fun game of tower building according to an ever shifting set of criteria.

Martin, Reevesie and I went for the hot craze of the year, Senators. After a rules walkthrough from Martin, Reevesie was transported back in time to ancient Rome. We connived and cajoled, extorted and auctioned. I got an early lead thanks to a cheap senator in the game's first war and then I cashed in a set of cards (30 talents, very nice) and bought two more.

There was a lovely moment of synchronicity during our respective games. Martin, annoyed at Reevesie's strategy, muttered "You son of a..." and then Sam accidentally finished his sentence while reacting to the reveal of a new card by saying "Shit."

Reevesie came back into it and drew level with me while Martin seemed to be languishing. Albeit languishing with some very high value cards in front of him. There was a decent amount of extortion and Martin refused to let any go. Then, on the eve of the third war, he cashed in two sets for a handsome 44 talents and he bought three senators, bounding over us and into first place . Would we have a chance to catch him? Nope, the fourth war came out next and victory was assured.

Martin 9
Reevesie 7
Andrew 7

Sadly, I was unable to exploit the fact that I was the only one not distracted by checking their phone every minute to see if Liverpool had beaten Barcelona.

While we were finishing off, Sam, Ian and Katy successfully completed their tower. They admired it for a second or two before trying to build higher, using cards as impromptu floors. It didn't last long.

Then they played a one-round game of Kariba, another new flavour of the season.

Sam 19
Ian 18
Katy 12

At this point Ian left and the five of us launched into a game of Raj. "Do I hate this game?" asked Katy, her memory of certain board games addled by a year abroad. I couldn't believe anyone would hate Raj and I assured her that she didn't. I was wrong.

Raj served up its usual range of crazy injustices. Katy cruelly picked up a -5 tile despite playing a fifteen (10, 10, 13, 13, 15) and when something similar happened to me, she insisted that I write it down too. So here it is: I got the -5 with 11, 11, 11, 11, 14. An amazing and wonderful sight... for four of us, at least. Sam got lucky in the last round (or is it skill?) getting a nine tile with 15, 15, 6, 6, 4. This helped him leap from fourth to first in the final round while I fell from first to third.

Sam 41
Martin 37
Andrew 30
Reevesie 23
Katy 7

And now Katy and Reevesie left. This meant that there was one more game left for the remaining trio. We chose The Mind. Round one and two were tough. I think the first card to be played in round one was 68, and then we lost a life in round two.

But then we got into a groove. By round six we still had two lives and, despite round nine throwing an abundance of cards in the nineties at us, we got to the Dark Mind with two lives intact. We didn't last long, however, since we were dead by the end of round two but even so we'd defied luck enough times to make it feel like an achievement.

And then we were done. Thanks to Sam for hosting, and thanks to all for attending, especially Reevesie. Hope to see you again sometime. We're here every Tuesday!

The Old Ones are the Worst

Last night Andrew and I set out on a great adventure that turned into a horrific nightmare - a tale of lives given, sanity lost, farms blighted and kangaroos mown down in a hail of panic-stricken gunfire.

It was AuZtralia. After being something of a hit at last year's Novocon when Joe's peaceful farming tactic (leaving the battles to the rest of us!) saw him emerge victorious this mash-up of trains, agriculture and Cthulu has lain fallow since, and we felt it was time to return to Oz.

After a quick refresher of some of the rules we began, and beginning in AuZtralia is all about seeding the board with good stuff (iron, coal, gold, phosphorus) and bad (the Old Ones). We were pretty fortunate in how the tiles fell, giving us a landscape of some fairly bad guys, a few pretty bad guys, but almost bereft of really bad guys. As a result, the early moves were all about exploration - build some track here, throw up a farm there, build an airship... and so on. Andrew was first to awaken the Old Ones when his train track bumped into a pyramid.

Combat in AuZtralia borders on funny - there's a luck-pushing mechanism where cards are flipped and you see if you hurt the Old One in question, or they hurt you, or both, or neither. You can retreat, but you can also double-down and, as a result, have all your military units go insane. That happened to me. Mid-game, all the Old Ones started to awaken regardless of whatever noise we were/weren't making, and Zombies staggered over Andrew's farms, blighting them before he retaliated and wiped them out. I seemed comparatively safe for a while, until suddenly a seemingly-indestructible Loyalist nearly made it all the way to my port before expiring.

That near-miss aside though, the Old Ones were never really in with a shout of victory as we tooled up and took them apart. Despite doing most of the dirty work though, Andrew lost out to me courtesy of my train tracks leading me to phosphorus, which are worth 3 points each at the end of the game. An arbitrary and somewhat bizarre decider, really, but in a way appropriate for a game as silly as AuZtralia is.

Sam 26
Andrew 22

It is a bizarre game but replete with adventure and, though at odds with the theme, moments of comedy. Also pretty fast with two...

One can never take photos of Push It because the game moves much too fast, but I beat Andrew something like 21-12 before he then got his own back on his debut of Kariba:

Andrew 27
Sam 21

I should never have scared away the mice.

Senator, you are spoiling us

Missing GNN planetoids Andrew and Katy as well as several orbiting satellites, at one stage it looked like just Ian, Martin and myself. Would Martin be persuaded to play Underwater Cities? Fortunately for him, Adam T and Joe swooped in to save the day, abetted by Stanley.

Joe was running late and Stan was in the garden attacking his brother with a space-hopper, so we started the evening with a quick play of Kariba, a very Knizian game by, unsurprisingly, Knizia.

Animals (numbered 1-8) come to the waterhole to drink, but three or more animals of a higher number will scare away the next-lowest numbered animal - and these scattering prey become your points if you played the card that did the scaring. The lowly mice (number 1) aren't completely hopeless - they're the only animal that can scare away the otherwise-indomitable elephants (number 8).

Sam 15
Ian 14
Martin 12
Adam 7

By the time Kariba wrapped up (it only took ten minutes) Joe had arrived and enticed Stanley into a try out of Shards of Infinity. I played with Joe at the weekend so can give a quick precis: it's a battle between players to be last one standing: each player begins with 50 health and then damage is done via the medium of cardplay and deck-building. The neat twist with Shards of Infinity is that you have a Mastery score that, when improved to certain points (5/10/20) empowers some of your cards: get your Mastery to 30 and it's possible to destroy your opponent outright when you pull the Infinity Shard into your hand.

While that epic played out at one end of the table, we were busy with Martin's latest sentient-vegetable game, this time another old Knizia in Too Many Cooks. This is a trick-taker of sorts where each player announces what kind of soup they intend to make at the start of each round, with the cards themselves the ingredients. If you're making onion soup, you want to win a trick with lots of onions in - and no chilli. If you're making a chilli soup, you don't want bouillion. Because the trick is only complete when the collective score of all the cards reaches ten points - and some cards reset the score to zero - it's more than likely that someone will throw some chilli in your lovely pot of onions, or even pick them up themselves. The 'wrong' ingredient doesn't necessarily do any damage, as long as it's not really wrong.

But as well as that reasonably-simple premise, there are cards that score zero when led but a whopping ten when played in a 'live' trick, complicating things somewhat. Additional complications arrive in the form of these cards being erroneously labelled zero instead if ten, and one recipe being 'no soup' - don't win any cards at all. The fact that previously played recipes can't be played again muddies things further, as the last couple of rounds you are more at the mercy of fate, depending on what cards you get.

Ian began badly and announced he didn't like the game. He surged back into contention and seemed briefly more enamoured. Then he fell away again. I stagnated too, but Adam made hay in the penultimate round, establishing a lead that was too strong for Martin to catch him:

Adam 20
Martin 16
Sam 14
Ian 12

Martin and Adam liked it. I was somewhere between their enthusiasm and Ian's chagrin. The main take-away for me was to have the song from Too Many Cooks going around in my head all night.  Just after we finished, Joe vanquished Stanley in a nail-biting finish to Shards: with them both at death's door it was Joe's turn to attack and Stanley didn't draw the shield he needed.

Joe: wins
Stan: off to bed

Which left us as a five. Martin was keen to play Senators so after brief speculative mentions of Battle for Rokugan (one day...) and Northern Pacific, we embarked on our weekly bunfight for the senate.

forgot to take any more pictures at this point, here's Senators being played at Martin's house

It was brutal. Adam in particular suffered from a dearth of money and fortune, as he constantly found himself penniless and senatorially bereft. Martin kept trying to extort money from me and being appalled when I sold things to him. Ian kept up a cash-supply with impressive consistency, especially in a game as barmy as Senators is. He at one point pulled off a spectacular 4-senator cash-in to take the lead, only to have Adam exact some minor pleasure from the game by immediately taking a senator off him.

Martin gambled on events that didn't arrive, and I paid nine sestertii for a Senator when everyone else bid zero. But despite that lavish spending, I pushed ahead of Ian and Joe to claim the seat of power:

Sam 12
Ian 11
Joe 10
Martin / Adam: 5

Adam, exhausted from Senators work, now took his leave and we were a four again. We ended the evening in proper GNN style, with some short silly games.

pic courtesy kalchio, BGG

In Tomatomato you pronounce increasingly long variations on the word tomato: get it wrong and your opponents get to - possibly - claim points; by spelling out the word 'tomato' obviously. Martin's speed at this game was so spectacular that neither Joe, Ian or I could keep up with him and had to trust his word that he wasn't just making random tomato-related noises up. Ian and I stumbled the most, but Joe and Martin tried to claim the same reward - cancelling it out - and I snuck the win:

Sam 3
Joe 2 (wins tie-breaker by owning a potato)
Martin / Ian 2

Then we split into teams to play Push It. Ian teamed up with Joe and I with Martin, as we sat diagonally across from each other. In the past we've played Team Push It pretty much to the same structure as solo Push It, but Martin spotted the team variant in the rules suggests that whichever team is furthest from the puck is currently active. This changed the dynamic of the game considerably, as it escalates the need to be close to the puck: remain furthest away, and you can swiftly run out of discs to fire at it, leaving your opponents with 2 or 3 free shots. Martin and I capitalised on the rule as we raced to a surprisingly one-sided victory:

Martin + Sam 21
Ian + Joe 2

Their only points came from me accidentally hitting the puck off the table. So astonished were we by this lopsided result that we played again. Joe was sure that going first was key to success, and his theory looked like it might hold water when he and Ian quickly established a 5-1 lead. But then it imploded as we raced past them again to another victory:

Martin + Sam 21
Ian + Joe 5

Despite their lack of success both Ian and Joe liked this team rule - we all did, as though it didn't make for the dramatic finales you often get when playing rigidly clockwise, it does enable some big results - and potentially big comebacks as well.

It was reasonably early for a Tuesday, but Ian especially had an early morning to look forward to and the evening came to a natural conclusion. Thanks all!