Camembert!

This week's games began with a little subterfuge and some secret emails as all but one of Tuesday's attendees arrived at Joe's house a few minutes early to sign Martin's birthday card (Joe took the cover for the game Poison, replacing the title with the word Martin) and admire the cake and present we bought him.

We (Joe, Sam, Ian, Katy, Adam T and me) hit upon the jolly wheeze of hiding the cake in the box for Fauna. Our plan was to tell him that we'd decided to play it, and then amaze him when we revealed the cake inside. A brilliant plan, although we did worry that Martin would see through it, since Fauna doesn't actually play seven.

When he arrived we told him our decision, to general disinterest, and then we suggested that he should open the box. This peculiar request and the expectant grins on our faces must have tipped him off but he still had the decency to act a little surprised when he saw the cake.

But enough birthday jollities. We needed to play some games. We started with a big communal game of Just One, using our excellent Bonus Point variant - if the guesser can guess what any duplicate clues might be they score a point. We got a couple bonus points, with Katy guessing that two of us wrote Ogre for Shrek, and Joe guessed that Dummy had been eliminated from the clues for Comforter.

Katy stretched the rules when her clue for Baby was to write the word Human in really small letters. "Human," said Martin as he read it, "really small human..." and this lead him to the correct answer. Effective but not strictly kosher.

Everyone: 11 points

Now we split into groups. Martin had previously mentioned that he would like to play Tigris and Euphrates and Adam had brought T&E: the card game. Martin said he'd never played it and Joe, thinking that might level the playing field against T&E expert Martin, agreed to join them.

Sam, Ian, Katy and I played Rise Of Tribes. This simple but combative game is all about achieving criteria on cards in order to score points. Hit 15 points and it's an instawin.

It was interesting, with quite a bit of downtime between goes, but entertaining to watch other players move sabre toothed tigers around (with sound effects, if you were Katy).

Katy and Sam found themselves stepping on each other's toes in one half of the board, I sprawled leisurely down the middle of the map and Ian built point scoring villages in the west.

It was a ding dong battle, with the lead changing several times and as we neared the end, choices over actions became confounded with the desire to not allow someone else a chance at victory. Sam found himself in such a position where his best move would wipe Katy off the map and, therefore, give me the win. In the end, he went for a more risky, less destructive strategy and drew cards that he hoped might score points (see also, Ticket To Ride and Orbit). It didn't work and I won that turn anyway. All that remained was to put the pieces back in the snugly fitting foam inlay. Which turned out to be quite a challenge.

Andrew 15
Katy 13
Sam 12
Ian 9

As for Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game, Joe got off to a bad start when, during the rules explanation, he pointed to a stack of something and said "Are these catastrophies?" only to be informed that, actually, those were treasures. That's the sort of thing that a Pharaoh should know.

At the end (after a brief pause for cake) Adam insisted it was all luck while Martin commented that it was just like the board game version.

Martin 6
Joe 4
Adam 3

While waiting for us to finish they played 99. I know nothing about this game and the in-game banter was impenetrable, but Martin won again.

Martin 117
Joe 54
Adam 7

Now we were all together, there was a little reshuffling. Martin, Joe, Adam and Katy chose Clash of the Gladiators; a massive punch up in an arena with dice arenas, one of which was particularly bouncy. .

Was Martin really invested in the game when he asked rhetorically "Why do we need to fight?" Katy soon found herself relying on the success of wildlife as she called out "Come on, bear!" Adam was good enough to say that the game was very silly... while he stood over their blood stained corpses.

Adam 17
Joe 15
Martin 13
Katy 8

Ian Sam and I played Cartographers, a roll and write game with cards and occasional opportunities to write on an opponents paper. There was an Isle Of Skye style scoring system, where two different criteria scored each round. Sam got hit by explainer's curse while Ian won after winning from the start.

Ian 56
Andrew 46
Sam 39

It was fun, like a meaner Avenue.

Then Ian left and Sam and I knocked out a quick Flick Fleet in which I (the evil empire) beat Sam.

When 99 ended, Adam left and the five of us banged out a game of Stinker. A game we all know and love, although apparently Katy didn’t know you had to say “Stinker” when you had an answer. Tsk.

Highlights (one from each player) were...

Worst possible gift: God’s rectum (Andrew, but only after Sam said no one deserved it)
How to win a sword fight without a sword: Hide in sofa (Martin)
Best meal to cook when meeting in-laws: Coq au Arse (Joe)
An elevator pitch for a movie: Yes it’s great n stuff (Katy)
Something you don’t want to hear your spouse say: Eating shit later (Sam)

Such was the fun we were having, that we went around the table three times!

Best meal for the in-laws: a noble second place for Martin

Joe 39
Katy 35
Martin 33
Andrew 30
Sam 28

This amount of fun is almost decadent and both Katy and I walked home with our joy tinged with a hint of regret that neither of us would get to our respective beds before midnight. But still, a fun evening. Thanks all.