Galactic Hurling

Saturday's gaming plans went through a series of last minute changes, with the alleged trio of Adam, Ian and myself (Sam) at my place losing the Creeping Custard to the creeping plague and relocating to Steve and Anja's, where we were briefly joined by a pyjama-ed Louie, before bedtime curfew was enforced. I'd brought Ancient Civilisations of the Inner Sea and was keen to revisit its brutal charms, but Steve was in the mood for something spacey, so we settled on the equally delightful Sol: Last Days of a Star.

I think most GNNers know the gist by now, but a brief recap: you're building three types of stations: to harness energy (Energy Nodes); convert energy into points (Transmit Towers); or use it building the Sundiver ships you need to carry out your orders (Foundries). Gates are also built to free up your movement around the board, and time will run out at some not-entirely unpredictable moment, when the 13th Solar Flare card is drawn...

I explained the rules to Steve and Anja, mostly, and we were off. The first few turns were cagey as always, as everyone gets their Sundivers into place in order to convert them into stations. I made an error on the rules, thinking that whenever you build anything you draw a card (-correct) and increase your movement capacity (-which you do for stations, but not gates). Anja was building a lot of gates, and when I realised my error and we corrected it, her movement depleted. Anja also suffered from circumstantial misfortune in that Steve, Ian and I found ourselves using each others gates quite a lot (which means free energy for the owner) whereas hers sat on their hinges for long periods.

Ian and I as the comparative old-timers in Sol, set the pace. I was first to build a Transmit Tower and kept getting bonuses as everyone used them. Ian built one too. Halfway through the deck we'd built a reasonably hefty lead over the newbies, at which point Anja's tactic changed, as she decided to hurl her ships into the sun to generate points (and card flips, accelerating the game). She had no hope of catching the leaders this way, but a separate battle was developing between the Dalton-Dales for third place.

As is Sol's wont, the leisurely beginnings were beginning to hurtle towards a dramatic conclusion as the deck-depletion sped up. I maintained enough of a lead over Ian to feel reasonably safe during the final throes of the star collapsing, but Steve's time ran out: Anja hurled one last sundiver into the celestial orb and drew the final solar flare, claiming third place just before Steve could score a chunky ten points!

Sam 37
Ian 24
Anja 16
Steve 13

A solar system down, we turned our focus to the more trivial business of building site worker safety in Men at Work. New to Anja, but easy to pick up and play, this competitive stacker sees you trying to be the least litigious constructor as you balance heavy girders on shoulders and send hard-hatted employees to hard-luck deaths, as Steve found to his cost

There are two ways to win: either by being the last one standing should all the other players cause one death too many, or by having a combined total of Most safety certificates and worker-of-the-month rosettes, which you get by placing the highest thing on the frankly bizarre construction site. Steve was in the lead late game courtesy of his tie-breaker (most rosettes) as Ian and Anja lagged behind both of us. But on Steve's final turn he made a crucial error and lost a safety certificate - handing me the win. Lots of fun; a shame Adam couldn't make it but lovely to catch up with the Dalton-Dales again! Sorry again about the gates rule, Anja 😯