Shaken, not spelt

Has it really been a year since the venerable Andy B graced us on a Tuesday? That’s what we thought, but were too lazy to check. Nevertheless, it’s been a long time since he was here. Long enough that we’ve acquired a new regular member – Adam T, although it turned out the two knew each other from Eastbourne. It’s a small gaming world.

I got to Joe’s studio at six and found Joe and Ian eating supper. We were dealing out Coloretto when the aforementioned Andy B arrived, and so he was dealt in too. The game required a bit of rules refreshing for all concerned, since none of us were up to speed, but once we got going, it was plain sailing. Except for Joe.

Andy 36
Ian 35
Andrew 34
Joe 24

During this, Adam T and Sam arrived and since we weren’t expecting anyone else for a while, we all sat around the big table for a game of Team Play. I paired up with Andy and we soon got stuck with two difficult mission cards (is that what you call them?) while the others sped off without us. Sam and Adam were first to hit seven tricks (not really tricks, you know what I mean) and then Joe and Ian had a late surge to bring them back into contention.

Sam and Adam 32
Ian and Joe 32
Andy and Andrew 29

We were trying to find a tie-breaker, but Martin told us there weren’t any. However, for the rest of the evening, we kept finding Team Play cards around Ian’s chair making us suspect that they’d completed more tricks than they’d counted up.

As well as Martin, Katy and Adam H were also here. It seemed like the perfect moment to bring out Sam’s birthday cake to celebrate his half century. For some reason, our rendition of Happy Birthday was an octave or two lower than normal. I suppose as we age, we find the baritone range more natural.

Happy birthday!

We split into two groups. Andy, Adam H, Martin and Joe played Babylonia (back after its one-week absence) and the remaining five played Letter Jam, the surprisingly stressful co-operative card game. This time, we went for six-letter words: a step up from the usual five-letter standard game. I think I’ve played it three times and failed to get my word each time and this was no exception. At least this time I wasn’t alone in my failure. Adam failed to get “HOLING” despite getting all the letters, since he convinced himself that the G and H should go next to each other. Katy, meanwhile, blamed her dyslexia for her mistake. She’d successfully got SHAKE but couldn’t work out where the N would go. “Shaken,” we prompted. She looked suitably crestfallen.

With only Sam and Ian getting there words, we scored a mere two strawberries.

Babylonia ended

Martin 162
Adam 124
Joe 108
Andy 99

At this point a spate of reorganisation was achieved, with the nine of us forming into three groups of three. Ian, Joe and Martin played Ra and it was notable for Martin’s many pharaohs, Joe’s many monuments and Ian’s very long Nile. Joe was confident that he’d won until the final count.

Ian 64
Martin 54
Joe 50

Followed by Eggs of Ostrich…

Joe 10
Martin 10
Ian 8

Then Ian went home, mumbling something about getting back at “a sensible hour” so Martin and Joe broke out the Res Arcana.

Martin 15
Joe 4

Meanwhile, Andy, Adam and Sam tried the new game Crown of Emara, with it’s two (TWO) rondels and it’s pretty typical medieval-type Eurogame setting. I didn’t check if you could turn wood into sheep but it looked like that kind of game.

Andy 78
Adam 72
Sam 62

Sam insisted that he won a victory of sorts since he ended as Marquis, the highest ranked noble.

Adam H, Katy and me broke out Lords of Vegas since it was the only game that we all had some kind of enthusiasm for. We began with a lot of plots in seedy back streets and a lot of brown cards coming out early on.

Seedy back streets

I started well and stayed well. Katy built up then lost all but one of her casinos, but towards the end she started to close the gap on me. I was nervous that her strong presence on the strip would be my downfall but happily the game over card came out and saved me.

Andrew 73
Katy 60
Adam 26

Adam said that halfway through the game he’d remember that he had issues with the advantage of being first player and during the game he started searching for rules variants to counter this. Katy pointed out that she went third.

At this point Adam T and I set off, leaving the rest of them to go crazy with 6nimmt. No idea how that ended, though.

Thanks everyone.