Chris was in Chippenham, and had dyed his hair - as an experiment, he insisted. Whether this was true or not, or how much he was lying to himself, he did look remarkably younger and we discussed the merits of spraying my bald patch, a la Bob Mortimer. Paul mentioned he'd cut his own hair so didn't know what the back looked like.
Andrew was conspicuously on the fence. He began mysteriously uncamera-ed later added a camera, but remained invisible to me throughout the evening, as Zoom refused to show me how much he'd changed. Is he pumping iron every morning and downing protein shakes? Enquiring minds, etc.
After comparing lockdown notes we kicked things off with 7 Wonders. I was surprised to see I hadn't played it in well over a year, but for Paul it was possibly longer. Some things never change though - sandwiched between Paul and Chris, both Andrew and I found ourselves militarily bullied, as he discovered lots of peaceful science and I concentrated on gentle culture. The entire undertaking took about 15 minutes! With a computer around to not-forget which way to pass your cards, 7 Wonders was exceedingly brief. And Paul's absenteeism did him no harm, it turned out:
Paul 60
Chris 56
Sam 47
Andrew 46
We moved on to another speedy undertaking in Love Letter. Again Paul's rustiness did him no harm here either, as he sailed to a 3-1-1-0 lead, at one point ousting Chris with a Priest in the Hole.
But as Andrew and I serially imploded, Chris came back from the dead to claim an improbable victory!
Chris 4
Paul 3
Andrew 1
Sam 1
We stuck with the sillier end of the gaming spectrum with Perudo. Having played this on Tuesday I was already familiar with the foibles of boardgamearena's particular version of the rules, but it didn't help me at all. Dudos kept blowing up in my face as, once again, Paul began to look the dominant stag amongst a bunch of stick-legged deer-children*. The evening does begin to get hazy here though, with various people going off for a wee or simply vanishing for a moment or two. I also realised I'd downed three glasses of wine already at it was barely 9pm. At this point, driven mad by smallish children, Sally came in to confiscate aforementioned wine but before leaving poured me a very large fourth. So my recall - never the best anyway - starts to go on the fritz. I thought I took photos, but I didn't. I do remember Stanley coming in and confusing me by not speaking - it turns out he'd taken a vow of silence that continues this morning - and I also remember, I think, though, that Chris was first out, then Andrew, then it was my two dice versus Paul's five. Twice I tried to bluff him and twice he read me like a book: it was a very convincing win for the man from Croydon:
Paul
Sam
Andrew
Chris
Mine and Andrew's last game of the evening was Carcassonne. This hasn't been seen for years in our house, but the rules are burned into our memories. Paul was the big points-scorer early on, but as he said himself, he was doing no farming. Andrew and I got into a passive-aggressive farmer battle where I managed to actually connect his fourth Farmer to the main 'board' with a absent-minded placement. D'oh! Chris trod a path between these extremes, getting a couple of Farmers down too but also focusing his efforts on some city expansion. As is often the case with this game, the farming paid off:
Sam 69
Andrew 64
Paul 62
Chris 53
I was fading fast and Andrew had to go to work, so we bowed out, leaving Chris and Paul to crack out a finale in the classic two-player, Jaipur.
1 Chris
2 Paul
They'll have to tell that dramatic tale themselves, as I was probably asleep before it finished. A nice confection of gaming, thanks chaps....
*fawns
Great evening chaps! Not much to report in the Jaipur game apart from my rules explanation must have been super good because he picked it up really quickly and we had three very close games!!
ReplyDeleteWe should try it again :)