Double Baron Shotgun

This week, with numbers depleted to the usual mid summer level, four gamers gradually logged on. Ian first then, about ten minutes late, I arrived. Followed by Martin and then finally Andy,who entered with his signature method of logging on and off repeatedly until he properly arrived.

While waiting for him, the three of us had decided on Turn The Tide as our first game, previously seen some years ago as Land Unter.  It was so long ago that Andy couldn't remember if he'd played it or not. So he looked it up: he had, and had given it four out of ten. Clearly not his type of game. Meanwhile, Martin was initially upset by the slurping noise the game made when he lost a life, but I had to admit that it’d been me eating.

Martin 16

Andrwe 12

Ian 2

Andy 1

Next up was Downforce with a track chosen especially by Andy, with ramps. This made it a lot more swingy. My red car managed to get from a distant last to a fourth place finish and, more importantly, Andy’s blue car was in third when the first bidding round happened, but finished first. As such, he was the only one to bet on it three times and thus came out the winner. 

Andy $27m

Andrew $15m

Martin $7m

Ian $6m

Next, for a change of pace, some co-operative play with Hanabi. Except that BGA now has a “hand of the day” option where you can try a particular deck and see how well you do against other teams. Finally, Hanabi has gone competitive.

The game was going well, except the blue one didn’t come out. At on point Andy confidently said “I know I haven’t got the red 5” while the red 5 was in his hand, and then I ruined everything by throwing away the second yellow 4, making a perfect finish impossible.

Our score: 21

Finally, with Ian flaking, we decided to finish on Love Letter. Except with four players and first-to-four winning condition, it wasn’t quite as quick as we’d expected. Martin sped into a 2-0-0-0 lead but Ian was first to reach match point on 3-2-2-0. That was me on zero.  But then the tide turned and I started picking up points.

I think a couple of times people got stuck with two Barons in their hand, which is almost certain doom, especially if the guards and a priest have already been played. And at the start of one round, Ian played a King to swap his hand with Martin. I knew that there was only one reason to play your King right at the start so I immediately used my Guard to accuse Martin of being the Princess. Which he was.

By now I was back in the swing of things and in that very round I closed out an unlikely win.

Andrew 4

Ian 3

Andy 3

Martin 3

And, forty minutes after that game had started, we were done. Thanks all. See you soon.