The Enigmatic Mr Bate

 With no Andrew online, blogging duties fell to me (Sam) and it was nice to see the return of both Joe and Adam H, neither of whom had been seen - at least by me - in some time. When I logged on at five to eight, no games had been played, but with 20 minutes before the scheduled arrival of Andy, the six of us - Ian, Katy and Martin also present - kicked things off with a game of For Sale. 

This was notable mainly for the gloomy ambience around Joe's google feed and the gloomy predictions Katy and I gave about our perennial poor performances. Adam - audibly muffled, but consciously clinical - stayed mostly quiet as he deftly picked up his first win of the evening, as Martin picked up a surprising fifth place:

Adam 50
Sam 44
Ian 43 + cash
Katy 43
Joe 41
Martin 37

For Sale was so quick we began another game, anticipating Andy's arrival might be somewhat staggered. This proved to be true as no sooner had 7 Wonders began than he appeared online, only to vanish again mysteriously. What does he do in these moments? Is he cackling evilly in his subterranean lair, or banging his head against a wall in frustration? Perhaps we'll never know. Although Martin did ask rhetorically if he worked for British Telecom. Meanwhile Adam stayed true to form, ousting the regular 7 Wonders winner Ian from his perch. He still got second though:

Adam 65

Ian 57

Martin 54

Sam 52

Joe 47

Katy 35

Katy was so exasperated she threatened to read the rules. 

Martin then suggested Draftosaurus, and everyone volunteered. It didn't play seven though so after Andy, Ian, Adam and I had watched him teach it to Joe and Katy, we scurried off to play by ourselves. It's a really simple game where the dinosaurs you draft score in different ways depending on where they end up in your park - but where you can place them depends on the roll of a die, and what dinosaurs you've placed already. Simple enough that we played it twice:

Ian 41

Adam 30

Sam 29

Andy 25

then 

Ian 34

Sam 33

Ian 32

Andy 28

Whilst the others played it no less than four times, twice on the summer board and twice in winter. Not sure what the difference is? - maybe once they're in your park, they freeze to death. 

While they were passing digital representations of miniature wooden stegosauruses around the table, we played Kingdomino. Fun, but it does get a bit stodgy with four, seemingly doubling it's length from the last time I played with three. I also managed to pick the wrong domino on my final turn, depriving myself of over ten points in the process. Not that it would have helped me catch Adam (or Ian, in fact, as I think he would have taken the domino I took for more points)

Adam 67

Ian 59

Sam 53

Andy 47

The others having completed their Draftosaurus odyssey (and played something else?) we came together for a rousing game of 6Nimmt.  This was something of a classic, in no small part to the behaviour of Andy's internet connection, which collapsed with comedic frequency. We briefly wondered whether it would be best for everyone to kick him out of the game, and then fretted that he was listening in on Googlemeet and would be upset, or perhaps murderously vengeful. But frankly it was almost as entertaining as the game itself, watching Andy 'thinking' about his turn, and speculating whether he was about to make a decision or simply vanish into the ether. 

For a while it was neck and neck between Andy and I on the scores, but then I picked up a horrid row of bullheads. In the late game though Andy collapsed too, bringing Katy and Adam back into the equation. It was a brutal game with everyone picking up bruises, and in the end both Ian and Martin hit minus points. The winner was Katy!

Katy 28

Adam 23

Sam 20

Andy 19

Joe 3

Ian -5

Martin -9

Ian and I then took our leave, whilst the others seemed to be on the verge of playing something else... thanks all, lots of fun and sorry I took no pictures at all. Here's one of our mad cat Charlie, who likes pretending to bury his food bowl.