Dominant Maroon

On Saturday afternoon Ian and I wended our way down the M4 to Chris' house in Chippenham. The plan was to play Dominant Species: Marine during the day, and then some other stuff in the evening. So with a little ado and catching up, I began setting up the game and explaining it to Ian - who'd not played before - and Chris, who'd only played the significantly-different big sister Dominant Species. 

In DS: Marine, we are competing animal types way back at the dawn of multi-celled life, climbing from the primeval ooze to spread our species across the world, by mostly sea but also (high-scoring) land. There's about 12 actions to choose from initially, but each action you take narrows down your subsequent options, until you choose to retrieve all your pawns and start afresh. The actions are numerous, then, but broadly do three things: advance your own cause, screw with someone else's, or both. This is a GMT game, and although the theme isn't the expected warfare, it's a combinatorial experience. 

My fishes (blue) started well, but Chris' cephalopods (orange) 

are proliferating at a dangerous rate while Ian's reptiles look on

In the original Dominant Species, all pawns are placed and then activated in order. Marine foregoes that somewhat phase-heavy approach by simply activating them when-placed, and simplifying both the scoring system and the board interface: instead of constantly recalculating dominance across the board, players choose a single tile to score as and when they want/are able to. It's not a simple game but, apart from one or two pauses when pawn options dynamically change, it cracks along really quickly. We didn't play the short version, but still finished in under two hours.

I'd led for much of the game but in the finale - when every tile gets scored - both Ian's purples and Chris' oranges caught up, and in the latter case, overtook me for a debut win. 

Chris 107 

Ian/Sam 102 each

I enjoyed this. It's nasty, swingy and tactical, with all the actions making easy sense, with only the special pawns needing more than a glance at the explanations. 

Next up was So Clover. We started out as a three, scoring a bang average 12/18, and didn't improve with four when Jacquie joined us (15/24) initially, only to pull out a storming 24/24 on our third attempt as minds synchronised. 

Jacquie dropped out and Ashton stepped in for Push It, which I took a kind-of win in, leading when we abandoned the game in favour of a delicious tea, a dish entirely driven by Chris winning a cheap bottle of white wine in a pub quiz. Chris actually described it as 'bleach' but it seemed to go well with the chicken. 

After stuffing our faces I managed to win another game - Spicy. 

While we were playing Aiden arrived and watched the duplicity play out as we fibbed, half-fibbed and occasionally told the truth on the way to the frantic conclusion.

Sam 35

Ian 31

Chris 23

Then Ian and I cracked our bottles of wine open. Well - I did. Ian was struggling with the cork and as he wrenched it out, the bottle smacked down on the counter-top and smashed. As wine poured everywhere, nobody was quite sure what to do and Paul arrived on the scene to see the carnage, fortunately not turning around and leaving directly. I did what you're meant to do when accidents happen these days - I took a photo of the scene. 

I must take my hat off to Chris and Jacquie, who weren't even slightly fazed. I guess running a childminding business has it's upsides. Anyway after Chris and Ian went at the scene with plentiful kitchen towels, the five gamers kicked off the evening session with Raj. We played five rounds with an escalating winner's bonus in each one, but it felt like they were mostly taken by Aiden. 

Chris kept kind-of pace with him, but Paul was serially stiffed by unlucky ties and Ian and I harpooned each other's bids with metronomic frequency, almost always playing our 14s and 15s at identical times. With five players, there's a lot of ties, and Aiden seemed to be taking advantage. Until the final round, where Chris rode some luck, did some canny bidding, and took the whopping 15pt winner's bonus to snag victory from the jaws of second-place...

Chris 81

Aiden 78

Ian 37

Paul 27

Sam 19

A lot of laughter in Raj. Rather less in what followed - the lesser-spotted Istanbul - but it was pleasurable in it's own fashion, with all of us concocting semi-formed plans and then seeing them slowly come together. But in Aiden's case, it wasn't so slow - he rocketed past everyone to claim a win so fast I missed it, having gone for a wee. I think Paul Ian and I were all 'just about' to get another gem, but it would only have got us squabbling for scraps...

Aiden 5 gems

Chris 4

Paul 3 + most cash

Sam 3 

Ian 2

Then Ian went to the shop for replacement wine and we played Push It again. Although going clockwise is less tactically compelling than the official furthest-away rule, it does at least keep things moving at a humorously hectic rate. At one point Paul couldn't even see the puck, as it was lodged behind Ian's crisps! What larks. You can keep your class A drugs, city folk!

Ian returned so we wrapped things up with Chris the kind-of winner on this occasion. 

Chris 7

Sam and Paul 6 each

Aiden 4

If Ian and I hadn't seen Istanbul in a while it was even longer - or felt it - since we last encountered Port Royal, the card-flipping, luck-pushing, symbol-collecting game of first-to-twelve points. I remembered being terribly bad at it, but hadn't recalled how complex it was. I mean - it's not complex, but in my head it was simpler than this, with cards doing various things and flipping to become money and objectives and repelling and all sorts. I think I enjoyed it, but it was only near the end I understood what was going on. Chris took the laurels here...

Chris 12

Paul 10

Ian 8 + most cash

Aiden 8

Sam 7

Then we played 7 Wonders! It was remarkable how setting up the physical version takes the same length of time as playing the digital one, but 7 Wonders remains a Speedy Classic I think, and it was nice to be handling cards again rather than gazing bleary-eyed at pixels. Aiden took the win, mainly thanks to his large army. It was a curious, fairly low-scoring play, with everyone resource-rich and so cash-laden that the bank ran out of money...

Aiden 55

Ian and Sam 47 each

Paul 46

Chris 44

We had time for one more game and Ian suggested Texas Showdown - new to Chris and Aiden, but very easy to explain. Harder though to get one's head around the best moves, and death spirals were had by both Chris and Ian. Aiden and I had good rounds and bad ones, but Paul's canny play saw him picking up minimal tricks - a one, a two, a zero - and he claimed a comprehensive win as Chris and Ian fell over the finish line...

Paul 5

Aiden 8

Sam 9

Chris and Ian 13 each

We'd played a lot by now - it was approaching midnight - eaten our own bodyweights in crisps and Maltesers, been exceedingly rude to each other and probably drunk a fair bit too so we finished our marathon session of a smorgasboard of gaming delights there. Wonderful stuff - thanks to our hosts and everyone for making it fun.