oceans a-livin'

 Having missed Tuesday’s regular meet, I was pleased to hear of a Thursday meet up at Sam’s. This was, I thought, just a three-hander with Sam, myself and Adam H playing Dominant Species Marine. Imagine my (slight) surprise when I arrived at the uncommonly prompt time of 7.35 to find Martin also there, with Joe expected shortly.

Martin and Joe played each other at Watergate, a game in which one player is Nixon (Martin, possibly typecast) and the other plays the role of the journalists trying to uncover his evil plot.

I know nothing about it, nor who won. 

As for this end of the table, Sam talked us through DSM and it was a little complicated. When Sam was called away from the table on family business, Adam and I tried to work out what an"action space" might be. But once we began, it seemed to make sense and my source of AP was whether or not to dawdle at the top of the list of actions or head straight to the good stuff at the bottom. Tricky because once you play an action, you can’t choose another action from further up: you must keep going down. Unless you have a special pawn, then you can go anywhere.

I seemed quite good at choosing actions that Sam was relying on, which is a positive sign for a beginner. Adam seemed to get the worst of extinction events, despite him also being a newbie. But I think both Sam and I tried to be fair in who’s animals we killed off.

At the end (after the asteroid), we counted up the points scored for special pawns. I had none while Sam and Adam had three each. This pushed Sam into first place and he celebrated his win for a second or two until Adam reminded him (and me) that we needed to score the board too. Sam’s demeanor instantly fell, as he had little presence on the board whereas my clever use of the aforementioned asteroid meant I had plenty of high scoring land to myself.

Andrew 87

Adam 84

Sam 78

I think being a reptile helped, since I always won ties. Would be keen to play it again. Even though Sam slimmed out the deck beforehand for a shoreter game, it was still a substatial two-hour game that filled me up nicely and I set off home for the evening. The rest of them continued. According to Sam in a text later, Adam beat Sam at Clubs (not sure what Joe and Martin were playing when I left) and then after Sam beat Adam at Schnipp & Weg, Adam went home.

Finally, Martin beat Joe and Sam at Letterpress.

Thanks all, a nice little soiree. See you all soon.