Strike then Hit

 I was only slightly late to Joe’s this week, but at least that meant I arrived at the same time as Katy, saving Joe a trip up and down the stairs.

In his kitchen I met Sam, Adam T and Martin and with only brief formalities while Katy assured us she was stoned and that she’d forgotten some zines and then realised that actually, no, she had brought them, we quickly got into a game of Herd Mentality (I was especially pleased by the fact we'd all happily agreed to play, thinking maybe that meant we'd already won). In this game, a question is read out and if your answer is among the most popular, then you get a point. 

It started well. Adam cursed his decision to go highbrow on the question “favourite bodily noise” as everyone else said “fart.” On the question “Name a brand beginning with A” Sam scoffed at Katy’s choice, insisting that “Apple isn’t a brand name,” before he remembered it was an extremely famous one. Alas, the questions took a turn towards multiple choice which kind of ruined the fun, but otherwise it was nice.

Adam 9

Sam 8

Martin 8

Katy 5

Joe 4

Andrew 4

After this we split into two groups of three. Katy was overjoyed when Joe and Adam agreed to play Yokohama while Martin was introduced to First Rat by Sam and I.

While First Rat is at heart very simple, there is a lot to keep track of and Martin’s opinion of the game was that he liked it but there were about three too many things going on. Sam agreed, saying it was a bit like a dog throwing up Christmas tree lights, but he personally never found it overwhelming. I took advatage of Sam’s explainer’s curse and Martin’s inexperience and I copied the strategy I’d seen Adam H use only a couple of days before. Thanks Adam.

Andrew 95

Martin 87

Sam 84

Yokohama had, at this point, barely begun so the three of us embarked on an odyssey of short games. First up was Sea Salt and Paper, a game that looks lovely but I sort of struggled with the scoring system and was never quite sure about how many points I had. That was all academic, though, as halfway through round two Martin stole a mermaid card from me and declared that he had all four mermaid cards and therefore won instantly!

He was amazed, having not seen anything like it despite having 20 plays under his belt. 

Then we played Strike! which I still hadn’t tried yet. It’s simple push your game, rolling dice one at a time into a tiny amphitheatre hoping to get matching values so you get those dice back. Should you be unlucky enough that the person before you emptied the amphitheatre, then you have to roll all your dice. This happened to Sam, who was obliged to throw his five dice and amazingly he got a pair and a three of a kind (a full house, I suppose) and was able to take them all back.

We played three times, Sam won games one and three and Martin won game two.

Then after Strike! we played the similarly named Hit. A very simple set collecting game by Knizia. Draw a card from the deck and decide to stick or keep going, but after three cards any duplicate values mean you are bust. Those cards you stuck with might then be stolen by the other players, though. Then just add up the value of the cards you were able to keep.

Martin had terrible luck, going bust regularly and the most ignominious example was when he drew 3, 1, 1, 2, 2. Still, he did better than me.

Sam 133

Martin 71

Andrew 61

Next up was Dandelions. Roll all your dice and then chose which dice to use as you flit from petal to petal, dropping dice behind you as you go. It’s kind of area control as most dice gets to score a particular petal. Sam got some truly awful luck as he landed on the “reroll dice” space and rolled 1, 1, 2 which meant he couldn’t actually go far enough to leave that petal. That kind of limited his scoring potential.

Andrew 75

Martin 52

Sam 42

Then we learnt that Yokohama was halfway through its final round which meant we had enough time for another game. We chose Hit again. This time a stack of 3s got passed around and around getting longer and more exciting each time until Sam went bust with them and they all got removed. Heartbreaking. I was able to steal some 10s and won the game hansomely.

Andrew 128

Martin 57

Sam 41

Then we watched as the last moves of Yokohama were played and the scores totted up. Katy remains in charge of this particular hub of international trade, but only just.

Katy 143

Joe 138

Adam 114

Lastly we ended on So Clover. Martin and Joe both went clear and Joe’s clue of “Eye” for the words “triangle/pumpkin” was very smart. I was unsure of my clues, since they needed a bit of lateral thinking: I had “Circus” for “circle/cotton” referencing Billy Cotton’s circus. But my decoy card contained the words “show” and “top” and poor old Billy Cotton never got any consideration at all.

Adam was also stymied by the decoy card which contained “cushion” when the real answer was “couch.” Or vice cersa, I don’t recall. And talking of not remembering, Katy forgot what her original answers were. I think that testifies as to how brilliant our guess was. Sam, last to complete his clover, realised that one of his clues was actually a word on a different side of the clover. An easy mistake to make, although Martin had said earlier that game that he’d almost done it.

Didn’t note the score. 27 maybe?

With that I was up those stairs like a whippet up a drainpipe. Thanks all. See you next Tuesday.