Rejoining the “You’re up Ian” Union

After two weeks away, I eagerly knocked on Laura’s front door for a dose of gaming goodness only to be told by Laura that there’d been a change of venue and, cursing my lax checking of emails, I set off again, this time to Sam’s. When I arrived, I found three gamers: the host Sam, Martin and Ian, playing Sea Salt and Paper. When I walked in, Martin suggested they end the game and call it void, but Sam was keen to continue. A brief look at the scores explained why: Sam was poised to win while Martin was a distant last.

So they continued. “You’re up Ian,” prompted Martin, giving this blog post it’s title. Sam called “stop” but then realised he was one point short of a win, so had to risk “Last chance” for that extra point. No one could match him, although Martin came very close, and Sam took the win by a deceptively wide margin.

Sam 35

Ian 26

Martin 15

Then we played Castello Methoni, a territory control game where you can win despite having very little territory at all. Selling your land (or, more accurately, watching another player annex your land) gets you money and money equals points.

Martin's grey tower marks the game's first domain

We tried out various tactics, not really sure what we were doing. Martin was the first to make a domain, which I commented was a grand name for what was basically just a market. I was pleased with my 6-tile hexagonal domain until Ian made an 8-tile one.

Martin 66

Ian 57

Andrew 42

Sam 32

By now we were sure Laura wasn’t joining us so we decided it was time to introduce Ian to Mille Fiori. He listened to Martin’s rules explanation and so did Sam who’d recently taught this game to his family and wanted to know if he’d got any rules wrong. For the most part, Sam sat in contented silence until he asked Martin to clarify a rule about scoring the shipping.

“Was that the one?” asked Martin after he’d explained. “Yes,” said Sam, “and I’d been doing so well.”

It was a typical game of Mille Fiori. I was doing well and challenging Martin for first, although with a little help: I played a card to move a ship when Martin pointed out that I could use it on the board, get an extra turn and score more points. Unfortunately, Ian had the exact same card so his plan was ruined. Sorry Ian.

Martin 209

Andrew 192

Sam 165

Ian 115

A tough introduction for Ian against three experienced players. Hopefully he’ll be back before too long.

It was coming to the end of the night for Ian and I and we ended with So Clover. My clover was pretty easy and I was confident of 6 points but I was cruelly undone by an evil rando. I’d written “Hilter” for “race/butcher” but the extra card had “Belgium” on it and people instantly paired “Hilter” with “Belgium/butcher” and to make things worse, the other word on the tile was a perfect fit for the adjacent clue.

Pity, really. And we’d done so well to get Sam’s clover right with Ian noticing at the end that “Fairy” went better with Sam’s clue of “Liquid” than “cup” did.

20 out of 24.

The Ian and I went home and Sam and Martin finished with a couple of two-player games. Sam won and Schnipp And Weg while Martin claimed victory at Spots.

Thanks all. Hope to see you next week.