Smurf’s up

I arrived only fractionally late, at 7.35 to find Ian, Sam and Martin sitting around Sam’s kitchen table: we were already at this week’s expected attendance, with only a vague chance of a Joe later on who was stranded in Clifton. Before I’d even sat down, Sam began with a rules explanation for Heat, which is basically Flamme Rouge on four wheels. Although technically you’re in control of four wheels in Flamme Rouge, too, but you know what I mean. This game has one car instead of two bikes.

It uses the same card-drafting mechanism as FR to get you around a track, along with a familiar slipstreaming option. But there are more random elements, especially in the form of “stress” cards which allow you to reveal cards in your deck until you draw a movement card. This could see you going too fast around a corner or stall on a wide open straight.

We played the basic game on the Italia circuit. It was pretty tight at the start until I struggled round a corner and got left behind on lap one. Ian was in the lead in lap two but with a severely overheated engine that limited his options. 

I clawed my way back into third, but the last lap was all about Sam and Martin. We used the kind of language that I’m sure all Formula 1 drivers would recognise (“Oh shit, I’m going really fast,” and “Corners are annoying”). Both Sam and Martin went past the finish line on the same turn, so it was a matter of who passed the furthest and after playing a stress card Martin revealed a 3, which pushed him past Sam for the win.

Martin

Sam

Andrew

Ian

Next we played Cat In A Box, the quantum trick-taking game. In this, all the cards in your hand (values 1-8 in a four player game) have no colour until your nominate a colour when you play it.  Other than that, it’s a pretty standard trick-taker where you predict the number of tricks you’re going to win. Oh, until a little bit of area control comes into play during the scoring phase. This rule was so unexpected that we actually laughed. We’re so invested in board game culture that we found the rules of a game amusing. I think we crossed a line there.

As for the game, I got a bit lucky, with a healthy supply of 8s and 7s, meaning I was able to predict the maximum 3 tricks each time. Martin fared less well, though. Apart from the very first hand, he didn’t win again until round four. Ian was my closest rival, notwithstanding my mid-game score summary as 11-11 when it was actually 13-10 in my favour.

Andrew 19

Ian 14

Martin 8

Sam 6

An interesting game. No green player pieces, but two shades of blue…

Last (for me) was Block Party, the 3D Pictionary of limited means. All you have is a selection of coloured cubes to communicate on of the objects listed on your card. It’s really satisfying when you guess right or someone guesses yours. On the round with “fewest cubes” I thought my sandwich (white cube, yellow cube, white cube) was a definite winner until Martin’s minimalist Smurf (a blue cube and a neighboring white cube at a rakish angle) was correctly guessed by Ian.

Spot the difference...

It was a lot of fun. Sam’s rough pyramid of brown cubes with orange cubes underneath was definitely a volcano, I thought, but it turned out to be poo. Meanwhile, my egg was mistaken for a snowman. The only downside was the number of times a card had to be replaced because it had recently been played and written up on the blog. We played twice.

An aubergine

Sam & Martin 6

Ian and Andrew 5

And then, 

Martin 7

Ian 7

Sam 5

Andrew 4

I set off home, although I was sorely tempted for a quick So Clover. Instead the three of them played it twice, scoring 18 out of 18 and then 16.

Thanks all for the evening. See you all soon.

Discussion of Pants on Line

Oh dear - I was supposed to do the blog for last Tuesday, and what with one thing and another I haven’t got round to it, and it’s Tuesday again tomorrow!

So I’ll make this short and sweet…

At one point we thought we might have just three, comprising me, Martin and my friend Matt, who is an occasional visitor. But in the event we were up to 7, as Gareth and Andy Bate arrived with Martin, and Steve and Adam H trickled in a little later.

We played Rapido whilst waiting for Steve. I had the sort of game I’ve seen others have before, where luck smiled on me repeatedly and I made steady progress round the board. Others had markedly worse luck, with one of them (Adam?) back on the starting block by the time I rolled a double three and romped home. This was the only thing I thought to take a photo of all evening - funny that! Martin noted that I’d scored the same as everyone else put together. What can I say - pure skill.

Steve having arrived while we finished up Rapido, we split into two tables, with Martin, Gareth and Adam playing the unpleasantly graphicked Aristocracy. Andy, Matt, Steve and I pulled out the Martin Wallace push-your-luck classic Hit Z Road. Andy wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay til the end, and sure enough our journey to the West Coast fleeing zombie hordes did take us longer than it says on the box, what with rules explanations and everything. Thematically, I’m not sure having to leave to pick up someone from choir is quite as on point as being eaten alive by the undead, but Andy did the former, and then Matt and I both succumbed to the latter in fairly short order, just one round shy of sanctuary. This left Steve, the only person left playing, a very lonely winner. Well him and his band of survivors.

Steve alive

Joe/Matt dead

Andy B missing in action

At the other end of the table Aristocracy had finished, and Mapmaker had begun and ended. I think Adam won Aristocracy, and Martin Mapmaker, but I may be wrong - one of the players can add the scores in the comments if they can remember!

 

Aristocracy:
Adam 45
Gareth 43
Martin 38

Mapmaker:
Martin 4.3
Gareth 4.0
Adam 3.1

At this point Matt bowed out - perhaps demoralised that his interactions with the zombie horde hadn’t been more positive; the remaining five played Art Robbery. We played twice, because in the first few rounds of the first game, people were still acclimatising to the dickish nature of the game, and not doing enough robbing. That game ended with Martin having the least alibis, Adam winning, and everyone’s scores being strangely evenly spread.

Adam 32

Steve 24

Gareth 17

Joe 8

Martin X

We played again, with a much feistier vibe, and I won - a first for me with this game. I like it now. We should play more. Gareth took the fall this time.

Joe 28

Steve 25

Adam 14

Martin 11

Gareth X

Now Adam and Steve departed, and Gareth, Martin and I played a couple of So Clover’s. We didn’t do great - scoring first 9 out of a possible 18, then 14. Unsurprisingly, this being all but a week ago, I can’t remember any of the words or clues. I think I’d probably drunk quite a bit of white wine too.

Thus ended the evening. I did make one note along with the scores, which reads “Discussion of pants online”, as far as I can tell. Or is it “pants on line”? If anyone can remember why I wrote this, feel free to enlighten us in the comments.

Stop on Red

A bit of a Thursday night gaming sortie last night as Ian, Katy and I sat down to play Scythe. It had been a while for Katy and she needed a refresher, so we talked her through the objectives and turn by turn beats, and then were off into fictional Europa. 

I realised that in choosing three different factions from Saturday we'd ended up red (Ian), yellow (Katy) and green (me). As I spread across the board I could place flags, potentially doubling the value of controlled hexes for myself; a fact I kept forgetting. Katy could spend combat cards like resources and Ian had the oft-heralded power to not change slots between turns. 

Katy found it hard to get going, penned in her corner of the board and seemingly caught between two stalls at regular intervals. I was busy on my homeboard upgrading and enlisting; preparing for the future. But Ian was making geographic progress; sprawling out over the continent, banging out mechs and nabbing the factory for himself. His faction power of staying in the same slot was working well for him: he also got a couple of stars down before we'd done much of anything. 

And despite our increased activity and progress, it looked Ian's game to lose from fairly early on. He made no mistake, remorselessly advancing towards a sixth objective star and a reasonably convincing margin of victory:

Ian 63

Sam 51

Katy 46

It was only about 9.20 so we bashed through a quick game of Block Party which was notable for a serial failure to guess pretty much anything! Katy and I shared a win with a grand total of four points each - on a scoretrack that goes up to 20 (Ian had three, I think). I forgot to take any photos though.

Then we ended with a triple whammy of Zombie Kidz Evolutions.

We were only going to play once but each play is so rapid, and the next legacy envelope was so close, that we did two more, winning twice and losing once, and in the envelope was a special ability for Ian's nerf gun character. We'll try that next time. 

It's not a popularity contest

For the first time in a long time, Scythe made it to the table last night. It was a Saturday and I was joined by Ian and Laura, with Adam imminent. At least, we thought he was imminent. Our concern grew as we reached nearly 8 with no Adam, and no word from him. It turned out he'd forgotten. Forgotten! Games!! An already strange situation got even stranger: as punishment, we would take his first few turns for him, as he hopped on his bike. 

Everyone had played it before so the three of us began. One of the things I love about Scythe is how rapid it is. Turns flew by and we'd already been four times around the table when Adam arrived, breathless, apologetic, and needing a brief refresher. In fact the longest turn previous to his arrival had been his own, as we all debated what he'd do. But now he was here and could organise himself. Which he did. 

We'd begun in the corners, more or less, of the board. Ian was the only faction with a land route to the centre hex - factory bonus! - but didn't take it early, as he sought other pursuits. Adam's ability to swim - surprisingly rare in Europa - meant he spread early, or at least his workers did. And Laura and I found ourselves hemmed in on our own little land masses for a while, until we built mines.

Then things took a turn for the slightly combative, as we started bumping into each other. I benefitted from Adam's unlikely poor arithmatic as I ousted his mech from my route to the factory. He also got in Ian's way, but Ian stole around him to pick up and encounter card instead. I was feeling my early enlistments - which trigger bonuses from neighbouring player's actions - had stood me in good stead, but Adam was now building momentum, shrugging off a disappointing factory visit ("these are shit") to plonk down stars at a steady rate, as well as climb the popularity track.

Because of course it is a popularity contest, in many ways. You can be the most dominant on the board with a shedload of resources, but - if your popularity is too low - outscored by supposedly weaker players. Or - if you're Adam - you can do both. 

I triggered the endgame, not wanting to gift him another turn, but it already looked like we were all fighting for second. Despite turning up late, not having played it for years, getting his sums wrong and not even taking his own turns, Hillmann still had enough savvy to triumph!

Adam 70-ish

Sam 60-ish

Ian and Laura 46 each!

We tried to take the gloss off by claiming our early moves had set things up for him. Maybe, in some butterfly effect way, there's even a crumb of truth in it. But probably not. 

It was gone ten now, so Laura headed home as I introduced Ian and Adam to Block Party. 

This game is great fun. Essentially one player guesses what everyone else has built (if they get it wrong, other players can attempt to identify it as well) using the tiny blocks, and if they guess correctly both players get a point. But you only have between 30-60 seconds to do so, and each round has a potential bonus: use the most blocks, the least, be the quickest, build the tallest etc. When Adam was guesser we had build the tallest and Ian's door was magnificent, but I forgot to take a photo of it. Here's my lighthouse though:

Using the fewest colours we mistook Adam's pineapple for both a pumpkin and a carrot. Ian managed to successfully build Earth and I was super-pleased that he guessed my Mr Bump. I wasn't so successful with my attempt at a stick of dynamite though (two red cubes with a black one on top) and I think I finished last. Ian was definitely first: he had a knack for guessing (-Mr Bump!) and seemed to be guessed correctly the most too. Here he is having a triumphant glass of stout.

And that was that! Thanks all, prob won't see you Tuesday but soon...

Hemmed in by Chocolate

I arrived in deepest Easton at about 8, along with Ian and together we looked over Steve and Anja’s collection, pondering the opportunities of a really stodgy Eurogame while Martin was out of the country. Snowdonia, perhaps? Even Keyflower?!

Then Katy and Joe arrived and with the two hosts and Louie joining us for the first game, our ensemble was complete. Steve went upstairs to get two chairs from the loft and Louise broke open his Easter egg while other chocolately comestibles were scattered around such that he couldn’t reach anything once we started playing (hence the blog title). 

We began with The Detective Club, a curious game of Dixit plus deduction. Each players has a hand of six cards containing a surreal illustration, and the Active Player in a round chooses two of their cards that have a certain theme linking them. They play one card face up for us all to see and then they write this word on a number of tiny note pads and hand it out to the other players so that they can chose cards that also match the theme. Except one player (the Conspirator) has a blank pad – they have to guess what the theme is and play cards they think best fit.

Then the theme is revealed and everyone has to explain their choices. This can require some high level creativity on the part of the Conspirator. Or not. Katy was a surprisingly bad conspirator, so bad that people almost thought she must be genuine. “Do you want to look at my cards?” she protested after she tried to convince us that a bee in her picture related to beehive, which was a kind of hairstyle which somehow related to the target word: hat. And it wasn't even a bee, it was a fly.

Steve did that old mistake of looking at the wrong page of the pad and so for the first round he thought he was the conspirator. Turns out, he makes an excellent Conspirator because no one suspected him. Meanwhile, Joe made sure everyone kept their hands at 6 cards with constant reminders to draw from the pack, and he even considered a variant where players without six cards would be disqualified.

Steve's cards for "mouse"

Ian 13

Andrew 11

Katy 8

Joe 6

Louie 4

Steve 3

Anja 0

Then Louie went up to bed. I was keeping an eye on the clock since I had to leave at about 10.30 to pick up a friend from the station. L.A.M.A was considered for a while but then discarded in favour of a decadent opulent simul-play of two copies of Mille Fiori. Katy declared that she was looking for someone who can beat her at this and she, Joe and Ian set up at one end of the table. I was with Steve and Anja which I was a bit apprehensive about since Steve is known for his lengthy pontifications but it turns out I needn’t have worried. He played so swiftly that I started to feel bad that I’d made him play out of character.

As for the games,  early on Steve and Katy sped off into such a big lead that they started comparing scores in a sort of cross-table challenge to be overall champion. Our game was very ship-based at the start and then I went big on keys while Steve and Anja tended to monopolise the food cupboards (you know, that bit of the board with biscuits, fish and broccoli).

In the end it literally couldn’t have been closer on our board with Anja and I sharing a dead heat.

Anja 199

Andrew 199

Steve 184

Katy 211

Joe 197

Ian 175

Ian seemed ambivalent about Mille Fiori's charms after his second turn. At this point, I dashed out of the door towards Temple Meads and the final five ended the evening with L.A.M.A.

Anja 9

Katy 14

Joe 27

Steve 33

Ian 49

Thanks all, it was special.

Euro Currencies

Last night's GNN meet-up unusually had no Martin at it, as he was away in the US. There was also the rare and welcome sight of Steve, giving the room a slight 2013 kind of vibe. But before he, Adam H and Joe all turned up, at 7.30 there was just Katy, Ian and myself (Sam). And after comparing our weeks - they'd both been to gigs; Katy had crowdsurfed - we played Zombie Kidz Evolution. 

This is a couldn't-be-simpler co-op game of trying to padlock all four school gates before you are overrun by zombies. On your turn, you roll a die and a zombie (probably) arrives in the school. You can move one spot (or stay where you are) and eliminate one or two zombies in the room you stop in. Padlocking the gates is an automatic action, but the catch is there must be two of you present to do it, and if a room ever gathers more than two zombies you can do nothing about it. If you're asked to add more zombies and you've run out, you lose! Which was exactly what happened to us on our first attempt - each game takes about 5-10 minutes - before triumphantly applying padlocks on our second try. 

The game has legacy aspects too: win or lose, after X amount of games there are envelopes to be opened that will change it fractionally. Katy however was more excited by the stickers that get applied to the back of the rulebook, heralding victory or defeat. 

A freshly-shorn Joe arrived. He too had had an interesting week, removing his beard for the sole purpose of a fancy-dress party. One has to admire his commitment to character. With Adam and Steve not here yet, I thought we could bash through a quick play of Coral, as I (erroneously (obviously)) thought I remembered the rules.

This is another speedy game, but rather less co-operative. Each player wants to have the most visible coral (-the colours) from a bird's eye perspective at the end of the game (height being only a tie-breaker). On a turn you can either add a block adjacent to your coral piece, or move your piece: it can travel as far as it likes along the colour it currently occupies (ignoring height differences) or you can remove it entirely, to be returned on your next go. This option is a kind of hedge-betting; holding back your pieces to see what develops. But it can bite you on the bum if nobody else is doing it, as when someone runs out of blocks turns continue, but if you still have blocks after placing one you discard another. I'm not sure who won; it was either me or Joe, but Joe knocked the tower over at the finale and then Katy dove in and scattered the remains across the table - in delight or fury, I'm not sure.

By this time Adam and Steve had arrived and Adam was pointing out we were playing something wrong. I forget what now - there was a flurry of snack bowls on the table and I think I was tripping on sugar and salt. 

We split into groups of three, delighting in our opportunities to play euros without Martin making desultory comments from the sidelines. And indeed, he may have to hold back a gag reflex as he sees we covered the table in big, detailed  and chaotically garish boards. Ian talked Steve and Adam through Terra Nova, as I explained Rajas of the Ganges to Joe and Katy. 

Despite some minor options-overwhelm, Joe seemed to begin strongly, scrutinising the board, asking for one or two rules clarifications and discovering we'd been playing something (erroneously (obviously)) incorrectly about activating markets. I deflected blame by saying someone else taught me it. Joe was going the market route, pretty much ignoring the glorious buildings, whilst Katy and I did the opposite. Katy's early-game progress stalled, though, and she bemoaned her lack of dice, seemingly spending them the moment they arrived. 

In Terra Nova, things were marginally less boisterous, and Adam noted that it sounded like we were having more fun. 

"I'm not" Katy clarified. 

Perhaps she was dreaming of better times; being carried aloft by a crowd. 

Joe meanwhile continued to scrutinise, but his early momentum was lost as well - Rajas is a game of surges and lulls, I think - and as we entered the final stages, Katy's love of buildings surged her past Joe. I triggered the end of the game as we all built like deranged constructionists.

Katy's markers passed each other as well, but not quite enough to catch me. Joe's markers halted within touching distance of each other, making him slightly sad, even though he said he liked the game. But I managed to successfully navigate my way past explainer's curse to claim a win, albeit aided by a familiarity my opponents weren't equipped with. 

Ian wasn't so lucky. However it happened, the winner was the most-likely when they sat down to play it:

Adam 74

Steve 68

Ian 50

We'd squeezed out a quick game of Zombie Kidz while they wrapped up (and won! more stickers) but now Katy went home, perhaps with her interview in mind, and most of us agreed that So Clover was the next logical step. I'm not sure if Steve agreed or not: he said he wanted something fun. We were all immediately stumped by our words, except Joe, who finished in no time at all and started a side-game of competitive number-drawing. I was a bit slower, and less accomplished.

I didn't get a picture of Joe's as at the time I was trying to make sense of my words. 

Steve's Hare for March/Jelly was nice and I was impressed the group got Young/Berry from my clue of Virile. We overcame our collective pessimism to score a faintly remarkable 28/30. Excellent work! But now Adam and Steve left us as well, and the remaining trio played a vintage GNN game in the form of Love Letter.

I warned Joe as we established our 3-3-0 lead over Ian that he has form for coming back from the dead, and even reminded Ian when he complained about zero points that he'd recovered from worse. And so it was! I tried ejecting Joe with a Baron and got my just desserts, then Ian won two rounds in a row with a spy to claim victory! 

I didn't take many pictures, sorry. But a very fun night, thanks all.