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.