Breathless

Tuesday arrived, and so did Ian. We chatted for a bit and then realised as we were here, we might as well play So Clover. Ian had tricky words so while he was thinking I attempted to draw the singer we were listening to. Any guesses?

Joe arrived during our ruminations, and together we scored a reasonable 10/12. We were still only three and I mentioned I'd like to try KuZOOka when everyone got here, so Ian encouraged me to set it up. That's why Katy, Adam and Gareth all walked in to find their first game decided for them (sorry) as we collaborated on getting some animals out of a zoo. 

Initially there was some confusion, and I must admit I was feeling a touch of the cosmic frogs as Joe queried my interpretation of the rules. However the confusion turned out to be I'd actually got them correct for a change, and we ploughed on. It was thirsty work.

   

We all had a small hand of cards and use them to advance along the track, and hopefully get the animals to freedom by reaching the white zone at the end (see pic). However we don't play or reveal cards, but just place markers where we think we can collectively reach once some decides that's far enough for now, and all cards are revealed. Hopefully, we get experience points which means more cards and further progress next round.

The advancing along the track is less about movement then, and more planning - how far you advance and where you place your marker is, one hopes, revealing information about your hand. It's like a co-op Perudo. But we started badly when I took a risk in round one, then we busted in round two as well and in round four we busted when going further would actually have made us safe! In the seventh and final round we had to go for broke, but unfortunately the game ended in disaster.

I really liked it and was up for another stab, but Katy's excitement over the animal meeples had faded and it just made her want to play Perudo, which sadly nobody else was keen on. Instead we played My Gold Mine.

In this Incan Gold-esque undertaking, we're all trying to grab gold whilst avoiding being caught by the dragon. Instead of Incan Gold's table-reading though, we're flipping cards: either movement cards to get us to safety, or gold cards that may trigger the dragon's movement. It's quite dickish, especially when movement cards allow you to swap places with someone. Ian had a strong start in round one, Gareth had a good round two, but I snuck ahead of both in the final round - when instead of 'most gold' all your gold scores - as Joe went down in flames. 

Sam 14

Ian 12

Adam 9

Gareth 8

Katy and Joe 6 each

Then we split into two groups. Ian Adam and Katy played Biblios whilst Joe, Gareth and I revisited 7 Wonders Architects. With three of us the game was much quicker than the seven of last week, and divergent strategies emerged, with Gareth going a mostly civil route - with attendant cat noises - me building a hefty military, and Joe focusing on a swiftly-constructed wonder.

Meanwhile in Biblios things were marginally more raucous, as you can probably tell from the facial comparisons below.

The planets aligned with the finales, with everyone wrapping up almost to the second. It was a tense finale, with Adam winning tie-breaker for second according to the official rules and Ian winning it according to Extreme Biblios variant. "I prefer that" Ian said. Either way, they both lost.

Katy 7

Adam 7/Ian 7

In Architects, neither Joe's completed wonder and my warlike ways were enough to prevent Gareth from taking a debut win, despite me grabbing the cat off him. His city full of statues apparently made up for a wonder without a head:

Gareth 46

Sam 39

Joe 34

I canvassed immediately for Fun Facts, and to my recollection there were very little protests. I wish I'd written the categories down now from a fascinating couple of plays. For every dud (How many cousins do you have) there were several bangers, like how much we like animals to how much we think money brings happiness, and we did reasonably well in game one (35 from a possible 48) before falling marginally shorter in game two (34/48) probably because of the dumb cousins question. 

How many cups of coffee or tea had we had today? How many hats did we own? It transpired that Katy owns Many Hats, and Gareth very few. Joe thinks of himself (correctly) as the Most Creative, and Ian has a lot of cousins. Most grippingly of all, the How long can you hold your breath question had us all attempting to live up to our claims at the end of the game. Gareth did much better than he thought he would. I fell 7 seconds short of my 60 seconds. But Adam and Joe can hold their breath, it turns out, quite a long time. Joe can even perform mimes and - to Katy's skepticism - 'open his mouth' while holding his breath, up to an astonishing two minutes. All those swims up at Henleaze in the icy water finally counted for something, even though he'd only written 60 seconds during the actual game. 

But after these eye-watering scenes, it was now time for bed, and as everyone (except me, obviously) made their way into the summery night air, another GNN came to a close. 

We're all the 99%

At 7.45 there were seven of us clustered around Steve and Anja's table: along with Steve and Louie, Joe and I were first to arrive, then Ian, Adam and Martin made it a septet. Lennon made a brief appearance too, but mainly to collect a squidgy toy for bed. At Joe's suggestion, we set up 7 Wonders Architects, one of a clutch of new games in his bag. 

This is like an even-speedier 7 Wonders, or at least it would be with less players. Everyone's cardboard wonder starts scaffold-side up, and as soon as you've the resources to build it it's mandatory to do so, discarding the cards and flipping it over, starting from the bottom and working up - as Louie pointed out, you can't build from the top down in real life either. 

Ian's Big Dude, with pedestals flipped

Flipped wonder sections score points and - as with the original game - may also trigger bonuses. So far, so similar. But rather than drafting cards simultaneously, players take turns taking one card from the decks placed between players face-up, or - as I kept forgetting - from a shared face-down central deck, representing a mini-gamble. Wonder resource needs are fairly flexible: it's usually x number of matching or non-matching resources and what they actually are is immaterial. I think someone built a pedestal out of glass at one point. 

Science cards are cashed in for science tokens (one-off rewards/end-game scoring) and military cards compete with neighbours whenever war is triggered, which is less predictable than the end of a round. In fact, there are no rounds, and the game chugs along at a fairly rapid pace until someone - Adam, in this case - completes their wonder:

Adam 35

Louie 34

Ian 30

Sam and Joe 28 each

Steve 26

Martin 24

It was a bit long with seven of us, but the reaction was mostly positive. "I enjoyed it" I said. 

"I'll enjoy writing about it" Martin muttered. With Anja now joining us and Louie wanting one quick game before he was exiled to his bedroom, we set up That's Not a Hat.

The chalice of palpable disdain passed from Martin to Adam as confusion reigned supreme - the game's actual aim, rather than an inadvertent by-product. Ian and Anja confessed to having no idea what cards they had, and Ian's speculative skateboard proved his undoing. 

Ian loses (three penalty points)

Adam, Joe, Steve, Martin and Sam all win (no penalty points)

Louie left us and we split into groups. It was now Martin's turn to break out a new game in Hot Lead, for which he was joined by Joe and Ian. 

Anja was keen to try Hansa Teutonica and I needed no encouragement. Steve looked slightly askance at the busy board but signed up, and soon established a classic confused-Steve-scores-loads-of-points strategy. I missed what happened in Hot Lead, other than it finished before before I'd concluded teaching Hansa Teutonica, as Martin crowed happily. Joe win twice and Ian once before they moved on to Gang of Dice. 

Ian's view

We'd kicked off in Hansa Teutonica by now, and Steve's early trading post in Guttingen (I think?) started hoovering him up points. We kept remarking on it, but didn't actually do anything about it, each of us busy concocting our own little schemes. 

But you know in a game where one concocts their own little schemes, Adam will probably concoct more efficiently than anyone else, and so it proved in a tense - for some - conclusion. Steve triggered the end of the game by hitting 20 points, with the rest of us some way behind. Anja had no network to speak of, as our scheming around Guttingen kept her on a miserly two actions for half the game. I had some end-game points to score, but not enough to catch the breakaway leaders: Adam and Steve tied on points, and were only separated by the second tie-breaker!

Adam 48 and most valuable network
Steve 48
Sam 35
Anja 15

Brutal stuff. At the other end of the table Ian was wrapping up a win in Spots, of which I missed all the drama as we were hypnotised by Adam's scoretrack action in HT. Joe and Martin finished with three dogs each. We made a big group again for another new game out of Joe's magical bag: Fun Facts. 

This a slightly Wavelength-esque co-operative where in each round we are asked a hypothetical question such as How much would you need to be paid to work for a year at a research station in Antarctica or a factual question like How long have you been doing your favourite hobby. Everyone writes their answer - always expressed as a number - on the back of their own plastic chevron and then we go around the table adding ours to the column, placing it where we think it's correct relative to everyone else's. Once that's done, the starting player has the option of moving their own chevron before they are revealed, starting at the bottom. Collectively the hope is we're in ascending order, but of course the game throws up surprises. 

We score points for each chevron that keeps to the 'order' we're trying to establish. Above we are discovering everyone's liking for celebrating their own birthday. Ian (35) is perhaps unsurprisingly at the bottom. Joe (orange) and Anja (red) are the numbers slightly out of kilter. 

I loved this game, even if some of the questions skew it rather heavily away from joyful innocence and into unabashed smut. How comfortable are you around nudity? Do you enjoy time with old people? By the time the relatively innocuous query about favourite hobbies arrived, everyone was basically talking about wanking and how much Steve likes reading on the toilet (99%) which he not unreasonably argued was a percentage of the time he enjoyed reading, imagining one would assume that if he's not enjoying it, he'll stop. 

We didn't do brilliantly but it was a fascinating insight into everyone's psyche, sending Ian and Adam home with possible big thoughts. Steve was starting to yawn but we coaxed another game out of him that turned into four games - the rapid and tense Kites. Our first attempt was the most successful as we weren't that far off emptying the deck. But every time we said one more time, we seemed to get worse.

So much so we had to eventually accept that we are just shit at flying kites, and better at judging each other's peccadillos. After decades of our favourite hobby (exceptions: Ian (video games), Adam (football), Anja (listening to music)), at least there's something to show for it. 

Hourglass Vigour

 Tuesday at 7.40 and Joe answered his front door and let me in. As I entered his kitchen I saw that he, Ian, Martin and Sam had set up to play Gang of Dice, which is like high score in that you have to roll dice and you score according to certain criteria, such as “bust if you roll three odds” or “all the same value.” The trick is that you get to chose how many dice to roll. So, if “three of a kind” will bust you, then you can choose to roll only two dice with absolute confidence. Of course, your maximum score will only be twelve while other more luck-pushy players will roll more dice.

If you lose a round, you lose those dice to the winner and you have to buy them back. Your final score is money plus remaining dice. Sam started well, despite never being quite sure what score everyone had. Ian kept rolling well and then seeing Joe roll even better. Martin did astonishingly badly, and ended so far behind everyone that I’m obliged to use the old vidiprinter method of spelling out the score in brackets in case anyone thinks there’s been a mistake.

Joe 68

Sam 56

Ian 29

Martin 9 (nine)

“I can’t believe Knizia’s found something else to do with dice,” exclaimed Martin who enjoyed it, despite his display of misfortune.

Then we set up for a quick game of Kites while we waited for Gareth to arrive. In this game there are six egg timers and five cards in your hand. All you do is play a card from you hand that will allow you to flip an egg timer or two. We just had to make our way through the deck of cards while making sure that no egg timer runs out, and they all run at different speeds. It was a neat game, building to a climax of nervous timer-flipping. Gareth knocked on the door midgame, sparking a second of panic as we debated whether one of us dared answer the door in the face of six impatient hourglasses. Joe made the dash and Sam took his go for him until he got back.

But right at the end, only a few cards from victory, Joe didn’t have an orange card and the final grain of sand trickled through the neck and into the lower ampule.

Then we were a sextet so we split into two. People with three-letter names played Thunder Road while people with six-letter names set up a game of San Francisco. I didn’t follow Thunder Road much, except for noting Sam’s exclamation of “Holy shit, Ian.” In the final reckoning, Ian didn’t make it to the end of the game and Sam was immobilised, so Joe won.

As for sunny San Fran, Martin went for skyscrapers and I loved workers and cable cars. Gareth held out for a particular foundation, always making sure he was able to pick up at a moment’s notice, but it never came out. The pivotal moment was when Martin picked up some cards just to stop Gareth from getting them, even though they didn’t help him. That certainly stopped Gareth but did it also allow me to sneak past Martin?

Andrew 12

Martin 11

Gareth 9.5

Then we played Spot while Thunder Road ended. Gareth built up a huge pile of bones that gave him extra rolls of dice. In fact he had so many that when I discarded a bone, I put it in his pile since I thought it was the supply. However, he wasted 11 of those 12 bones trying to get a one so he could instantly win the game. With one bone left, he stopped, unwilling to go bust. But the next turn, he picked up loads more bones and then easily rolled a one the next chance he got.

Gareth 6

Martin 3

Andrew 3

Then we were all together so we rearranged our seats and began again. Gareth, Sam and I played Mille Fiori at speed while Ian, Joe and Martin played Ra. Martin seemed distraught for most of the game, convinced that Joe was going to slaughter them all. It was close but Joe won again.

Joe 50

Martin 47

Ian 30

Me, Sam and Gareth banged out a speedy game of Milli Fiori. Sam sped into an early lead, hitting 69 points after round 2 while Gareth and I languished in the 20s. But before long we had caught him up. My final move strung together three “take another turn” options for enough points to get me into second.

Gareth 197

Andrew 192

Sam 183

Then we banged out a quick Not That Movie: five rounds, but only one perfect. 32 points, I think. No idea if that’s good or not.

With that, I left them to their final game: So Clover. And what a game it was. Ian’s clover had, I’m told, so many interchangeable words that it only scored one point!

Thanks all. See you next week.

Chippencon!

Friday

With Paul J the quiet instigator of the idea, the old London branch of GNN coalesced this weekend at Chris's house in Chippenham: as well as the host, Paul J and myself there was Paul H for the duration, Stuart on Friday night and then Andrew on Saturday. 

But all this was ahead of us as I arrived at midday on Friday and after catching up with Jacquie and the kids, Chris and I shot off to collect Paul J from the station. Then after a second-wave newsbeat, we started gaming! We kicked things off with Babylonia, new to both Paul and Chris but a relatively easy teach. 

We played slightly too open, having the full board instead of the slightly condensed one for three, but that made it an easier learning game:

Sam 149

Chris 147

Paul 99

And now familiar with it, both were enthusiastic for another crack.

My long and arduous master-and-apprentice defeats at the hands of Martin stood me in good stead once more:

Sam 123

Paul 99

Chris 96

Lovely to find two more converts! We moved on to Sushi Go, the game of card-drafting Japanese foodstuffs. Owing to a misunderstanding over chopsticks, I ruled myself out of contention after round one, but it's not exactly a grind.

Paul 72

Chris 59

Sam 46

 Paul began a four-game winning run here, following his Sushi Go triumph with victories in Alhambra:

Kingdomino...

And Kingdom Builder.

Chris was appalled to finish third in every instance, voicing aloud his regret at the very idea of Chippencon. Things didn't improve immediately for him when Paul H arrived, as we kicked off with Tournament Raj and despite a huge last-round haul, he still finished last. Paul J and I slugged it out for first place, but he shrugged me off to claim a fifth victory in a row!

Paul J 60

Sam 51

Paul 45

Chris 33

With tea consumed - thank you Chris and Jacquie - and Stuart freshly arrived, we fancied something a bit feistier now, and so I talked them through the rules of Hansa Teutonica. 

Despite my encouragements to get sabotaging. everyone was very polite at the start and the first couple of rounds were slightly after-you-sir. But soon enough we were getting in each other's way and the cussing ramped up slightly. The initial sense of being hobbled by two actions fell away as we proliferated across the board and engines kicked into gear. 

After an hour of cross-postal interference, Stuart leapt from an innocuous fourth place into joint first with Chris, and I couldn't quite catch them. We checked the rules for a tie-breaker and Chris' fewer actions-per-turn won him the game!

Chris 38 wins tiebreaker 

Stuart 38

Sam 37

Paul H 29

Paul J 25

Now into the meat of the evening, we debated our five-player options. Paul J was understandably reluctant to learn another set of rules at this point, so we alighted on Istanbul, needing a mostly-fringe-area refreshment on rules. I forgot to take any photos at this point, but suffice to say Paul H was now warmed-up and moved through the gears to wrap up a relatively straightforward win, grabbing his fifth gem with the rest of us at least two turns away from doing likewise:

Paul H five gems!!!!

Sam  4 gems 31 cash 

Paul J 4 gems 6 cash

Stuart 4 gems 1 cash 

Chris 3 gems 13 cash 

The hour was getting late so with the request for something 'silly' I suggested Block Party.

Although this meant another set of rules, the fact they only take about 45 seconds to explain meant we were off and running quickly. And Chris made a banana. 

"I tried to bend it" he cried, but it mattered not: Stuart identified it. I guessed Paul H's spider and he saw the fire engine in my creation. We all ran the highs and lows of emotions - my milk bottle was alleged to be a snowman, a mountain, and an igloo - but ultimately the last game of the night saw Chris triumph:

Chris 11

Sam 10

Paul and Paul 8

Stuart 7

Saturday

I surfaced at around 8.15 to an extremely muggy day. We threw opens doors and windows to try and get some air into the house. Chester enjoyed having all these access points to the house. 

As well as the visiting articles to investigate. 

After breakfast, Jacquie liked the idea of trying out Block Party, so we did. Despite some creative performance anxiety, her debut creation was this beautiful pineapple:

However despite a frankly shambolic attempt at a door (in dubious colour choices of grey and pink) Chris triumphed again. I lost track of where Jacquie, Paul J and I finished.

Apart from that intense Block Party workout it was a fairly lazy morning. Paul H returned at 11am and while Chris prepped the chilli for later, he talked Paul J and I through the workings of Imhotep.

I think I played this about eight years ago, and I found it's piece-of-string machinations just as opaque this time, as players choose whether to add cubes to boats, or sail a full-enough boat to one of several possible destinations. It's fun, but I am really awful at judging anything being a good decision, and my focus on building a massive Burial Chamber didn't match up to the canny shenanigans of the Pauls, with Paul J claiming a debut victory!

Paul J 49

Paul H 41

Sam 39

Then with Chris back at the table, we returned to Babylonia. 

This was a corker, as leads between the Pauls and Chris ebbed and flowed whilst I languished back on a measly five points, hoping to draw enough farmers to use my ziggurat power. They didn't arrive and I had to focus my efforts building a central network that Chris spotted was going to haul me in some juicy points when they started paying out. I agreed, but I didn't think I'd close the now huge gap between Paul J (at this point) on something like 110 while I was back in the 30's somewhere. But as it turned out, it was damn close!

Chris 138

Sam 136

Paul J 130

Paul H 107

A baptism of fire for Paul H, then, but the next game - after our classic Lunch of Beige - was one he knew intimately: Eclipse! 

This was Chris's second-edition version, with some minor rules modifications (and one less round) and some faction asymmetry, but largely the same narrative: early rounds are developing tech and kitting out ships, building towards a massive bunfight at the end. Except here the bunfight never really materialised: Paul H and I established an alliance, and Chris and Paul J did the same.  Chris considered attacking Paul H, but decided against it because it looked like a death wish.

My dreams of peaceful expansion were undone by poor planning and ill fortune and I spent a few rounds only doing two actions and then passing early. The others expanded more successfully and built monstrously-violent death machines of the cosmos in a sort of cardboard cold war.

Then at the death Chris attacked the central hex and quickly reenforced his dominance there. He tried to take some hexes off me but didn't roll what he needed and we all eyed him warily. Oddly, his aggression went unrewarded in the sense of point-scoring, with Paul H's 'In Bed With the Ancients' faction grabbing victory:

Paul H 33

Paul J and Sam 32 each

Chris 30

Though it was certainly not a damp squib, I didn't enjoy Eclipse as much as I used to. It's a long haul to get to the more-exciting finale (caveat: my adjacency to that was more my fault than the games') and at times it feels a bit like a slightly protracted drum-roll. There's a lot to consider as well, and if it's a more elegant construction than Xia's everything-by-dice, it doesn't feel as stupidly fun. 

Speaking of dice, though, next up - after the very delicious chilli, and a quick sortie to the shops - was Las Vegas. It's not a game that supplies quite the epic narrative Eclipse does, but it was a nice pallet-cleanser:

Sam $510k

Paul J $470

Chris $380

Paul H $280

We knew Andrew was imminent, but just had enough time for another four-hander in the little-seen (by me at least) Timeline! I couldn't help but notice a seam of dark comedy in the images, with a number of characters looking vaguely psychotic.

Paul H won this. I discovered the refrigerator was invented much earlier than I'd anticipated, but now with crushing inevitability the exact year escapes me.

Paul H wins

Sam and Paul J 1 card

Chris 2 cards 

Andrew arrived just as we finished and after the briefest of catch-ups the discussion of what to play as a five began. Dominant Species? A bit long. Twilight Imperium? Very long. Istanbul? A bit short. We settled on Lords of Waterdeep. With no Martin or Ian present I elected to play green, so the colour/game combo made it feel a bit like 2010, as Prince used to sing.

Early on it was fairly even - I shot off on the scoretrack to 32 but had a bunch of skulls that made my actual score a current 14. Paul H pulled ahead and played some dastardly intrigue that balanced out revealing his Lord with the fact we couldn't target him all game. That was a bummer. Meanwhile I pulled ahead again, and Chris targeted me with one of those bastard mandatory quests that I'm definitely not still sore about. Andrew mostly chuckled at the names of the quests.

Incredible scenes at the end as Paul H pulled so far ahead it was almost embarrassing. My late game recovery wasn't enough to catch a resurgent Chris, and a briefly-dominant Paul J found Andrew had enough to sneak past him in the final count.

Paul H 166

Chris 148

Sam 144

Andrew 134

Paul J 131

After twelve hours of gaming I suddenly got hit by an ocular migraine, and had to play my final game (Incan Gold) with my eyes largely closed and Chris communicating events to me ("Zombie Lady!"). Paul J and Chris lacked our frugal conservatism and, falling behind, risked life and limb - and ultimately lost life and limbs - in wild attempts to recover.

In the end, however, it was Paul H who took yet another win!

PH 34

Andrew 32

Sam 26

Chris 20

PJ 0

And at this point, with my vision no better, I had to take myself to a dark room. It was a bit of a underwhelming way to end Chippencon and I was gutted to miss Chris and Andrew take on the Pauls in Decrypto! The Pauls won, though what the words and dramas were maybe we'll learn in the comments.

Thanks to Chris Jacquie and kids for putting up with us all, and everyone attending for making it fun.