Dice overboard!

Despite being only seven minutes late, I was last to arrive and as I sashayed into Joe's kitchen I saw them (Katy, Gareth, Sam, Martin, and Andy B) getting a rules explanation to a new game from Joe. However, it wasn't a game that played seven so, whatever it was, it was put away and we split into two groups.

Martin was keen to play Noli. Joe mentioned that Katy had requested Yokohama or Lords of Vegas. Vegas needed four but, really, so did Noli. Instead, Yokohama was chosen with Katy and Joe joined by Andy. Thus we remaining four played Noli.

I must admit I was intrigued that Martin should be suggesting such a euro-looking game. Set in a vague idea of the Middle Ages with a storyline about some Italian families competing for fishing rights. But I shouldn't have worried: there was no worker placement or engine building. Instead, we had blind bidding and some frantic dice rolling, interspersed with cries of "man overboard!" if any die should skitter away and off the table.

The blind bidding part of the game allows the highest bidder to do any of four actions. 1, move up the favour track (decides tied bids in favour of whoever is furthest along). 2, buy a buoy (reduces the number of dice you need to roll during the boat race). 3, build a boat (at the end of the race you pick up one reward card for each boat you have). 4, build part of your tower (a tower six blocks high will win the game).

Pretty simple. And exceedingly silly. Despite the eurogame stylings, we found ourselves desperately trying to roll dice as quickly as possible in one part of the game and then hopelessly misjudging how much to bid in the other. To our annoyance, a couple of rounds went by with no one bidding on the tower at all, which is the whole point of the game.

We accidentally played a much more punitive game than the rules specify. In our version, anyone ending a round with no money stays poor whereas in the rules it says any cashless player gets two coins and a new boat, which is a useful catch up mechanism. But we didn't realise this until Martin had gone through two rounds in extreme penury. 

I'm not convinced we worked out the optimum strategy. There were plenty of occasions where someone bid high for an action, only to see that no one else had bid anything at all. 

But the boat races at the end of the round, with its potential rewards of money or damaging opponents' fleet or tower, were the defining moment. Sam finished most of them in last, while I was so frustrated at my last doe's inability at rolling the desired symbol that I span it and sat back while Martin kept rolling his final die. He won. My die ended up on a blank face anyway.

Finally it was all down to the favour track: the one part of the game that I'd ignored throughout. Our pitiful towers were all only two blocks high and Gareth got to the end of the favour track, thus triggering the end of the game and, since the favour track decided ties, gave him the win.

Gareth 2, wins on favour track

Sam 2

Martin 2

Andrew 2

Yokohama was about half an hour from the end so the four of us indulged in more short games, almost as a reaction to the migraine enducing (according to Martin) sight of Yokohama's modular game area.

We played Harvest. A very simple game. Each player has a 2x2 field and together we need to play cards of particular crops and when there's a row of three then they score and are removed from the board, but only cards in your 2x2 board go in your score pile. 

But there are plenty of cards with negative points to ruin things for your opponents. It's a cunning and mean game and we played it twice, taking the opportunity to take revenge on Gareth's mastery of Noli.

Martin 140

Andrew 100

Sam 80

Gareth 70

And then…

Martin 180

Sam 120

Andrew 70

Gareth -10

Then we played Block Party. There are few notes because Katy used my pen and paper to write down her next move before she forgot it.

I do remember, though, that Martin thought my Rudolph the reindeer was "beautiful" but my light bulb was mistaken for a sheep.

Martin was confident about his string of sausages but everyone thought it was a worm. 

Sam 7

Martin 7

Gareth 5

Andrew 5

Yokohama was still ongoing but clearly in its final stages, so we waited. Joe admitted that this epic undertaking hadn't been made any easier by our cries of "man overboard!" earlier. Finally Joe was victorious, beating Katy who seemed to have spent most of the time insisting in frustration that she hated the game (or the game hated her, I don't recall). Andy explained his last place by saying it had been a long time since he'd last played.

Joe 125

Katy 116

Andy 110

My (and Katy's) last game of the evening was Fun Facts. We began with the absurd notion that Joe would ideally like 101 snowy days in a year! "It'd be magical," he insisted. Katy reacted to almost every question by remarking that "we've already done this one."

We did pretty well, but our only perfect score was to the question "how interested are you in bungee jumping? (0-100)" and all of us wrote zero except Katy who wrote 2.

Final score 44: hitting our stride, according to the score sheet.

Finally, after Katy and I had left, they played So Clover. Sam messaged me later to say it had all been going fine until his and Andy's clovers. Their first guess for Andy's clover had no correct words at all!

Thanks for the evening everyone. See you all soon.

Down, down under

With Sally away walking the next section of Offa's Dyke with her pal, Saturday night opened up for games and maybe in hindsight we should have gone with Katy's suggestion of Caverna: gentle field-ploughing and animal husbandry on our own boards. Adam was certainly amenable, but Ian and I both felt that it's too long with four, and I hazarded I was in the mood for something a bit more feisty. After some gentle cajoling of Katy (via the medium of purple trains) we agreed to play Railways of the World, and at Adam's suggestion broke out the (massive) Australia map. 

Before we got started though, Adam treated us to the sight of jumping beans - not plastic cocoons with ball-bearings in, but the actual thing, from all the way across the Pacific. Unbeknownst to me, and beknownst to me only now after Adam's explanation, the 'beans' jump about because there's a little creature inside them that try to move their home into the shade when they get too warm. 

With that banging opener done, we spent about half an hour or so struggling with Australia's 'one or two' (© me) extra rules before starting, which I'll attempt to summarise here. One is that as well as cities you have towns, and when you build over them, ping! they turn into cities, instantly adding more fruitful bounty to your route (a fact I gleefully anticipated) whilst also instantly making your level 2 train essentially redundant (a fact a stupidly didn't) as you've generated extra stops. 

Australia is also broken into territories, and to cross from one to another you need to stop at a border city to navigate the connection (thematically, this is because Australian railway builders used lots of different gauges) or own a special card to cross the border out in the open plains. There's a similar card-payment method for crossing the ferry to Tasmania. 

Finally - with the exception of a few new cards - there are the switchbacks, a new and exciting addition that we mostly forgot all about, where you can split your track into different directions! Here below is one of the two occasions this actually occurred:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After Katy proclaimed the game didn't have enough options and was therefore confusing, and realising we didn't need all the map for four, we kicked off with bidding for turn order. I don't remember who started now - Ian? - but he and Adam immediately stepped into competition in Oz's comparatively busy southeast. I began my building in Tasmania and Katy started what would be a game-long project of carving a route across Australia's outback, from Adelaide to Palmerston.

I was first to leap, jumping bean style, a little way up the track as I completed the Launceston delivery bonus. I slipped the ferry staff a few quid and connected to the mainland, as Ian and Adam continued their wary circling around the east coast. Katy remained largely unmolested in midwest, and despite protestations at having no idea what to do, remained competitive. If I had concerns about my almost complete lack of delivering anything, Ian's mood at this point was starting to plunge, and as well as a surfeit of bonds and shitty income he had to put up with good-natured teasing about his doomy prophesising about having no plans and everything turning to shit.

My chuckling was about to evaporate however, as mid-game Ian beat me to a long-distance route, then Adam blocked me out of another simply as a dick move, and then, in a narrative twist too convoluted (and boring for those not present) to go into here, I was punished retrospectively for a mistake I didn't make, and I began a prolonged rant about how I was surprised and let down by everyone - mostly joking, but not entirely. I won't mention Katy ra-ra-ing in delight at this point or Adam chortling into his cosy blanket I had provided. 

Mid-game (above) you can see Katy's purple trains have connected the north/south coasts, Adam is mostly on the east whereas Ian and I (green/red) are lagging behind them on the scoretrack, where it's become two-horse race for first, with Katy leading but Adam with considerably fewer bonds to worry about. With no Barons in sight it was a matter of simply doing best on the board as the place filled up with steam, mostly from out of my ears.

Halfway through we spotted that turn order in Australia isn't just clockwise from starting player - probably because of the Coriolis effect - but we stuck to our standard practice. I think we clarified one or two cards as well, but at this point my attention was on the fact I'd built a route without a huge amount of delivering options, and needed to spend a few turns upgrading my train and hoisting my bond haul from three to rather more. Meantime the clock ticked away, and the end could be scented in the wind...

When it came it wasn't sudden, but it was sudden enough that Katy's last eked-out two-point delivery was enough to keep her a fraction ahead of Adam, despite having eight bonds. Some way behind them on the track, Ian and I dragged ourselves around the clock and finished level, with Ian's $4k beating my single $1k to snatch third on the tiebreaker. Adam ruminated quietly as I reflected - mostly inwardly - on how chastening the experience had been, and grumbled that we should have played Caverna. We found the Barons in the box as we packed away.

Even ignoring mine and Ian's shoutier/gloomier moments, this did feel rather feistier than standard Railways for some reason, and we decided co-operative palette-cleansers to warm up the room would be good, landing on Fun Facts, to be followed by So Clover. Katy contributed extra warmth by drawing cocks on Adam's chevron (not a euphemism) a fact she desperately tried to hide when I snapped a picture. 

Fun Facts was good, as it always is (in my opinion). We allowed the starting player the right of veto for invasive/boring questions and learnt that Ian would be willing to sacrifice 18 years of his life for the power of teleportation. I put zero, mainly because I was concerned I'd get lazy. "You could teleport to the moon!" Adam protested, but I hadn't incorporated cosmic travel into my thinking. Also, I do like being alive.

We were also asked how old we felt on the inside, and clarified that the card meant in spirit so we could ignore Adam's knee. Both he and I wrestled with this one, feeling as we do alternately young and jaded, and settled on something in the mid/late forties. Katy felt exactly as old as she was, and Ian felt 24. "I've always been like this" he clarified mournfully. 

It was a decent effort without troubling the hall of legends - 21/32. As is my wont I forgot to take photos of So Clover, which is a shame because this was a cracker, with some clever clues you'll have to imagine, for words I have now forgotten. We began with a six, followed it with two more, and only came a cropper on Adam's clover when somehow - somehow! - we didn't spot that picture went with snap. Still, 22/24 ain't bad! 

Unbelievably it was now a quarter to midnight, and although I'd have been up for another game a rare GNN Saturday came to a close. With apologies for my mid-evening ranting, thanks all. I would love to go railwaying in Australia again!

Mel Fiori

A bumper pack of gamers on Tuesday kicked off with Adam T and I facing off across the two 'islands' of BORD, the abstract viking punch-up game.

This plays over two seasons (summer and winter) but we ran out of time at the end of summer with Adam in a points lead. Martin, Ian and Gareth now here, we kicked off proper with Hot Lead, another Knizia of devilish properties. It reminded me of 6Nimmt in the all-choose, all-reveal pattern, and how hazarding others choices define your own, in part at least. 

It was a baptism of fire for Gareth and I, as we were both stung with negative points hauls:

Martin 67

Adam 61

Ian 53

Gareth and Sam 35 each

Still a quintet, we busted out my recently-returned copy of Cross Clues and scored a moderately bad 19/25, enough - or not enough - to make us attempt it again. I was stuck on Mars/King for ages until the word came to me unbidden: Apollo! And immediately Martin and Adam agreed it was Mars/King. Then they talked themselves out of it with two qualities my own brain lacks - knowledge, and logic. Still, we got 22/25 and were emboldened to go one more time (I forgot to take photos) this time with the presence of Mel assisting. It was a nearly-triumphant 24/25, and I wish I could remember any of the words/clues/funny moments but unfortunately it's been too long now, sorry. 

My notes say that Laura now arrived however, with Joe hot on her heels, and - although she didn't join the table - Sally returned as well, adding to the sense of a full house. We split into two groups, with Martin introducing Joe Laura and Gareth to Harvest, the multi-player Connect 4 with tornadoes. At the other end of the table, Adam thrashed the three of us at Photograph, and Ian and I fell foul of multiple over-exposures.

Adam T 28

Mel 15

Ian 12

Sam 6

Although it was pretty speedy, it wasn't as quick as Harvest. Martin beat the others 110-70 (each) in the first game, and they dealt a newly-arrived Katy in for the second. Laura cleaned up in this one:

Laura 160

Joe 90

Katy 70

Martin 60

Gareth 40 

With everyone now present who was going to be, we split into three - three! - groups across the table. Katy was keen to have a history-making (we suspect) GNN women-only game, and corralled Laura and Mel into Mille Fiori. Martin, Joe and Gareth set up KuZOOka leaving the remaining three of us just enough table space for Babylonia. Good times!

With two Knizias and a non-quarterbacking minimal-comms co-op on the table, Martin rhapsodized at length, almost as though his long-term scheme had finally come to fruition and he could move on to the next group enjoying some heads-down individual player boards somewhere in the south-west. But hopefully he'll stay - they triumphed at Kuzooka on the final round just as we finished not only a tense and tight Babylonia (Adam 155, Sam 152, Ian 151) but a dastardly chaser in Harvest, which Adam won again. Who invited this guy?

We packed away our games whilst also attending to the drama playing out on Mille Fiori, where debutant Mel was having the debut from heaven, a fact which Laura and Katy both tried to take credit for by being good teachers. Possibly true, but either way it was a spectacular score!

Mel 323

Katy 257

Laura 236

Incredible stuff.

However, that was the headliners done with and we lost some players to fatigue, with Joe, Adam and Mel retiring and leaving the rest of us to crack out a couple of attempts at So Clover. Our first attempt was very impressive, too, as we scored 34/36. Sadly I took no photos of our clovers and time hasn't been kind to my memory for the last decade or two, and especially since Tuesday. But it was a triumphant finale.

Or was it? As Laura and Ian headed for their respective beds, a brightly awake Katy cajoled us into the second game and this time we were rather less triumphant, scoring just 16/24 and prompting an unusually mournful tone from Martin about staying after the bell has rung. 

*

Somewhere in the midst of all this I think we played Strike twice as well. I won one of them, and Martin the other. I think? 

 

Isle of Games

 Isle of games? We all love games!

Sam picked me up at 7.30 on a clear Friday morning. We set off to distant shores for a couple of day’s board gaming with the old London crew. We picked up Chris along the way, noting with disappointment that he wasn't waiting for us at the window like an expectant puppy, and we sped off across the south of England to Portsmouth and, from there: the Isle of Wight!

Paul had moved there a couple of years ago and now we had the rare chance of taking eight bags of board games across the seas to a whole new island! GNN’s plan of world dominance is working perfectly!

We took the opportunity at Portsmouth to peruse the souvenir stand in the coffee shop and decided to buy Paul and Isle of Wight pencil. A shocking pink one. After all, we couldn’t come empty-handed.

Once over the Solent, which was so calm that you could’ve played Bandu on it, we weaved our way through some country roads to Paul’s home in Shanklin. The only downside of living here is that the name suggested the Smiths song “Frankly Mr Shankly” which, in turn, led Sam to periodically sing “and I’ll meet you at the cemetery gates” throughout the weekend.

As for games, our first (at 2.20pm) was a historical one. Not just because 7 Wonders is set in the Ancient world, but because we were using the last page of the book of scoresheets. Chris said that you couldn’t buy replacements any more since the iconography had changed, so he’d buy a new one and leave this copy on a high shelf somewhere to see out it’s old age in peace. We used our new pencil to mark down the final scores and Sam’s sciences (34 pts) won.

Sam 59

Paul 54

Chris 50

Andrew 47

Paul then tried to choose a game at random by giving Chris directions (“Light green bag, third game from the back”) but that didn’t really work. Instead, I suggested Railways of the World and so we got out the old eastern US map and got to work. Paul chose his baron based solely on the man’s beard. Sam leapt into an early lead as he picked up bonuses and kept his bond count low. I went the other way, being bond-heavy and even having to pay money back once at the end of a round instead of taking income like everyone else. It kind of kept me in the game, as Chris and I fought over second until my seven bonds dragged me back. Chris ended on two bonds and $74,000. 

Sam 64

Chris 56

Andrew 50

Paul 34

Then we played a quick couple of rounds of Cross Clues (20 points and then 24) before I went for a half hour nap and the other three played Planet Unknown. I came in for the final third of the game and became fascinated at how people moved their cubes up the bonus tracks. Sam and Chris rolled them upwards, Sam with his index finger and Chris sometimes using his thumb, while Paul picked his cubes up and moved them square by square. In the end, Sam was one square tile away from completing the planet, hence his comprehensive win.

Sam 75

Chris 58

Paul 50

Then Sam cooked our first lovely meal of the weekend while us three played Cascadia. According to my notes, we indulged in a lot of bad animal puns while playing but thankfully I didn’t write any down.

Chris 98

Paul 89

Andrew 77

Then we ate Sam’s chicken fajitas which were delicious but Sam berated himself over the lack of chilli.

For the evening’s main event, we chose Keyflower. As is usual, Sam and I were taken by the artwork on the little cottages with individual interiors that allowed you to almost make up a story about the occupants.

After a rules refresher from Chris, we got playing. The only setback was caused by the meeple bag and tiles bag both being black such that when Chris went to draw some tiles mid game, he found it half-full of meeples. Paul won, despite having the smallest village. Or maybe because of. I’m not sure.

Paul 48

Andrew 44

Sam 38

Chris 34

Then we played Push It to clear the eurogaming fog in the air. We played twice as teams and Chris and Sam beat Paul and I twice, 11-2 and 12-3.

Paul got the nickname “the hammer” as his forceful play would usually send either the jack or his puck whizzing down the end of the table, occasionally bouncing off my tin of beer with a comedy “boinggg.”

Sam started to make moves for bed until he heard that we were going to play So Clover and he quickly retook his seat at the table.

We did well, 22/24, but were stymied by a cruel decoy on Chris’ clover that had words that would fit perfectly with three possible clues.

Then, with Sam definitely going to bed, we played King Domino. In fact, we played it so quietly that Sam popped back in to make sure we were actually playing.

I got a mine-monopoly for a win.

Andrew 56

Chris 52

Paul 30

And so to sleep.

Saturday morning was clear and limpid. We were all up by 9am and Chris made a fried breakfast before we went for a walk towards the sea, popping into a few shops as we did. 

Finally, at about noon, we played our first game. After a little discussion I said I was leaning towards Imhotep and so it was brought to the table. Paul played a cagey game, relying on the Burial Chamber and picking up cards such that he didn’t score at all until round 5. Chris won the obelisk, I tried to boss the pyramid and Sam relied on end-of-game scoring cards.

Chris 42

Paul 41

Andrew 35

Sam 34

Chris was delighted at his win at this game - his bette noir of board games. A then, after that, they went for a quick walk while I made pizza. On their return, Paul suggested playing Push It, but this time using an old magnetic football pitch that once belonged to Sam but Paul found it while moving house. The fact that it had borders seemed to dissuade Paul from his hammerish ways and he played a more measured game, posting a last minute comeback that was just a little too late.

Sam 12

Chris 9

Paul 8

Then, while the pizza was cooking, we played Cross Clues but did really badly: monkey and cow were both in play, as were plate, tomato and orange.

After pizza the table was slowly moved away from the wall to allow us enough space for a game of Xia: Legends of a Drift System. Sam set up the table and side table, requesting that no one ask him any questions while he did, so Paul and Chris did the washing up.

Paul (and I) got a rules explanation. Then, in the game Sam went exploration crazy while I just traded. I played a very chilled game, so that when I got a mission to kill an outlaw I rejected it for being out of character.

Chris was an early leader and the first to get a tier 2 ship. But Sam was close behind him, especially after he rolled a 20 and got another fame point. 

Paul turned rogue, after he was caught trying to transport prisoners across a planet border. Sam was out exploring when he was caught in a gravitational anomaly that dragged him into a star. 

While Paul chased after a non-player ship, Chris became an archaeologist, rolled a 20 and then reached 12 points, our target for this game. Sam needed to get two fame points to match Chris so he went on a crowd pleasing journey across as many borders as possible hoping to roll a 20. Which he did! But he picked up so much damage that the next scratch on his ship killed him. 

Paul went crazy with his last turn. Attacking me (but my shield, useless until then, repelled him) and then attacked Sam too. Finally he also tried a border crossing technique in search of the elusive 20, which he got but only slightly before his ship disintegrated.

Chris 12

Sam 10

Paul 8

Andrew 5

We ended at 5.15, a little under 3 hours of play. It's always a satisfying feeling after finishing a big game even if, as in this case, we lowered the winning score from 20 down to 15 and then 12. Still, a lot of fun.

Paul started prepping his chicken for the evening meal so Sam, Chris and I played Bandu. I thought I was being mean with my choices for Chris but clearly not being mean enough.

Chris

Sam and Andrew out in the same round

Then while Paul's curry was cooking, we played Fun Facts. We learned that we all have similar ideas about how grown up we feel (between 60-75) and that Sam and Chris hardly ever carry cash.

As Paul cooked, I took a shower and after a quick chat about politics, we sat down to eat. It was lovely although Chris bit on the only chilli in the mix and needed a moment to recover.

Next up was another epic: Northgard. Chris insisted on using the miniatures, not the cubes. "It needs the plastic vikings," he asserted. Paul quickly made three enclosed spaces and ran off into an early lead. It actually started very peacefully until Sam got his third big building and I was able to defeat him with the last card in my hand.

After that it was a ding-dong battle between me and Sam with Chris lurking nearby, hoping we'd weaken ourselves enough that he could pounce.

We made it all the way to round seven. REM on the stereo sang "The time to rise has been engaged," which seemed appropriate. Paul passed first, clearly the points leader. 

I get my third building off Chris but in the end only Sam has cards left in his hand. He attacks Chris first, but fails. Then me, but again fails. Finally, in an audacious tactic that even Napoleon would have loved, he took one solitary viking and sent it against my least defended building (only two vikings) needing some luck with the dice.

He didn't get it and I hung on for a win. Phew, another epic.

But, for the record the points were

Paul 84

Chris 64

Andrew 47

Sam 37

Finally we thought we'd wind down with Decrypto. Surely after two epics, this would last a more manageable length of time.

How wrong we were as it went all the way into round eight. Chris and I definitely got one of their words and were good at selecting another, but two of theirs eluded us. They, too, struggled to pin down our words. 

At one point Chris scared me by reading the wrong numbers when he announced his guess but he quickly corrected himself.

Finally in round eight, Sam and Paul had their second miscommunication and Chris and I were weary winners.

Chris and Andrew, tapping your phone line

Sam and Paul, tapping their feet

Another post midnight finish for the four of us.

Sunday began for most at about 9am although Chris had been up with a stomach ache for some time. Too much rich food and port, he said.

With an eye on our 11.30 departure time, we played only a couple of games. First was Alhambra. Among the money dealt to Paul at the start of the game were several '1's, giving him flexibility when buying tiles. Chris seemed to poo-pooh flexibility as he quickly built a wall around his small Alhambra, giving him a lot of early points for a long wall but few options for expansion.

Paul 120

Andrew 101

Sam 95

Chris 83

We packed up the car and had 40 minutes left so we ended with a game of So Clover. And what an amazing experience it was. All I can say is that So Clover is not a morning game. We all did badly, and we even managed to get every single guess wrong on Paul's clover and then only one right on our second guess. 

Everything is wrong

9/24

Shocking. We could blame the looming deadline but I don't think we'd have done much better with more time.

And with that we set off into the storm and back to home. Thanks for the weekend, Paul, and thanks to everyone for the memories. It was special.

A Pink Month

 A small gathering at Anja and Steve's this week - Martin, Gareth, Ian and I (Joe) joined our gracious hosts, and Louie joined in while Anja settled Lennon. 

We kicked off with Just One, and didn't fare brilliantly. "Baseball" was Steve's reasonable assumption from seeing the clues "Catcher" and "First". When he was shown the three "Rolands" he was none the wiser. Mind you, there are at least two Rolands familiar to those of us of a certain age - Grange Hill's perennial patsy and the Rat, which is what we were trying to clue. I guess there's also Kevin Roland. And when I say "a certain age", I realise I'm mostly referring to myself.

Anja joined us towards the end of the round, and we split into two groups - Ian, Gareth, Steve and Louie tackling Star Realms at one end of the table, whild Martin, Anja and I played Martin's new (old) gem-in-a-box Harvest. Harvest is a clever little game of making rows of vegetables, stiffing your opponents with damaged ones whilst reaping the ripest yourself. We all three played fairly unpleasantly towards one another, and as the endgame approached, I tossed out all three tornado cards so as not to be stuck with them at the end, which was relatively satisfying but not very consequential, and martin romped way with the win, with my score something like half his, and Anja's half mine again. It's a very elegant little design, and I was astonished when Martin told us it was designed in the early '90s.

Star Realms was still in full geo-stationary orbit at the other end of the table; I don't know anything about what was going on or even who won it, but I think I recall hearing Steve whispering malevolently about Stealth Needles at one point... or did I dream that? In any case, we bust out Keltis, Das Orakel at our end - one of Dr Knizia's innumerable iterations of his Lost Cities card game. I've played Lost Cities and one or two of the Keltis suite, but the central mechanic of playing each of the suits either low to high or high to low was new to Anja. In the Orakel, we use these cards to race our pawns up a spiral punctuated with randomised rewards, and the game ends when a certain number reach the end zone. But it's less a race than a smorgasbord of point-scoring and turn-optimising opportunities; so many, in fact, that we mostly forgot about the priestess, who you can move instead of your pawns. As we totted up the scores, and Martin ended a single point behind me, he rued his neglect of the priestess, which would have put him just ahead of me. Anja's lack of familiarity with the restrictions of the card play meant her early lead was stymied by not being able to play much at all on the last few turns.

I enjoyed it - of course I did, I beat Martin at a Knizia! (Hold that thought). I dislike the visuals of the Keltis games - all amorphous shapes and Photoshoppy Celtic symbols on a greeeeeeeen board; and I don't think they help players parse the myriad options each turn. But it's got that Knizia magic nonetheless, and feels similar to much more recent games like Mille Fiore with it's pinging bonus actions and neat little side-scoring opportunities. 

As we finished this, Star Realms was finally drawing to a close too, so Louie was dispatched to bed, and the 6 of us played Phantom Ink, staying in the same groups of three to make two teams, with Gareth and I the spirits. We didn't like our first word 'towel', so we picked another card. It was, I think, the most interesting game of Phantom Ink so far.

I should mention here that it wasn't until the very end of the evening that Ian uttered the word 'blog', and that since I was writing the scores down I was assuming blogging duties. None of this had occurred to me, and I hadn't taken any photos! So this morning I took a photo of the Phantom Ink clues from last night. I offer it here, along with the clues for the Sun side and Martin and Anja's winning guess removed, if anyone wants to try and guess.

Sun side clues were: 1) The feeling it gives you 2) A game it appears in 3) Your favourite kind of it 4) A fairy tale or nursery rhyme it appears in...

Gareth bid us farewell after this, and the remaining five rounded out the evening with another Knizia dick-fest in the form of Art Robbery. It was fun and chaotic, and the final round ended with Martin having a choice of playing 3, 3, 3, sneaky thief or sneaky thief, all of which could only end the round by taking the remaining token from the middle (I guess because he had the other 3's?). These scores I did note down:

Joe 20
Ian 19
Martin 18
Anja 17
Steve FALL GUY

In Steve's defence, he was very distracted for the whole game by having eaten a mouthful of Szechuan spicy peanuts. The ZING got to him. It gets to us all.

We packed up ready to go, and were momentarily distracted by some odd relics from Martin's bag - Tabula Rasa and Muscat. Tabula Rasa boasted box art that looked like it had been hastily assembled from clip art with a smattering of dingbats (Comic Sans had presumably yet to be invented, otherwise that would have been the natural choice of font). Muscat also looked like it had been visualised by a late-eighties computer programmer, who'd then though it was lacking something and had plastered a teeny-tiny Photoshop brick wall effect over the whole thing.  I started to feel almost fondly about Keltis.

We wandered off in to the night, after a very jolly evening that had been punctuated every now and then by the threat of imminent disaster every time Ian opened a can of combustible stout.

Mille Furious

I arrived at Laura's house at 8 and watched the final stages of Phantom Ink. Sam and Gareth were trying to get a message from their spirit Joe while Adam(H), Laura and Katy were paired up with ghostly Martin. As I watched, Gareth and Sam studied the list of half-finished words in front of them and decided to go for it. They spelt out "Burrito" letter by letter and the knocks from beyond the veil told them that they had got it right.

Sam, Gareth and Joe, dearly departed

Laura, Katy, Adam and Martin, hardly missed

Then we split into two. Laura was keen to play one of her birthday presents and so Mille Fiori was chosen. Katy, Gareth and I made up the rest of the quartet. Sam, Joe, Adam and Martin played the mystery card game Kuzooka.

Well, it was a mystery to me, anyway. It seemed to be a bit like The Crew but with extra animals. By which I mean that it was a co-op game where you had to play cards from your hand but couldn't communicate.

As for Mille Fiori, I began by mentioning my brilliant win at the previous game whenever possible but it looked like a case of hubris as I started very slowly. Laura stole my extra move in the market and I fell into last.

But then I put together a three-move turn and shot up the score track. This was followed by another couple of high scoring rounds for me and before long Katy started comparing me to Martin. In fact, the second half of the game was very kind to me. Not so kind to Gareth who coined the phrase now adorning the top of this blog post to describe his feelings about the game.

Andrew 226

Katy 190

Gareth 181

Laura 175

The other four had finished Kuzooka (I don't know how well they did) and were playing a quick game of Dicycle Race. I saw the end and watched Adam go from last place to joint first with his final set of dice rolls. Does this mean he likes dice games now?

1= Martin

1= Adam

Then I think Joe was third and Sam fourth?

Then we were all together. What to play next? Someone suggested 6nimmt and Gareth mentioned he'd never played it. Of course, once he'd said this, this decision was made for us and the zombie themed version was brought to the table.

The game progressed as you might imagine. Martin began by talking about how he was going to write a strategy guide and post it on BGG and, as if to validate his credentials, he went clear in round one. The new boy Gareth had a nightmare baptism, and was in last. 

But in round two Gareth did better and Sam got stung, picking up 25 points with his final two cards. Laura did badly, following up her first round triumph (3) with a disaster (33). Martin, too, picked up points this round leaving Joe in first with a mere 13 points.

Round three saw Gareth in another death spiral as he picked up row after row, ensuring the end of the game. Martin didn't do too well either, allowing Sam to quip "I'm really looking forward to your strategy guide."

In the final count, the winner was clear: 

Joe 19

Adam 28

Sam 33

Katy 33

Martin 42

Andrew 51

Laura 69

Gareth 81

A fine win for Joe, all the more impressive when you consider that he got distracted by the slideshow on Laura's fridge door and then went into a monologue about the feasibility of supermarkets delivering straight to your fridge (through a door in the back, obviously).

After that, I set off home but Laura's birthday carried on for the others.

As I later learnt, Sam won at Cascadia.

Sam 96

Adam 91

Laura 89

And the other four played Gang of Dice

And So Clover.

But I don't know the scores. Anyway, thanks for hosting and for the cake, Laura. See everyone next week.