The Happy Filcher

Games night arrived again, and so did the gamers. Adam T was first to materialise and chatted with Sally whilst I freshened up and bought beer and Quavers. Then Martin, Joe, Adam H and Ian all came through the door and we got cracking, kicking things off with a six-player Phantom Ink. 

Adam T and I teamed with Joe (our happy medium) and Adam H and Ian were ethereally clued-to by Martin. The secret word, unbeknownst to us, was Helicopter. We asked Joe would would happen if you buried it for a year, and he replied with SYC, which we figured to be sycamore. But Ian and Adam H figured it too, and Adam T's eureka moment prompted them to guess, knowing already that the study of whatever the word was began with AER. They jumped in ahead of us and guessed correctly, ending the game after about five minutes!

We split into threes with Martin, Adam T and Joe all keen to wrestle with Carl Chudyk's cards-with-a-billion-uses battle of Aegean Sea. I introduced Ian and Adam to World Wonders, with its delightful wooden bits. 

In World Wonders, we're buying buildings each round - and occasionally, wonders as well - and trying to surround them on our board; surrounded building being worth points. Connecting to natural resources is also points, and so is the lowest-value resource on your player board, in a mildly Knizian twist. We found that the flexible towers were at a premium, and unsurprisingly Adam regularly bought what I wanted from market. Ian began fretting that he was going to be last, despite the alluring cluster of wonders he'd built on his board.

I'm not sure what was happening in Aegean Sea, except for the general vibe of chaotic overwhelm, with Martin exclaiming "This is mental!" several times. I am vaguely aware that each player has an 'island' upon/under which they can play cards that Do Things. Like Innovation, how the cards combine in a given game can vary the experience massively, and there's more than one possible endgame I believe. At one point Adam announced he'd won, before Martin explained to him that he hadn't.

We wrapped up World Wonders to find to nobody's shock that Adam had won:

Adam 36

Sam 33

Ian 32

And began playing Misfits, which I didn't realise Adam hadn't played yet. He kicked things off by placing a column in the middle of the table, and I thought this wouldn't last long. But it did.

After about 6 minutes though we were running out of options, and someone was going to take the fall. That someone turned out to be me when I rejected the idea of placing my last cube and tried to shed a column, with catastrophic results, The entire thing fell, including the base, and Ian started a new tower from scratch:

Which despite our best efforts at sabotaging him, Adam won in short order. And, after Martin accused Joe of being a filcher and he turned to beam radiantly at me, unfortunately too briefly for me to get a photo, Aegean Sea finished at the same time!

Joe 13

Martin 10

Adam 6

Who knows what occurred, or if it'll ever make the table again. Everyone seemed happy to experience it though. New groups assembled with with Joe leading the Adams off to play Robo Trick and Martin cajoling Ian and I to play Armadora, possibly the ugliest game I have ever seen, with some artwork that is so generic it's almost not, and an everything-dipped-in-honey glossy finish. This photo sadly fails to capture the dazzling sheen whenever any light caught the surface.

But the game itself is dickish fun. There is a shared board with a bunch of gold scattered around it. On our turn we can either place one of our tiles somewhere on the board, or place two 'palisades' (wooden bits) that divide the board into smaller territories, with the caveat that no territory can be smaller than four squares. 

Although our tiles have varying number values (most are ones, but there are 2's, 3's and a 4) and they are placed face-down, the palisades are what really make the game spicy, as we all try to cordon each other's tiles off from the juicy gold. When there's nothing left to place all is revealed and the player/s with the highest tile value in each region claim the gold. I'd ducked out of a couple of battles in one part of the board, and it turned out well for me, as Martin snagged two big areas from Ian:

Sam 19

Martin 18

Ian 3

Meantime Robo-Trick was still going and unfortunately I cannot illuminate what was happening, as I've never played it and was distracted by Armadora. But we had a couple of cracks at Accuse! in the meantime...

The first one I ended too soon by taking a bit of a wild guess, holding two characters in my hand making me somewhat overoptimistic. There wasn't enough info for either Ian or Martin to subsequently figure out the murder, but we played again and this time Martin ended things, but found his accusations unfounded. I was next to go and took my first win of a game I am pretty shite at. 

Robo Trick finished as well with the happy filcher taking another win!

Joe 2

Adam H 0

Adam T -7

And with a bit of a drive ahead of him, Adam T bade his farewells and left the five of us to play MLEM, the bonkers luck-pushing cats-in-space area-control and moons game. 

Ian set off for the various moons (moon bonus) as Martin and I raced for the planets (planet bonus) and Joe's previous strategy of going for Deep Space at every opportunity was tweaked to just doing so now and again. Adam played shrewdly, as one might expect, but found now and again that shrewdness and dice do not make good bedfellows. After a lot of dice-chucking and several rocket explosions, I chickened out of the active mission just in time - ka-boom - and ended the game by placing my last cat. 

Sam 32

Joe 24

Adam 20

Ian 15

Martin 10

And that was that! Thanks all, it was golden.

Cakeblazers

After a last-minute change of venue, Katy and I (Sam) were first to arrive at Joe's, and our host set the tone for the evening with a lighthearted quip about masturbation. As we pondered what kind of day Joe might have had, Martin arrived and before long was setting up Accuse! the game that we all profess to be terrible at, but I definitely am. 

I was first to accuse, and got almost everything wrong. Katy followed me and missed out by just one factor. But of course with a murder, knowing where it took place can be critical and Martin's decision to go with the airport won him the game, and we all rued the fact we never challenged him when he said "Hairport".

Martin: Promoted

Joe: Passed over

Katy and Sam: Fired

Steve and Adam had arrived and although Steve briefly vanished again, we were now at our full capacity of six, so promptly split into two groups. Whilst Joe, Steve and Martin played Tajuto...

Katy was keen to try Trailblazers, and a freshly-shorn (but according to himself, grumpy) Adam was happy to give it a go. The game has three different 'settings' and we played twice, first on Adventurer mode and then Animal mode. 

On Adventurer mode, you're building two trails. They have to loop back to the campsite they started in to score, but the longer the better, because adventurers move along said trails, establishing campfires for points. I made it more complicated than it needed to be, panicking that I'd previously played it wrong - before later realising I hadn't - so we ended up with far too many campfires that we subsequently snuffed out. But it was fun anyway. 

Katy took a narrow win, as Adam's scheming fell apart on the final turn, possibly because we drafted our cards in the wrong order to be fair to him:

Katy 46

Sam 43

Adam 26

Tajuto was still going, with Martin complaining that all he'd achieved so far was an aneurysm. Steve went to the toilet and they marvelled at his collection of tiles (on the table, I mean). 

We Trailblazered again, this time forfeiting adventurers and campfires to just go animal mode: now, all your looped trails score points and distinct animals on the trails score escalating points, instead of the basic 2points-per-animal happening in Adventurer mode. Katy loved the animals. 

And I think they both preferred Animals mode, as creating numerous overlapping loops certainly had some agonising fun. Adam said he really liked it despite the fact there's some tangible luck-pushing in how far your trails go, and the fact we kept screwing up the card draft. But this time Katy completely mullered us, scoring so many points she needed to ask Martin to do the addition.

Katy 82

Adam 56

Sam 53

Tajuto finished at the time, with Martin and Steve celebrating their shared victory. I missed the fine beats of the drama here, but everyone seemed happily sated, even Joe.

Martin and Steve - 12 each

Joe - 6

We regrouped as a six and played Auf Teufel Comm Raus (or as my phone likes to call it, Said Refuel Comm Raid) the game of pulling coals from the devil's cauldron - obviously - until you are caught by the devil himself, and his 'disturbing' bellybutton  (-Martin). This was new to Steve, who requested a player aid and nobody seemed sure how serious he was. 

We seemed to get caught by the devil a lot, except when we didn't. Numerous busts would be had then suddenly someone - usually Katy or Adam - would pull out six hot coals in a row. Joe seemed to bust himself nearly every time, but despite a poor start, and serial lagger Martin constantly rinsing everyone for cash when they busted (-he made a deal with the devil) Joe recovered to sail off up the track courtesy of some preposterous bidding coming off, seeing off Adam at the death to claim the win as they both passed the 1600 finish-line:

1 Joe 1840

2 Adam 1710

3 Steve

4 Sam

5 Katy

6 Martin

At some point around the devil's bellybutton we also had cake, provided by Katy. Thanks Katy! Steve cut his slice into two, enjoying the fact he now had 'an extra slice' on everyone else. 

Post cauldron, Adam and Steve took their leave and the remaining four set up So Clover. Katy was even studiously gazing at her freshly-arranged cards when Martin swept all aside and announced we would play MLEM first. Katy's protests weren't strong enough to prevent her being assigned a cat, as we all suited up our catstronauts, ready for space travel. 

It was a first game for Joe, who may not have embraced the strategy but definitely embraced the sense of adventure, as time and again he sent his Deep Space x2 Cat onto the rocket, only to see it return one life down from multiple doomed missions.

It was slightly surprising the game didn't end from our serial failures, so many times did we crash. But Martin's eighth catstronaut making it into the cosmos instead triggered the finale, and unsurprisingly, with so many cats in space, he took a convincing win. 

Martin 33

Sam 20

Katy 13

Joe 12

Then we did play So Clover! And it was a triumphant set of leaves, even if Martin did hiss at us to look at all the words again. We'd missed the fact that 'dead' went quite well with his clue of 'extinct' but having had the ambient tip-off, rounded off the evening with maximum points. Thanks all!

Dominoes in excelsis

 I arrived at Laura’s house in the rain to find an even wetter Adam H locking up his bike. We were let into the house by one of Laura’s children and went down to the kitchen where we found Katy already excited about reliving her childhood with a game of Ghost Castle, currently being constructed by Laura. Sam, Ian, Joe and Martin watched from the other end of the table, clearly not convinced of the joys of MB Games.

While Katy, Laura and the two smaller gamers began playing Ghost Castle, Joe, Sam and Martin set up Azul and Ian, Adam and I squeezed a game of Kingdomino in the space between them. The cries of excitement from Ghost Castle were mirrored by our cries of disappointment, as we drew tile after tile of crownless-countryside. But Adam didn’t mind, as his forest expanded to absurd proportions. 

Adam 74 (50 for forests alone!)

Andrew 53

Ian 37

At this point, Azul was still in full flwo but Ghost Castle had been replaced by Dragonimo. During that game, Maddie kept calling out “cracked eggs!” and I thought she was saying “crackhead!” until I looked at the board, saw the egss and put two and two together.

So we played Kingdomino again. By chance, I made Adam pick up a tile that he couldn’t place thus ruining his 5x5 bonus. I wish I could say I did it on purpose, but I’m not that cunning. 

Ian 56

Andrew 49

Adam 46

The other games ended:

Dragonimo

Katy & Riker 15

Laura & Maddie 10

Azul

Martin 83

Joe 79

Sam 39

“That was pretty close,” said Martin. Sam begged to differ, although his board was only two tiles away from a big payout.

The two youngest gamers were sent up to bed and we turned our attention to more grown-up matters: cats in space! Martin, Laura, Ian, Sam and I buckled up for a trip to deep space. It was a first play for me and Laura, so we got a rules explanation, but it was all pretty clear. Roll certain dice values to move, and then land your cats (each with its own special ability such as x2 planet score, x2 moon score, Parachute to safety even if the rocket explodes, etc). Our first journey was the most successful for a long time and Laura reached the last planet before deep space.

Joe, Katy and Adam were more grounded. Literally – their game, Renature, seemed to be all about reintroducing wildlife onto a board that initially resembles a Pac-Man maze made of grass. It was the third game of the evening to use a domino-placing mechanic. I didn’t really follow this game, apart from the occasional cry of surprise like “Double tortoise!” and also a request by Katy to go over the rules a few minutes before they ended. But it was fine.

Katy 86

Adam 67

Joe 58

“I didn’t gloat, and I didn’t ask you to thank me,” she said after the game.

As for Mlem, our poor rolling was getting out of hand. Laura rolled five twos and a booster when we needed ones and fours. On Sam’s first turn as commander, he turned up with his parachute on while Ian went one better – when he was commander, he chose his Saboteur Cat to represent him. A lot of fun.

Laura 28

Ian 26

Sam 21

Andrew 20

Martin 19

There was also a game of Misfits at some point during the evening. I'm not sure when, though. Most likely while Renature was finishing up. Misfits doesn't really play five and, apart from the photos, my only note about the game was "Martin loses."

We reshuffled for the next games. Joe, Martin, Laura and I played Big Top. Ian, Adam, Sam and Katy played Robot Quest Arena.

Katy 21 or 22

Sam 20

Ian 17

Adam 15

While Big Top was a little odd in that we rinsed the bank of money, meaning me, Laura and Martin all ended the game with a lot of cash. Joe, alas, ended the game with no stars. I needed Martin to add up my scores for me, since he refused to believe I’d only come second. He was right. Of course.

Andrew 56

Laura 53

Martin 37

Joe out.

At this point I left, but not before the Robot people began playing Stomp The Plank. After carefully setting up the board, Katy ruined everything by winning in the least fun way possible: draw six different symbols on the first turn.

Katy wins!

Of course, they had to play again and, although Katy could’ve won in the same way again, she bottled it at the fifth card. Adam didn’t so much Stomp the Plank as Shuflle Forward Slowly. 

Sam won the rematch!

And, I’m told, they ended with So Clover.

Thanks all, see you next week!

The Big Band Theory

 Katy, Ian and I simultaneously arrived at Joe’s door under a steady downpour. Downstairs in the kitchen, Martin was already there and, to my surprise, the five of us were the entire attendance for tonight.

Five is always an award number for games, and Martin refused one new game – Franchise – on the grounds of its ugliness and so we played Zoo Vadis again. It was Katy’s introduction to the zoo-based game and she initially asked if it was ethical. Martin reassured her that the animals were in charge of this zoo and Katy seemed happy with that. Then again, when she learnt that the game involves buying votes, she didn’t have a problem with that but I suppose we all have our own red lines.

This time we played with the animal powers. With this extra rule, each animal has a power but they can’t actually use them – they can only sell them to other animals. Katy’s power of immediately moving a piece that had landed in a 1-space area was popular. Oddly, Joe’s tunnelling power wasn’t used at all. I stayed out of a lot of negotiations, only occasionally asking for help. Ian, though, came up with a nice plan that got both of us into the final area.

Joe was the last to arrive in the pivotal final area (anyone not there at the end of the game automatically loses) and Martin tried to bargain with him to squeeze out an extra coin. But the negotiation wasn’t too successful since Martin secretly thought he was winning and Joe was pretty sure he was going to be last anyway. In the end, Martin lowered his price because he just wanted the game to end while he was in the lead.

Martin 28
Andrew 21
Ian 20
Katy 16
Joe 15


The next game was Ethnos. We had to remind Katy that she had liked this game the last time she played, since she only remembered its bad first impression on her. Martin wondered if maybe it could do with a retheme since, as it stands, Ethnos is some pretty generic fantasy elements and a traced map of Slovakia. We also mentioned the notion that the big scores were to be found in the bands of cards you play – the bigger, the better – and not by area control on the map.


But as a game, it’s a lot of fun. In round one, I built up an impressive 6-strong band of halflings while Martin focused on getting pieces onto the map.


Round two was the longest possible as the third dragon turned out to be the last card in the pack. At least this gave Joe enough time to remember that it was okay to collect groups of the same colour, not just of the same type. In round three, a song came on the stereo about “safety Joe” which amused us, but maybe he played too safe. Katy’s impressive array of bands of 4, 5 and 6 cards was enough for a sizable win.

Katy 110

Martin 97

Andrew 75

Ian 67

Joe 65

Only two games played, but it was already after 10pm. We decided to play So Clover. Long story short: we were not perfect as both Martin and I failed. We mismatched Grenade/Device with Bomb on Martin’s clover and I thought that “Cock-a-doodle-doo” was such a good clue for Rooster/Siren that the others wouldn’t mind that the adjacent clue wasn’t terribly good. But they did mind.

 32 out of 36

I left at this point, and so did Ian, leaving the other three making noises about a second attempt at So Clover. Who knows how it panned out.

Thanks for another fun evening. See you all soon.

Feline Gravity’s Pull

 I was only a few minutes late this week but I was still the last to arrive. Joe (the host), Adam H, Martin, Katy, Sam (wearing Adam’s glasses because he’d forgotten his) and Ian had already started a game of 6nimmt and had dealt me in, allowing Dirk (our imaginary random player) to choose my cards until I arrived. Dirk had done me proud and, as I sat down, I only had one bullet counting against me. Alas, I couldn’t keep up Dirk’s work and I clocked up scores of over twenty for the first three rounds, ensuring a swift end to the game.

But if I was a constant presence at the bottom of the leaderboard, the same can’t be said for Katy. She picked up only two bullets in the first two rounds and was 16 points clear going into the third round. Unfortunately, she was hit by multiple death spirals, meaning she dramatically dropped from first to sixth.

 

Joe 22

Sam 29

Ian 32

Adam 35

Martin39

Katy 41

Andrew 83

 

So we split into two groups. Sam had brought Mlem with him – basically Cats In Space, which is nothing like Bees in Space, Sam assured us – and Katy, Martin and Ian were easily persuaded to join in. I was intrigued by the artwork, but was otherwise engaged with a game of Sheepy Time with Joe and Adam.

 

In round one of Sheepy Time, Adam and I played almost identical games, as we circled the board almost hand in hand. Joe was the odd man out, marking out his own path and risking an extra circuit after Adam and I had both gone to sleep. In round two, Adam mixed up “winks” and “zeds” and instead said he was going to pickup some zinc, which was funny enough at the time for me to write it down.

In round three, I slept early, leaving Adam and Joe bouncing around the track, avoiding the nightmare. Adam was next to sleep leaving Joe with the choice to finish too and add a fourth round, or to try and pass his pillow and win the game. He chose to continue even though the nightmare was right next to the fence. And he succeeded!

 

Joe wins!

Adam 2nd

Andrew 3rd

 

On Mlem, the game began sensibly enough, with Katy declaring that she’d landed on a moon and then that she’d gone to deep space. Eventually, however, the more usual GNN vocabulary crept in as I distinctly heard that Ian had “taken the dick” and that the game ended suddenly when Katy “rolled like shit.”

Martin 27

Sam 26

Ian 25

Katy 23

 

Then they played Inside Job, which Sam won. I don’t know anything about that game, except for Martin saying that someone should have warned him that Sam was about to win.

 

While they enjoyed Inside Job, we played Las Vegas. I began by picking out a pair of sixes from my dice and placing them because “sixes are the most difficult to roll”. Meanwhile, Joe scored nothing at all in round three.

 

Andrew 52

Adam 45

Joe 35

 

Vegas was longer than I expected and the group of four squeezed two more games in before we finished. First was Gang of Dice. Sam amazed everyone with his rolling – at one point, scoring 10 with 7 dice when 11 or more would have you bust.

 

Sam 78

Martin 35

Katy 32

Ian 23

 

After two wins and two second places, maybe Adam’s glasses were having a good influence on Sam. Alas, it wasn’t to last as the quartet chose Misfits with Katy in feisty mood, determined to win a game. She began with a circle on its side. Impossible to build on. And them she followed that up with a triangle pointing upwards. Almost impossible, but Ian, Martin and Sam all tried valiantly to build.

Before long, Sam had half the contents of the board in front of him, after having triggered the biggest collapse since… well, since Katy played 6nimmt a couple of hours before.

Finally we were all together. Unfortunately So Clover doesn't play seven so instead we played Fun Facts. The game began with an inauspicious omen as Joe grabbed a handful of crisps from the bowl and left a trail of crumbs along the table as he brought them back towards him. As for the game, we did okay. Some questions needed clarification, such as “Value of the most expensive thing you’ve ever broken.” I wanted to know if we were allowing for inflation and Adam asked in part broken counted. Ian won that round, having tanked a £1,000 PC.

Both Ian and Joe were very choosy about which question they went with. Ian eventually asked “how shy are you?” Perhaps because he knew he’d be top on that one.

We scored 38 points: “Nice score, you’re hitting your stride.”

I left, as did Ian and maybe Adam. I got confused because there was a lot of movement. People even said goodbye to Katy, and she was only going to the toilet.

Without me, the remainers played So Clover twice, scoring fifteen and nineteen.

And we’re done for another week. See you next Tuesday!