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.