Fibonacci Secrets

With the family soon to move house, we joined Steve, Anja and Louie at Stepney Walk last night (Lennon was in bed) for the final time before they box up in earnest. Katy and I were a little late and arrived to find Adam H, Ian and Martin in a discussion about chairs. Louie went off to change into a onesie, Anja appeared, and we settled straight away into two groups, the hosts plus Ian and Martin playing Old London Bridge...

While the rest of us - belatedly joined by Laura, who formed a semi-co-op with Katy - went to battle in the Robot Quest Arena. 

This is apparently Louie's favourite game, maybe because of the lovely minis or maybe because of the moreish deck-building and rapid turns. But probably because he kicked the crap out of all of us, with only Katy and Laura getting anywhere close to competitive with him.

Channeling the anti-Martin, this is the first time in a long while I've heard anyone cry out that the game 'just isn't long enough'. It was for me though:

Louie 28

Katy and Laura 26

Adam 19

Sam 11

London Bridge was still ongoing/falling down (not actually sure what happens) and Louie had time for one quick game before bed. Despite its alleged 45mins playtime on the box, I was pretty certain we'd get through Tipperary significantly faster than that. Maybe the ticking clock is why I forgot to take pictures, but here's one I made earlier:

Over ten rounds players simultaneously add tiles to their bucolic Irish idyll, putting distilleries next to grain, lining up ruins to get towers and proliferating sheep with which to make jumpers/stew. There's a few different ways to score but a critical one is the fact your largest unbroken rectangle will get a point per square in it, something Katy had to be reminded of mid-game and spent the subsequent rounds in a state of crestfallen anxiety, occasionally casting mild aspersions at me.

Laura 89

Sam 86

Adam 79

Katy and Louie 61 each. 

While this was happening, Old London Bridge came to a conclusion!

Martin 54

Ian 44

Steve 42

Anja 38

Louie said his goodnights but Laura and Katy were both keen to go again on Tipperary, with Martin subbing in for our departee. Again, I didn't take any pictures, so here's another one from earlier, showing how tiles (a choice of two each round) get allotted, using a spinner:

While we polyominoed with intermittent cries of Banshee grief, the others played Misfits, and again, I neglected to snap pics! Sorry. I'm not even sure who won, but I think it was Steve. There was definitely a huge collapse at one point...

Over on our side of the table, Martin led the way on flocks for most of the game, but Katy herded some extras her way at the death to claim the biggest flock bonus. But with her geometric confusion now out of the way, she didn't even need it to claim the laurels!

Katy 89

Adam 78

Laura 75

Sam 69

Martin 68

Laura now left us as well and we shuffled seats, with Anja, Steve, Ian and Martin playing Gang of Dice. 

Whilst Katy and I took on the unenviable task of playing Adam at Ticket to Ride: Berlin. 

Somehow I managed to convince myself I was in with a shout, but I'd missed that Katy and Adam both had three tickets to cash in at the end. And unfortunately for Katy, she now realised she hadn't completed one of them. 

Adam 49

Katy 40

Sam 39

Fuelled by no more than resentment, jealously and immaturity, Katy and I both decided to pretend Adam hadn't won. But it got confusing when we couldn't agree on who had.

Meanwhile, despite "pissing around with a single die" (-Martin) Steve wrapped up Gang of Dice with a very convincing win. 

Steve 73

Ian 51

Martin 29

Anja 9

"Not my game" said Anja. 

We decided to round off the night with So Clover before realising nobody had So Clover. Similar confusion -mostly on my part - about Fun Facts followed, before we settled on a very funny episode of Just One, punctuated by Martin's slightly lewd grunting noises whenever he felt someone could use a prompt. 

Steve's first word as guesser was 'Series' and two of our clues (Television) were duplicates, leaving him with the following:

Steve said 'sequence' aloud, but not in a way that sounded like his final guess. Apart from his occasionally wailing "Thrones?" at the ceiling, this ten-minute chapter of the evening was largely Steve's Existential Crisis and the rest of us being Increasingly Unsympathetic. 

Sorry Steve. He gave up in the end, only to find that his next word was similarly tricky (Crepe) and Katy's clue of Póo was apparently no help, especially in that it seemed to combine with other clues of tissue and paper in a possibly misdirectonal way. Nevertheless, Katy kept saying Poo in an exaggerated French accent, hoping Steve could make the breakthrough... but no. In fairness to Steve, both tricky words and probably not helped by us all giggling and Martin's sexually suggestive noises. 

We scored a pretty shabby 7/13, I don't remember how the rulebook judges that but I don't think it's very effusive. A very entertaining end to the last night at Stepney Walk though!