Thick as Thebes

 Joe’s house on a sultry June evening. Elsewhere around the country, football fans dutifully sat around televisions to watch England play Slovenia. But since the national team had already qualified and their style of play didn’t exactly amaze and delight, seven of us convened for a game or two. Sam, Adam T, Ian were at Joe’s before me. I carefully picked my way down Joe’s exterior staircase to his kitchen and Sam remarked that, like him, I’ve started making little noises at even the slightest physical exertion. Both myself and (after ten minutes or so) Katy were back after a period away from gaming. 

We began with just fine, as Joe got out his home-made version of The Gang. This is a game of poker (Texas hold ‘em) where the players have to bid on what position their hand will finish. Each player bids four times: after they receive their two cards, then after the three-card flop, the after the turn and finally after the river when all five communal cards have been revealed. It’s co-operative in that, in order to win, we all have to be correct.

We began with five and then dealt in Martin who arrived just as we started. The first round was, technically, a success. The strongest hand was the one showing, so the cards we had to ourselves were irrelevant. It got more difficult after that, especially with non-poker-playing Ian admitting he didn’t know how likely certain hands were supposed to be. We had success in round four, but thanks to some luck as Martin and I finished with identical hands.

Katy arrived mid-game in sunglasses, looking like she’d stepped off a yacht. But it was actually a bicycle, and she apologised as she got ready, admitting she might have blocked Joe’s garden path when she locked it up.

We split into two. Katy, Martin and I went down the heavyweight route, with Thebes – a game of digging up ancient artefacts in the early 20th century, which Katy insisted she was going to give back. During Martin’s rules explanation he said “To get an artefact, you have to go to the site just like you would if - ” and I thought he was going to say “… you were doing a real dig,” but instead he said “… you were picking up a book of knowledge,” referencing an earlier rule. My suspension of disbelief was ruined.

Joe, Ian, Adam and Sam went for shorter games, beginning with Sunrise Lane. This is a game of area control mixed with card management, and it is very short. Over much quicker than the forty-five minutes they were expecting.

Joe 68

Adam 63

Ian 63

Sam 59

The sound of distant cheering reminded us of the match, but no one seemed too upset about missing the spectacle. Towards the end of the evening, Martin did check his phone and told us it was 0-0. The cheering must have been for a disallowed goal.

Back in 1901, Katy, Martin and I were zipping back and forth across Europe, trying to gain enough knowledge to make our archaeological digs worthwhile. One book of knowledge allows you to draw one tile for a bag, and this is where most of your points will come from. Except the bags are about half-full of worthless tiles – dirt. Martin must have thought he’d be okay with nine books of knowledge, but then proceeded to pull out one dirt tile after another. All nine tiles were duds. Even Katy felt sorry for him by the end.

The other half of the table played Knarr. I know nothing about except the scores.

Sam 42

Joe 39

Adam 39

Ian 29

Then they play Rafter 5, a fun balancing game with a nautical theme. Ian was first to place his last chest and then Sam did too before Adam triggered yet another collapse. That triggered the end of the game. Not sure who won.

On our side of the table we were also drawing to a close. Christmas in 1903 means that we were all trying to work out if we could do anything useful in those last few weeks. It was very close… but first and second.

Martin 79

Katy 77

Andrew 49

Then we rearranged seats and I joined a game of Sunrise Lane against Martin, Sam, and Ian. It was a very quick learn and soon I was on my way. There was a lot of shuffling as we rinsed the deck pretty quickly, especially Ian who often drew two cards and then discarded down to five on his turn.

It was fun. Nicely dickish, you might say. I built big in the big-building areas while the others splurged across the area-control areas. Martin cruelly built between two of Sam's conurbations, ruining his chance of a big bonus. Might have been Martin's best move.

Martin 88

Sam 81

Andrew 78

Ian 53

Katy, Joe and Adam played a game that I totally forgot to note the name of. Afterwards, I tried to look it up, but searching for a board game based on travel by air and has a map of the world gives some pretty broad results.

I don’t even know the score since, after Sunrise Lane, I set off home, squeezing past Katy’s bike as I did.

Via WhatsApp, I later learnt that Ian lost at Rafter 5 and then they played So Clover twice scoring 21/30 and then 27/30. Close, but no clover.

Thanks everybody. Great to be back!

Love Shark, Baby

Anja and Louie were our hosts last night as GNN headed east to the land of the Time Clock. Steve was away so it was Louie who let us in, after Joe and I arrived early enough that we sat in the car for five minutes pretending we were on a stake-out. Then Martin, and Adam arrived and we kicked off things as a ludological sextet, setting sail in Whale Riders. 

Louie treated the game like a straightforward race, sending his whale careening down the coast before finally consenting to get some stuff for contracts. Although this made him an unlikely candidate for victor, it forced the pace of the game. injecting the laggards with a slight sense of panic. As blubber/watermelon got hoovered up, large amounts of storms appeared, making the perviously-bounteous offerings of wherever it is look suddenly rather barren, like aquatic Lidls raided for toilet paper and comestibles. 

Louie made it back first with one contract realised and began buying pearls (points). I sailed in behind him just in time to snag the most rewarding pearl tiles, and this was enough for a win. 

Sam 16

Martin/Joe 11 each

Adam 10

Louie 7

Anja 5

Anja revealed her starting contracts, which seemed to focus solely on huge amounts of blubber/watermelon. A not-ideal start for a newbie, but it sounded like Whale Riders wouldn't feature again soon anyway, with Louie pronouncing it 'boring'. Again I kicked myself for not bringing Robot Quest Arena! Sorry Louie.

Mel was about to arrive so we did some executive decision-making on her behalf, with Joe and Anja setting up Joe's new game Expeditions (Trans America crossed with... something else)  and Adam, Martin and I trying our hands, yet again, at Cascadero. 

I missed the rules explanation to Expeditions as by that time we were envoy-deep in Cascadero's Farmer side of the map. This side is pretty much identical to the basic side - visit cities, make connections - but has Babylonia-esque farms you can jump in when you're adjacent, triggering bonuses or points. I'd had an absolute pasting at the hands of Martin recently (twice) so just wanted to remain semi-competitive, and I think three is perhaps the ideal number for this game: not as long, slow or thinky as four but less tete-a-tete than a head to head. We sprawled, we bonused, we got in each other's way, we called each other dicks. It was fun. 

Meanwhile Expeditions got expedited and, other than the final score, I'm afraid that's all I can say about the other end of the table. Cascadero does take a lot of brain space. We finished before they did with an incredibly tight set of scores:

Martin 36

Adam 35 (second on tie-breaker)

Sam 35

Martin had been concerned about my imminent point-scoring for networks, but as I had to spend all my late-game turns trundling up the orange track, imminent was all they remained. I triggered the end of the game with a slender lead: with their last turns both Adam and Martin overtook me!

We watched the finale of Expeditions/checked our phones. 

This turned out to be a tight finish as well, with the tiebreaker unable to separate Joe and Anja:

Anja/Joe 20

Mel 16

Whilst I'm still no clearer on what exactly one does in expeditions bar a vague idea of getting those plastic arrows to certain destinations, everyone seemed happy with it. But at least three of us were starting to yawn heavily now, so we decided on one last game to finish the night, and Cabanga got bounced in favour of So Clover. 

We were stunned - not sure why, really - to find that Anja and Mel had only played once or twice, but I guess on the other hand they lead more varied and interesting Tuesday night lives than the rest of us. Although having said that, when Martin asked Mel how she was she replied "I hate work and my appliances are driving me mad", so possibly not. 

My clover was first up and unfortunately we had an imperfect start with a 4. Mel had spotted the connection I was going for but her softly spoken ways were drowned out by rowdy GNN regulars. But after that initial stumble we gave So Clover a more than decent shake of the stick, harvesting a few sixes from some nice clues (Joe gave us B52s for Love/Shark) and bookending them with another stumble on Anja's clover when some tricky combos (eg degree/ballroom) gave us a few self-generated red herrings. But overall a more than respectable 30/36 to round off the night. 

And that was that! Thanks all, a fun night's work. 

One Disaster after Another

Just the four of us last night as GNN continues its sparsely-populated run. Adam T arrived early and after a brief catch-up and exchange of grief-stricken lamentations that our Root group has gone into a hiatus, we consoled ourselves by playing his recent acquisition, which is Knarr, the game of Viking crewing, sailing, and combo-ing. 

The rhythm of the game is nice and easy: you're either playing a card into your crew(s) and activating all the bonuses at the top, or you are cashing them in/sailing them to far-flung climes to grab destination cards for points/other bonuses. Helmets can be spent as wild cards and bracelets - I think they're bracelets - can activate the columns in your destination cards. 

It's the kind of game where it's easy to learn but also easy, I found, to discover while you're farting about in the late teens of the score track, Adam has combo-ed his way to an imminent win. My last turn salvaged a small degree of pride...

Adam 42ish

Sam 30ish

We still had a good half hour or so before the arrival of Adam H and Martin, so cracked out a play of Empire's End. This uses the bidding system of No Thanks but instead of trying to chain numbers, you're trying to protect your civilisation from decay: most rounds are simply a disaster that will befall someone and cause them to flip over part of their tableau, and in doing so, lose all the points for it. I forgot to take any pictures, so gripped was I by the drama and panic, but here's Joe and I playing it a few days ago.

When you concede and take the disaster, you do at least get all the stuff everyone bid not to take it, and you get to append your tableau with an innovation, which - while the location it sits under remains undisastered - offers some kind of mechanical consolation for the loss of your farm/road/army/town/city. 

Disaster!

Interspersed between the almost relentless downers are economy (get stuff) industry (fix stuff) and military (fight stuff) rounds, the latter containing an element of risk as we both fight the same threat, but whoever contributes the most gets an extra reward. In one of the industry rounds I spent big to fix my (most valuable) city, only to have the next disaster hit it, and I had no resources to palm it off on Adam. He took a convincing win, something 150 to 105. 

But it was now time for Cascadero!

Whilst I went off to corral two teenagers upstairs Martin explained the rules to newbie Adam H. Then off we went, with Adam T immediately pursuing a strategy of building a 'big snake' network, as the rest of us took a more geographically diverse approach. I built an early lead, but was (correctly) assuming it wouldn't last. But as our envoys multiplied across the board, I did make significant progress up the tracks - particularly blue, which wasn't even my colour. It was Martin's. "What the fuck are you doing on my track!" he said, once or twice. Maybe more. 

Adam H initially seemed slightly bamboozled, and we did offer mild assistance once or twice. Or maybe moderate assistance, when I pointed out to him he could claim the first-to-x-spaces reward. "I was about to do that!" Martin cried. Sorry Martin. 

Adam T was openly regretting his network strategy as he dawdled some way behind us on the score track, and found his plans to get the ten point all-links bonus held up by our chicanery. However as the game entered its final stages he did belatedly bound up beside the three of us, who were inching forward in increments now. When Martin pointed out Adam H only had a spinrkling envoys left, I realised that to reach the top of my track I needed to move away from orange cities in order to visit them again, and didn't have enough turns left. Martin thought he was in with a shout but made a shocking Sam-style error, shooting himself in the foot with drastic mistake. As a result, he didn't reach the top of his track either. And nor did Adam T.

Adam H 38

Martin 38 but DNF

Sam 36 but DNF

Adam T 34 but DNF

Disaster again!

Adam H professed himself to be pleased with a debut win and liked the game. It was, as Martin said, brutal with four - if you don't reach the top of your track early enough, it becomes nigh on impossible to do so later. But we all enjoyed ourselves - even Adam T, I think. 

Martin then waved Courtisans around, his UKBG EXPO purchase, and he seemed excited enough that we agreed to play it.  It was better than this picture makes it look. 

Each turn you've a hand of three courtisans and must choose, Biblios-style, one to keep, one to gift, and one to play to the middle of the table. When the deck is empty everyone will score their kept cards, and the cards in the middle determine whether you'll get points for them (more cards above the board) or lose (more cards below). Mix in some dickish shenanigans and you've a very Martin-style game: assassins kill someone at their location when they arrive, royals are worth two, spies are played face-down and knights (I think? they have a shield) can't be killed by assassins. 

Everyone has two secret objectives as well, such as making sure the green suit falls from grace - ie scores negative - or that you have less cards or the red suit than your neighbour. These were mine, anyway, and I succeeded at one of them. I think we all managed one, in fact, but Martin's tableau of dicks scored more than everyone else's:

Martin 10

Everyone else 8

Fun, and quite speedy too - we raced through a thick deck of cards in about 25 minutes. However with Adam T making going-home noises and Adam H yawning wearily - Cascadero does take it out of you - we quickly moved on to So Clover. This was my 200th play and we hoped to mark it with an entry in the record of legends or whatever it's called. I think we've done a few perfect rounds with my copy before, but I've never recorded them - it was nice that we hit a home run of 24/24 this evening, with some nice clues guiding us there: Landfill for Garbage/Forest and C for Moon/Letter.

Adam T left us on this llinguistical high, and as a trio we played Misfits. Martin dicked us all over with a horrible opening move of the gaping-maw-triangle, but on reflection Adam H did not help the situation by putting a bloody cylinder in it. Every time Martin's turn arrived it collapsed again, until he was practically hidden by a mound of misshapen wooden bits, while his opening piece remained there, stoically being a pain in the arse.

I fell foul of it too, more than once, as Adam deftly shed his trickier pieces to finally, and triumphantly, dump his last cube. No fantastical structures tonight, but a funny, slapstick, and disastrous experience. Keeping with the mechanics of dickery, we moved on to Little Tavern. The less said about this the better as my early lead after round one made me a serial target in round two. 

Martin recovered from being back in third to sneak by Adam for a win:

Martin 26

Adam 25

Sam 22

And then Adam was gone too, his bedtime calling him. Martin and I finished off as a pair with Schnipp & Weg, which I am really surprised has never featured in GNN before! 

This is a head-to-head flicking game (lazy susan courtesy of Joe B) where you each begin at the far end of a hourglass-shaped board and the goal is to flick all your opponent's pieces off it. If you succeed with one flick (without your own pieces falling off) you keep going, and if you win the round you lose a piece but shuffle forward a row towards the middle - first player to the middle wins. 

The canny thing about Schnipp & Weg is that whoever lost a round starts the next one, which is - as long as you don't get the yips - a huge advantage. And whoever is closer to the middle is, in one way, weaker, as they have less presence on the board. We did a best of three, which Martin won 2-1 after I rallied from a poor start. A night of consecutive losses for me, So Clover notwithstanding, but a very fun one all the same. See you next week!

The Mighty Ra

 I arrived at Joe's at the same time as Laura, who was back amongst the gamers for the first time in a while. Downstairs we found Ian and discovered that no one else was expected. For the second time in a week, we were a quartet. “Got any four player games?” I quipped.

After we discussed Ian’s recent charity walk (all the way from the centre to Snuff Mills) Dune Imperium was (half jokingly) suggested, but Laura wanted to ease herself back into game with something a little more accessible. We chose Ra. With only us around the table, finally it had enough space deserving of its opulence. As we were unpacking, Joe dropped the Ra piece on the table and it was so loud, it made me jump.

The first three tiles out of the bag were all Ra tiles, and we started to suspect we were in for a quick epoch. But then there were no Ra tiles, instead there were lots of buildings. Joe gets quite a collection which he refers to throughout as his “pension” - something to cash in, in his old age. Joe was the last player standing at the end of round one. He had two spaces on the auction track but the next Ra would end the round. He monologued for a few minutes about his options before successfully filling up the auction track.

In round two, I score no points at all, hoping that my Pharaohs and Niles will pay out big in round three. Joe is, again, last to still be buying stuff but finds himself cursed by four disaster tiles.

As we went into the last round, I had 13, 10, 9 as my bidding tiles. But we were all screwed by the bag. So many Nile Tiles! “So boring! It's just water,” complained Joe. I had 6 Nile tiles in front of me, Laura had 5, Ian 5, and even Joe (who avoided them) had 4. But Laura was able to pick up the.only flood tile of the whole epoch.

Laura 36

Joe 29

Andrew 26

Ian 20

We remarked on what a low scoring game it was as we bagged everything up.

Then we played 9 Lives, a trick taking game. We figured that it might be nice to play a trick taker with someone other than Martin winning. Joe thoughtfully sipped his beer with salt crystals, wondering aloud if it was salty enough and then Laura suggested he should shake it up before hand.

In 9 Lives, it’s a trick taking game where you guess how many tricks you’ll win, except the backs of the cards tell you which suit that card is, so it’s possible to tell if the other players will be able to follow your suit or not. The most difficult part of the game is trying to discern the 9s from the 4s. Joe mused along the lines of: If there is one part of a game’s design where you shouldn’t be making any radical decisions… it’s the numbers.

Joe 10

Ian 9

Andrew 6

Laura 3

It was fun. Clearly, not the same without Martin but still fun.

Then we played So Clover. Both Laura and I had our clovers ruined by unfortunate decoys. My “Shipping forecast” (for Evening/Station) was ruined by “weather” appearing on the fifth tile.

19 out of 24

With that, I was gone. They others were making the kind of noises people make when they have one more game in them, so maybe they’ll elucidate in the comments.