Blue Steel

You would think, after over ten years of gaming and blogging, that I would have seen everything related to board games. Amazing comebacks, games where everyone was beaten by our resident dummy player Dirk, absurd dice roles that rewrite the laws of probability. But tonight saw something new: for the first time, I left a games night without seeing the end of a single game.

It started normally enough, once you adjust the definition of “normal” to allow for the presence of Katy. There were seven of us: Sam (host), Adam T, Adam H, Joe, Katy, Ian and me. Katy came in and sat down, pulled a roll of toilet paper out of her bag and asked if she could swap it for one of Sam’s. The air of general bemusement wasn’t really cleared by Katy’s explanation: something to do with making a zine (called Fecal Matter, I believe) and it’s better to photocopy from Sam’s brownish toilet paper than her own white toilet paper.

Except Sam doesn’t have brownish toilet paper, he uses the same brand as Katy. She wailed in despair. Sam’s offer to put out a request on the local chat group didn’t seem to cheer her up.

But what about the games? We decided on a bold mission. Two epic games, both expected to last 2 hours. Sam, Adam T and Adam H played Arcs - a sweeping space epic that I somehow failed to photograph properly. Ian, Katy, Joe and I played Anno 1800, a new Martin Wallace based in the Industrial Revolution.

Anno 1800 is an engine builder of sorts, where you build things that help you build better things. The idea of the game is to play all the cards from your hand, the problem being that in order to do that you will inevitably need to pick up more cards.

The two rules explanations ended and the seven of us set out together on our very different routes. I was enjoying it, happy with my ability at reusing my men without having to waste a turn holding a “festival,” where you get all your men and trade/exploration tokens back. And then I noticed the time. It was already 9.30. I only had five cards left in my hand but they all needed me to have some pretty rare resources to get rid of them.

Katy invented the sausage (“Come and use my sausage!”) and then she explored the New World. Ian had cheap steel on sale - the tile was coloured blue and this became known as Ian’s Blue Steel - a Zoolander reference. I invented dynamite with a combination of pig, bricks and goods. But cards weren’t really being played by anyone. We needed fur coats, gramophones and something that looked like a mounted cannon. There was clearly a long road ahead of us.

In Arcs, Adam H was mostly attacking Adam T, but then found that he had outraged the population and now couldn’t repair anything. Something like that. “The more I understand, the slower I get,” mused Sam.

Finally, Joe realised we’d been playing a rule wrong. We were supposed to flip a tile over when we bought it and that would have doubled its output. Well, at least it was the same for all of us. Nevertheless, as the time hit 10.15 and no one was even close to finishing the game. My heart sank. I had to make a decision, and told everyone that I was bailing. Maybe once I could go on as long as it took, but not these days.

They promised to keep my board in the game for trading purposes and would count up my score at the end.

I left both games still in full swing. A whole three-hour session without a single result. Amazing.

I leave it to Sam to finish the story...

*            *            *

The story ends with a victory for Katy! Beyond that I cannot enlighten Andrew (or anyone) further, as my mind was being blown by Arcs, which is a trick-taker in the sense that an articulated lorry shedding it's load of playing cards as it crashes in slow-motion is a trick-taker. I got a couple of snaps.

The geographic nub of Arcs is the 'Reach' - the board - where we take actions getting in each other's way. The card system uses a trick-taking mechanic in a similar way to Brian Boru: everyone gets actions, even if they play off-suit, but leading is best as you get (usually) more actions, and you also get to declare an ambition. 

Ambitions are a way - the only way - of scoring points, by leading their conditions come the end of the round. But 'understand what's happening' isn't an ambition that rewards you on the score track, unfortunately, so even as things began to swim slowly into focus, I was finding it harder to click the metaphorical cogs together, and being left behind in every sense apart from owning a bunch of relics. I used my relics to get cards, but they may as well have been sat on a mantelpiece. Arcs is tough. Arcs is nasty. Arcs is bonkers. The Adams did some kind of passive aggressive ownership exchange of goods and ended it shortly after Andrew had left.

Adam T 37

Adam H 30

Sam 20

Then the Adams both left too, and we played So Clover!

It wasn't a bad effort at all - we only came a cropper on Joe's clover courtesy of an unlucky red herring. Some fun clues but after a night of epics, one round was all everyone could manage. 

22/24

And that was that!

Are We Young?

Steve, Anja, Louie and Lennon were our hosts last night so after a day of more rain Martin and I (car) and Adam (bicycle) made our way to Mayfield Park to join them, along with new arrival Pete, whom Martin and Joe had met at the Bath Kniziathon. After some crumble, Anja escorted Lennon off to bed and we debated how to start the evening, eventually settling on Courtisans (Martin, Adam and Pete) and Spots (myself, Steve and Louie). 

Pete was new to Courtisans and Louie hadn't played Spots before, so there was a bit of rules explaining going on before we tucked into our openers. I didn't keep up with the drama in court, although Louie pithily remarking that just sitting next to it gave him a headache was commentary enough. It does a look more mad than it actually is though. 

In Spots Louie and Steve were first to 'bank' dogs as I trailed behind, before lurching to an unexpected and frankly jammy win just as Louie looked poised to wrap up a debut victory. In contrast Pete was emerging the winner on his first play of Courtisans.

Pete 8
Martin 7
Adam 6

Both games ended at the exact same moment and Anja reappeared to take bed-bound Louie's place. We shuffled seats, with Anja and Adam intro-ing Pete to Cascadero whilst I talked Steve and Martin through the rules of Foundations of Metropolis.  

Here, we're building a city on a shared board in a game where you take one of three actions on each turn. You can purchase a deed in the city, take income from the bank, or build on areas where you own the deeds. The building's the thing, as certain buildings up your income, others push up your population (points) and civic buildings will score points depending on what other buildings they're next to. 

The population of each player has a quirky methodology - on a separate track to the points track everyone scores the position of the next player ahead of them. Whoever's in first place scores their own position plus a bonus, which escalates over each round of the game. This meant that as Steve and Martin fought it out over the population majority, I sat back on a single population point knowing that I'd score (kind of) second place - and focused my energies on getting as many civic buildings out as I could. 

Steve is appalled. Can't remember why

It's got a nice brisk pace to it and both the parasitic leaching of the civic buildings and the more aggro claiming of deeds, especially if you know someone else wants them. Having played a few times already my experience helped me out, but both Martin and I were confident he'd beat me next time.

Sam 118
Martin 93
Steve 82

On the Cascadero board meantime Anja was having the kind of experience that I have serially undergone at the hands of Martin, as Adam chained all manner of bonus bonanzas together and he and Pete pulled away up the track. We played Klink, which Steve announced he would be terrible at, but it transpired that the fates had it in for Martin on this occasion. At the climax of the game he listed the numerous numbers he could flip that would all help him in some way. None was a ten, which is what he turned over.

The player with the least points wins when someone reaches 77...

Sam 33
Steve 44
Martin 101

And Cascadero finished with Adam taking the insta-win by sailing past 50 points. Debutant Pete was back on 37 and Anja laughing in deranged disbelief on 22. I felt her agony. Brilliant game. Painful game. Martin was flabbergasted at the envoys having zero decorum, with most of the horses on their noses. 

The clock was ticking so we quickly bashed out So Clover - yet another new set of rules for Pete, who showed remarkable equanimity to be taking on instructions at 10.30 with a return drive to Bradford on Avon looming. During the mulling period he pondered aloud about using the same clue twice, and we all chortled at the very idea. But then he did it, putting 'Light' on two sides of his clover. Whatever the collective noun for synonym spotters/confirmation-bias victims is, we became it as we found 'Light' seemed to go with everything - even, at one stage, Pumpkin (my suggestion). To be fair though we only got one card wrong and that was because of Pumpkin. "Who suggested that?" Adam cried, not unreasonably. It did now seem rather ludicrous, although was it as silly as Cinderella taking an Uber to the ball?

Other highlights were Anja's slaw for salad/religion and Martin's overactive for coffee/rabbit. We only came a real cropper on Steve's clue of Licken, where we missed his sound logic in favour of combos such as 'Tunnel Hen'. Overall though, a solid enough 31/36 to round off the night, after Anja explained her clue of 'bass' related to drum and bass - what young people listen to. 
"Young people in the 90s" Steve added, before Adam mournfully voiced the blog title aloud, almost to himself.

A fun night, thanks everyone. Sorry about the pumpkin. 

Ten More Years!

 This week’s games night was in celebration of Laura’s birthday and when I arrived, she (hosting), Katy, Sam and Martin were in Laura's newly remodelled kitchen playing a card game. Martin suggested I try to work out the rules of the game, which I failed to do except you had to get rid of your cards by putting them on the table and reading out the number they made, but didn't understand it apart from that. I also failed to make a note of the name. But Sam won.

Sam 2

Katy 4

Laura 5

Martin 7

Then Adam H arrived and since everyone was here, we got out the cake: a caterpillar cake, which was sliced up and served with ice cream! Katy also asked if there was any coke available, apparently thinking this was a children’s party.

When we raised out glasses and made a toast, Katy happily cried out “Ten more years!” which I said was a bit bleak. Katy said she didn’t mean it like that: she meant ten more years of gaming with us, at least. But the joke stuck that Katy had wished Laura ten years of life, maximum, and it was referenced throughout the evening.

But what about the games? We split into two groups. Laura, Martin and Katy played Captain Flip which was GNN’s present to Laura. Adam, Sam and I played Guild of Merchant Explorers, a very short eurogame in which you have to explore a map within the turn of a few cards. In fact, I don’t think Adam or I really appreciated how quick the first round would be and after five cards had been played, Sam told us to take our cubes from the map and start again.

With this regular reset in mind, it’s important to build villages, which allow you to start exploring fro a point other than the centre of the map. Also, there are things like treasures and towers and trade routes to discover. Before long Adam was muttering to himself and trying to max out his moves. In fairness, it worked.

Adam 149

Sam 144

Andrew 127

The first game of Captain Flip ended in the most amicable way possible, with a tie for first.

Laura 45

Martin 45

Katy 35

Katy mused that she used her lookouts too early (don’t know what that meant, but I made a note anyway). They played again.

Katy 46

Laura 43

Martin 33

Then we drank some “pink fizz” and gazed at Laura’s games cupboard. Then Martin, Laura and Sam played Via Nebula. Adam, Katy and I played Cascadero. Martin and Sam had actually brought one copy each, meaning for a time we considered everyone playing Cascadero at the same time. But then sanity prevailed.

Katy wasn’t sure about playing, and throughout the game she complained that she didn’t really know what she was doing, even when she was about twenty points ahead of Adam and I. Then she completed all of the bonuses for linking cities together and admitted that that was her strategy.

Now she was in a fix - in the lead but way behind on the track that you have to complete before the game is over. I was in last in terms of points, but my track was all but complete. I had to use up all my meeples before either Adam or Katy finished their tracks. Adam was in the middle - behind me on the track and behind Katy on points.

Of course, he won, hitting the game ending 50 point mark at the same time as, or the turn after,  completing his track. I came second and Katy seemed to think she’d never play the game again.

Adam 50

Andrew 34

Katy 47 (DNF)

I missed most of Via Nebula apart from Sam saying “I’m going to finish the game,” in the kind of excited voice you used to hear on adverts for MB Games.

Sam 27

Martin 23

Laura 13

And while we struggled through the end of Cascadero, they played a quick Captain Flip.

Martin 44

Sam 37

Laura 25

Then, because it was Laura’s birthday, I didn’t leave early but stayed on for a game of So Clover. With six of us, there was a chance of a golden 36! 

But it didn’t last beyond my clover. Sam’s was first and we got a bit of luck - one of his words was “Tiny” and “tiny” also appeared on a card so we were fairly safe in assuming that was the decoy. 

Then we finished Adam’s with no bother before we got to mine. Two of my words were LOOP and KISS and I couldn’t link them apart from the fact that they’re both rock bands, so I wrote “bands”.

Alas, a word on the decoy card was “DREAM” which everyone linked with D-ream. The other word seemed to match too, so they were happy to offer up their guess. Katy was so confident that she'd picked up the fifth card and stuck it back in the box. I sadly told them they were wrong and Katy had to start looking through all the cards in the box to try and get the fifth card out again. 

Katy searching for a card

On their next attempt, they got it - although Sam and Adam thought it was a reference to Looper. Only Martin mumbled something about Loop being a noise band.

Then the remaining clovers were all completed successfully, although there was a lot of anguish over Martin’s clover. “Lemon” either related to “RECIPE/SHARP” or “RECIPE/YELLOW” and in the end we got it right (Sharp was the correct word).

34 out of 36. Close but no clover.

Then I did go home and found out that they’d played So Clover again.

17 out of 30. Never mind.

See you all next week and happy birthday Laura!