The Adams and Jo(e)s Show

This week's games night began at the earlier time of 7pm. I arrived a little late but by no means the last. In Joe's kitchen, the host was joined by Adam H, Adam T, Ian and Katy with Jo to follow. 

We chatted about the endless possibilities facing us tonight and Katy made an early pitch for Lords Of Vegas. Joe's battered and much loved copy was brought to the table. Adam T, meanwhile, had Ahoy as an option. He described it as Root Lite, which is a tough sell in these parts. Jo, having only played it two-player, was keen and Adam H decided that an asymmetric pirate game was preferable to the whims of a handful of dice.

As we set up, I was surprised that everyone’s knowledge of the game had moved on since I last played. For a start, building up was allowed (despite it not being a five player game) and the offsetting rule (where you can choose to reduce your winnings/losses in gambling) is no longer a thing. Apparently that rule was introduced by the publishers and wasn’t part of the original vision.

So, we began playing and in her very first turn Katy was able to build a 2-tile casino. Except that she built two adjacent 1-tile casinos. Had LoV strategy changed that much?

Lady Luck spent the evening tweaking our expectations and messing with our minds. Joe needed money so he contemplated gambling, except he’d need a 1-1 or 6-6 to win enough money. Instead he decided to reorganise a 2-tile casino. He rolled 1-1. In fact, the casinos were relatively generous tonight, and Katy even cleaned me out completely when she rolled double six in my casino.

This game was all about the silver casinos. Or lack thereof, as they stubbornly refused to pay out apart from twice at the very start of the game. Otherwise, the pivotal moments came with the reorganisation of existing casinos. Towards the end, a deal between Joe and Ian gave Ian enough money to reorganise a 6-tile casino. As it happened, Joe had a single die involved and it ended up winning!

And so did he.

Joe 32

Ian 26

Andrew 23 (but we don’t do tie-breakers for third place, said Katy)

Katy 23 (no money left)

After this, Ahoy was still in full flow so we, not having had enough dice for one evening, got out Kribbeln. Surely Joe’s luck couldn’t hold out.

Well, it did. The game was full of amazing scrapes that don’t seem amazing unless you were there and by the end, Joe was so far ahead with an astonishing 30 points, eclipsing Katy's very respectable 28 points.

Joe 30

Katy 28

Ian 17

Andrew 17

But Joe did specifically ask that I mention that it was the highest score on Kribbeln to date. I also pointed out to Joe that, when writing, people put a bar through the number 7 to better distinguish it from the number 1. But he wrote his in such a way that made them look like 9s.

Ahoy ended by now. I felt sad that I’d missed most of the epic undertaking, but Vegas is pretty distracting.

Jo 34

Adam H 30

Adam T 24

And then Katy and I left while Joe went to get the So Clover.

Thanks guys. A beautiful evening.

For Goodness' Saké

Like a rare planetary alignment, every year or so four increasingly aging board gamers meet to catch up and share news, ancient in-jokes and some dubious double-entendres.

I arrived at about 1.30, and Sam told me that Chris and Paul were running late, still picking their way through Bristol’s bank holiday traffic. We drank coffee and chatted while I idly looked at the packaging for Tokkuri Taking, a game that would be our first once we were all here.

The packaging promises a bacchanial party of sake with dinosaurs. In practice, we were playing cards to either represent a clay bottle full of sake (the tokkuri) or the amount of sake each player will drink.

You have to play cards which will empty a (or many) tokkuri(s) exactly. If you achieve this, you flip the tokkuri card, action any text that you may see and keep it as a point. Unless it is a Dummy card, in which case the card is removed from the game and everyone else chuckles at your bad luck.

In fact, the revelation of a dummy card remained funny until the end of the game. It was a nice little game but, as Chris pointed out, where were the dinosaurs?

Sam 20

Chris 13

Paul 4

Andrew 0

After this game, to commemorate the day, Chris took a selfie of the four of us and unfortunately demonstrated how age turns technology into a mystery. We all posed and smiled and, instead of taking a photo, Chris promptly turned his phone off.

Never mind, we got there in the end.

Then we chose our next game. At least, me, Sam and Paul did. Chris stayed at the kitchen table, declaring himself too tired to make a decision. And so we played Tower Up, in which we were rampant civil engineers/town planners, intent on placing our roofs across city skyscrapers. Each of us had a player board with four scoring tracks in white, black, brown and grey which gave us the first childish sniggers as we spoke about “one up the brown” or a lack of “brown movement.”

Sam did impress mid-game with one move that got him three bonuses at once, but Chris’ slew of prominent yellow domes across the city pushed him into first place.

Chris 53

Andrew 50

Sam 46

Paul 40

Next up was Azul. I explained the rules to Paul and we were off. Sam kept picking up the first player token for minus points, insisting that he liked going first. Paul started slowly, with disparate tiles on his board, but managed to weave them all together with a final round that scored over 20 points by itself.

Paul 76

Sam 72

Andrew 70

Chris 66

We discussed food and, since Sam’s son Joe was going to get pizza for him and his friends, it made sense for him to get some pizza for us at the same time. That plan didn’t go down well and not even the promise of a side salad could persuade Joe.

Then we played Scout. A sort of trick taking game with a really light Circus theme. Not as tenuous as dinosaurs drinking sake, but still very tangential. I tried to bring the circus motif into play: when I put down a pair of tens I introduced it as “Lisa and Rebecca with their two cannons” but it didn’t really catch on.

Chris 38

Paul 34

Andrew 27

Sam 18

Next up was Misfits. Chris started with a cylinder placed upright. Then he sat back and smirked. We carefully placed piece after impossible piece until the entire edifice collapsed, leading Sam to declare “every c*nting piece!” as he ruefully swept the debris into his reserve.

We played twice and Chris won both times. After Chris’ second win, we kept playing Speed Misfits for second place, with Chris counting down the time limit in a vague German accent. I placed second.

After this we played Ito - the pocket version of Wavelength where everyone gets to make a guess. We didn’t do too well, with some pretty close calls. 

“Places to have a secret lair” did okay, with some nice distance between our guesses but in the category Imaginary Worlds to Visit we failed to differentiate the two-point gap between The Planet of Stale Farts and Pubic Hair World.

Following this we gave up on pizza and decide to get curry delivered. After that was ordered, we played Pina Coladice. Yahtzee mixed with Noughts And Crosses. Each square of a 4x4 grid has a target to achieve with five dice rolled three times. Place your meeple (if there’s still room) and four in a row will instantly win the game.

It was okay. I felt a bit like I was watching myself play, but there’s a certain amount of strategy as first Paul then Sam found their paths to glory blocked by other players taking the spaces they needed. But in the end, Chris won with four in a row.

With the curry imminent we played a couple of quick games of Toy Battle. A very simple war game with basic mechanics but a nicely balanced range of soldiers at your disposal. Sam beat Paul on a tie-breaker and Chris beat me outright, having successfully stormed my HQ.

Next we broke for food and then I chose the next game - my last of the day.

It was Quest for El Dorado. Paul’s first game, and he got a rules explanation from, as I recall, most of us at one point or another. It was pretty close throughout, apart from the usual early stages of one playing hanging back for tokens (Sam) while another sped off into the jungle (Chris). But Chris was no amatuer just pegging it and hoping for the best. He neatly balanced his deck and picked up tokens as he went. An purchase of the Captain just as he reached the watery fifth hex was probably pivotal.

I tried to think like Adam by buying a Travel Log (or Travelodge, as Paul called it) to whittle away the flab from my hand, but when I appeared I really didn’t know what to do with it. Nevertheless I actually thought I had a chance until quite late on. False hope.

Chris 1st to arrive, wins tie breaker

Sam, arrived same turn

Paul, only a few spaces short

Andrew, at least I reached the final hex.

*                *                *

mysterious change of narrator

*                *                *

Sam here. The hour was around 9pm, I think, when Andrew left us, and we had a couple more hours of ludological frolics ahead of us. We began them with Rebirth, the game of cathedral and castle construction in post-apocalyptic Scotland. I can't help thinking that if all the efforts going into these rebuilding games went into avoiding an apocalypse in the first place, maybe these great designer minds could come up with something. But anyway. This was new to the ever-patient Paul, so I went through the fortuitously-simple rules and away we went, brick by brick. 

Whilst I set about cathedralling like some kind of Ken Follet enthusiast and Paul remarked that he kept pulling the same type of tile, Chris sped off into a chunky lead, passing 100 points way before we did and enjoying saying the word 'dirigible' in celebration. But his momentum slowed in the final act, and my haul of highland castles and completed objectives got me a vanishingly rare win - by a single point! Chris threw his cards on the table in disgust. 

Sam - can't remember

Chris - can't remember -1

Paul - a few points further back

We celebrated/drowned our sorrows in the Milk Tray chocolates Chris had brought with him. There was no flavour reference so I tried one at random, which turned out to be a hazelnut whirl. I enjoyed it so much I had another, before discovering they were everyone's favourite, including Jacquie, who wasn't even here, but added to the chocolatey shame. Apologies all. 

We played Fantasy Realms next, and any crowing I might have been tempted to do in my Rebirth triumph stuck in my throat as I proved abysmally bad at realming fantasies. 

The game is super-simple: you have a hand of cards that score in different ways, and on your turn you pick up a new card and discard one to the table. You can pick up either from the table, or the top of the deck, but the catch is top-decking hastens the end of the game, which happens when a tenth card is added to the communal cards. Chris more than doubled my score, I think it was something like

Chris 190?

Paul 140?

Sam 80

I poured myself another gin as Paul asked me if I was getting tired. "He's got to wait up for his kids!" Chris pointed out, as if we needed an excuse to keep gaming. Little Tavern was next. 

Chris started and immediately parked an elf at his table. I advised him this was maybe not the best move, because elves in this game are racists and only like sitting with other elves. Chris nodded that he understood and immediately picked up three more elves to score 16 points in the first round. In the second I gave him a face-down romantic and he paired it with another face-up to win! Stupid game. 

We finished off with So Clover, of course, but whether it was the marathon games, the gin, the chocolate, the red herrings or the late hour, did appallingly badly with a 3-2-4 haul giving us 9 points from a possible 18! 

By this time, Joe and his pals were home and Stan was on his way back too. It had been ten hours of gaming and with midnight not too far off, we elected to end it there. Thanks all! Sorry about my foul-mouthed breakdown in Misfits. 

The price of bananas goes bananas

I was late to Joe’s kitchen table but, for once, had missed no games. Apparently the first ten minutes of this week’s games night was spend in polite conversation. Not sure how to react to the fact that this ended once I’d arrived.

We were initially six, with Martin and Anja expected later. So Joe, Sam, Ian, Adam H, Katy and I began with Flip 7, the Pairs-esque card game with added dickishness. Katy played like someone who thought that the further you fell behind, the more you had to push your luck. Which is kind of logical but she ended with no points at all and made me think it might be a good thing if we never go to Vegas. Adam scored 73 in the single round to pass the 200-point finishing line.

Adam 202

Andrew 174

Joe 166

Ian 148

Sam 83

Katy 0

Then Martin arrived and while we waited for news from Anja, the seven of us played Puerto Banana. It’s actually a six player game but by using a clover from a nearby copy of So Clover, we were easily able to stretch it to cover seven.

In this game, we have to buy bananas and we get to chose whatever value we want. But, the twist is that the winner of each auction only pays the difference between the highest and second highest bid. However, if this price is too high then the winner loses everything and then the second placed bid is compared to the third placed bid and so on.

Very silly. Joe’s opening bid was 800, which was much higher than anyone else had put and, indeed, was the highest bid of the whole game. I somehow went through the entire game not winning or losing any bids at all and so ended with the same 10 money that I started with.

Late in the game, high bids become the norm.

Martin 206

Ian 118

Katy 86

Sam 53

Joe 36

Adam 28

Andrew 10

Then we split into two groups, bearing in mind that Anja would be here soon. The trio of Joe, Adam and Ian chose Tower Up - a shorter game with an eye to accommodating Anja when she arrived.

On the other half of the tabel, Sam, Katy and Ian played Pioneer. Place roads across the continent of North America and drop meeples as you go. Pick up different passengers (farmer, banker etc) and trigger their special action as a bonus. “What does a gold digger do?” asked Katy. “Dig gold,” replied Sam. Martin became frustrated at the fact he only had one action per turn late into the game, even though he was cash rich.

I won a sterling victory thanks to my extensive network. Pity it was a victory in a game whose rather blasé attitude to the colonisation (the game’s words) of the United States sat slightly uncomfortably with us.

Andrew 67

Martin 58

Sam 57

Katy 55

During this period, Anja arrived. Adam only had one roof left in Tower Up, so it wouldn’t be long before that game finished.

Adam 52

Ian 49

Joe 40

Then they played Sheepy Time, which Ian won.

Sadly, after Pioneer, my body clock had wound down so I set off home. In my absence, Katy, Sam and Martin played Khan of Khans

Sam 670

Martin 630

Katy 380

And then two games of Viking Seesaw with Sam and Katy winning one each.

On the other half of the table Joe, Ian, Anja and Adam played So Clover but I don’t know the results. But that’s okay. Does history have to know everything?

Lovely evening. See you all soon!

A Steak in the Ground

With a plethora of drop-outs, hosts Anja, Steve, and Louie only had a trio of hardy gamers turn up at their doors last night to keep the orange flag flying: myself (Sam), Katy and Martin. After some brief chat, we quickly split into two groups, conscious that both time and players (Louie had to go to bed in an hour, and I didn't want to stay too late) were in short supply. Louie began setting up Robot Quest Arena with his mum and Katy, whilst Steve sat down with Martin and I to play Pioneers. 

While the Robots began barging into each other and snaffling up new powers, I talked Steve and Martin through Pioneers, which seems satisfyingly simple - at first. Each turn has three phases: get income, buy stuff (roads or carriages) and then move the stagecoach, 'delivering' pioneers from said carriages to matching spots on the board. Each spot has a bonus of some kind, so short-term it's about emptying your carriages (for points) and grabbing the rewards.

Long-term though it's also about building a network of roads; as your network (of your own roads) with the most pioneers in (of your own colour) will score at the end of the game as well. We all had to stop ourselves moving pioneers placed on the board and remember to add them from our carriages, and I think Steve and I had about three do-overs with minor gaffes to correct. Meantime the robots were getting a little hot under the metal collar, as Anja was heard announcing she would rivet-gun Louie, and he repeatedly grapple-hooked - if that's a verb - his enemies to fling them around the board. 

In Pioneers, we approached the endgame. I was optimistic that my biggest network was going to move me far enough up the track that I could claim a debut GNN victory: although Steve's carriage-focused points haul was strong, his pioneers were disparate. The stack of carriages we never thought we'd get through was running perilously low, but I ended the game by placing my last road. 

Steve and Martin had one last turn, and Martin's final move got two Farmers down, and it was enough to snake him ahead of us both!

Martin 59
Sam 57
Steve 55

While we were indulging in a post-mortem on the excellent mechanics and possibly not the most thoughtful theming, Robot Quest Arena came to a conclusion, with yet another win for Louie!

Louie 32

Anja 24

Katy 23

He went off to bed with the glow of victory whilst we played Wanted Wombats. What can be said about this strategically-rich game of wombat gangsters that hasn't been already? Well, Katy could have won when she predicted the $10k card and then banked it. She offhandedly said the next card would be a $5k though, and it was! So instead of Katy winning, I did. 

We played again and this time Steve took the victory. He was very pleased. 

After Steve's little dance we broke out Ito, the Wavelength-in-a-card-deck game of civilised discussion and occasional ranting. Our first spectrum was Important Things In Life, and we failed in the opaque space of subjectivity and pictorial representation as we discovered that we valued doilies more than slugs, but less than Eurovision. "Nobody is listening to me" Anja lamented, after her preferences were overruled by more shouty and obstinate folk at the table (me and Martin). 

We went again Things You Might Find Under a Rock, and were confident that Anja's steak - medium-rare, with pepper sauce - would be the most unlikely of our confections, only to discover it was only 55. To be fair though, at least a steak fits under a rock, and would be less surprising than finding, say, Andrew. Anja might have put a steak there. (And she did propose moving it lower, but we didn't listen). 

Our last salvo was Things That Are Hard To Do Alone, which went a disappointedly smutty direction. Anja's clue of synchronised swimming could not possibly be done with anyone else. An excellent high-number clue! But can sexual intercourse be done alone? Martin, resident latin scholar, pointed out the prefix 'inter' was a telling one. We flipped the cards to discover after successfully getting masturbation, singing and tree-hugging in ascending order (insert great weekend joke here) we'd placed these overtly plurality-based activities the wrong way around in our field of dreams... they were numbers 98 and 99! 

Great fun though, and a lovely way to end the evening. Thanks to all, especially our hosts, and particularly Steve for sacrificing his beloved Turkish Delight. After Katy and I both said we hated Turkish Delight, we ate five of them. 

Chalamet vibes

 I arrived at Sam's with the sound of cheers and laughter ringing from his kitchen. Wanted Wombat was the cause of all this jollity and Sam, Martin, Adam T, Adam H, Andy M and Ian were enrapt by this game which, as far as I could tell, involved saying “one thousand” then revealing a card and laughing at it.

I was told who won that game - possibly Ian - but I didn’t write it down. Hope I remembered right.

I'd already received messages from Sam about the early results. He'd beaten Adam T twice at Tic Tac Trek.

And then in two games of Wanted Wombat, Adam T beat Sam and Martin beat Adam T, Sam and Ian.

But flashback over, we then played a nice communal seven-player. 7 Wonders was suggested but instead Ito was brought to the table. This cross between Wavelength and The Mind involves everyone having a number (1-100) and a topic to think about. Each player has to come up with an example which they think reflects the number they’ve been dealt.

It was interesting. The first topic was Best Compliment (1 - neutral, 100 - best) and we ended up discussing if “stylish” was a better compliment that “lovely” and Adam H’s example of “giving Chalamet vibes” caused a discussion about how much we liked Timothee Chalamet. In round one only one card was out of step with the others (mine) and we went again. 

This time the topic was Weird Things For 5-years To Say. I think “I’m just taking the bins out” and “this message has bad optics” were the highest scoring in a round full of high numbers. But, again, we were one wrong guess away from perfection.

Now we split into two. Again 7 Wonders was suggested. A few people expressed an interest until Sam said “Great… but I don’t have it.” swiftly curtailing any further consideration of the matter.

Instead we chose Moonrollers (Sam, Ian, Adam H) and Wiener Walzer (Martin, Adam T, me) while Andy had to step out to make a phone call.

I know nothing about Moonrollers except the results.

Ian 25

Adam H 23

Sam 19

Meanwhile, Wiener Walzer (“Sausage Dance” in German) saw the three of us putting our guests into a dance in such a way that they pick up food and perhaps got to dance with another guest. Dancing scored points immediately while food scored at the end of the game. It was nice and, surprisingly, towards the end of the game it felt distinctly like turning up too late at a party. All the food and champagne had gone and there was barely anyone worth dancing with.

Martin 71

Andrew 67

Adam T 61

Now Andy returned from his call and the seven of us reshuffled. 

Ian, Adam H and I played Quest for El Dorado while Adam T, Andy, Sam and Martin played Fellowship of the Ring. This was Andy’s introduction to the game and he was thrown in at Chapter 9. Plus, he had to deal with the Sam (player)/Sam (hobbit) confusion.

They struggled through a few failures and managed to clear chapters 9 and 10.

Meanwhile, the race to the city of gold started in typical fashion, with Ian and Adam dawdling around volcanoes/caves picking up tokens while I pegged it like an idiot off into the distance. Ian kept dealing “3 gold, 1 river” to himself, which was of little use in the grassy plains of the first hex. 

Adam, though, always the most efficient traveller, managed to hone his hand down to three cards mid-game. 

He said he might have overdone it as he spent a couple of turns cycling through the same cards, but his tiles were put to good use and on the fifth hex he took the lead and finished at least two turns before Ian could finish and three before me.

Adam T 1st

Ian 2nd

Andrew 3rd

We finished our game and then set up a game of Biblios. Extreme Biblios, of course, a variant born of not reading the rules properly, mixed with a childish glee in the misfortunes of others.

It had been a while but I seem to remember more church cards. The rest must've been discarded at the start. But after several rounds of telling each other to eat shit, it all came down to the final dice: the brown. I had no cards left, guaranteed 2nd, but both Ian and Adam had skin in the game. It went narrowly in Ian’s favour. 

Ian 6

Andrew 5

Adam H 3

Fellowship of the Ring had ended and they'd even rattled through a quick Wanted Wombat before we finished. But I was pulling on my rucksack and heading to the door before I could let myself be persuaded to play So Clover (“We can make a seventh clover,” Martin said and, in Sam's kitchen, I figured that you probably could.)

It finished 34 out of 36.

After that, everyone left except Sam (obviously) and Martin so they finished with Chu Han, a two-player card shedder. Sam narrowly beat Martin to the 30-point winning target. 

Sam 33

Martin 28

Thanks all. See you soon!