Ego-friendly

 This week, once I'd knocked on Sam's front door, Adam H ushered me in to a game of Cross Clues already featuring Joe, Ian, Pete, Martin and, of course,  Adam and Sam. Pete handed me a card before I'd even put my rucksack down.

A whirl of an introduction and, with hindsight, I perhaps shouldn't have been so keen to guess Martin's clue of Firefighter since I noticed that “cat” was one of the words and firefighters save cats, don't they?

Well, this one didn't. 

Best clue/guess went to Martin and Pete. Martin clued “Jenkins” to which Pete said “war and ear,” getting Martin's reference to the war of Jenkin's ear which is a real thing, apparently. 

23 out of 25

Then we paused about what to play until Laura arrived. We decided to set up two games which she could join once she was here. Me, Martin, Pete and Sam played Ego (a bit like Beowulf) while Adam, Joe, Ian and eventually Laura played Silos (a bit Municipium). Nothing in common, except for a large spaceship piece as the centrepiece of the game.

Pete had never played Beowulf so Sam explained the rules from the ground up. The risks, the betting, the scoring and the disapproval of the aliens - shiny red tokens swiftly named “angry babies.”

Ego played like a sci-fi themed Beowulf: you take risks, prepare for expeditions, bid on things and so on. From very early on, Martin complained that he had too many cards and as the game drew to a close, his collection of cards swung into action. Sam, meanwhile, was doing fine until the last two rounds where his luck ran out and the angry babies began moving in his direction. Pete ended with no angry babies at all for a 20 point bonus which meant that Martin wasn’t completely alone at the top of the scoreboard.

Martin 62

Pete 42

Andrew 16

Sam 15

Martin said he missed the storyline of Beowulf and also the sense of risk. Looking though the game box, we looked at some extra optional bits of the board which can add to the game and bring in new challenges. Maybe the game would be better if we used those.

Silos was still underway. I hadn’t paid much attention to the game apart from noting the repeated use of the phrase “pull a human from the bag” and the fact that some of the meeples wore hats.

Laura won and Ian “a distant last”

Meanwhile, Martin, Pete, Sam and I had played two other games. The first was Bomb Buster. It was Pete’s first go, and so Martin talked him through the rules. He then looked at the special conditions for Chapter 18 (out of 66, still a ways to go) and found they removed a lot of what he’d just explained.

Never mind, we had use of a “general radar” for our piece of equipment, allowing us to search of wires according to the turn of a card. Slowly we picked off one value after another until we had succeeded.

Hoorah!

We also played Chocolate. A grid of 4 x 4 face down tiles and five discarded (also face down) tiles depicting chocolates of various shape/flavour are revealed one by one and players have the opportunity, on their turn, of picking up a card with a potential end result (ie, three dark chocolate next to each other or more green than pink in one half of the grid) and a value which will count towards you if that card proves to be correct.

It’s rather enjoyable. Slightly luck-pushy but not overly so. We did ponder a variant in which a card with an end result that is already apparent should be removed and a new one revealed. Maybe next time, then.

Andrew22

Martin 20

Pete 15

Sam 15

And with that, I was gone. Thanks al and I leave Sam to fill in the rest of the evening’s doings...

*

After Andrew left someone suggested 6 Nimmt and without further ado the cards were dealt out and people began cursing in earnest. The cursiest were Ian and I, who did appallingly. Whilst Martin was chortling insufferably on the other side of the table - enough for me to call him the C word as I picked up another haul of cards - we just kept on picking up bullheads, and even Pete's diabolical last round of 40 points didn't get him anywhere near us. 

Martin 15
Adam 27
Laura 37

Pete 51
Joe 53
Ian  63
Sam 70

Now Laura and Adam left too and the five remaining decided it was So Clover time. We opened with a bit of a damp squib - I forgot to take pictures but there were some fours and even a three witnessed. Mostly it was notable for Ian's weekend combo (throne/explosion) popping up in exactly the same formation for Pete. Ian had clued 'regicide' - Pete went for diarrhoea. "I prefer diarrhoea" Ian admitted graciously. 

So - although we lost Joe before it happened - the four of us went again. This was an improved effort, although we did start with a 3: Martin's combos of jelly/cavalry and skin/revolver throwing us for/from a six. But everyone appreciated Darcy as a clue for moist/master. 

We followed it with three sixes and ended the night with a decent 21/24. Thanks all!