Red Hot Chilli Popper

Games was at Joe's tonight, and as well as the host there was Andy Bates, Andy Morgan, Katy, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam). As Andy M was arriving later than the rest of us we kicked off with Kakerlakenpoker, the game of insect bluff. Andy (B) professed not to like it, and as we serially made correct rejections, the insects piled up fast.

Joe was best at spotting bluffs, and two (or three?) in a row from Andy amounted to Kakerlakensuicide, as he apparently deliberately torpedoed himself in order to end his misery. Following this drama, Martin refused to let me tot up the scores going by remaining cards, insisting "There's only one loser!" and pushing all the remainders into a pile. Whilst Joe, Katy and I protested Andy B backed him up, reading from the rule book. When have we ever paid attention to the rules at GNN?

Breathless stuff, and the evening was only starting. Martin - in bullish mood, it seemed - scoffed at Joe's suggestion of playing Scoville, the game of chilli farming, pronouncing it as "Kickstarter crap". Joe went ahead anyway, with Ian and Katy abetting him, whilst Martin, Andy and I used a deck of 6Nimmt cards to play The Game, which was a co-operative effort to get all the cards out in a series of rows - two ascending and two descending. Very like Hanabi, in fact, except this time you can see your own cards and cannot share information. You can however ask people to leave a row alone for your next turn, and also play a card that takes a row ten spaces backward if it is ten places 'behind' the current number. Andy M walked in just in time to see us get a perfect score.

The four of us elected to play Basari. This was new to me, but I must admit I liked it a lot - getting distracted enough not to take a photo. I liked  it most of all when I sailed into what I naively thought was an impregnable lead, only to be pegged back by Andy M as my card choices in the last round were kakerlakencacken:

Andy M 62
Sam 60
Martin 59
Andy B 45

With the other three gamers poised over their embryonic chillies, we moved swiftly on to Abluxxen and I got some really shitty hands with loads of singles. I probably could have played them better but in the wide world of games, I was never anywhere near Martin, who sailed to victory (despite scoring negative points at one stage!) after trouncing us all in the opening round:

Martin 47
Andy B 39
Andy M 37
Sam 33

By now Scoville had finally come to an end, with Joe refusing to admit that it was Kickstarter crap, but we could see from the look on his face that he was lying. As Ian admitted later in the car "I nearly liked it". Katy went further and said she did like it, but she didn't seem that convincing, considering the scores:

Katy 93
Ian 70
Joe 65

There was a reference card in the game that reminded me of the indecipherable Developments and Wonders in Olympos, where most of the game was spent checking the rulebook to establish what they did.

We were now all in one group again, so although Andy M retired to his adjacent house, there was plenty of time for a game of 6Nimmt, which Katy insisted upon. I was sure I could remember her swearing at the game like a docker at an art student, but apparently she likes it. Who knew?

Well we'll remember next time, as she sailed serenely to a convincing win as the rest of us swore like a bunch of dockers at a cafeteria sit-in over bursaries. Ian's recent good form returned to it's disastrous early days, and Andy pretty much replicated it:

Katy 29
Sam 47
Joe 59
Martin 66
Andy B 80
Ian 81

A nice bunch of games - with the possible exception of Scoville; more in the comments I hope - and plenty of time to get lost in Easton on the way home. See you Friday!

Form is Temporary

Tuesday. Andrew was away in Japan, and Joe had been enticed to play Bridge. Matt, Steve and Anja were also absent. But there were still seven of us gathered around Hannah and Adam's kitchen table - briefly, whilst we discussed this Friday's NSPCC day. Then we split into two groups - Katy and Adam were keen to try Atlantis and I was keen to play it again. The others - Hannah, Ian, Andy and Martin - eschewed Martin's overtures to play Witness, and plumped for Ra. I hope to hear the high spots in the comments, as due to the vagaries of gaming fate I never saw what they got up to in the kitchen...

After a quick conflab with BGG on the set-up, the Atlantis group were off. It's not a heavy game, but occasionally it can take a little while to work out your best move. Or what appears to be your best move. Adam's ingrained habit of keeping the rules handy was not negated by the fact they were in German. Worryingly, he took a long time over his early moves. Then equally worryingly, he sped up.

Save yourselves!

Adam's tactic was to race off for the mainland (see previous post for more on this) - Katy's was to lag and pick up points. Mine was somewhere in-between. But somehow Adam raced off with a phenomenal amount of points - even my ending the game and giving them both a 7pt water gap to cross didn't dent his score - it was a trouncing:

Adam 35
Sam 14
Katy 8

Katy announced she didn't like the game, and added that she didn't like losing. Especially to Adam.

In the other room Ra had already finished with Andy the victor:

Andy 39
Ian 33
Martin 30
Hannah 29

Tidy gamers

They had finished just before us, in fact, and never a group to stand on ceremony, they were out of the blocks on another game already: Basari. So we played Pickonimo. I've been playing this a fair bit recently - it was a hit with my brother and sister-in-law at the weekend - but I'm not sure that experience was truly brought to bear. It feels like a game of luck.

Sam 13
Adam 6
Katy 2

Katy clarified that she didn't like losing to me, either.

In the other room they were still playing Basari (I think; it's all a bit hazy now) so we started on
Red7.  For anyone unfamiliar with Red7, it's a card game where you can either play a card to the table in front of you or play a card to the centre, which changes the game's rules. Or you can do both - although I get the impression you want to avoid playing two cards if possible. Either way, at the end of your turn you need to be in the lead, according to the current rules. Katy scored a whopping 25 points in the first round, and though none of us reached the official 35 points to 'officially' win, it was enough for our agreed three-round game.

Katy 25
Adam 23
Sam 16

Basari had finished by now. I have no idea what this game does other than accrue a large amount of numbers on the score sheet. Looking at the bottom, it seems (unless points are bad) that Hannah won:

Hannah 65
Ian 64
Andy 40
Martin 39

...and they were now playing Love Letter. We just couldn't get our tables to co-align. I missed all of this and kept forgetting to take photos, but Ian's good form in the game was brought to bear on the final standings:

Ian 2 cubes
Martin/Hannah 1 cube
Andy 0 cubes

Hannah came into the front room and said she didn't like Love Letter. Adam said he didn't either. Eastonites eh? Don't let them turn you, Martin. We hoped to finally play a game with all of us, but before that could happen the kitchen group needed to finish their game of Dobble. Martin took the honours:

Martin 20
Andy 14
Hannah 13
Ian 8

Despite the relatively early hour, Hannah was threatening to go to bed and I was threatening to leave; my foot had started playing up and I was keen to lie down. However, who can resist Martin at his most bonhomie-ish? Like a cross between Oliver Reed and someone who plays a lot of board games, he cajoled us into our seats for a game of Pairs. His reward from the gaming gods -possibly tired also - was serial punishment, as he took hit after hit and ended on zero points. Adam took a miserable score on the last round just to ensure he didn't finish last.

At the other end of the scorecard it was close between myself, Hannah and Katy. As we entered what would prove to be the final round any one of us could have won it - but as Katy and I both went bust, Hannah did. Somebody (Andy?) went bust on a pair of peaches.

Hannah 23
Katy 17
Sam 16
Ian 13
Andy 10
Adam 5
Martin 0

It was only half ten but we'd played a lot of games, so we drew the curtains on yet another episode of GNN.

I don't have access to Andrew's underground spreadsheet vault, but as a blast from the past here is a one-off form table - for last night only!

						Points
Hannah	1	3	2	1	4	11
Ian	4	4	1	2	2	13
Andy	5	2	3	3	1	14
Katy	2	1	3	3	5	14
Sam	3	3	1	2	5	14
Adam	6	2	2	1	5	16
Martin	7	1	2	4	3	16

Trees are good! Trees are good!

It is Spring, and as flowers bloom and birds sing their mating calls, on Tuesday I received an email with those three words that everyone wants to hear:

"Games at Joe's"

We were six in number, the host and myself, with Sam, Ian, Martin and Katy. We fell into what can only be described as a "conversation" until we came to our senses and started to play. We promised ourselves some six-player parks at the end of the evening, and we began by splitting into two groups of three. Joe, Martin and Katy went for the leafy delights of Arboretum. Sam, Ian and I chose Stefan Feld's Bruges.

Bruges is a pretty typical Eurogame. You roll dice, move up tracks, hire workers, earn and spend money, and all the while you'll be having enormous fun.

On the other table, Arboretum seemed straight forward enough: play a card to the table, and then someone swears at you. That was pretty much it. Oh, and no one liked Dogwood.

Joe 24
Katy 16
Martin 13

We three were still up to our elbows in workers and aristocrats, so they played Botswana. Another game of things' values suddenly changing, only this time it was animals, not trees. I’ve no idea about how the game went, except for Katy squealing with joy at the plastic animals, and Martin’s amusing positioning of two animals trying a bit of, shall we say, hybridisation. I do know it ended, though.

Martin 78
Katy 71
Joe 53

By the time they’d finished Botswana, we had completed Bruges. It had been a relatively lightweight game, with plenty of options, but not enough to cause an unbearable block of AP. We wouldn’t go so far as to say even Martin would like it, but it was a pleasant game and not too long.

Ian had a Queen that scored a point every round, I had some people multipliers and Sam went for canals (and so did Ian, now I think about it). All hail the Queen!

Ian 59
Andrew 48
Sam 42

Then we joined together again and split up in a different formation like one of those fancy T-1000s from Terminator 2. Except one that plays games, not assassinates people in the past. First, during some toilet breaks, Sam, Joe, Katy and Martin played Rattle Snake. It was Katy’s first go, and it took her a while to get used to the awesome power of the magnets. And in the time it did take her, Martin managed to get all his magnets onto the board.

Martin 0
Sam 1
Joe 1
Katy lots

Then Joe, Martin and I played Basari, a nice little card game of bluffing and bidding. Similarly, Katy, Sam and Ian played High Society on the big table. Trying to capture that much game theorising and double bluffing into one pithy paragraph is impossible so I’ll just give you the scores and you can fill in the rest.

Basari:
Martin 86
Joe 79
Andrew 60

High Society I:
Sam 26
Katy 12
Ian BUST!!

High Society II:
Ian 30
Katy 17
Sam BUST!!

Finally, the six of us got together to do battle in the fiercest arena there is: Take It Easy! During the game, Joe, Sam and I were the bingo callers. Sam went for the films of DeNiro, I chose defunct or obscure football teams but the award for style went to Joe who did the songs of Bob Dylan (suggested by Martin). After a while, he gave up since he was thinking about what to say more than the actual game. This lead to people just doing Bob Dylan impersonations, before Joe dropped the bombshell that his favourite Dylan album was Street Legal. To convince us he wasn’t mad, he put it on to show what a good album it was. If only it had helped his game.

Martin 498
Andrew 495
Sam 470
Joe 445
Ian 411
Katy 383

And that was that. Out the door, into the night.

I’m off on my hols now. I’ll be keeping an eye on the blog, so don’t go slacking off, now. You hear?

Meanwhile, on the Division, Ian remains clinging to top spot. Martin storms to first on the medal table and Andy regains Points Ratio.