We’ll always have Powys

GNN games weekends are the semi-regular binge of board games that allow us to experience things that simply wouldn't happen during a typical evening session. Such as a hungover Ian trying to sleep in a nook by a window while all around him is chaos, or Katy swearing loudly at noon or my attempt at playing a dense, convoluted eurogame while also making pizzas.

It all began on Friday. I got a lift there with Sam and Stanley. We off at four o'clock, and the journey was pretty straightforward, taking about an hour. No such luck for Joe and Katy who had left Bristol at one, but managed to get lost three times, meaning it took them three hours. "We were so lost, we found a games shop in Monmouth," explained Joe.

Either way, when we arrived at Crickhowell (in Powys), Joe Katy, Hannah, Adam and Arthur were already there. And, far from chucking our stuff into rooms and getting straight down to some serious gaming, we stood around and chatted, apparently oblivious to the neat stacks of games in the corner of the room.

The earliest sign of our competitive spirit was a brief spell on the table tennis table while Joe and Katy cooked. After a delicious meal, we finally started gaming with Bandu. Stanley impressed us with his withering look since Katy made no allowances for his young age, handing him some terrible pieces.

Adam
Joe
Sam
Stanley /Andrew
Katy

This was followed by Hannah beating Joe and Katy (77, 71, 68 respectively) at Isles of Skye, and Sam beating Stanley, me and Adam (130, 128, 112, 107) at Ethnos, with its irritating base-60 score track.

Ethnos

During these games, Steve and Jon arrived (Jon, without Power Grid! For shame) and kids were put to bed. There were a couple of games of Happy Salmon, an action game that involves drawing cards and then trying to find someone else around the table who has the same action, while everyone else is doing the same. It looks absurd, and the silent version doubly so, but it seemed popular throughout the weekend.

At first, we split into two groups of four, for Ticket To Ride and Clans Of Caledonia on offer. Then Jon made the switch across the table to TtR, leaving Clans as a three-player affair.

This was possibly a wise move, since even as a three-player (two of whom were novices) Clans of Caledonia lasted a long time. Long after Ticket to Ride ended, and they were deep into Tumblin’ Dice.

Ticket To Ride
Hannah 176
Jon 164
Joe 138
Katy 113
Steve 92

Tumblin’ Dice
Jon 138
Joe 112
Katy 102
Steve 39

Two remarkable an inexplicable defeats for Steve, who only escaped negative points in Tumblin’ Dice in the final round.

Clans of Caledonia was a struggle for me, and I probed the various options with all the timidity of a man pushing a button in a wall, convinced it would open a trapdoor under his feet. Adam, despite yawning through most of the rules explanation, had a much better idea about what was going on.

Adam 136
Sam 127
Andrew 89

By now it was late, and travel-weary and somewhat tipsy, we all got together for a game of Dead Man’s Chest, the game where explaining the rules is never quite enough. Steve and Jon were newbies, and they seemed as baffled as we once were. And sometimes still are.

As for the game, it had three Dead Man rolls (i.e., a one and two). One of which cost me a life on the very first roll of the game. Then the next two both hit Joe, one of which he opened by accident (“Oh. I looked.”). Sam finished in first, with both lives still intact.

Sam
Joe
Katy
Jon
Steve
Andrew

That was that for day one. On Saturday morning, people arose in the following order: Hannah, Stanley and Arthur at 7.30 (probably earlier), then me, Jon, Joe, Sam, Katy, Steve and then a big gap before Adam finally emerged at 9.45. The first game to be played, after all the various breakfasts, didn’t get going until 10.25, and it was Junk Art.

Steve 16
Adam 13
Joe 9
Katy 7

Meanwhile, Jon introduced me to Patchwork and won 15-2, but I was impressed by the game. Ian was collected from the station by Sam and they played a tight game of Heck Meck with Ian winning 13-12.

Next up was a true challenge: A Feast For Odin. Adam, Stanley, Ian and I all set off on this epic undertaking. Adam, though, had a trick up his sleeves: the rules. He’d watched a review or two and noticed that no one else builds up from the corner as we do, and he discovered that that rule only applied to calculating the income. Everything else was a free-for-all.

I had suggested playing a six-round game, but Adam quickly insisted on a seven-round one. I didn’t think anything about this at the time but looking back I remember that, although Adam had populated two islands, his main player board had almost no minus points covered during round six. Without that seventh round, things could’ve been very different. But we did have a seventh round, so things were all too familiar.

I went for animals, Stanley went pillaging and Ian started slow before suddenly filling his board with blue tiles.

Adam 111
Stanley 86
Ian 72
Andrew 65

In the kitchenette area, a game of Downforce was played, with the general consensus that the two-car strategy was a non-starter, with the eight-wheeled Jon and Steve trailing.

Sam 27
Joe 14
Steve 11
Jon 7

Steve was keen to get back on this horse, as it were, and another (five player) game of Downforce was set up. Again, Steve ended up with two cars, although I don’t think he had planned it that way. The race ended with both of his cars still on the track, racing each other for fifth place, until Steve ran out of cards and they both ended with a DNF.

Katy 24
Jon 20
Ian 18
Andrew 17
Steve 6

At this time, a game of Flipships was underway with Hannah, Joe, Stanley and Sam trying to keep the invading aliens at bay. My notes for this game read simply “Earth died.”

Meanwhile, Steve taught Katy and Jon the card game Tenbo. Possibly because he likes it or possibly because he wanted a game he knew he’d do well in.

Steve 21
Katy 15
Jon 13

Then, if last night’s Clans of Caledonia weren’t enough of a warning, I allowed myself to be recruited to another long game beginning with a hefty rules explanation: Yokohama. Even though I’d played it before and had some idea of what it entailed, I needed a rule refresher as much as the two beginners: Steve and Jon. Joe was the rules-explainer, but even he’d forgotten a great deal, and the rule book was never far from hand.

Yokohama

During Yokohama, Ian, Katy and Hannah comfortably played two medium sized games: Mad King Ludwig (Ian 95, Katy 89, Hannah 63) and Hit Z Road (Ian and Katy both survived – I don’t recall who won – but Hannah died early on).

Also Sam and Stanley played Near and Far. According to my notes, it was a draw.

As for me, I had to start making pizzas while still playing Yokohama. This made things difficult, not least because the layout of the kitchen meant a lot of walking back and forth, and I had to keep washing my hands before making my move.

My efforts at making pizza outlasted the game, and lead to a largely game-free period as people got their food one after the other. The scores for Yokohama were:

Jon 116
Steve 111
Joe 78
Andrew 60

The last of the food was being served (and thanks to Joe for knocking together some burritos to make up the shortfall in my pizzas) at nine o’clock and some restless gamers were after some gaming.

Hannah, Katy, Joe and I chose Lords of Vegas while the others set up a much-requested (by Stanley) game of Captain Sonar. Captain Adam, Steve and Jon were up against Captain Stanley, Sam and Ian. This game ended with a victory for Captain Stanley after Radio Operator Steve admitted he missed one of their movements and, from then on, didn’t know where the other submarine was.

In Lords of Vegas, it was a surprisingly swingy game. Katy started well, building lots of one-tile casinos of many colours, but then stalled as she couldn’t convert them to two-tile casinos quickly enough. So Joe took over, surging into a lead. But then he was undone by some reorganising from Katy and especially Hannah, who reduced his previously presidential presence in a five-tile casino to two miserable one-pip dice. I, meanwhile, faced early frustration in the lack of brown casinos paying out. My luck turned towards the end but too little, too late.

Hannah 40
Andrew 36
Joe 26
Katy 23

With Stanley off to bed, the other five played Tortuga. Ian won. “He was Dutch” says my not very helpful notes. “Everyone else lost. Weird conversation about nationalities” it continues.

Tortuga

People slowly peeled away to bed, leaving six players refusing to buckle under the weight of fatigue. Myself, Jon, Joe, Steve, Katy and Ian stayed up for more. And, just like last night’s Dead Man’s Chest, we chose to introduce Steve and Jon to a game that never seems to make sense, no matter how much you try to explain it. Namely, Bemused.

Ian pours himself a beer for Bemused

This game of adopting personas is more an event than a game. A chance to throw insults at people according to which muse they’ve been dealt. Painter, Thespian, Actor (who, invariably, is accused of never being able to play The Dane), Musician, etc. This time, though, I was the Dancer and I must’ve been pretty good since I was largely ignored. I made no secret of my animosity to my gemina, the musician (Jon), because no one else was going after him. And it worked. I finished the game sane and healthy, with my gemina safely “not sane” (i.e., dead, in this case. Actually killed by Katy, who finished him off while Jon was having a rule explained by to him by Joe. Harsh).

Andrew 8
Joe 6
Katy 5
Jon 3
Ian 3
Steve 2

Midnight had come and gone, but we all felt we had one more game in us. Katy asked for something she could play while lying on the sofa under a blanket. Joe suggested I Crossed The Border. This is a simple word game where one person thinks of a rule regarding things that people can take across a border. They then give an example of it, followed by everyone else trying to get stuff across the border. The rule-maker tells them if they’re successful or not. And we go round and round until one person is still clueless.

For example, Joe’s first rule was “Words with ‘oo’ in them” so “I crossed the border with a pair of boots” would be fine but “I crossed the border with a copy of Vogue magazine” would not.

Katy chose items that began with K, A, T or Y. Ian’s rule was that you had to have your hand against the side of your face when you crossed the border. Jon’s rule was don’t hesitate when you cross the border, which I totally failed to get.

My rule was that you had to say the item with a rising inflexion, like a question. Oddly, this meant Ian did very well at crossing the border, since he always framed his crossings as questions, whereas the others were more confident and made their crossings as statements. As such, Ian crossed back and forth, but never really knew why but the others didn’t. It wasn’t until Katy got it that it slowly dawned on the others what we were doing.

We ended at 1.10 on Sunday morning before we tore ourselves away from the buzz of competitive conversation and went to bed.

Sunday morning, and we slowly crawled from our rooms. The first game was played before 9 o’clock so, in that respect, we did better than Saturday. But the game in question was the lightest of games: The Pyramid’s Deadline, a new game I’d bought in Japan from Oink Games (Deep Sea Adventure, Fake Artist, Insider).

It involves building a pyramid-y shaped structure before the pharaoh dies (indicated by the last red square being chosen). The selection of building materials is determined by the roll of some dice, so obviously the speed at which the red squares deplete is random.

This might be why in game one, none of us (Hannah, Sam and me) completed our “pyramid”. Then in game two, Hannah was too cautious since both Sam I and completed our buildings after her, and I won. But, then again, in the third round Hannah won when neither Sam nor I finished.

By 9.15 everyone except Adam was up. Well, Ian was up, but seemed to be in constant danger of falling back down again as he struggled under a hangover.

At some point around now, I introduce Steve to The Pyramid’s Deadline, but I made no notes about the outcome.

Eventually, Katy took pity on Ian’s attempts at a nap on a window seat, and arranged for him to get some sleep in a proper bed (rather than the mattress in the utility room he’d had during the night).

Then we played Deep Sea Adventure. At least, Joe, Steve, Katy and I did. We began quickly and it wasn’t until it was Steve's turn that he asked for a rules explanation. It hadn’t occurred to us that he hadn’t played before!

Luckily DSA is the kind of game you can explain while you play, so it didn’t hold the game up too much. There was a remarkable lack of drownings, apart from Katy and I in round three.

Joe 42
Steve 35
Andrew 24
Katy 13

Sam, Stan and Jon played Near and Far, with Stan running out a clear winner, but that didn’t stop Sam from saying he’d enjoyed it more than the other night when he and Stan had tied for first.

Stanley 79
Sam 42
Jon 38

Next up was a game of Downforce. I ended up with three cars in my team, which was not my plan even if I had boasted beforehand that it was. If two cars is a curse, then surely three cars is a death wish! But, no! Thanks to some clever betting and keeping an early lead, I did okay. Not first, but pretty good.

My team in Downforce

Sam 13
Andrew 12
Ian 10
Stanley 8

While this was happening, another game of Yokohama was being played. Joe was keen to try it again while the rules were still fresh and he was confident that he could teach it better this time, too. Katy was drafted in to the game, along with last night’s conscripts Steve and Jon.

They kept saying it’d be quicker than last night, and maybe it was. But not by much. After Downforce had ended, Sam and I played Clans of Caledonia again. It was much quicker as a two player, and I did better, too.

Sam 126
Andrew 118

Hannah put together salad and cold meats and cheese for lunch. Still Yokohama kept going.

People started getting anxious about not having enough time for a walk. But Yokohama wouldn’t be rushed.

Finally it ended. Scoring was calculated, and it turned out to be the same person who won last time!

Jon 123
Joe 98
Steve 95
Katy 91

After that, it was time for the walk before being ferried back to Bristol by Sam. Five other gamers stayed on for one more evening, and I hope they’ll add their comments to the end of this post.

Meanwhile, thanks all. It was special!

A bird! In the sky!

Adam reports the final scores...

Capital lux
Joe 80
Adam 65
Hannah 39




Mysterium


We all won. But I won most and Katy won second most. Because we're overcompetetive. Joe was an excellent ghost.

Ticket to ride
Adam 178
Hannah 161
Katy 145
Joe 142
Jon 138


Apparently Katy isn't going to play with Hannah or I ever again.


Kingdomino
Jon 53
Adam 51
Katy 46
Joe 29




Team play
Adam & Joe 25
Katy & Jon 24

Good night folks!

I don't need a lava

This Tuesday evening saw yours truly back from travels and keen to get back on the gaming horse. Joe was hosting and Sam, Katy, Martin, and Ian were also present.

We began with a six-hander, Auf Teufel Komm Raus, a recent new arrival and already making waves as the new luck-pushing game of choice.

Ian found he had very little luck to push. He tried his best to throw caution to the wind, only for it to blow back in his face. "No reason for me to stop now," he said, hoping for a run of luck. He immediately turned over a devil tile.

After a disaster of a second round, he had to go all-in on round three. Luckily it paid off, and the Deal With The Devil rule (those solely in last place get money every time someone goes bust) he was pushed back into contention.

Less lucky in his dealings with the devil was Joe. On those rounds where he was last, the rest of us played safe and few went bust.

Sam successfully guesses what he's going to pull from the cauldron

Martin successfully campaigned against any tactic that would benefit Katy, convinced that she was about to win. "I promise you I'm not going to win." When Sam asked if that was a genuine promise, she clarified "this round."

The final result found that Martin had not lost his touch in hedging his bets.

Martin 1600
Katy 1420
Andrew 1370
Sam 1290
Ian 750
Joe 450

After this was, we split into two groups. Martin, Joe and Katy chose Capital Lux, a card game about which I know nothing. They set themselves up on the green baize card table and got down to work. Katy looked pleased with herself when Martin responded to her tactics by saying "that was the only card that could have fucked me." Katy's delight was to be short lived as Martin stole the win by the narrowest of margins.

Martin 68
Katy 67
Joe 63

Meanwhile, we on the big table decided on Downfall of Pompeii as a fun way to pass the time, despite its unpleasant theme.

The only thing we needed to be reminded of was how to set up the deck of cards. But with that fiddly bit of detail done, we were off, populating the doomed city with carefree abandon.

It was a close game but, then again, most games of Downfall of Pompeii are. It was all down to the tie breaker, based on the number of Romans in the volcano.

I drew the majority of the omen cards and Ian, it seems drew the rest. While we both tried to be very fair in alternating between attacking our opponents, it looks like we would invariably lean towards the more populous Sam. With no further tie breaker, Ian and I shared the victory.

Ian 9 (7 in the volcano)
Andrew 9 (7)
Sam 9 (12)

When we'd finished, we found Capital Lux only five minutes from completion so we cooled our heels and waited. I recognised the singer on the stereo and I asked Joe "Is this Jonathon Coulton?"

"Yes," Joe replied.

"He's being more serious than usual," I remarked, referring to the poignant lyrics.

"Not really," said Joe, "it's about a giant squid."

So now we were six. Games were suggested until we agreed on the plan to end with three short games.

The first was For Sale, the game that Sam always agrees to, thinking they mean No Thanks.

The cards 30 and 29 came out in the first round, meaning the tense stand off began early. Luckily for me, Martin cracked first and picked up the lowest card for free. This set off a series of people grabbing cards which ended with me getting the 29 for half price while my neighbour Katy paid for the 30 in full.

Having a 29 and most of your money left is a good way to start For Sale, and played it out with little to worry me.

Andrew 55
Ian 47
Joe 41
Katy 39
Sam 37
Martin 35

Next in our late evening trilogy was Bemused. It intrigues us with its opacity. What are the best tactics? Nobody knows.

Maybe Ian does. He was a deserved winner, dismissing Poet Sam with the words "No matter how hard you try, orange does not rhyme with fromage." A devastating barb, that no one could match.

Ian 7
Katy 6
Sam 5
Andrew 4
Martin 3
Joe 2

Finally we played Chameleon. A guessing game that involves spotting which player knows nothing. Kind of the opposite of Insider.

We played three rounds. In the first, Joe was successfully unmasked as the chameleon. Although afterwards, Katy said she had known nothing about the subject (Stuart Little) and was kind of bluffing.

The second round was geography. Ian was the chameleon, but he was able to correctly identify the target word: Mountain.

In the third round, Wedding Anniversaries, I worried that my word was too obvious. The target word was Paper and my clue was First (ie, the first wedding anniversary is paper). But most of our attention was taken by Joe, whose clue made no sense, but he insisted he wasn't the chameleon.

He also couldn't understand our clues and, as suspicion against him grew, he realised he'd misread the dice, thinking the 7 was a 1. But we checked our cards telling us which dice rolls indicated which word only to find that, either with a 1 or a 7, Joe should've got the same word. Joe then said he'd looked at the wrong word on the card. Yes, that's what had happened.

But just as Joe was doing a riveting performance of a man hell-bent on incriminating himself, Sam quietly opined that Ian's clue was pretty vague.

Ian had said "leaf" which I had thought perfectly reasonable and not given it a second thought. But Sam had noticed that "leaf" could apply to a number of words on the card. This sparked a revision of our suspicion and it was enough to sway people. I think I still voted for Joe, but Ian was the majority choice and he was indeed the chameleon. He couldn't even identify the word - he'd guessed Gold. So, a win for most of us to end the evening, thanks to Sam's keen eye.

We set off into the chill of the night. Next stop, the games weekend on Friday!

Flip flip hurray

After last week's sparse turn out, we were somewhat back to normal with seven gamers: the host Sam and Joe, Martin, Matt, Katy, Ian and I.

From the start, we split into two groups. Katy had reserved a game of Lords of Vegas, and was all excited about it until it was pointed out that, given the recent tragedy, it might not be the most appropriate game to play. She went off the idea, but by then she had three opponents and so the game began.

Matt, Sam and I (and Stanley, too, in the latter stages of the game) played Flipships, the game that would be the board game version of Space Invaders except there's already a board game version of Space Invaders. I've never played it, but I can't imagine it's better than this.

It looked bad for us early on, with hoards of angry aliens bearing down on us. But it turns out that Matt is the last starfighter, picking off aliens with his short-range cannon, and taking two out with one flick.

He kept us alive long enough that we got to The Last Assault: the part of the game where all pretense of strategy goes out the window and we just target the Mother Ship. The Earth was on one health point, but we whittled the mother ship down and I, the last player to flip their ships, dealt the fatal blow with my penultimate ship! How we all cheered!

Earth Alliance 1
Alien Federation 0

Lords of Vegas was barely underway. They'd been tolerant of our ships overshooting the Mother Ship and landing on Sunset Strip, while they wheeled and dealed in Vegas.

Ian's early attempt at a sprawl, making a four-tile casino, blew up in his face when Katy drew the card that gave her the lot that Ian had sprawled into. Suddenly, that four-tile casino was hers. She made no attempt at hiding her glee, while Ian slipped into glum Eeyore-mode. He fell behind and never recovered.

Meanwhile, the other half of the table was not finished with War In Space. We chose Quantum for our big-ish game to last until the probable end of Lords Of Vegas.

Buy-in setting up Quantum, Sam brushed against a wine glass, sending it to the floor with a smash. I noticed that the first thing he wiped down was the board game box. Sam knows his priorities.

After more wiping and hoovering, we were ready to start. And what a game it was. We chose the Origin Of Thought map, an thanks to some good rolls, the early part of the game was mostly the three of us putting cubes down in the far-flung outer reaches. But then we were forced into the middle where it all kicked off.

I was one cube behind quite early on, and spend a lot of time fighting people to try and stop them. Sam used his Tactical card to good effect, often squeezing in a final attack at the end of his go. Matt, though, was relentless which came in very handy with a seemingly invincible 4-dice the Sam kept attacking but never destroyed.

The end, when it came, was swift and unexpected. I thought Sam was no threat, so focused my attacks on a clearly dangerous Matt. Then Sam launched a ship, and used Tactical to move it into a battle over an orbital point. A battle against Relentless Matt. But Sam won, and he moved into the space with allowed him to put down his final cube. If Casino Royale had been about Quantum, not Poker, that's how it would've ended.

Sam 0 cubes left
Matt 1
Andrew 2

By now, people were remarking on the strange Eighties turn that Sam's YouTube playlist had taken. He tried to put it right, but even then it veered back to Peter Gabriel via a period of Kate Bush.

By now Lords Of Vegas had finished. The final stages were notable by how close it was. Whenever I looked over, the first place space was always occupied by at least two counters.

Maybe the crucial moment was when Martin tried to reorganize a large casino, but failed and gave it to Joe, causing him to declare that the purple casino was cursed.

But was it so important? The Strip paid out for the last time, and Joe squeaked a win.

Joe 32 plus $49m
Katy 32 plus $23m
Martin 29
Ian 23

An odd game of LoV, with no brown casinos built at all. Was that why it was so close?

Then all seven of us played Bemused, the game that so successfully lived up to its name last week. Technically, it's only a six player game so Sam and I joined forces as a team.

The game itself seems like a simple card game with a bit of hidden secrecy regarding our gemina (a card telling us which other we are especially interested in) and how we feel about them (love, hate, disdain etc).

I'm not sure if the whole bit about getting into character is entirely necessary for the game, but we did enjoy a bit of role playing. Joe (painter) complained about Martin (dancer) visiting his studio and making snide remarks. Sam and I (thespians) we're offended by any critique of our stage version of Jaws, and people flung doubts at Ian (poet) telling him to get back to his garret.

Katy (singer) was not enough in character to give us a tune, but she did prove pivotal to the game. She drove Martin insane which curiously lead to the death of Joe. And then, right at the end of the game, she killed Matt who revealed his gemina was Katy, which gave her a Dread card, killing her off too. The only people left standing (albeit insane) was the Thespian. However, it seems that survival is a losing tactic in this game.

Katy 7 (died last)
Joe 7
Matt 5
Ian 5
Martin 5
Sam & Andrew 3

Then we reformed into two new groups. Martin, Ian and Sam banded together to defeat the Alien Federation again (they don't give up, I'll give them that) while Joe, Katy, Matt and I played Animals On Board.

My tactic was to get as many 5 value cards as I could, but it’s an optimistic one. I was soundly beaten by Joe’s and Matt’s set collection.

Matt 46
Joe 39
Andrew 36
Katy 35

As for Flipships, the aliens didn’t last long in the face of Ian’s, Martin’s and Sam’s withering death ray. “Good flicking, guys!” said someone as Ian put the fourth decisive hole in the mothership’s hull.

Earth Alliance 2
Alien Federation 0

They filled in until we finished Animals On Board with Eggs of Ostrich.

Sam 10
Martin 9
Ian 3

Then the night ended with Fuji Flush. It’s all luck of course. Wish I could remember more about it, but by now I was really quite drunk.

Ian 0 cards left
Katy 0
Matt 1
Sam 1
Martin 2
Andrew 2
Joe 2

After that, we bid our fond goodbyes. Or did we? Joe, who was driving, admitted that he couldn’t be arsed to give the Eastonites a lift across the M32, preferring to help out Katy and I since we live closer to his home (and also closer to Sam’s home, which may be where the argument began). Here’s hoping this doesn’t lead to a massive schism in the ranks. Let’s all love each other again next Tuesday!

And then there were four

It was a very old-school GNN last night in terms of numbers - no Andrew, no Katy, and several other potential attendees absent meant that by the time 7.30 rolled around, there were a paltry four of us perched in Joe's kitchen - or five if you count Sybil, who populated the evening with her Victorian harrumphs at well-chosen intervals. The host was joined by Martin, Ian, and myself (Sam) - we began with Bemused.

me

I'm hard-pressed to describe this game even now, having played it. The conceit is that each player takes some kind of creative role (painter/poet/singer/musician) and has a muse, which is one of the roles - perhaps even your own, if you're a complete narcissist. They also have a secret which describes how their muse inspires them. It might be love, but then again they might hate their friggin' guts. On your turn you cast Doubt or Dread on another player's role, or play your special ability which allows you to move or discard the aforementioned afflictions. If anyone hits a five-card affliction (doubt or dread) they go insane, and if three of them are dread cards, they also die.

me later

You can still win if you die, but you need to try and kill the other players in order to do so. Which is hard to pull off when you're dead.

I had no idea what I was doing, but the game was mainly notable for the table talk, with people exercising their doubt by saying Martin's last song was a little bit Dire Straits or Joe's recent poem was doggerel. Ian's rule clarification enquiry was to check whether being dead counted as insane, and Joe cut a deal with Martin where he promised if Martin made him sane again, he wouldn't kill him.

I was first to go mad, first to die, and in last place. It was kinda enjoyable but as Ian pointed out, mostly in terms of its bemusement. Because my muse was myself, I had no real strategy other than to pretend to target someone else - Joe, in this instance, as I had matching doubt cards - and I'm not sure I'm as enamoured of the game as everyone else. It felt like it was made by someone who detested creativity.

Ian 8
Joe 5
Martin 4
Sam 3

With that appetiser done, we blasted into the first - the only - meaty (ish) game of the night in Clank! the luck-pushing, deck-building adventurer of trying not to make too much noise. I went a risk-heavy route by picking up noisy cards, but planned to exit first having grabbed the (third best) 20 point artefact. With the fresh air in my nostrils though, I was tempted away to try and grab a bit of treasure, and it was to prove an exacting downfall.

Whilst I struggled to make it back to safety, Martin triggered the game end and Ian and Joe sashayed their way to the surface despite multiple dragon attacks. Meanwhile I dealt myself non-moving cards and succumbed pathetically, tragically, and greedily. Joe waltzed his way home with the most prized artefact of all for a convincing debut win:

Joe 94
Ian 65
Martin 55
Sam 42

If I'd only listened to the voice, maybe things coulda been different...

Spires was next, the new card game of tower-building where if you build more than three sections (cards) in a tower, they cease to be worth 5pts per card and become -1pt per card instead. This was a first play with four and the main thing to note was how many contests there were over the cards. Martin wrapped things up with a flourish at the end - the (possible) sting in the tail with Spires is your have to add any cards in your hand at game-end to your towers, which often makes them too tall. But Martin had saved the point-scoring symbols to ensure his over-building was substantially offset by rewards for swords and crowns. Joe took the points for scrolls:

Martin 56
Joe 54
Sam 47
Ian 46

We finished off with not one, but two - two! - games of Polterfass. I'm terrible at this game but I do really enjoy it; and fortunately (for me) this evening Joe was even terribler than I was. Falling behind, Joe repeatedly bid big in an attempt to catch up and went bust, handing over points to the opposition, often to Martin's appalled chagrin. Meanwhile we all bid fractionally too high for Ian's 25 beer haul (we bid 26!) ensuring him a solid win in game one:

Ian 79
Martin 63
Sam 49
Joe 26

Then in the second game - after we talked Martin out of playing Super Potato - I got off to a flier, up in the forties with Joe and Martin still hovering around or under zero. But Ian hauled me back to set up a dramatic finish. I needed one point, Ian needed eleven. But if he got more than eleven, he could potentially beat me. As innkeeper, I rolled again... and went bust! Disaster! As it turned out though, Ian had bid low, thinking I would play nasty. Now he was the innkeeper, and I bid low... it was enough for the win... just.

Sam 77
Ian 73
Martin 34
Joe 14

It wasn't yet eleven pm, but with Joe and Ian feeling a little under the weather, the most sparsely populated GNN in a while came to a civilised close.