Christmascon!

Yes, it's the GNN celebration that sounds vaguely punitive.

The day began at my (Sam's house) relatively early: 10am to be precise, when Stanley's friend and Stanley's friend's dad arrived to play Scythe. This is not exactly a gateway game for 9-year-olds, but Stan was keen and everyone else was amenable. All the bits and pieces make it look pretty exciting too - mechs! eagles! planks of wood! We went on slightly longer than planned, but did finish the game. Stan looked like he had things sewn up when he went for a sod-popularity route, ignoring public opinion to bash down his stars as quickly as possible. But two fights went against him when he guessed that opponents would play low, and they didn't. Instead, competitive dad (me) beat him into second place.

As the newbies departed still looking reasonably sane, we chucked some egg sandwiches down our throats and prepared for the arrival of the GNN masses. Just like Field of Dreams, if you clear the table, they will come. First in was Big Joe, who had brought Captain Sonar! Then there was a flurry of gamers; Ben, Matt, and Hannah. Talk began of playing Captain Sonar, but the first game out of the box was Tumbling' Dice. Joe allowed Ben, Matt and Stanley a warm-up, which they all took with impressive unity:

While they then embarked on a tumbling' tussle, Hannah and I had a couple of games of Hounded. This was a birthday present to Stan and I really enjoy it: it's a two-player where one side simply has to avoid capture (the fox) and the other has to somehow surround the very manoeuvrable fox and trap it. I caught Hannah as the hunter then we swapped sides. Hannah discovered that the hunter's side requires a bit more thought, as opposed to the fox who simply gambols about, giving two fingers to the various dogs unable to catch him. The second game went on for a while, but eventually I had to gamble on flipping the final time tile (all three flipped wins the fox the game)  and I gambled wrong. Hannah had me cornered and closed in for the kill.

By the time that had ended, Tumbling' Dice had too, with Stan claiming a convincing debut win:

Stan 132
Joe 78
Ben 60
Matt 50

And the same gang had also managed to bash out a game of Mamma Mia:

Ben 5
Matt 5
Joe 3
Adam 3
Stan 3

And Adam and Arthur had also arrived. They were followed by Katy, and then Jon, as the house began to fill up! With nine of us now present, but one person required to keep Arthur company, the time had finally arrived: Captain Sonar! I almost expected Joe to pull off his normal clothes and reveal a special CS vest underneath. But he didn't. He set up and went through the rules, then we had a few moments to digest them as Chris, Jacquie, Ashton and Ava-Rose paid us a flying visit, generously dropping off a birthday present for Stan en route home. We had a flying catch-up, then it was down to the business of trying to kill each other.

Katy and Hannah took the role of opposing captains whilst Jon and Joe the engineers. Ben and Matt were first mates and Stanley and I the radiographers. Or something. Our job was to record what the opposing captains said, whilst our own dictated the direction we took. The Engineer kept track of various systems and told the Captain when she could fire a torpedo or drop a mine. And the first mate did something else, which I never totally picked up on.

I enjoyed being the guy-who-listens; it seemed less stressful to me than what the others were going through, which was a lot of people talking at the same time. As long as I listened to Hannah I could ignore pretty much everything else. We located their sub and blew them up for the win.

Then we changed teams and Stanley was now captain along with myself, Joe and Jon. Hannah stepped out so Adam could play along with Ben, Katy and Matt. This time the game was short and sharp - they located us and scored two direct hits before we even knew where they were!

Their followed a break for pizza, during which time Andrew arrived from work. The world was now our oyster with everyone present...

(screen goes wobbly signifying change of narrator)

When I arrived, the table was groaning under the weight of co-op pizzas and chip shop chips. Anja and Steve and Luther were there are the table too. During the meal, Stanley tried to drum up support for a third game of Captain Sonar, but to little success. Instead we split into two groups. Joe persuaded four to join him in a game of Adrenalin, winning people over by calling it “super fun”.

The rest of us went for Jamaica, but just before we began, Steve was called away so the rest of us played a game of Micro Robots on top of the game of Jamaica that was already set up to play. Decadence!

Stanley 5
Sam 3
Andrew 1
Jon 1

Then when we were ready to play Stanley was distracted by the lure of Seinfeld, no, Star Wars, no, PS3, so he set up camp in the front room for the rest of the evening.

Jamaica was fun, although both Jon and Steve were undone by a misunderstanding of the rules. Steve repeatedly so. For the most part, Steve sailed around the starting line, picking up gold. Unfortunately he hen tried moving, couldn’t pay for his space and ended up visiting the same “pay 5 gold” space twice.

Jon’s mistake was to take me on in battle, not knowing that I could decide how many cannons to use after he’d attacked and then he was surprised to discover that defenders could take from attackers if they won. But, as we explained, “that’s piracy for you!”

Meanwhile, everyone was else seemed to be very good at landing on treasures while I had none. And no money. My only hope was to end the game before anyone had a chance to amass a fortune, so I sped off to the finishing line and ended the game.

Andrew 13
Sam 9
Steve 6
Jon –8

Meanwhile, Adrenalin was apparently a board game version of a first person shooter. Adam found himself picked on (I can’t imagine why) and Matt impressed everyone with a move near the end of the game: he dragged Joe from apparent safety into range and then leapt into a neighbouring room, grabbed a flamethrower and used it to deal damage to everyone else on the board. Katy won by killing Adam.

Adrenalin, just before Matt causes havoc

Katy 40
Joe 38
Matt 37
Ben 24
Adam 21

Adam takes out his frustration on a 

chocolate Santa

Ben said that he was bad at real (ie, videogame, not REAL real) first-person shooters and he wasn’t surprised to learn he was bad at board-game versions too. He also said that he should be getting back since his girlfriend had only just got back from abroad. We said he should invite her along. He explained he already had. We dropped the subject.

Since we had all ended at the same time, there was a quick reshuffling of groups and the new line-ups looked like: Jon, Steve, Hannah and Katy played Broom Service and me, Sam, Anja, Joe and Matt chose Fool’s Gold.

Joe impressed us all with a high-quality dice-cup. Tall and lithe, it was a million miles away from Stone Age’s stinky receptacle. But, being so tall, it’s distribution of dice was too wide across the table and Joe put it away saying it needed a dice tray.

Joe's new dice cup

In the game, people kept getting in my way, especially Joe who ruined the mountain twice for me (and him, too) by drawing a Foul Weather card when we only had two cards to draw in the first place.

The other feature of the game was how often our player shields fell down. Whenever they did, I found it very entertaining to say “hellooo!”

Sam 30
Joe 23
Matt 21
Andrew 19
Anja 18

Once we’d finished, there was another reshuffle. Broom Service showed no sign of ending so we played a quick game of For Sale.

Doesn't look like a winning hand to me.

I was right.

Adam 59
Joe 51
Matt 49
Anja 49
Andrew 43

Finally Broom Service ended...

Jon 80
Katy 71
Hannah 65
Steve 58

... and we divided up again. Anja was keen on a big game, and so she, I and Adam got out Viticulture. Since I was now in the front room, away from the bustle of the kitchen, my notes get a bit confusing here, but I think there was a game of Junk Art at this time.

Matt 12
Sam 12
Joe 4

Then, just before we got going on Viticulture, we all got together for the GNN Quiz of the Year, hosted by Sam. There were categories like “games designers” and “player performances” (I think) which tested our knowledge of games in general and also events of 2016 at GNN towers.

With the most regular attendees me, Katy and Joe, nominated as captains, we split into three teams and it ended very close.

Katy, Steve, Adam 20
Andrew, Jon, Hannah 20
Joe, Anja, Matt 19

After this, it was 10.15 and we had to get cracking on Viticulture. In the main room, Katy took up photography duties so we have evidence of a game of Super Vampires...

Sam 9
Steve 7
Hannah 3

And Karuba...

Jon 23
Katy 20
Matt 19
Joe 19

As well as this mid-game shot of Viticulture.

Later, I went to check on progress in the kitchen and found a game of World’s Fair

Sam 76
Steve 70
Hannah 58

And a non-used half of the table, while people stood around talking!

Like... wut?

Sanity was restored in a short while with a game of Igloo Pop on one half of the table, and Escape From Aliens In Outer Space on the other half.

Igloo Pop

Sam 22
Hannah 10
Steve 10

The results of Escape From Aliens In Outer Space were, according to my notes:

Katy wins!!
Joe came second and went to get a Coke.
Matt died (by Katy)

Finally, Viticulture ended, thanks to Adam’s efficiency. I doubt it was on purpose, but he played a game using tactics that were the opposite of what we suggested to Anja. Adam said selling a field was a good idea, because you don’t need three fields. Then he used all three fields. I said it was a waste to sell grapes straight from the crush pads, and later Adam did just that. He’s so contrary, that boy.

The margin of victory was pretty immense and I only did as well as I did by using up all my point-scoring visitor cards once I saw that Adam was about to win. If the game had continued, I’d have been hard pushed to score any more points for ages. Anja came last, but said she enjoyed it. Adam really seemed to like it, though. Of course he did.

Adam 22
Andrew 13
Anja 9

And with that, the year was over. There’s no division for this evening and there won’t be the usual big end-of-year statistics run-down that I've done in the past, but there is the little matter of the division for 2016.

Well done Katy and Adam. Well done everyone. Big thanks to Sam for hosting and feeding us all. A marvelous end to a splendid year (GNN-wise, that is.) See you in 2017!

A hundred kingdoms under the stairs

Martin offered to host games night this week, with the tantalising opportunity on offer to view his new games cupboard, under the stairs, barely six feet from the games table (or "dining table", as I suppose some people might call it).

We admired the perfect proportions and clean lines of the Ikea shelving used to house such a collection. Then we decided to use some of this collection.

But first, while we waited for Chris caught in traffic, the six of us (Martin, Sam, Ben, Andy, Ian and myself) played Celestia, a game of pushing your luck and hoping that your captain has the right cards to see off any dangers as your slightly over-designed airship sails towards ever more exciting rewards.

If you suspected the captain wasn’t up to the job, you could jump ship and take whatever rewards were there.

It was a fun game and hats off to Ian who had few cards in his hand, but usually seemed to have enough to see off any hazards, much to our disbelief. Oh, how we laughed as he sailed off without us on more than one occasion.

Andrew 53
Andy 50
Ian 48
Martin 47
Sam 47
Ben 43

Then Chris arrived and we split into two groups. Sam, Andy, Ben and Ian chose Broom Service. Chris mentioned that he’d like to try Impulse. Well, Martin and I needed no prompting and this tiny space epic was brought out.

Chris was given a quick run through of the rules, and we were off! I set off in an early lead after a move where I traded a red card and shot down one of Martin’s ships. This left me high up the score track, but low on cards. Chris, despite being a newbie, kept up well against the two experienced hands and Martin, perhaps slighted by my early success at his expense, spread out expansively across the board.

I was down to one ship at one point, and I could’ve been obliterated but Martin held back. A rare act of kindness, but he finished the game in the next round with a series of moves that got him eleven points, pushing him past the target score of twenty.

Martin 22
Chris 10
Andrew 10

Broom Service still had some way to got, so we began a game of Hanabi, using Martin’s deluxe set.

It was Chris’ first go on this one, too, although he’d often seen other people playing it at the Reading meet. Perhaps not in as much style as us, though, as the Mah Jong-esque tiles felt nice and weighty.

We did well, not picking up a single storm counter, and we were only stymied at the very end by Martin have the green four and five, meaning he couldn’t put both down. Still, with me correctly guessing at the end which of my tiles was a blue five, we were able to complete four of the five tracks for a creditable score of 24 out of 25.

By now Broom Service was over:

Sam 85
Andy 84
Ben 72
Ian 65

But since we were knee-deep in Hanabi, Andy suggested Koryo. Sam recoiled like Andy had just sprayed the room with Mace, and kindly declined the offer. Ben and Ian were up for it, though, and it ended in Ben’s first win of his GNN career!

Ben 17
Andy 14
Ian 7

Meanwhile, in the gap between Hana-bi ending and Koryo ending, Sam introduced the rest of us to Matcha, the very quick two-player bidding game for tea-making utensils (either one each of the five different items, or a set of four). The design was nice, and it kept the Japanese vibe going after Hanabi.

Chris and Sam played first, with Sam quickly winning with his four tea leaves. Then Sam and I played and, in a longer game where we cancelled each other out most of the time, we finished with a draw.

And now we were all together again, keen for a final game before we headed home. Pairs was chosen. Ben never got going, crashing out early one. Usually after the second card. In one round, Andy dealt out onions like they were going out of fashion. Then, next round, he was sent out by a pair of lowly cherries. But Martin kept his cool to claim the win.

Martin 22
Chris 20
Sam 15
Ian 11
Andrew 10
Andy 7
Ben 0

So that’s it, until the weekend gaming fest that is Novocon. And then next Tuesday again, of course.

Brush hour

Recently, I’ve been annoyed that my walk home after a games night has often been ruined by being caught short and needing to duck into a nearby pub or run the last few streets to my house. As such, I decided to try sticking to spirits this evening, which is why my recollections towards the end of the night are a little sparse.

After last week’s low turn out, it was a bumper crop of players around Sam’s table. While we waited for everyone to arrive, Sam kept us entertained with Hamster Roll, which is a balancing game played within a large wooden circle.

When we were all together we were: Sam, myself, Katy, Ben, Ian, Martin, Joe, Tim, Chris and Paul, making the journey across the country for one night only. We split into three groups. Four players went into the front room for a smorgasbord of shortish games. I’ve no idea how things went, but the results were

Roll For The Galaxy

Joe 47
Martin 44
Ian 27
Katy 19

G.Nome

Martin 32
Katy 26
Ian 22
Joe 22

Potato Man

Katy 22
Ian 16
Martin 14
Joe 12

In the kitchen, one half of the table held a game of Tinners’ Trail, chosen as the next step in the education of Ben. And also Paul, who’d played it once a long time ago (September 2011, according to the blog). I talked them through the rules and also guided them through the first round, although Paul constantly refused my advice because he wanted to see what would happen if he did something else.

What happened was he had a low scoring first round. He powered through the rest of the game, clearly showing himself to be a good learner.

It was a fairly kind game at first, with not much water on the map. But then, as the game entered the fourth round, the prices of Tin and Copper dropped to their lowest level, and we struggled to find profitable mines in the final round. Paul foolishly splashed out on a new mine which, although it only cost one or two pounds, didn’t make him any money.

I was a clear winner and Chris congratulated me for winning against two players with barely any experience in the game. But, hey, you can only beat who you play against.

Andrew 115
Paul 102
Ben 73

I was so focused on tin mining in Cornwall that I couldn’t get much of an idea about Broom Service. And listening to Sam, Chris and Tim didn’t help. They said things like “I’m being a Cowardly Fruit Gatherer” or “I’m going to have to play Brave Weather Fairy.” To which another player would reply with something like “I thought you might.”

Whatever the merits of the game are, it’s not the type of game you could confidently play in a crowded pub.

Chris 87
Tim 72
Sam 67

After all this excitement, the three groups came together as one and we played the only ten-player games we had: Pairs and 6nimmt.

Pairs was first and with ten players with winning score was raised from 21 points to 33. Paul started well, getting 19 points in two rounds. At the other end of the scale, Sam and Joe scored no points at all, with Sam going out in a cruel way: killed by the only two peaches in the pack.

Ian and Chris were able to draw close to Paul in round three, but Paul ended the game in round four by picking up the full ten points.

Paul 35
Chris 30
Katy 27
Ian 22
Ben 18
Tim 15
Andrew 13
Martin 12
Sam 6
Joe 0

Then 6nimmt hit the table. And it was the usual ding-dong battle against fate that it always is. Chris was lumbered with 39 points in round one, Paul picked up 41 in round two and Tim and Sam shared the pain in round three with 25 and 24 points respectively. I snuck a win away from Katy with just one point in the final round. Yay me.

Andrew 17
Katy 21
Joe 25
Ian 25
Ben 26
Martin 46
Tim 58
Sam 60
Paul 66
Chris 67

As it was past eleven, most gamers left but there was one last hurrah: the four creaking grandads of GNN stayed up late for a nostalgic game of 7 Wonders. Well, not too nostalgic, since I don’t think we played it when we lived in London. According to the scorepad, Chris and Sam both went for military and blue buildings while I put all my money on sciences and guilds. Paul had a quiet game.

Chris 57
Sam 54
Andrew 51
Paul 21

And that was that. I assume I walked home, since I woke up in my bed and I have a vague recollection of looking at a bus stop and wondering if Ben got back okay. Another games evening over and I hope it was as much fun as my hangover suggested it was.

Then there’s the little matter of the Division...