Monster Hunch

Tuesday night, and with Andrew a late withdrawal due to a cold, it was myself (Sam) Joe, Andy, Ian and Martin sat around the table. Joining us for the first part of the evening was Stan, and whilst (big) Joe coaxed another game of Carta Impera Victoria out of Martin and Andrew, our trio began the night with Welcome To... which I'm beginning to feel could be continued with ...the mildly underwhelming roll-and-write. But as we didn't play the entirely proper rules, I could be doing it a disservice...

The game sees you as rival developers building estates and scoring points for pools and trees and pleasing the city planners. Like Avenue, it's a roll-and-write with no rolling. Unlike Avenue, it's a mite fiddly and we had to keep referencing the rules. It feels a teeny bit bland - for me the fun of a roll-and-write is all about that sense of frustration and hoping your numbers come up (literally, in this case). It doesn't need this amount of options. I don't think my opinion was influenced by the score, but feel free to draw your own conclusions...

Ian 87
Stan 60
Sam 52

On the other half of the table, CIV was in it's final stages, and a second play didn't seem to be really changing Joe or Martin's mind. Martin said it was clever, but not much fun. Joe was quietly reflecting on the opinions of Space Biff, whose review had convinced him to buy the game. I'm not sure what Andy thought.

Martin 3 (wins on tie-breaker)
Joe 3
Andy 1

With those palette-cleansers out of the way, and Stan off to bed (in theory, he snuck down later) we combined into a five to play Cryptid.

Like CIV and Welcome To... this also had its GNN debut over the last week, but possibly to a more appreciative crowd. The board is set up; the cryptid occupies a single hex on it; no-one knows where. But everyone has some information, such as the cryptid being on one of two types of landscape, or in proximity to a bear. And a picture of its location is gradually revealed over time. That's the idea, anyway. It was a bamboozling affair, with all of us scratching our heads. I confess I found it hard to remember my own clue, let along figure out anyone else's. And it came to a sudden end as Joe searched for the cryptid and found it in the first place he looked!

Joe - wins
Everyone else - disappointed the cryptid isn't better at hiding

I was amazed that anybody had any theories at this point, seeing as when I look at the board all I can ascertain is some kind of DNA structure that I can't possibly understand. We all saw the comparison with Zendo, but weren't sure if it was a favourable one.

Now began The Great Ethnos Debate, as Martin disappeared into the front room and returned with the game Katy hates Most Of All. Martin said it needed some love, and I was amenable. But the other side of the table seemed unstirred. Ian said he'd need a rule refresher. Joe said he'd be ok with it, but without much zeal. And Andy said he could play it, in the same way one says I could unblock the sink. It looked like Ethnos was to be packed away again, but in the face of incredible odds, Martin persisted. He kept persisting when it seemed the whole table was swaying towards Beowulf instead. Twice the lid of Ethnos was heading onto the box, but eventually we set it up and played. Kudos to Martin.

In Ethnos we are in Slovakia a far distant fantasy island, struggling for control over six differently-coloured regions by building bands of warriors - in our case, Wingfolk, Merfolk, Giants, Trolls, Orcs and Centaurs. The basic scoring is simple - area majority on the map, and the size of the bands you build, which can be all of a colour, or all of a race. The catch is when you build a band, you must discard all your other cards, which are now available for everyone else to pick up. Do you play patiently, and hopefully? Or do as Joe does and 'whack off a Merman'?

Some extra wrinkles in scoring come off the back of your band's leader - the much-sought-after Centaurs allow you add a second band, Trolls break ties in the area-scoring and so on. It plays really fast, as if you're not playing a band you're simply picking up a card. All of us were surprised by our turns arriving seconds after we'd just had one.

After the first age, Martin was out in front but I was hot on his tail. After the second, we were level and the others seemed far behind. But the third and final age saw Martin streak ahead as I picked up what I could only describe as the Bash Street Kids of Ethnos - very little matching colours or races! Meanwhile Ian went from last to third (and briefly second!) with a strong finish.

Martin 88
Sam 75
Ian 73
Andy 58
Joe 55

Considering the table-wide pre-play reticence, Ethnos seemed to go down pretty well. Joe did say he enjoyed it, but didn't like area majority much. Martin announced that he loved area majority. I said the only thing I didn't like about the game were the plastic markers. Ian and Martin said they loved the plastic markers. Martin tried to get the plastic markers back in the box, and changed his mind.

With the whisky now flowing (a decision my feet are reminding me of regretfully today) we finished the night with Zero Down, Knizier's Rummy-style puzzler where points are bad.

Everyone receives nine cards and begin a series of swaps with a card from the tableau on the table, until people get a decently low score and start knocking, and a second knock triggers the end of the round. Ian began badly with a 23 point haul, whereas Joe set the pace with a piddling 5 points. In the second round Andy thought he'd zeroed (completed a point-free hand, which instantly ends the round) but had miscalculated. Then in subsequent rounds Ian and I zeroed. With a round to to go, Martin led with Ian in second and me third. A dramatic swing saw them fall second and joint-fourth!

Sam 39
Martin 40
Andy 46
Ian and Joe 48

And another GNN came to a respectable 11pm close. Until next time...

Sumter Enchanted Evening

On Tuesday nights we at GNN like to rock up a storm with some unhealthy drinks and cheap crisps. This week there were five of us: Joe (hosting, with German beer), Sam (wine), Martin (craft beer), Chris (passion fruit juice) and me (Korean soft drinks).

We began as a foursome, with Chris still on his way, playing a new game, Carta Impera Victoria. It's a tableau building game, where you play cards to the table in front of you, trying to get seven of a type or, failing that, the majority in several types. Each suit has its own power that you can use if you have enough of those cards in your tableau. There are also powers for discarding a card, which are more powerful but, then again, leave you with one less card.

It was a bit ho hum. Maybe on the first play the more subtle aspects aren't readily apparent, because it mostly drifted past. As I write, I'm having a hard time coming up with something.

Chris arrived mid game and we eventually finished, having doubled the suggested playing time on the box, when Joe neatly used some special powers to put down two culture cards in one go, such that he had seven and had won the game.

Joe wins!
Martin, Sam and Andrew don't.

So, what next with five? As is usual, I suggest Santiago, but it never gets much support. Ponzi Scheme was poo-poohed with lightning speed by Chris and I and I must admit I felt a little brotherly kinship at meeting another gamer who disliked it as much as I do.

Instead, Martin was keen to try Sam's copy of Fort Sumter, a two player game. It's from GMT, the company that brought us Time Of Crisis, and it looked like a war game, except there wasn't much of a map and a lot of talk about "breaching".

It ended with Sam calling the result "a whitewash."

Martin 10
Sam 5

The remaining three of us considered our, options. Welcome To Centreville was cautiously put forward, as was Lords Of Vegas (surely this game is on a year long sabbatical while Katy is away) but in the end we chose Azul.

It's such a lovely game to look at, it's hard to believe there's a dark underbelly of dickishness hiding below the surface. We were all constantly keeping an eye on our neighbour's player mats. I got hit in the final round. Joe was the only one who could trigger the end game that round and he did. I scrambled to complete my dark blues but, at the end, Joe decided not to take some tiles that would fill a row but actually score him no points while he could take other pointless tiles and force me to take those tiles, giving me minus twelve points. Very harsh but, in all honesty, his only sensible move. It gave Chris the win. Joe afterwards wondered why he'd triggered the end game when he was in no position to win.

Chris 76
Andrew 72
Joe 55

Then we were all together so we played Wordsy. This is a tense game of word creation was given an air of officialdom by the presence of a Scrabble dictionary on Chris's phone.

Sam (“exculpulated”) and Joe (“xenocidal”) fell foul of this dictionary early on as his word was successfully challenged, but since every player's two lowest scores are ignored, it wasn't the set back he'd initially thought. Part of me thinks that Joe's "xenocidal" maybe should be a word.

The presence of L and Y in the selection of letters gave rise to a lot of words ending in "ally". Meanwhile, the high scoring Q and W left everyone trying to come up with a word that included those to letters.

At the end, there was a lot of predictions of fifth place, including me. However when Joe was the first to announce his score I happily declared that I wasn't.

Martin 125
Chris 118
Sam 110
Andrew 110
Joe 95

Next up, we chose Decrypto. Sam and Martin teamed up again, still looking for their first win as a couple, while Joe, Chris and I formed the other team.

Decrypto is a difficult game to explain to a newcomer, and Chris did well to get into the swing as soon as he did. I do wonder, though, if Joe's lengthy ruminations on the use of a plural in Sam & Martin's first clue was actually the key to the word in question, was maybe a clever ploy to make them over-cautious. But, on reflection, it probably wasn't.

We won by the skin of our teeth, getting two interceptions to their one. It was close because I went a bit obtuse (although I thought it was obvious) in my final round. My team couldn't get it but, more importantly, neither could our opponents so we stumbled over the line.

Chris, Joe, Andrew: know their semaphore
Martin, Sam: bad at charades

Finally, there was enough room in the evening for one last game. It was Mamma Mia, and what a peculiar band of pizza chefs we were, contrasting moments of perfectly guessing the ingredients required with long stretches of getting in each others’ way. I don’t think anyone completed a 15+ pizza.

Sam 5
Joe 4
Andrew 4
Martin 4
Chris 3

And that was that. Another fun filled evening. Thanks to all, especially host Joe and hope to see you all soon.