Birthdaycon

By curious chance, four of us GNNers have birthday’s close enough to each other that we can organise a games weekend on the flimsy pretext that we have successfully circumnavigated the sun again. Me, Sam, Chris (all February birthdays) and Paul (March) all gathered at Chris’ house on Friday evening for a couple of days’ worth of board games.

Sam and I arrived at about quarter to eight, too late to join in with the earliest games: two rounds of Heck Meck between Paul, Chris and Chris’ wife and recent convert to (some) Eurogaming, Jacquie.

Paul 12
Chris 6
Jacquie 0

Jacquie 9 (highest tile)
Paul 9
Chris 0

Once us two latecomers had got settled in (and Sam had played against Chris’ kids at Rhino Hero), our first game was Las Vegas. A nice light, jovial game of dice-rolling to get us started. Chris had a poor last round to drop back into third while, as I recall, Sam picked up some choice wins due to a number of draws.

Sam 520
Andrew 390
Chris 340
Paul 260

After this Sam suggested Black Orchestra, the co-op game of killing Hitler. Chris is not a fan of the co-op style of gaming, but I thought this game might be one even he’d enjoy. It has a sort of Escape From Colditz vibe and an accidental dark humour to it, as the game instructs Hitler and his deputies to amble around Germany, stealing cards and items from you.

But best of all, we finally succeeded! We carried out a coup d’etat in the Gestapo HQ, with all of us present along with Hitler and a whole bunch of dice. Just as Chris was about to roll to see if we were able to finish him off, Paul yelled out “Wait!” freezing Chris mid-shake. Paul then checked a few of his cards before saying actually, no, it’s fine, carry on. After that moment of high drama, Chris rolled the dice and the plan worked perfectly.

We win! Hitler is dead!

Then we got out Istanbul for our next game. We laid out the tiles according to the quick set-up, and Sam certainly lived up to that. He used the Sultan’s Palace to great effect, while the rest of us wandered around warehouses.

Sam 5
Chris 3 + cash
Andrew 3
Paul 2

After this we got out an old familiar: 7Wonders. This favourite never ceases to amaze with its new ways of winning. This time, Paul came away the clear victor thanks to his four (yes, four) guilds netting him thirty points by themselves.

My losing tableau

Paul 61
Chris 47
Sam 47
Andrew 43

This was followed by Biblios, which Sam won more or less with the hand he had at the end of the draw phase, hardly buying any cards in the auction phase.

Mmmm, Biblios....

Sam 6
Andrew 4
Paul 3 + brown
Chris 3 + blue

Interesting fact about Biblios: I haven’t scored over five points for almost two years.

It was by now the end of the evening, so we finished on Push It, giving our colours new and exciting names: Chris was callisto, I was brusque, Paul was octavio and Sam was vongeburp. Chris sealed the win thanks to me hitting the jack neatly between his two pucks.

Chris 12
Paul 6
Sam 6
Andrew 2

Saturday morning and I popped back into Bristol to turn off my heating and pick up Concordia from Sam’s house. I was back by mid-morning, and we picked up where we left off with Tinner’s Trail.

Sam’s monopoly of the Lizard was enough to see him into first place. Chris controlled the eastern part of the board while Paul and I fought over the middle.

Sam 106
Chris 85
Andrew 63
Paul 55

Then, after lunch of pizzas (bought by Sam and prepared by Jacquie) we all sat down for a five-player game of Caverna. None of us had played with more than three players that we could remember, so it was a new and exciting experience for all of us. Especially Paul who’d never played it at all.

It turns out he did pretty well, coming in second just by playing the most Agricola-like bits, and ignoring anything new. He also kept slashing and burning when I wanted to, leaving me seeking other options and ending the game with six unused spaces on my board. Even Sam’s two dwarfs did better than my three.

Sam's stash of stone

Chris 72
Paul 64
Jacquie 61
Sam 50
Andrew 44

We all agreed that with five players, it’s more of a bun fight, with fewer options available. Chris and Jacquie were even forced to go adventuring, which they hardly ever do in their two-player games.

After this, Sam went off somewhere (to call his family, I think) and the rest of us played Heck Meck. Jacquie told us that she’d asked someone to translate the German phrase on the front of the box, “Heckmeck im Bratwurmeck” and the closest they could get was “Hullaballoo in the sausage worm area”.

Most of the hullaballoo in this game involved passing round the 21 and 25 tiles. I got an high tile early on and tried my best to defend it, but to no avail.

Paul 6
Chris 5
Jacquie 4
Andrew 3

After this, the kids Ava-Rose and Ashton joined me and Chris for an exciting game of Outfoxed. I explained the rules, but got one wrong (I forgot you had to announce what you wanted before rolling the dice) but it hardly mattered. We turned over an number of suspects early on and each clue seemed to point to Ingrid as the pie-thief! Eventually, we were certain of our convictions, so we accused her and we were right!

We win!

This was followed by the adults sitting down to play Love Letter to fill in the time until lunch. Ashton asked why it was called Love Letter and I had to admit there was no real reason, despite the first three pages of the rule book trying to convince you there is.

"Are you the handmaid?" Chris asked...

Chris 3
Andrew 1
Sam 0
Paul 0

After this came supper followed by a couple of games of 6nimmt. In the first, a four-player game, we all suffered one bad round:

Chris 50
Paul 63
Andrew 68
Sam 73

During the next five-player game I suffered from a lack of attention, playing cards I thought would be safe, missing the fact that they picked up all the cards from a different row.

Paul 16
Sam 27
Chris 36
Jacquie 39
Andrew 74

Now it was half past eight and if we were going to play Concordia, we would have to do it now. Paul was given a summary of the rules and we found out we’d got another rule wrong with our version drastically increasing the number of movement actions each piece should have. Oh well, c’est la vie.

I started feeling ill halfway through and missed two whole rounds while on toilet duty. Also, Chris’ cold, a bother for him for the whole weekend, seemed to get worse. On the other hand, Paul seemed to get the hang of the game quite quickly. There were moments of AP for everyone, and by half past ten we had reached the end.

Sam 91
Chris 87
Paul 78
Andrew 77

Next up was Codenames. Another new game for Paul, but the first round (with Chris and I as spymasters) was relatively straightforward.

Chris & Paul wins!
Andrew & Sam loses!

In the second round, with roles reversed, Paul & Chris shot off into an early lead, meaning Sam had to take a few risks with his guesses. Luckily, Chris mistook Paul’s clue of “Country Club” (“Is Country Club okay as a clue?” he asked. “It has to be, now” replied Sam) to mean “millionaire” and in that moment, Sam & I snatched the win as I finally understood Sam’s cryptic “Snow White” clue from earlier in the game (“poison” and “mint”).

A bad start

Sam & Andrew wins!
Paul & Chris loses!

The last of the biggish games to be played was Medici. This old favourite needed barely a breath of rules explanation, as we set up and sorted things out. Sam spent most of the game berating himself for spending 9 on two tiles (a five and a one, not matching) in the first auction of the game. He seemed to recover quite well. Other notable events: the gold tile was the very last to be drawn in both rounds two and three, and I filled up my final boat for the princely sum of £3!

Sam 134
Andrew 109
Chris 103
Paul 97

Finally we ended on Push It. Or, in this case, Extreme Push It. Usually, extreme sports are invented to increase adrenalin and push the body to its limits. Extreme Push It came about due to a reluctance to move our chairs. Instead, we stayed where we were and placed the jack in the middle of Chris’ extended dining table, meaning we all had to negotiate two small ridges in the table top where an extra middle bit had been slotted in to lengthen the table.

Oh, how we laughed as our pucks jumped and skipped about. Would the result have been any different in a normal game? We will never know. But it ended (with bespoke colour names in brackets)

Sam (Tacitagreement) 7
Chris (Clunge) 4
Paul (Pastiche) 1
Andrew (Louvre) 1

And so, to bed. Our game-athon finally drew to a close. Sam and I set off early Sunday morning. Many thanks to Chris and Jacquie for hosting and thanks to Paul for making the trek across England to join us. All that’s left is the division and it’s nice to see three different winners for the weekend.

Congrats to Sam, Chris and Jacquie and thanks to all. It was a blast.

Dice in Spaaaaaaaaaaace

With Chris unable to make it until later in the evening, Ian and Andrew obligingly indulged me in trying out my (Sam's) latest game design last night. Its mechanics are openly purloined from games I enjoy - there's the regular combat and sense of a race from Quantum (and three actions each turn) , the planet tech of Ascending Empires, and the chance-based jostling for position in Lords of Vegas. But in Orbital, the planets keep moving.

The game takes place in a five-planet solar system and the players represent newly-arrived competing cultures, fighting over the planets. You begin with two ships in the form of dice, and during each turn you can move, settle on planets, build more ships, combat other players - either in space, or attack a planet - or cause an uprising on a planet where you have a settled ship. The last one is the heart of the game, because if a player has the highest value die on a planet, they have dominance there. Not only does that give you a boost during play, it's also key to winning: the game ends when one player gets dominance on all five planets concurrently. It's kind of Lords of Vegas in space in that regard - I nearly called it Spagas, only that sounds like a fungal infection.

 WIP board

There's a couple of other actions too, but mainly you're flying around, blowing each other up and landing on planets - there's only space for four ships on each planet.

Ian looks longingly on as Andrew and I share the blue planet

At the end of each round, all the planets move along their orbital paths, so you have to take your moment if you can, or you'll be left behind. And at the start of each new round, players pick up resources for each planet they occupy (being dominant gives you an additional resource cube) and these can either be spent during your turn (cheaper building, free moves, dice-rolling bonuses and hyperspace!) or saved for points at the end of the game.

WIP player mats

The idea was to make a feisty game where players are encouraged to go all out attack (trying to get dominance in all planets) or consolidate by stockpiling resources. But of course, you can only stockpile cubes if you're picking them up in the first place...

Ian is dominant

We played nine rounds in a little over an hour. I'd fallen away dramatically and had taken on some debt in order to build more ships. Having done so, I sprang back into what I thought was contention - gaining dominance in two planets. But the very next turn Andrew got himself back on top in four of them. He then went for the fifth, knowing if he managed to roll a six, he'd grab the planet and mostly likely the game. He rolled a six!

late game: orange (me) is struggling whilst the other two battle it out

Andrew 31
Ian 23
Sam 12

Hard for me to be objective, especially when throughout I was worrying if it was too fiddly/too luck-based/too X. But I think I enjoyed it.

With that trial by fire out the way, Chris was yet to arrive, sending us a mysterious text about poop.

So we decided to give Madame Ching another go; the board game that's actually a card game. The game played very fast - only 30 minutes - and whilst no-one made it to Hong Kong or claimed the China Pearl, we did at least give the impression we knew what we were doing this time.

Andrew 25
Sam 22
Ian 21

those lovely clouds

As we were debating what to play next Chris arrived. Having cleared up the mystery of the poo text, and cleared up the source of the poo text as well, we went and stared at the games cupboard in huddled discussion. Five Tribes nearly got played, but in the end we went for one of Chris' favourites: Concordia. It's not been seen for a while at GNN and playing it I think that's because it is a rather staccato experience: often turns whizz by, but everyone had their moments of pausing, staring at their cards and the board, and then saying "shit". Games are so fun!

I went with my tried and not-totally-trusted method of spreading around the board and trying to nab Saturnus cards which reward you for settlements in different regions. I can't remember what Ian and Chris did, but I do remember looking over at Andrew's cards in final scoring and thinking "shit" - games, fun!

Andrew (black) doesn't look that threatening mid-game

Andrew 120
Sam 101
Chris 96
Ian 86

We then played Waggle Dance, the game of dice-rolling worker placement. Fool's Gold pulls this combo off really well, but Waggle Dance ...doesn't. It looks nice, it's easy to teach, there's a fair bit of screwage, but unless I imagined it, we were all largely underwhelmed. At least it's quick, though.

Waggle

Sam 4 honey (wins on tie-breaker)
Andrew 4 honey
Ian 3 honey (third on tie-breaker)
Chris 3 honey

There was just time for a blast of Push It before we wrapped up. This time it was Andrew who lagged behind the rest of us, only to make a belated push for glory. But someone - Chris I think - sent my disc ricocheting into the puck to give me a rather jammy two-disc win:

Sam 12
Ian 9
Chris 8
Andrew 5

Lots of fun. And thanks for indulging me on Orbital.

The Unassailable Doubt

Friday! Night of bursting free of the chains of the week, into the liberty of the weekend. Some folk take drugs. Others head for the hills. We buy Pringles.

Andrew arrived at my house just after 7pm and me and the boys already had Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet set up. I'll be honest, we'd had a quick run-through the day before and Martin's portentous description of Scoville ("Kickstarter crap") had echoed in my head. But inevitably we'd played it slightly incorrectly, and tonight that was remedied.

Lift off!

The game sees you trying to get as many of your aliens off the planet before it explodes. On your turn you can move one or two of them and play as many cards as you want to: cards both get you onto the various launchpads and cause it to launch. They can also do a couple of other things too but basically it's a race, and how effective your cards are depends quite often on the position of the moon, which orbits an eighth of the planet after everyone's turn, and every full revolution is a new day - and the planet is closer to exploding.

Trampolining to safety is an option

I was just thinking "It's good for the kids, but it's a bit long" when Joe terraformed the surface, building the Stargate, which causes a die to be rolled at the start of every new day. This may have a good effect (ideally all the aliens at the Stargate are saved) but equally it may have a bad one. That's Stargates I guess. Anyway it was an interesting twist that gave the game an added zing.

The final end of the final day resulted in a tornado and my distant chances of claiming a debut win were shattered:

Stanley: 7 aliens saved
Joe: 6 aliens saved
Sam: 6 aliens saved
Andrew 5 aliens saved

- Andrew in mitigation had moved more aliens to the surface of the planet than anyone else. But that's no safer than the core.

Two bricks, three cloth

The boys retired to bed and Andrew suggested Concordia. This hasn't been out of the box for a while and I was certainly rusty. Twice I played the Mercator and didn't use him in the way I'd planned; and the second time was particularly galling. I spent the rest of the game bemoaning my idiocy, only to find I'd won. Games, eh?

Sam 123
Andrew 121

It really was a surprise to both of us. I didn't realise how good my endgame bonuses would be, and Andrew could have played the last round differently and denied me a few points. We had bamboozled ourselves, leading to Andrew's description of the game as the post title.

Game Of Thrlicks

After that fairly heavy beast we fancied something light, and broke out Cube Quest. One of my grunts made a series of spectacular raids in Andrew's territory, but my supposedly superior Fighter panicked at the sight of Andrew's Grunt near my King, and flicked his own leader into oblivion:

Andrew: wins
Sam: doesn't

We moved swiftly on to Take It Easy, although our calling was fairly erratic. Andrew claimed he could name 27 women from his college days he was attracted to, but clearly this was not the case, as he started repeating himself and claimed any 1 tiles "didn't count". I tried calling authors that I had knowing or unknowingly mimicked in my fledgling writing days, but this literary bent soon lapsed into Everton Footballers From The 90's. I held that up pretty well, and also won the two-round game:

Sam 321
Andrew 231

We finished off with Biblios, or bi lips as my phone likes to auto-correct it. Surely there's a game in that title? Andrew went big on blues and browns, but not quite big enough: despite him picking up the greens I reclaimed Mr Bi Lips - for now, at least.

Sam 8
Andrew 3

I tried to tempt Andrew with a game of Pairs (a big hit with the boys and Sally) but we'd finished the Pringles and he sensibly headed off home.

Perfidious Albion

In this hastily arranged tête à tête à tête, Sam hosted Ian and I for a little games night. I arrived, for once sans rucksack, since Sam had offered yo buy me beer as a thanks for me recently looking after his son one morning.

I suggested Concordia and since no one else had any objections, it was brought to the table.

We played on the British map, and before long we were all experiencing that familiar feeling of never having enough time to do what you want. Ian said he had no real plan, and was just doing whatever seemed right at the time. Sam went for the meeple multiplier, and I sort of went after the bonus for different types of city.

No one was hugely confident of the win but surprisingly it went to the most pessimistic player, Ian.

Ian 99
Andrew 91
Sam 90

After this we got down good old 7 Wonders. This old reliable never lets us down. Every game is different. This time Sam was resource-rich while Ian and I went for a more streamlined approach. The consequence of this was that at the end of the game he scored a whopping 14 points for money. Ian and I could not keep up after that.

Sam 58
Andrew 48
Ian 46

Next up, Sam suggested Small Print or Fair Play or whatever name it'll finally have. Keen to try it with three players, Sam started explaining the rules to Ian before realising the problem he and I had found when we played it (a lack of reward for anyone playing honestly) would be even worse with three. In a surprisingly accurate re-enactment of the opening scene of our sitcom pilot, Sam started putting it away, saying “It's not ready.”

So instead we went for another old familiar: Love Letter and whiskey. Ian won the first two rounds and shot into an early lead. Mind you, the second win was mostly due to Sam being away from the table making toast. As such, he was unaware the Ian had seen my card. I swapped with Sam who then picked up a new card and looked at his hand without knowing what his original card was. When he played a different card to eliminate me, it was child's play for Ian to pick him off with a guard.

Perhaps it was harsh for him to lose while he was making us food, but as the old gaming adage goes: He who leaves Love Letter loses logic and lies last.

But Sam wasn't down for long. He and I got the score back to 2-1-1, but then Sam won two in a row to wrap up the game.

Sam 3
Ian 2
Andrew 1

Finally, as we left, Sam offered us some cereal that he received for free and had stacked high in his hallway. Ian took a few. I'm not big on cereal, but I might have taken a couple if only I had my rucksack with me. Oh well. What you gain in alcohol you lose on the breakfast table, I suppose.

Cries against humanity

Tuesday. Adam and Hannah hosted. Martin, Sam, Ian, Anja and Steve arrived. Chipsticks and salted popcorn were eaten. Games were played.

We began with Hannah putting the baby to bed and Steve and Anja on the way. The five of us chose to play Abluxxen, the tricky game of trick-taking and spoiling other people’s plans. Sam and Adam were both new to the game, but they seemed to pick it up okay. I was concentrating on building up an nice hand of a six of a kind (of fives), hoping to cash out with that.

Then Sam and Martin battled it out with six of a kind in threes and fours. I thought “If I play my fives now, I can screw them over and win with my next turn,” and it almost worked, except that Martin also had a six of a kind of sevens, forcing me to take my fives back into my hand. And then, Ian finished the game (just the one round) by his remaining cards in one go. Damn him!

Ian 15
Adam 8
Andrew 0
Sam -5
Martin -8

Then, with Hannah, Anja and Steve in attendance, we split into two groups of four. The guinea-pig-intolerant Anja went into the other room with Sam, Steve and Adam to play Concordia. And, for once, they rejected any use of modern apparatus such as tables and chairs, and instead preferred to lounge on the floor, just like the decadent Romans did in the olden days.

In the other room, we went super space-age hyper-tectonic. Or something. Impulse was brought to the table. It was new to Hannah, but Martin Ian and myself had all played it before. She got an explanation of the rules, and she admitted that not much of it sunk in. And at first, that appeared to be the case, with her becalmed on one or no points for much of the game. But then she made a late sprint up the score chart.

Ian found himself in a lot of trouble. At one point, he was down to one solitary ship, and in serious danger of going out of the game. He was able to build more ships, and he then consolidated them together in a fierce three-ship fleet. Unfortunately, it was too big to actually move, and he spent the rest of the game picking up points by trading and mining.

By now, though, Martin had made a mockery of the game by finding a way to clock up points by flying round in circles! It was enough to get him six points and leave him teetering on the point of victory with 19 points. We tried to stop him, but he only needed on more ship on the central core (or whatever it’s called) for the win.

Martin 20
Hannah 13
Ian 11
Andrew 11

Phew, we all thought, after that space epic. Concordia was still about half an hour from completion, so we embarked on a jolly game of Hana-bi to fill the time. Being a co-operative game, it wasn’t leaderboard, and considering how much we bent the rules (mostly to prevent me from throwing away a useful card) that was just as well. Finally, we ran out of cards which signalled the end of the game and our final turns couldn’t complete the firework display. Close, though.

Everyone: 22 out of 25

When we went into the other room, we found the scores of Concordia being totted up. Steve, in his own inimitable way (of professing bemusement while “accidentally” putting together a winning strategy) took first place. Sam was hit by Explainer’s Curse. Or by his reliance on the Saturnalia card bonus. One or the other.

Steve 112
Adam 89
Anja 81
Sam 74

Then Anja and Steve had to go, and Sam was on the verge of calling it a night too. We managed to coax him into a swift game of Cards Against Humanity, a simple card game which is best described as Dirty Dixit that can be played by as many people as you want.. I made the hilarious quip that it's the only game who's number of players is wider than the age-range.

The basic theme of the game is that one central card suggests a sentence (such as “My first sexual experience was with a _______”) and the players have to supply the funniest answers from the cards in their hand which have phrases on them like “rusty cheeseboard,” “paranoid mountaineer,” etc.

It was a lot of fun, and we laughed a lot at the thought of Sean Penn helping the victims of an earthquake in Haiti with hot cheese. If your card is chosen as the funniest, you win a point. It was a close thing, with Ian coming out victorious in this game of depraved imagination. Well done!

Ian 4
Andrew 3
Martin 3
Hannah 3
Sam 3
Adam 2

That was the penultimate week of the season! Hope to see you all next week for the grand finale! Adam and Ian push their way to the top of the form table! Can they stay there? Don’t touch that dial!

						Points
Adam	3	2	2	1	1	9
Ian	1	3	1	3	3	11
Martin	2	1	5	1	2	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Andrew	2	3	3	2	3	13
Joe	6	1	3	1	2	13
Matt	4	1	4	3	2	14
Hannah	2	2	3	4	5	16
Sam	2	4	4	5	2	17
Steve	1	1	5	5	5	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Katie	3	3	5	5	5	21
Anja	3	5	5	5	5	23
Jim	4	5	5	5	5	24

Games are like Amerigo-round.

GNN is like a lucky dip these days: you never know what you’re going to get. One minute Adam shows up unexpected, then Chris can make it over from Bracknell, and today Paul came all the way from London to visit Cardiff and join us in our regular Tuesday games night. And if that weren’t enough, Steve manged to make it over too. Adam was hosting and, with Hannah to tired to join in, we were seven in number: Me, Sam, Matt, Paul, Ian, Adam and Steve.

But before Steve arrived, we indulged in a little Camel Up. This betting game is simplicity itself, which is probably why it appeals so much to us. But this was the first time we’d played it with so many, and that did change the game slightly. Because there was such a long gaps between turns, it seemed like everyone was doing whatever they could except actually move the camels along. If they did this, then they next few players would be in a better position to bet with the new position of the camels. Steve arrived midway through and commented that, for a race, the camels didn’t move much.


Matt 24
Paul 15
Ian 14
Sam 13
Adam 10
Andrew 8

Then we split into two. Like last week, Adam, Matt and myself we sent to the front room while the other group played a game that needed more surface area. We chose Concordia, while Ian, Steve, Paul and Sam took on Amerigo, an epic game whose promises of random maps and a dice tower were enough to convince the newbies to set sail.

In the front room, I explained the rules of Concordia to Adam and we began. It was pretty slow going, and Adam found the cognitive load quite a burden. He said that every new card that was revealed made him want to change his strategy.

Matt’s reputation as the obscure mule was well deserved, as he quietly monopolised wine. I went for brick and cloth cities mostly. In the end, those rolls of blue silk were enough to push me into first.

Andrew 125
Matt 120
Adam 104

With Amerigo nowhere near ending, we went for a game of No Thanks. This was new to Matt, so we explained the rules and then explained them again midway through the game as he didn’t seem to have understood the rule about chaining cards together. He still did okay though.

Matt 43
Adam 67
Andrew 74

Still Amerigo had land untouched by human hand, so we squeezed in a second game. This time I eschewed my usual strategy of low cards and went for higher cards instead. I got a bit of luck with a run of five, and that was enough to give me what I think is my first ever win on No Thanks! (I’ve come joint first before, but this is my first solo victory.)

Andrew 30
Adam 31
Matt 49

And by now Amerigo was over, and multipliers had been totted up. As you might expect from someone with such a strong reputation with long thinky games, Steve came away the winner.

Steve 128
Sam 118
Paul 118
Ian 100

Amazing scenes on the leaderboard, as Joe rises to top spot, even though we haven’t seen him in about two weeks!

						Points
Joe	2	2	2	3	3	10
Matt	3	1	2	1	3	10
Sam	2	4	2	1	2	11
Martin	4	2	2	1	2	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Andrew	1	3	1	6	3	14
Adam	2	2	3	5	2	14
Ian	3	3	4	4	3	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Steve	1	5	5	5	5	21
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

Wine bottles and cola cubes

On Sunday with the house still empty - and having spent a day doing tax return stuff - I whimsically texted Chris in case he could make it to Bristol… and he could! We sent out invitations and Andrew - despite the epic games session of the day before - came up to join us, and help me out with the 5-litre bottle of wine I've been struggling through over the weekend.

Before he got there I familiarized Chris with Camel Up, so when Andrew came in we were ready to dive straight into leaderboard action with a flurry of ungulatory betting.

But despite mine and Chris' warm-up game it was Andrew who romped home with the most winnings:

Andrew 31

Sam 24

Chris 18

With that palette-cleanser out of the road, we browsed the cupboard. Chris fancied playing something new and reasonably weighty, so I proposed Concordia. It was to be an epic battle! Concordia's unusual scoring system reminded Chris of Stone Age, and after taking over Spain, generating enough cloth to put a curtain around it, and getting a whole bunch of followers on the board, he was worried that he hadn't picked up enough cards for the end-game bonuses.

I was of a similar mind, but Chris' strong showing on the board was enough to score him a big 96 points - exactly the same as me, in fact. Chris won on the tie-breaker rule of holding (or being next to receive, in this case) the Prefectus Magnus card. Andrew had never seemed to get going to me and I thought maybe he was worn out from the camels - but obviously he'd been effective enough to stay competitive:

Chris 96 (wins on tie-breaker)

Sam 96

Andrew 88

Next up we pulled out Take It Easy. This game burnt bright for a good few weeks at GNN before sloping off to the cupboard; but I still really enjoy it. We stuck with our meme of announcing the tiles with a theme. Andrew did things from the eighties, I did B-Movies, and Chris did sweets-you-had-when-you-were-young, meaning 5-7-8 was cola cubes. 

I decided not to obsess over nines and curiously, it paid off:

Sam 537

Chris 505

Andrew 340

Andrew at this point said he was going to head off and Chris and I decided to do one more game before he too, went home. We chose 7 Wonders, at which point Andrew shucked his coat off again and sat down at the table. 

Not for the first time I elected to go for sciences, only to abandon the plan very early on. Andrew did them instead, and scored big - but neither of us got close enough to the 7 Wonder king, who combined military might with a hefty collection of blue buildings:

Chris 58

Sam 54

Andrew 49

Great to get Chris on the leaderboard, even if he won too many games for our liking! 

						Points
Sam	2	1	2	2	1	7
Adam	2	1	1	2	4	10
Joe	2	2	2	3	3	10
Martin	4	2	2	1	2	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Andrew	3	3	3	1	3	13
Matt	3	3	3	1	4	14
Ian	4	4	3	3	2	16
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

Don’t Take No (ko) For An Answer

I arrived at tonight’s games night with a troubled air. In the last GNN bulletin, I scored my fourth win in a row. Thus the first game tonight was to be pivotal. I stayed quiet, hoping that no one would remember. There were five of us at first at Adam’s house. Adam (his first time back after paternity leave), Ian, Matt, Sam and myself.

7 Wonders was chosen. I thought “This is possible.”

I was given the Mausoleum at Harlicarnassus. This one gives the player the chance to build a discarded building for free when they complete a part of their wonder. A tricky one, easy to get wrong. But play it right, and it’s pretty powerful.

The game was new to Ian and Matt, and Sam explained the rules to them. Considering it was their first time, they did pretty well. They focused on armies, facing off over a steadily increasing pile of blood red cards. Adam went for sciences but found that he couldn’t build his science-friendly wonder because of a lack of wood.

I kept my wonder unbuilt until the very end of the second round, when I thought there may be some decent buildings in the discard pile. And then in round three, I was able to build three guilds and a last minute army (to stop Adam’s sudden conversion from non-violent research to blood-thirsty warlord. No doubt driven to violence by the lack of wood) to assure a comfortable victory and my very own Perfect Five!

Andrew 62
Sam 50
Matt 49
Adam 45
Ian 35

						Points
Andrew	1	1	1	1	1	5
Sam	2	1	3	1	3	10
Joe	2	2	2	3	3	10
Martin	4	2	2	1	2	11
Matt	3	1	4	1	1	10
Ian	5	3	3	2	3	16
Adam	4	5	5	5	5	23

After this hands were shaken, celebratory texts were sent out, and I could finally relax as I basked in the glory of only the second ever perfect five!

Then Hannah came down from putting their baby to bed, and we split into two groups of three. I found the Japanese stylings of Takenoko (which I guess is 竹の子, Child of Bamboo EDIT: I was too literal. It means Bamboo Sprout) irresistible and so Adam and Matt joined me in the front room, while Sam, Ian and Hannah chose Concordia.

Takenoko is a lovely game to look at, with tiny but perfectly formed Panda and Gardner pieces to move around. The rules are simple: you have two actions and a random action decided by a die each move. The aim is to score points by achieving particular formations of tiles (coloured pink, green and yellow) on the table, or particular combinations of bamboo that the panda has eaten, or particular heights of bamboo that the gardener has grown. You find out these criteria according to cards dealt to you at the start of the game, but you can pick up more cards as you go.

The first player to successfully complete eight (me) gets a bonus of two points, and the other players get one more go to try to finish what they can.

Andrew 38
Adam 35
Matt 34

And I’d won my sixth game in a row! An occasion so rare, that it doesn’t even have a name! The Splendid Six, perhaps? Although the Smug Six might have been a more accurate description of my attitude once the scores had been added up.

We’d finished but Concordia was still in full swing. When I went in to check, Ian had France all to himself, and there was still a largeish pile of cards to be bought. We went back into the front room and decided on Galaxy Truckers: a game that Matt actually owned but hadn’t played yet.

Adam explained the rules to him, but it is simply a game about a bunch of unlucky jigsaw puzzles. Once put together, they are beaten up by cards and dice. My fate was sealed in round two: I had looked at the cards beforehand, and had planned accordingly. But a mistake in my ship meant that one of lasers fell off immediately, and before long a stray meteorite had removed a second, leaving me at the mercy of the same pirates and slavers I’d seen earlier and had been so confident of beating. Instead I was desperately trying to slow my ship down, and let Adam go first. Cowardly, but necessary.

But my shoddy engineering left me in a distant second, my dreams of a seventh win in tatters. Adam added insult to injury by hitting three figures.

Adam 100
Andrew 47
Matt 35

The last round of Galaxy Truckers was played with an audience, as Concordia had ended and been packed away, so the three of them watched us rush through our final round of meteorites after meteorites. Adam remembered a rule that allows sideways facing lasers to shoot either side of their level, but he described it so badly that no one believed him. In the end, he found it in the rule book, allowing him to reinstate his previously destroyed engine.

But as for Concordia, Ian's Francophile approach did not pay dividends. Sam said that if Hannah had been fully up to speed on the tactics, she would have won. Hannah expressed surprise at how easily Sam had spread his influence across the map. He explained that he’d just moved around a lot. Ah, such depth.

Sam 155
Hannah 144
Ian 117

All of which leaves me at the top of the form table, but more importantly, it welcomes two familiar faces back to the world of games. Cross fingers that they can come again soon.

						Points
Andrew	2	1	1	1	1	6
Sam	1	2	1	3	1	8
Joe	2	2	2	3	3	10
Martin	4	2	2	1	2	11
Matt	3	3	3	1	4	14
Ian	3	5	3	3	2	16
Adam	1	2	4	5	5	17
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

Longcordia

First, there there two. Then there were three. Today, there were five! I’m talking about Concordia players, of course. Since there were five of us around Joe’s kitchen table, we decided on a big five player that we could all join in with.

We chose Concordia, Sam’s newish game that has already had two trips to the table with fewer players with decent success. How would it fare, pushed to its maximum five players? Well, the game needed a bit of patching together, since the blue player was missing his three ships. Joe got some plastic blue trains from Railways of the World, and so Ian was blessed with some Roman Sea Trains to get his game started.

Sam explained the rules and then Explainer’s Curse struck early as he proceeded to forget most of them. Joe, Matt and Ian were all new to the game, and there was a lot of lengthy deliberating right from the start. We all used our architects at first, except Joe who postponed building in favour of some extra cards. He later expressed dissatisfaction with this choice, and he more than made up for it by building everywhere. In fact, he triggered the end of the game, by building his fifteenth settlement.

During the game, there was a moment of ghastly realisation when we discovered we were an hour into the game, and all the end game criteria seemed like impossible dreams. For most of the second half of the game, Joe would encourage other players to buy up cards to finish the game sooner, whilst never actually buying any himself. Did his cunning plan work? Only the final count could say.

As we totted up our multipliers, I had a distinct sinking feeling. Having put my all into meeple multipliers, everyone else shot off without me. But then my 6x8 score put me right back in contention. Not enough to overhaul the final winner: Matt’s focus on silk was to be his saving grace, keeping his head above water. Sam, though, ended the game cursing his lack of progress in the final two rounds.

Matt 95
Andrew 84
Joe 83
Ian 79
Sam 74

After that epic, lasting almost two hours, we went for something that we thought would be light and enjoyable to end the evening. We chose 6nimmt. You’d have thought, after four years, we’d know better. Igloo Pop, maybe. Or Dixit. But 6nimmt is fun only a certain amount of the time. Otherwise it’s hell.

But we chose it. Matt started well, while Sam flopped to 25 points in round one. Then we all took turns in doing badly. It was the best of games, it was the worst of games, but in this high-scoring 6nimmt, Matt took first place by a comfortable margin.

1. Matt 44
2. Ian 63
3. Joe 74
4= Sam 80
4= Andrew 80

And that was that: the opening day of the season had opened! Matt takes an early lead.

							Points
Matt	1	1	5	5	5	5	17
Ian	2	4	5	5	5	5	21
Joe	3	3	5	5	5	5	21
Andrew	4	2	5	5	5	5	21
Sam	4	5	5	5	5	5	24

Mars Attracts!

After last week’s lull, everyone was back from what they were doing, and there were seven of us players huddled in Sam’s kitchen, eager to chose cards and action them in an order usually determined by a number on the card itself.

Gonz, Joe, Matt and Ian played Mission: Red Planet, the Citadel-esque game of colonising Mars. Martin, Sam and I went for Concordia. I was interested to see how it played with more than two-players. After last night, I had a good impression of it, but I remembered how badly A Castle For All Seasons did when scaled up to more players.

Martin had read the rules before he arrived, so we were ready to leap into the game quickly. Martin and I went for the Architect move first, which I seems to be the obvious choice at the start of the game. Sam tried another tactic, of not moving his colonists at all until much later. It didn’t seem to make much difference in the long run.

We all struggled over getting particular resources, and Martin kept us all entertained with a stream of inventive terms of abuse whenever he felt frustrated. It’s that kind of game: managing your hand successfully and trying to think a few turns in advance.

By the end, both Sam and Martin had plenty of colonies everywhere while I had very few. I started buying up colony bonus cards, just so they wouldn’t get them. The plan seemed to work.

Andrew 113
Martin 101
Sam 100

Mission Red Planet was still not finished but, according to Joe, Matt was in a commanding lead. We decided on a new game (on sale cheap at The Works) Havana. This little Cuba spin-off is another card management game, but with far fewer chances (only one, actually) to get used cards back into your hand. The cards have number son, and you play two at once so that the numbers make a two-digit figure. These numbers define player order (lower number goes first).

It’s a smart system, but I wasn’t prepared for the lack of options towards the end of the game. Sure, you get all your cards back once you have only two cards left, but so does everyone else. I was poised to win, but Sam – who’d been somewhat bemused for most of the game – played a hand that allowed him to go first and he built buildings worth 10 points in his last round, stealing the win from me, and leaving Martin in third.

Sam 22
Andrew 16
Martin 13

By now Mission Red Planet had ended, and Joe’s prediction proved accurate

Matt 68
Gonz 48
Joe 39
Ian 28

They played Port Royal while we continued our game of Havana, and it ended with Joe, drawing card after card, hoping to steal third place from Matt, but also giving Ian hope that he might be able to overtake Gonz at the very last. Then Joe went bust, and all those hypotheticals came to nothing. Besides, Gonz could’ve bought something too: he had more money.

Gonz 12 (wins on money tie-breaker)
Ian 12
Matt 6 (wins on money tie-breaker)
Joe 6

Then, Joe, Martin and Gonz left. Us remaining four stayed for a “quick” game of Love Letter. Matt raced into an early lead, winning the first two rounds, but couldn’t get that last win to see him over the line. At one point it was Ian, me, and Matt all tied on 2, while Sam had none. He won the next round, giving him hope of an unlikely win. A short-lived hope, however.

Ian 3
Matt 2
Andrew 2
Sam 1

I lead on the form table by the thinnest of margins.

						Points
Andrew	2	2	1	1	4	10
Matt	2	3	1	2	2	10
Sam	3	1	3	1	2	10
Martin	3	2	1	1	3	10
Gonz	1	2	3	1	4	11
Ian	1	2	4	3	3	13
Will	2	4	2	3	5	16
Joe	4	3	4	4	2	17
Anja	2	5	5	5	5	22
Steve	4	5	5	5	5	24

Big Mac

Mac Gerdts. The type of guy that in another universe is being played in a movie by John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, or maybe Billy Zane. The very name strikes fear into those who wander the streets of gameland avoiding anything vaguely circular, around which you can move up to three segments at a time.

But fear not, Rondelphobes, because here into the light of the table comes Concordia, Mac's latest effort that dispenses with the rondel entirely in favour of a A Castle For All Seasons type card-management thingy (other comparisons are available). In ACfaS you decide which card to play and reveal simultaneously, and at some point you play a card (Master Builder) that allows you to return your used cards to your hand. In Concordia, you play cards alternately, and at some point you play the Tribune - which allows you to return your used cards to your hand.

But apart from that it's nothing like A Castle For All Seasons, which despite mine and Andrew's soft spot for it, has proved a bit of a dud for more than two players at GNN.

There are two sides to the Concordia board - Italy (2-4 players) or Europe (3-5). With the best will in the world Andrew and I couldn't pretend to be more than two people, so tonight we played Italy.

It's great. There is a page of set-up and then literally 4 pages (4 sides!) of rules. Admittedly the text is a little dense, but that's 14 pages less than Last Train to Nuremberg.

Despite the brevity, at the start I didn't really understand what the hell I was doing. Andrew professed to be in the same boat, but he certainly wasn't staring at his cards with the same stupid expression I was. It took a few rounds but suddenly everything clicked. This is what you do.

1. Play a card on your turn and do what it says.

2. If you played a Prefect and you were in possession of the Magnus card, double your goods rewards and pass the Magnus card to your right.

That's pretty much it. The theme is fairly light - we didn't really register it - but you're kind of expanding with colonists, building houses and getting resources. Very Euro-y and maybe not one on Gonz's Christmas list, for instance. But for those who like a bit of juggling short-term rewards with long-term gains and a nippy speed-of-play it was actually quite rewarding.

I thought from about a third of the way through the game that Andrew was going to cakewalk it - but the one thing I did concentrate on paid off - the end-game scoring.

Each card in your hand - as well as being something you play in the game -  represents a God; and the Gods supply your end-game bonuses, which are varied depending on what you've done in the game and what cards you've ended up with. So extra cards bought in the game will both reward you and notify your opponents of your strategy. I'd got 5 of the 7 Saturn cards, which rewarded expansion - and I'd expanded into all of Italy's territories bar one.

It was enough - just - to overhaul Andrew's multiple bonuses:

Sam 125
Andrew 116

We were both impressed with this one. The feeling on BGG is it's fast-moving but quite long, and I can certainly see that on a first play (we finished in about 90 minutes). But although it is long the downtime is pretty minimal and the board is really lovely. One for a Tuesday night soon!