Methnos

Tuesday night and Joe, Martin and I rolled up at Anja and Steve's house to be admitted by Lennon, who was showing some skills on the Diabolo, reminding me slightly of Andrew's juggling years, when we shared a flat and he used to go to festivals with his clubs. I can't remember what I did with my time. I probably played a lot of Playstation. 

With Lennon and Louie and Louie's pal Jago also present, we quickly split into two groups. Joe entertained the kids with Change Up, his own luck-pushing design, and Anja and I took on Martin and Steve at Agent Avenue. I took some quite bad photos. 

As we approached a finale, Steve and Martin were catching us in Agent Avenue but Anja pulled off a fine bluff to hand them a Daredevil defeat. The gang next to us were still playing Change Up so we went again, and this time my gamble backfired and we lost!

Our second game had taken long enough that Change Up had ended with Joe falling victim of Explainer/Designer's Curse:

Louie 8
Lennon 7
Jago 5
Joe 4

And Joe and Lennon had blasted their way through no less than four games! Joe won three sets of Dobble 2-1, but Lennon had revenge in the speed-reaction-game Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. 

There was now an interlude of sorts, as Steve was tasked with Lennon's bedtime as Anja cleared up the post-dinner detritus in the kitchen, from where we occasionally heard her yawning melodically. We filled the time with a breezy-ish Ticket to Ride: Berlin.

This game remains a mystery to me. Even when I feel like I'm doing well and complete my routes plus extra routes, I always come last. Maybe I should book a tutorial with Adam. But it's fun regardless, a Ticket to Ride experience but condensed into 20 minutes, with the additional quirk of five of your trains being trams. I came last as expected, but it was close. Both Martin and I anticipated a win for Joe, but though he'd completed a trans-Berlin expressway, he had also failed on a smaller route:

Martin 49
Joe 46
Sam 44

Anja and Steve rejoined us and we debated what to play. My hopeful suggestion of Luzon Rails got no traction, especially after Anja called it Luton Rails. Martin's Bomb Busters was also proffered, before we settled on Ethnos, Paolo Mori's Slovakia-shaped area-control band-builder. Martin went through the rules and we were off.

This was our evening's main event, and in the early running things were tight. The first era ended with Steve in the lead courtesy of a couple of large bands. But his presence in Slovakia was light, something he would come to regret as the second era saw him fall behind. It was a curious thing: Steve led while bamboozled by the rules, then sank to fifth once he understood them. This is a malaise I fully recognise.

I made hay with the Giants, earning me a chunky ten points or so over the first two eras, before Anja claimed them in the third. I also harpooned a whopping nine points for Joe when I pulled the last dragon to end the first era. Sorry Joe. He had a strong second era but going into the final one I had a sturdy enough lead to hang on for victory:

Sam 88
Joe 79
Martin 73
Anja 69
Steve 60

It had been an epic, but we still had time for one more game, and plumped for Knizia's Take-That-athon, Art Robbery. 

We're basically either taking cards from the haul in the centre of the table, or stealing them from each other. Or you can steal the dog and have it protect your cards. I twice ended round when I had a reasonable haul, and it seemed like perhaps Martin was the main threat. But in the final round Anja and Joe stole his shit and I ended the game. Initially I thought I might have too few alibis (fewest alibis and you're eliminated) but Anja took that unwanted distinction:

Sam 24
Joe 20
Martin 15
Steve 10
Anja: Takes the fall! 

And with the time hitting 11 o'clock, I was tired enough to drag Martin and Joe away (sorry all) and bring an end to another fine night of ludological delights. 

Form is Temporary

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

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

Save yourselves!

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

Adam 35
Sam 14
Katy 8

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

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

Andy 39
Ian 33
Martin 30
Hannah 29

Tidy gamers

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

Sam 13
Adam 6
Katy 2

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

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

Katy 25
Adam 23
Sam 16

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

Hannah 65
Ian 64
Andy 40
Martin 39

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

Ian 2 cubes
Martin/Hannah 1 cube
Andy 0 cubes

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

Martin 20
Andy 14
Hannah 13
Ian 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whirled Wildlife Fun

It rains on every other Thursday in Bristol. Of course, it rains on lots of other days, too, but in particular: every other Thursday. So it was that this evening, I walked through the rain to Roll For The Soul. I was not expecting a huge turnout, but our new leader Martin (since Adam now has family business to attend to) and his friend Andy would be there.

And so it was. When I arrived they were playing Hana-bi, and it was a world apart from the first time I played it. When I play, it’s all about the inflexion of the voice, but these two actually seemed to be using logic. Amazing. They didn’t succeed, though.

Then we played Divinare, and I got soundly thrashed, ending with 9 points to Andy’s 10something and Martin’s 20something. The game was notable for each round having almost all the pink cards in play.

By now, Andy had his eye on the clock, since he had to get a bus home. To fill the time, we played Love Letter, first to four cubes. Martin won the first two rounds and it looked like it would be a walkover. But then he didn’t win again for ages and I was first to get three red cubes. But then I stopped scoring, and Andy stole the win, minutes before he had to leave. Well played and well timed.

Then, as Andy got ready to leave, some women arrived at the next table and started putting board games on the table. At first we wondered if they were here for games night, or perhaps they’d just come from the charity shop and were looking at what they’d bought. Unfortunately, we had no board games on display for the sake of space, so we just looked like a bunch of guys, one of whom was about to leave. So our new leader Martin spoke to them, and got us invited onto their table. It was a bit of a relief to get off the sticky table, too.

There were four of them. Venus and Mira are the only names I heard (or half-heard). I’d met one before, at football or somewhere and the name of the fourth one escapes me. They had a game I’d never heard of but, unsurprisingly, Martin had played it before. He even helped Venus explain the rules.

It was called Wildlife Adventure, and it involved building communal routes across the world (three routes that anyone could use) to link up the endangered species that you are dealt at the start of the game. It was interesting. A bit like Trans America, in a way, but what was most interesting was watching other people play a game that they knew really well. They even admitted to having little songs for certain cards, like “Monkey-eating Eagle”.

As for the game, I was helped by other people building tracks to my animals for me, so I was a comfortable winner. However, I was a little self-conscious about taking photos of the board during the game, so I nabbed one off Board Game Geek.

Once that had finished, whatever was happening upstairs at the café had ended and more people came down, looking for a game. One of them was semi-regular Katy, who insisted that we play Fauna since she’d had a dream where she was at a games evening and other people (including Martin) were at another table playing it and having fun while she was stuck with a really boring game.

But first, the six or seven of us who were currently around the table, decided to play Dobble. It was quick-paced, fun and very loud.

And so, she, me, Martin and Owen decided to play Fauna. We had to decamp to a new table, since our numbers had increased dramatically, and no table is big enough to contain the twin world maps and collected rare species of Wildlife Adventure AND Fauna.

At first, I was a clear leader and I started thinking, maybe nature likes me! But then I scored badly in the last two rounds, and Owen won by a large margin, despite having to deal with the metric system. Being an American, he’s more used to furlongs and hundredweights or something. In the last round, we had to guess where a particular type of Lemur came from. We guessed Asia-Pacific, we guessed South America, but with the last cube of the game, Owen went for Madagascar, and he was spot on.

By now it was ten o’clock. We dispersed into the night, dreaming of endangered species.

French Leave

The French odyssey is over, and it was an awesome holiday.

Tornadoes, blackouts, underground troglodyte farms - and lots and lots of wine, food and swimming. With the odd game thrown in. Just to paint the complete picture, Charlotte and I and our three girls aged 14, 11 and 9 were on holiday with our friends Henry and Rachel, and their three girls who are of similar ages.

Henry and I played a total of 73 games over the course of the two weeks - spread across 20 different titles. The majority of these were two-player, but almost every evening brought with it willing participants of various ages and sizes.

The big hit across both families was The Resistance. The kids would have happily played it every night, though a couple of days into the holiday it's charms had worn thin amongst the grown-ups - in fact Charlotte and Rachel both professed a hatred of bluffing and declined to play at all. They did play a 6 player Panic on Wall Street with us and the two eldest girls, and whilst the girls loved it and were keen to play again, both the mums disliked the mathsy aspect.

So here's a rundown of the games we played, in no particular order. The number in brackets is the number of times we played . . .

Targi (2)

It's a solid, enjoyable game - it just runs a little too long given the amount of luck involved.

Taluva (6)

All our games were two-player, which I think is the best number for pure strategy. Taluva is a real winner - looks gorgeous, almost no set-up time, and plays in about 15 minutes.

Caylus (2)

This top and tailed the holiday for Henry and me. We played on the first day in Najac, having stopped in Caylus itself on our way down, a very pretty medieval village. I thought I might be able to get a Caylus (the place) t-shirt there, but to no avail - no-one had built the t-shirt shop.

Henry won both games - the first was pretty close, the second I was completely trounced - but in my defence I was tired and forgot that building buildings was an important part of winning.

Hammer of the Scots (2)

Henry won both of these, the first as the Scots, the second as the English. And both times by killing my king in battle! It's a brilliant game, one that could easily fit into a tuesday night if a two-player game was required.

Warriors of God (2)

This was my game of the holiday, and not just because I won both games. It's been sitting on the shelf for over a year, unplayed, since I got it in a trade. A huge, epic board, and an epic narrative - the Hundred Years War between the English and French. There are two scenarios, and we played both; the differences rules-wise are negligible, but they deal with different periods of history, so you get different leaders (Robin Hood comes in to play in the Lion in Winter scenario).

It's brilliantly thematic, and chaotic - each turn your leaders get a little older, and eventually die - sometimes leaving huge swathes of troops to be snapped up by an opposing leader. I think the main reason it's not played more is that it is very long for a game with so much chaos and chance; but I would say it's the most fun war game I've played.

Race for the Galaxy (21)

The numbers say it all - this turned out to be the go-to short game of the holiday, when we had a spare half-hour. We even played at the poolside, and on the ferry. All this despite an inauspicious start. Henry hadn't played before, and wasn't enamoured after a first go. The off-putting iconography and slightly obtuse strategy certainly deserve their reputation.

But to Henry's credit, he agreed to try it a couple more times, and perhaps warmed to it a little more. We then got hooked on St Malo, which is much more instantly graspable, and so for a few days that was our short game of choice. But after 7 games, we both felt we had plumbed it's depths, and Race for the Galaxy seemed to offer a more substantial challenge. There's a real pleasure in getting a little engine running in this game, more so I think than with San Juan, it's earth-bound spiritual brother. So each game is different, and once you begin to know what cards are out there, you can really start to strategise.

I won all but five of the games of Race, though they were mostly extremely close, and Henry had begun to take the odd game off me towards the end. Amazing that it really does hold up - 21 games with just the base set and I'd happily play many more. I regret trading away the first expansion, The Gathering Storm - I don't think it needs the added complication of war, but the extra start worlds and 6-point developments would be fun to play with.

Saint Malo (7)

As mentioned above, this is a brilliantly quick little two-player; it shares a lot with Roll Through the Ages, and I think ultimately suffers that game's same lack of strategic depth. None the less a delightful little charmer, and actually one with a directly competitive edge - should you notice that your opponent hasn't built up as many defences as you, you can actively choose to keep the pirates, handing your opponent -5 points.

Modern Art (1)

We played this once, the four adults with Matilda and Flo as a fifth player. They bid recklessly on everything, handing huge wedges of cash to all the other players, but at least they did so fairly evenly. It's a game that works best when everyone has a firm grasp of the internal economy, and one I'm always happy to play.

Magical Athlete (2)

Henry and I played this with Bea and Flo, and really enjoyed it. We gave it a second outing with Martha and Dot as well, and it was very stressful - the Philosopher/Demon creating an infinite loop with their powers, and sparking some interesting philosophical debate. It's interesting that everyone's first game of this seems to be delightful, and the second deeply harrowing, making a third very unlikely.

Twilight Struggle (2)

Two great games of Twilight, with the first ending in an early war victory for the Russians, the second a mid-war victory for the US (or was it the other way round?) Either way, I won both, mwahahahaha. A great great game, deserving of it's number one spot on the Geek. It's quite a serious game, I suppose, and one I have to be in the mood for, but such mind games, and so thematic. I've said it many times before, but this one doesn't need to be feared - it's not heavy and difficult to learn.

Vegas (4)

Vegas went down well with Rachel and Charlotte, and with the eldest girls too. Perfect for when everyone wanted to play but couldn't face a big game. Sooo much luck, and yet such fun - it really got me thinking about those two things.

Cartegena (1)

Staying in a little village,with nothing but a bar and a small local Epicerie, we didn't expect to find many opportunities for buying new games. But every wednesday evening in Najac there's a night market, and would you believe it - a stall selling games. Proper games! Quite a few titles I hadn't seen before, and a few we already had, and nestled amongst them, Cartegena. Henry bought a second-hand copy in Area 51 last time he was here, but forgot to take it with him to France, so I grabbed the copy on display. We played a three-hander, and it's a very neat little game (from what Sam says it may be one some of you have played, as Jon B may have a copy).

7 Wonders (5)

This was the four-player grown-up hit of the holiday, although it almost didn't happen, Charlotte and rachel both glazing over mid-way through the rules explanation. But they soldiered on, and as soon as we scored up the first game it clicked. I was really interested in Charlotte's take on it - she kept wanting advice on which card to play, professing not to know which was better. I was struck by this, because that 'difficult decision' thing is a key part of what we gamers actively enjoy, demand even, from our games. But for Cha it just produced stress.

Settlers of Catan (1)

For old times sake we played Settlers, and despite it's age and lopsidedness, Cha proclaimed it still her favourite game - the one where she know's exactly what she's doing. None of us really wanted to play a second time though, especially Henry, who suffered the way one person usually does in every game. And Rachel won, though Charlotte was right behind her, and I wasn't far off myself.

A few games of Incan Gold and Love Letter got played, and Henry picked up a nice copy of 6 Nimmt in a tin from a French toy shop. At the same shop I got Dobble, which was a huge hit with the kids, and is a brilliant matching/dexterity game. Everyone has a stack of cards with a variety of symbols on them to get rid of, and play cards on to a central discard by matching a symbol with one on the top card of the discards. But the real puzzle is the maths - each of the 55 cards contains 8 of an available 50 symbols, and shares one and only one symbol with every other card. How do they do that then? It's the sort of thing that you think might make a good game, only to decide that it's physically impossible and give up. But it seems it isn't. It's just very, very complicated.

And let's spare a thought for the few games that didn't get played: Tichu, Chronicle and Hanabi; Glory to Rome hit the table and got packed away seconds later. And Henry and I played 3 rounds of Through the Ages, before collapsing into lethargy at the fiddliness of it all. Actually I know that's a barrier to entry that can be hurdled with that game, but Henry had been so gracious in learning Race for the Galaxy against his better judgement that I felt I owed him a break. Oh and he had brought, from his attic, a very old game called Sorcerer's Cave, where you lay tiles and explore a dungeon. He'd never played it, and we gave it a shot. He got killed by a dragon after three moves, and we decided it hadn't stood the test of time.

JB