The Comeback King

The rain hung in the air as a fine mist this Tuesday evening, the kind of rain that doesn't get you wet unless you move. I joined the gamers at Joe's place a few minutes late and found them (Joe, Sam, Ian and Martin) playing Destination X, the game of geography and deduction. Joe was the spy hiding in a country and the other three whittled away the options by asking him about this country's biggest export (nutmeg), major industry (food) etc. They got it down to Grenada or Eritrea, and then guessed right.

Ian, Martin, Sam successfully sought.
Joe finally found

Now we were a five (the Familiar Five, you might say) so we broke out Ethnos. Always on the sidelines, itching to come on, tonight it finally got its moment of glory before everyone forgot the rules.

I needed a rule refresher, but that didn't stop me from scoring low in round one. Everyone else had a go on the giants and scored big for the bands of trolls, minotaurs, dwarfs in front of them. Martin went big on trolls in round one to win any ties while Sam pulled off a mega move by chaining together a load of centurions allowing him to place four tokens in a single go.

In round two, I went big on trolls but my best move was to draw the third dragon from the draw deck, instantly ending the round just before Joe or Sam could've unleashed their game changing mega move. Ha.

In round three Sam collected a hand of ten remarkably dissimilar cards, such that his best move after all that was to play a pair. Ian's lack of fingernails meant he had difficulty picking the cards up from the table. In the final reckoning, Martin won, as was obvious from the end of round one, and I was pleased with my comeback.

Martin 92
Andrew 76
Sam 58
Joe 56
Ian 56

Next up was Druids, a trick taking game that made its debut recently and its not immediately obvious strategy made it rather intriguing, even if the artwork is less than appealing.

A druid miming being stuck in a glass box

We played a full five-round game after giving Joe a rules explanation. Sam cursed his unfamiliarity with the rules when he lost in round one having forgotten you can lead with a special card and pretty much guarantee not winning a trick.

Despite being a newcomer, Joe was given little mercy and the game ended on a hand where either Sam or Joe were about to pick up their fifth suit and therefore lose three points. "Who will be kicked in the balls?" asked Martin, rhetorically. At least I assume he was being rhetorical.

It was Joe who was kicked in the balls.

Andrew 46
Ian 39
Martin 28
Sam 13
Joe 9

Joe wasn't sure what to make of it. I think he thought it was tense but without a great deal of control. I'm not sure because I made a dash for the toilet at this point and, when I came back, Auf Teufel Komm Raus was set up on the table. It's a rare sight which is a shame for such a fun luck-pushing game where you pull coals from a cauldron, adding up the total until you reach your bid, hoping a little red imp doesn't appear to ruin everything.

Joe began poorly and did little to improve. He relied a lot on making a deal with the devil by being in last by himself and getting fifty points whenever one of us went bust. I even took a photo mid game to show how little progress he'd made compared to the rest of us.

But to mock Joe is to tempt fate and halfway through the game, Joe stopped timidly picking out the coals one at a time and instead he pulled them out without even thinking about it. And it seemed to work, since he started to make his way up the score track. Still in last, but more on that later.

Ian looked like The Man Most Likely To... after a bid of 200 paid off handsomely but he fell short of the game-ending score of 1,600. In the following round, we all did so badly that we started falling back down the score track so we decided that the next round would be the last.

At this point, Joe was still in last and, as such, had a deal with the devil. The rest of us all went bust, giving Joe 200 points, and then finally it was up to Joe to try and make his absurdly high bid. He plucked coals out so quickly that you would almost think they were actually hot. He got within a hair's breadth of success when he paused. Would this break the mojo? Would the next coal have an imp? He reached for another coal.

Success! Joe's completed bid meant that we all made ours too, but with bonuses and all, Joe got 820 points in the final round to see him take a narrow victory.

Joe 1480
Martin 1450
Ian 1370
Andrew 1220
Sam 1040

From last to first in a single round. Astonishing. It made my Ethnos comeback look tame in comparison.

Finally went chose Zero Down to finish. Three rounds and then home to bed. I admit, the winning strategy for Zero Down eludes me although I'm sure that Martin's mid-game tactic of putting down a card for all to see (it was a blue 1), saying "no" and then picking up it up again probably isn't an optimal strategy.

Joe seemed to have a plan though as he went clear in round one and then only had eight points when someone knocked for the second time in round two. In round three, Ian amazed us by how quickly he got clear, leaving the rest of us with a pile of points to our name. It made Ian's score more respectable, but couldn't dislodge Joe from his pole position.

Joe 27
Sam 38
Andrew 39
Martin 43
Ian 46

And with that, we were done. Off into the evening (maybe it was still raining, I was too drunk for it to register) to recharge our batteries for the first of two games weekends on Friday.

Snacks Entertainment

This week's games night missed Hallowe'en by a day, but landed smack on Martin's birthday. And, boy, did we celebrate. We were five in total: Martin the host, Sam, Ian, Chris and me. Sam came bearing a gift of a second hand Reiner Knizia game. Chris came bearing gifts of sweets, personally selected by him and put in individual fun party bags. Thus began our snack odyssey.

First up was a new game from Martin, fresh out the wrapper, making its second appearance on GNN: Circus Flohcati. This collection game is all about getting "trios" (three of a kind) or trying to pick up high cards in each of the ten suits. The game ends when one player has one card from each suit (a Gala Show) or the draw deck is used up.

Ian and I seemed to spend a lot of time going bust, while Chris had issues with the similarity of some of the colours. Sam managed to achieve a Gala Show just a few cards before the draw deck was exhausted, but the ten point bonus was not enough to make up for his lack of trios.

Martin 53
Chris 49
Sam 37
Ian 37
Andrew 33

An inaugural win for Martin. Happy birthday indeed. I'm not sure if anyone worked out a strategy, although there were prolonged thoughtful silences punctuated by the sound of happy chewing.

Next up was Druids, another trick taking game where your points are the value of the lowest card in the trick you won. If you later won a trick with the same suit, then that card would be replaced. You have one value per suit in front of you, but if anyone has a value for all five suits, then the round ends and they score minus three.

It all seemed a bit hippy-ish, with the rules talking about "domain cards" and "gaia cards". But the game itself had opportunities for a wide range of dickish behaviour and ways to attack your opponent.

We played just three rounds and Chris's win came courtesy of a round two windfall, when he won a trick that helped him score highly in four of the five suits. An optimal result.

Four suits. Don't want another!

Chris 35
Andrew 25
Martin 19
Sam 14
Ian 5

During this game we tore through some wasabi crisps and then straight onto the lime and chutney (I think) poppadom type things.

Next up was Decrypto. Sam and Martin teamed up again in an attempt at removing the hex that appears to hang over them whenever they play this game together.

Talking of hexes, there must have been one over the third word in our quartet, since it only appeared once for us in six rounds. This made the sixth round a real problem for me as I had to give clues to three words that had already been clued to death.

Sam pulled off a magnificent literary clue that went "The party was a hoot / I decided to strip off / Everybody stared at me with massive eyes." A great effort, but we intercepted the signal to give us a real advantage, since they'd miscommunicated earlier. The words he was trying to convey were Owl, Comic Book, and Frog.

Ian, Chris and Andrew – George Smiley from Smiley’s People
Martin and Sam - Guy Smiley from Sesame Street

We were sustained through this with some "two for a pound" salt and vinegar crisps. And we still had further to fall. Oh yes.

Finally, we played Skull King. This Contract Whist with knobs on is a tricky one to judge. There are plenty of special cards to render the normal suits redundant which makes guessing how many tricks you'll take a bit of a shot in the dark.

Notable events were: Martin bidding only one trick each round (until a last minute bid for glory) and, apart from once, always getting it; people bidding No Tricks despite having a pirate in their hand and, the main feature of the game, Ian's crazy roller coaster of luck which mostly involved him wiping out whatever he'd scored in one round by a terrible following round. It was a sight to see when, in round seven, he successfully bid Zero to put himself right back in contention only to fail with a Zero bid in rounds eight and nine to send him right back into negative figures. I guess this was karma since, by now, our snacking had moved on to Ian's two (two?!) packs of pork scratchings. Mind you, while we told each other how unhealthy they were, we kept munching away in a kind of The Rope's Around My Neck, I May As Well Kick Away The Chair kind of attitude.

Everyone is ready to bid while I struggle to take a photo

I played a fairly cautious game until I saw Ian gain 70 points for a zero bid. I had a safe round eight thanks to that pirate/escape card. In round nine, inspired by Ian I also went for zero (with a pirate in my hand, of course) and got it. This put me in pole position in the final round and when I got my four tricks with my Skull King card beating two pirates, I was untouchable.

Although, in the last round, Martin had a dilemma. He could have used the escape/pirate card to win or lose a trick. If he won, he'd screw himself and me. If he lost, he'd pretty much hand victory to me. When we totted up the scores we realised that Martin could have gifted Sam a win as he snuck up at the last minute thanks to him (and Chris) scoring zero tricks in the final round.

Andrew 360
Martin 270
Sam 250
Chris 190
Ian -90

A very enjoyable game, mostly thanks to Ian's wild swings of (mis)fortune.

By now it was ten to eleven. We'd played, drank and snacked as well as anyone could expect five aging gentlemen to do on a weekday, so we called it a night. Thanks to Martin for hosting and thanks to everyone for joining us.