John Cougar Fremen Camp

 This Tuesday I texted ahead to say I wouldn't arrive until 8 and I got the rather ominous reply from Sam that they were setting up Dune Imperium and wouldn't be ready by then anyway.

This week, we were only four in number. Host Joe and Sam, Ian and myself. In the absence of Martin and Katy, we turned our back on “tapas games” with their unnecessary emphasis on fun and chose the sort of game that can ruin somebody's evening.

We set off across the dusty planet after a rules refresher. Each player starts with two meeples and a basic deck of cards. You can use a card to place a meeple and get the reward or not play them until the end of the round, revealing your leftover cards in order to buy or fight. Chain together cards of the same clan (such as the Fremen, who gave rise to today’s blog title) to get extra money/combat/etc.

That’s the basics. The depth comes from the options laid out in front of you. Do you want to make money or gain influence or take a seat on the High Council or even get down and dirty looking for spice on the planet’s surface?

Ian was an early leader, doing well on the battlefield. I was first to get my third meeple, so I felt like I was in with a chance but it seemed like everyone else kept using Influence Cards which kind of made up for it. And then they all got their third meeple too.

Then Ian won a huge battle - the first big combat of the game - but soon regretted it when he saw the reward for winning the following battle.”Why did I use all my troops?” he said, racked with regret as Sam won the next war and pushed himself into a lead that he never really looked like losing. He reached 8 points (only two away from triggering the end of the game) when the three of us were still on 5 and 4 points.

But Sam had a fallow round, and didn’t pick up any points while I nabbed two and Joe screwed over Ian twice, taking a point and a troop from him, and pushing himself up the score track and leaving Ian back in last.

In round 9, the reward for winning a war was two points. Sam went all in, and I did what I could, too. During the round I briefly squeezed ahead of Sam when I picked up a 9th point, but Sam’s victory in combat was never really in doubt.

Sam 10

Andrew 9

Joe 8

Ian 6

It was now about 10.50. I had to go, with no time or stamina left for So Clover which, I’m told, saw them screwed over by some unlucky decoy cards. They scored 12 out of 18.

Thanks all. It was an event. And a half.

Two agents are better than three

My first games night in weeks and I arrived after 8pm, having driven around the block three times in search of a parking space. I was in time to watch Ian, Joe, Sam and Martin finish a game of Hit, with Joe doing so badly I (cruelly) asked him if he’d joined in halfway through.

Ian 112

Sam 91

Martin 84

Joe 31

Then Sam and Martin told me the night had begun with a game of Schnipp & Weg. Apparently it was very closed and they sounded like a couple of New York Jews reminiscing over an old argument. “I schnipped, he wegged.”

Then we had a protracted discussion about what to play but the five-player options weren’t really exciting us. Charioteer? Hansa Teutonica? Decrypto? Not even Railways of the World got much support. In the end, we spilt into two groups. Ian, Joe and I played Dune Imperium, a rematch from the Novocon days. Sam and Martin decided on a smorgasbord of two-player options, beginning with San Francisco.

Sam tried to play mean by taking things just so Martin couldn’t but by the end of the game, his over-emphasis on foundations had left him adrift on a number of point scoring possibilities and Martin took a handsome win.

Martin 16

Sam 4

Then they played Caesar! Battle raged across the Mediterranean until Sam cried “End it!” and so Martin did, and he won. I believe Sam ended with only three tokens and an unhealthy fixation on Rome.

As for Dune, I was first to score a point and Joe got his extra agent early on, but it was Ian who became the man to beat after a move mid-game when he chained together several intrigue cards and leapt into a commanding three-point lead. Conflict was often fierce, with Joe picking up third place reward with a single unit, saying he was “just dropping a dog” into the battle. This lead to a lengthy rumination between us about what kind of dog and what the actual consequences of such a strategy might be. “He looked at me as he fell!” I wailed in character as the soldier given the task of pushing a sausage dog out of a plane.

Sam and Martin had moved on to Spots, a dice-based luck-pushing game where you have to match your dice rolls to the spots on some dalmatians on cards dealt out to you, using a range of six possible options when rolling (thematically called Fetch, Beg, Stay etc). They played three rounds and Martin won 2-1, ending by saying “Anything low would be fine,” and then rolling a six, but then rolling the winning die the very next moment.

Back on the distant planet of Dune, despite his numerical agent advantage, Joe was lagging in third as I’d won a two-point battle and was right on Ian’s tail. Ian triggered the game end. I managed to drag him back one point but couldn’t overtake him. It was down to Joe, who needed water to do what he wanted. But his last move drew him level with me and it really couldn’t have been much closer.

Ian 9

Andrew 8

Joe 8

And Ian won this using only two agents for the whole game. Impressive.

As we closed out Dune, Sam and Martin played a game of Set and Match which I admit was quite distracting as they flicked a yellow puck back and forth across a tennis court. They exclaimed admiration for cross-court drop shots and made remarks about using “Hawkeye” when they scrutinised the puck sitting fractionally on the white lines of the court.

Sam 2

Martin 1

Then it was 10.15 and I was thinking about doing a Malmesbury but So Clover was mentioned as a nice way to bring the group all back together.

My heart sank when I saw my words. I was especially frustrated by “First/Salad.” For a long time I considered “Eden,” since the garden of Eden is, I supposed, where the first salad was made but it seemed a stretch too far. Then “Starter” popped into my head which was a much better fit so I wrote it down and finally finished my clover.

Dreams of a perfect start didn’t last long as we failed on both Sam’s and Martin’s. Sam’s clue of Garagin was an easy match for “Astronaut” but what kind of astronaut was he? We should’ve done better with Martin too. He’d written “Shooting” as one of his clues and we couldn’t bring ourselves to believe he’d be so tasteless as to pair that with “School/Bang” but our good intentions were misplaced. “I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t be tasteless,” Martin remarked afterwards, almost offended at our high opinion of him.

We got Joe’s and Ian’s perfectly, although Ian’s clue of “Jedward” caused some debate. We got “pair” easily enough but then Joe wanted to add “old” because they were out of date. But surely “old/pair” would suggest something more ancient than two Eurovision entrants. Then we thought it might be “recent/pair” with Martin vetoing this idea because Jedward really weren’t that current. In the end he was overruled and the guess turned out to be correct.  Finally, I was surprised that my clover of torture was solved in maybe under a minute. All that hard work was worth it.

26 out of 30

Then I had to leave, despite murmurings of a second attempt and shots of whiskey.

Later I discovered that they’d completed the game with a score of 24 out of 24!

Then I was surprised at how long the Whatsapp messages kept coming as the whiskey flowed and Strike! Was played three times. No four... hang on, f- no, six times. Martin won games 1-3 and then Ian acted as combo breaker and won game four. Sam nabbed the fifth and the sixth was Martin again, and it was his 50th play of the game! 

Thanks all. See you next Tuesday.

Truly Madly Northleigh

FRIDAY

At long, long last, Novocon was finally upon us and Joe, Martin, Ian and I (Sam) celebrated by setting off literally five hours earlier than we needed to. The suspense was palpable as we waited for ages at the petrol station to fill the tyres with air. The gaminess was in the air as we invented crossword clues for each other on the M5. And the ambience was mysterious as we stopped at a bucolic country pub in the middle of a housing estate at Honiton. "Oh shit!" cried Martin. "It's Greene King!"
Martin's ill-feeling proved well-founded, as we discovered the bar itself was simply a door, and the pub - under renovations - was now a large side room with a single tiny window. Ian said he didn't find it that weird because he went lot of beer festivals, and they're often like that. Either way, it was the most incongruous pub and in some fashion, a Novocon-apt way of kicking things off.

At Tesco we filled two trolleys with cardiac-episode-adjacent snacks and booze, and then arrived at Farwood Barton - after Joe impressively reversed half a mile up a steep hill for a tractor - to find gambolling calves and a nice old lady called Mary, who steered us through the maze of farm buildings to our cottages. She asked Joe what sort of games we played, and he began explaining the nuances of medium-heavy euros, but, as Joe confessed later, "she started to glaze over" so he just said they were a bit like Monopoly. 

Katy chose well: a cluster of transformed stone outbuildings (underfloor heating! wifi!) made up our home for the weekend, and after some low-level pottering, we kicked off Novocon with the first game of an epic weekend: Letterstress. 

This is a card game using the Letterpress deck where you have a hand of cards, two communal cards, and on your turn you make a word with them. But you can also steal cards from other player's current words, meaning cards are changing hands quickly - or can do. If you've any cards from a previously-played word in front of you when your turn arrives, you bank them as points. It was a brow-puzzler to be sure, with, at points, so many letters out on the table that your choices felt exponential, and we did a lot of theft before we got through the deck. 

Sam wins!

Next up was Gift of Tulips, the game of giving flowers (or not) for points. Like Biblios or Hats, there's a kind of inscrutability to it that means it's hard to grasp exactly what's what at a given moment. Or, as Martin happily put it, "That was a fucking waste of time!" 

Joe 54

Ian 47

Sam 46

Martin 25

Then there was some investigation of lighting arrangements that included discovery of a mysterious turbine switch, that did apparently nothing. nothing visible anyway. Joe left on a high to collect Katy whilst we set up three-player Cabo, but we were only through the metaphorical door when several people came through the real one! Laura, Adam and Jon arrived at the same time and there was a round of hugs, high-fives and even the odd handshake. Explorations of the cottages were afoot and for a while it was almost like we weren't interested in games, before we all remembered we were and started playing Azul (Jon, Martin, Adam) and Kingdomino Origins, which is basically Kingdomino with a veneer of dickery.

I'm not sure what occurred in Azul except to say Jon's excited tones about a weekend of games had swiftly transformed into something slightly more mournful.

Martin 70

Adam 60

Jon 40

And in Kingdomino, Laura's domination of anything wheaty proved impressive (fifty points!) but she was punished for a lack of diversity:

Sam 99

Ian 94

Laura 79

However if that was a harsh introduction to an unfamiliar game, it was nothing compared to what Jon and Laura were about to experience at the hands of Martin in Babylonia. Despite my grave warnings about (Martin) making a large network of connections across the board, the three of us failed miserably at preventing his insidious grasp reaching greedily towards almost all available cities, and having got the bonus tile for pairs of cities, every time anyone scored points there was Martin, like a cheerfully despotic landlord, claiming his share. 

Jon's mournful tones turned to greivous and Laura admitted she didn't know what the fuck she was doing. Martin did:

Martin 179

Sam 133

Laura 123

Jon 105

At the other end of the vast table, they played Thurn and Taxis. Despite sharing some small characteristics, it seemed a far more gentle undertaking, and the losers ended in less existential despair. But there was still a little of it, at the postal hands of Adam:

\

Adam 28

Joe 17

Ian 12

We needed some serious cheering up now, and whilst Katy moved up the gears in the kitchen, Laura, Ian, Adam and I played Hammer Time: 

I ridiculed Ian for his habit of tapping off a single gem on each turn, but when the rest of us were doing impressions of intern miners on their first day in the office, it had a calculated diligence we lacked:

Ian - 4 carts full!

Sam - 3 carts full

Adam - 2 carts

Laura - 1 cart

Then we all broke for Katy's delicious stew, mainly notable - as I write this later - for Adam's constant muttering of 'butter' under his breath, and a fight over the accessibility of cheese, as our innate sense of competition took on a flavour of lactose. 

After Katy-fuelled sustenance, we broke out more games. Martin, Laura, Katy, Joe and I played HIT and sat appalled as Martin hauled in every single 10 card to spank us 126 to bugger-all for everyone else (Joe was second with 51). Jon meanwhile tried to teach Little Town in French to Adam, Ian and the freshly-arrived Louie and Lennon, who sensibly insisted on drafting in the English cards from my copy.

We had a rematch of Hit where Martin was hampered both by his absences to help new arrivals settle in, and - at one stage - Joe stacking the deck against him. So I'm not sure how seriously we can take my win, but I pipped Laura by a single point 67-66, with Martin way back on 9 points but with dignity intact. 

Then the evening hit a chaotic stage, possibly helped by various imbibements. Steve, Katy and I set up Arabian Nights, or started to, then abandoned it. We started playing Remember Our Trip but bailed on that too, as Steve went off to tuck children into bed whilst Katy and I gawped at the Milky Way, and a shooting star. When we finally reassembled, we could barely remember Remember Our Trip, and felt like something sillier, so set up Bandu, and Louie joined us. 

Louie was first out, which happily - or sadly, depending on your perspective, coincided with bedtime. With coins at a premium, Katy and I found ourselves screwed over by a lack of coins and whilst Katy defied physics for a while (I followed Louie out next) she couldn't defy Steve's iron grasp of the economy, and her tower collapsed. 

Next to us, they played the marginally more cerebral San Francisco, and Katy was very pleased to hear that Martin didn't win. I didn't take photos of it, but it was the freshly-arrived Adam T who proved triumphant. 

Adam T 10

Joe 8 and a half

Laura 6

Martin 5

And at the far end of the table, Ian utterly schooled Jon and Adam at First Rat. Somewhere in the midst of all the madness, Andrew arrived! After some shabby directions from me, he was redirected towards the cottages and arrived to take up the reins on our epic narrative....

*        *        *

After a journey which I'd planned to be the least twisty and turny as possible but was still rendered stressful by the appearance of a new warning light on my dashboard, I arrived at the cottage at about ten o'clock in the evening.

The long kitchen table was awash with cardboard excitement. I poured myself a beer and watched three games at once in a kind of sensory overload of board games. Steve, Katy and Sam were at one end of the table playing Bandu. Luckily it was a stoutly built table so that the rest of the activity wouldn’t move it. Steve won that game.

Adam T, Joe, Martin and Laura played San Francisco in the middle of the table. I’m pretty sure that Adam T won (he did, see above). I didn’t write down the final scores but I did note that Martin was appalled by ending the game with 3 minus one tokens.

At the other end of the table, Adam H, Ian, and Jon played First Rat. Adam told me that he’d had wine “at the wrong time.” “Breakfast?” I asked. Ian won First Rat by a huge margin: 

Ian 81

Adam H 46

Jon 42

After these games ended at roughly the same time, Jon complained about the dishwasher not doing its job, and Katy suggested Lords of Vegas. At one point it looked like she had enough players: herself, Laura, Ian and me but slowly we peeled away, unsure at the late hour (it was 10.30pm) and the fact it would have been Laura’s first game.

Instead, Joe, Adam T, Martin and I played Mille Fiore, which all of us were familiar with. Steve, Anja (back from putting Louie to bed), Laura, Adam H and Ian played Welcome To… And Katy, Sam and Jon played Spicy. Jon explained his poor showing by pointing out he needs an extra half a second to challenge Katy.

Sam 41

Katy 20

Jon 10

Don't have the results for Welcome to... Never mind...

As for Mille Fiori, I was remembering the rules as I played but it all comes back to me pretty fast. I remember that shipping was a waste of time, so I avoid it but everyone else goes in big and it becomes the place to be. I joined in far too late. But I did run out of tokens first, so I must have done something right.

Adam T 225

Joe 211

Andrew 192

Martin 185

Tiger and Dragon, played out on the coffee table at the far end of the room, finished with a loud cheer:

Sam 12

Jon 4

Katy 0

Then, while we finished Mille Fiore, everyone else played Just One. I didn’t catch any of the clues or replies, but I did hear Steve ask “Is everyone waiting for me?” thus reaffirming that his reputation as the thinkiest player in the group isn’t just confined to strategy games.

The four Mille Fiore players banged out a quick couple of games of Strike! Martin won the first and in the second Adam had to roll all six of his dice and he managed an amazing four 2s and two 6s. I think he won that one but I didn’t actually write it down.

Now it was midnight, so Midnight Party was brought out. I was the original non-Hugo-branded version, so Hugo the ghost did not get faster as the game progressed. It was so old that the rule book had bits missing where a slug had eaten it. Since there were eleven of us and only eight players, there were a few teams.

Steve was last to go out in round two after an epic chase between him and Hugo. Laura must have found it all too much since she went to bed halfway through the game. After round three, as I totted up the final scores I discovered that I’d completely forgotten about the Ian and Adam H team. We knew they’d gone clear in round two but no one could remember what they’d got in round one. “Just give them the average,” said Martin. But I couldn’t work out the average of seven negative numbers in my head, so I gave them zero. They still didn’t win.

Joe & Sam -8

Ian & Adam H -9

Jon -15

Adam T & Andrew -18

Martin -21

Katy & Laura -29

Anja -29

Steve -36

And that was it for day one. Joe and I shared a too-warm room and we were both up early after a fitful night’s sleep.

SATURDAY

Ian was awake before us and, after getting ourselves a coffee, we decided to play a board game. Dune Imperium was suggested. The words “Dune” and “Imperium” both imply an enormous burden of time and thought but since it was early I agreed. Joe insisted it wasn’t as bad as that. 

It was a deck builder, and the icons were clear enough that we knew what was going on pretty soon. Midway through the game I pick up three points in one move which doesn’t seem like much but was enough to win, beating Ian and his devious moves making us discard cards.

Andrew 12

Ian 9

Joe 7

Other people arose during the couple of hours we were playing this, and all were impressed by our commitment to the cause. At least, I like to think they were impressed.

Katy, Martin and Laura played Blue Lagoon. At the end, Katy said that her two opponents had been very kind to her.

Katy 205

Martin 198

Laura 150

And then they were joined by Adam T for a game of Brian Boru. 

Louie arrived and beat Adam and Sam at Llama Land, much to his delight (and surprise).

Louie 115

Adam 104

Sam 100

Anja and Sam bonded over their failing eyesight as they both beat Joe at Letter Press.

[Homer Simpson]"What am I supposed to do with these lousy letters?"[/Homer]

Anja 21

Sam 20

Joe 10

Ian, Jon, Adam H and I chose Castles of Burgundy. Maybe this was a mistake? We were all pretty rusty on the rules and Jon’s luxury version had different icons and a few expansion tiles mixed in to make it harder to remember. In the end I had to play the game app on my phone to see if players were able to block other people’s options by leaving dice on the board which Jon, Adam and I kind of remembered but weren’t sure about. You don’t.

Ian soon closed the curtains so the lovely sunlight didn't 

distract us.

During the game, Katy and Martin (and others too) went for a walk while Joe snoozed and Steve dropped off Lennon to his grandparents and did a quick shop for food.

Ian sped off at first, then I went into a decent lead. But then I had a fifteen minute phone call with my girlfriend and my mojo had gone after that. Jon’s early slow start in which he painstakingly put together six yellow bonus tiles had left him in last early on put paid dividends in the final stages as he overtook Adam right at the end.

Jon 227

Adam H 225

Ian 195

Andrew 158

Adam thought he could have scored more if he’d done his last turn a little differently and things could’ve been different. Then again, Jon thought the same about his last turn. I guess that after almost three hours they didn’t have the energy for one last bout of analysis paralysis.

On the coffee table Louie, Anja and Sam were finishing off an epic game of Northgard. Anja was ahead on points when Sam changed his tactic at the last minute. Instead of invading Louie, he went exploring instead and then but chance was able to build and somehow completed the criteria for an instant win. Amazing scenes.

Then we went for a walk. At least, Adam H, Ian, Steve, Jon, Louie and me set off for a potential walk along the river. Jon had an app that suggested a walk and we tried to follow it. At some point Jon started to suspect there was a missing bridge meaning the walk was now impossible without wading across the aforementioned river. When I got home, I did a bit of research and he was right.

Defeated by the impossible walk, Jon, Ian, Louie and Adam H returned to the cottage while Anja, Steve and I set off to walk a loop around a few country lanes back to the house. On our way we passed a sign promising “Free Aples” next to a table with some apples on it. A man in a nearby front garden said we could take a bagful, since he had more than he could deal with. We didn’t but we took one each to sample as we continued our walk and they were quite tasty.

Back at the cottage, 

Sam butts in: Joe beat me in game of snooker, 

and then...

(Andrew again:) Sam, Katy and Laura played Llama Land and Katy had all her llamas lined up, facing towards Laura who said it was quite intimidating. 

Sam 65.5 (wins tie breaker)

Laura 65.5

Katy 63

Joe, Adam T and Martin were playing Faiyum. “Settling the Nile delta… again,” explained Adam. Jon. Ian and Adam sat around the coffee table and played Avenue.

Ian 57 (wins tie breaker)

Adam H 57

Jon 41

Then Ian and Adam H had another game of Avenue where Ian’s strategy would either pay dividends or leave him broke…

Adam H 72

Ian 13

Katy then told everyone in detail about her plans for a bath and then a nap, while adding that they didn’t need to know any of this. Laura walked in with a laptop and asked Sam and I if we were doing anything, as if she wanted some help with a bit of admin.

Instead, Laura, Sam and I played Kingdomino. Laura scored on every possible kind of terrain which somehow seemed like it deserved bonus points. But it didn’t.

Andrew 68

Sam 64

Laura 53

Then Jon, Laura and I played Oltre Mare which Laura felt confident she could teach us, despite only having played it once. And she did. Impressive. At the end, Jon took a compass tile from the map that Laura was heading towards. She complained that there were others he could have taken and Jon put it back and took one of those, saying he hadn’t seen them. Actually, both Laura and I thought it had been a clever piece of strategy on his behalf.

Jon 87

Laura 62

Andrew 55

On the coffee table, a game of Marrakesh took place.

Ian & Louie 55

Sam 46

Anja 30

Adam H 22

And after Louie and Sam went to set up Flick Fleet, the remainers played Azul.

Ian 78

Anja 57

Adam H 56

Flick Fleet took place next to Oltre Mare and while I didn’t follow it too closely, it was clear that Steve’s massive ship with shields AND a hull was an early target.

I went for a nap, during which Martin won at Babylonia (of course)

Martin 128

Adam T 116

Ian 110

Anja 104

And Jon won at Little Town.

Jon 43

Steve 34

Sam 31

Katy 27

My final game, as it turned out, of the weekend was Cross Clues which started as a four player but then anyone passing just grabbed a card and joined in. Steve was standing nearby for a few minutes, watching impassively, when Jon invited him to take a card. “I already have done,” Steve explained.

24 out of 25

Then I went back to Bristol to look after my girlfriend. 

Plans on returning Sunday lunchtime were scuppered by the persistent warning light in my car and a shuddering feeling when accelerating. Not feeling confident about another lengthy journey, I sent apologies on Sunday morning. A real shame. But I look forward to the rest of the blog, though.

*        *        *

After Andrew left for Bristol, Martin won yet another game of Babylonia (beating Adam T, Ian and Anja) and Jon picked up a victory in Little Town. At this point my eyes and brain were starting to melt and I was happy to sit down for Joe's Saturday night meal, a tasty chickpea stew and salad. Lots of debate was had over what games would be played next, with some big hitters being mooted - Brass, Wallenstein, and so on. But eventually Joe, Jon, Anja and Adam T sat down to play Dune Imperium. 

Whilst Katy led Laura, Martin and Ian off to the strip for Lords of Vegas,  Adam H, Louie, Steve and I played Kingdomino Origins, twice. 

In the first, Adam humiliated us by constructing a desert that gave him more than double his closest competitor's points. In the second, Steve exacted revenge (and I was second!). Whilst Steve and Louie headed off to do bedtime ablutions, I exacted further revenge by taking a couple of games of Schnipp and Weg off him. Adam's capacity to flick himself off the board - at one stage into my neck and down my t-shirt - was something to behold. 

Then we literally bashed through a quick game of Hammer Time and shared the win in a nail-biting finale!

At which point Lords of Vegas finished, with Martin adding another feather to his considerable cap:

Martin 40

Ian and Katy 26 each

Laura 14

While Dune Imperium soldiered on, the rest of us had a very decent crack at So Clover, scoring 31 out of 36 after a faltering start where we missed Laura's mythical clue (FAUN) for fable/instrument. Martin's METALHEAD for bronze/advocate was nice, as was Ian's AFTERGLOW for memory/lamp. A satisfying jaunt to the lateral association world...

With nobody but like-minded gamers in earshot, we then broke out Ready Set Bet, with Martin handling the horses while the rest of us hurled down betting chips and curses in more or less equal measure. Whilst most of us ended off race one with a fairly paltry haul, Adam reeled in over 50 chips, and did rather well in race two as well. He looked like the guy to catch, and fortunately (for Katy and I) did rather less well in the latter races, as we caught and overhauled him in a dramatic final furlong. 

As Ian returned his final chips in disgust everyone took a deep breath - whilst not as high-voltage as the Ready Set Bet played at Joe's house - Martin agreed his not betting may have played a part - it was still a real-time tension-inducer and we all needed a change of speed. Somehow enough time had crept by that - despite Dune Imperium still being played - it was gone 11pm and people were making off-to-bed-soon noises. We sojourned to the sofas and played Bring Your Own Book. 

Scores are almost irrelevant here, but Ian did seem to have a knack of finding the best excerpt to BYOB's requests of something overheard at a zoo or a buddy movie title. He blithely sashayed to a win before half of us had a single point, and with midnight fast approaching I headed to bed as a game of Just One started up to round off the evening. 

*        *        *

SUNDAY

Sunday morning was slightly more groggy than Saturdays, as we supped coffee and compared the relative (lack of) merits of Musk and Trump. The gentle first-gear vibe only last a half hour or so though, as before Adam H had even had a shower Discworld was out on the table (Katy, Laura, Ian, Martin) and Brass Birmingham was being set up for the returning showeree by Joe and Jon. 

I wasn't quite ready for games yet, and went for a walk. I met a dog with a unique brand of friendliness, going from tail-wagging to attempted arm-biting in a matter of seconds.

Playful though he was, I quickly retreated from real life and back to the reassuringly untoothed world of meeples indoors. But things took a turn for the marginally surreal there too, with the discovery of the massive hole, directly beneath Ian's bed. 

Despite this momentous discovery (-the source of the turbine switch) there were games demanding to be played, and we set about playing them. Martin won Discworld, prompting me to wonder if Martin had failed to win any game he'd played thus far. He assured me Adam T had beaten him twice, so I was pleased Adam joined us for our five-player crack at Modern Art (Brass Birmingham continues behind). 

However whatever magic Adam had weaved over Martin in Millie Fiori evaporated in the down-and-dirty art world, where we haggled over prices and struggled to turn a profit. This was particularly tough on Ian, who pronounced himself shit at maths when he paid $121M for two paintings so he could sell them for slightly less. Must we put the scores in? Okay, then:

Martin $404m

Sam $347m

Adam T $329m

Katy $312m

Ian $293m

Despite Sunday being the most recent day, things are now hazy as to where Adam went, but the remaining quartet from Modern Art played Sea Salt and Paper, whilst other risers went to the shops (Steve) played with FlickFleet bits (Louie) and played Take it Easy near the Giant Hole. 

Meanwhile, Brass Birmingham was taking as long as the M5 past junction 3 on a Friday evening.

I think Steve must have returned in time for Take It Easy (or left after?) as he featured in the scores:

Steve 157

Anja 136

Laura 85

Or maybe this took place later? My notes suggest Steve played Millie Fiori before this finished, so who knows. Somewhere around here Katy made some egg sandwiches and capped it at four, as we'd agreed lunch today would be on a 'scavenging' basis. Puppy eyes made by players stuck in games were ignored by us egg-eaters as we brutally ate in close proximity before sojourning to another cottage to play Nokosu Dice.

After the third of four rounds Katy was in a vast lead, and Louie, watching, had heard a spectacular array of appalling language (sorry Steve and Anja), mostly from the points leader. I was in second and could only, maybe, catch her with a zero bid. I was dealt a low-scoring hand and added dice appropriately, ending with a single trump - if I could be rid of it, I was confident I could shed everything else with no tricks gained. But alas, it wasn't to be. 

Katy 75

Ian 38

Sam 32

Martin 31

My notes here say 'heavy crowing from Katy' and I should add it began before the game was even finished. (She later defended her bad language by clarifying that "I didn't say c**t", which while slightly tenuous is also factually true) Meantime the enigmatic Millie Fiori had finished too!

Adam 210

Steve 205

Anja 190

Laura 185

I've still not played this, and didn't witness any of it, but Adam T's status as reigning champ was upheld.  And some four and a half hours after it began, Brass Birmingham concluded!

Joe 140

Jon 120

Adam H 110

What tales will they tell? Watch the comments for details. As the final afternoon launched, we said fond farewells to Laura, Steve, Anja and Louie, who set off on - at this point - a reasonably unrainy trek to Bristol. Some people went for a walk, did they? Or maybe not. I think the sky darkened, but maybe that was just my mind as Novocon approached its 48th hour. Joe sat Adam H down for a two-player crack at Obsession and Adam T, Ian and played Northgard. People ate things, Martin (inevitably) won a game of Arboretum v Jon and Katy.

Northgard was a mini-epic, as Adam spent most of the game clear points leader, but found himself set upon in the finale by both Ian and I, who both had a chance of springing the insta-win condition of controlling three territories with large buildings in. Unfortunately Adam also had three large buildings, a fact I stupidly forgot when I claimed my third off Ian. Tie-breaker was points, and I'd not done enough to nab the win from under Adam's nose:

Adam T: Three cities, 76 points

Sam: Three cities, 69 points

Ian: Two cities, 65 points

We agreed that despite the KS-style leaning into aesthetic over-production (we swapped out minis for cubes) it was a solid game, and one of my weekend highlights. 

I don't know if Joe feels the same about Obsession, as he had his Victorian ass handed to him by Adam H after another epic concluded:

Adam 109

Joe 93

"I had some shitty house guests" he ruminated. From one bonkers theme to another, Ian and I perhaps optimistically took on Martin and Adam T at crossword-clueing game Montage. We began badly - awfully might be more apt - as our opponents serially beat us to the punch, and fell far behind. But then, like latter-day Turings, we staged a fantastic comeback to have the score tantalisingly poised at 4-3. Then we lost. 

Around now Katy and Adam beganYokohama, which was temporarily suspended as Jon presented a mushroom lasagne so astonishing in its tastiness that most of the meal conversation was about the meal itself. As Joe later summarised, a high bar for Novocon and a challenge for any future chefs. Unfortunately Jon then had some bad news and had to leave on the same evening, Before he left, however, he was able to join us for a blast at Cross Clues. 

I don't seem to have a record of the scores, but I think we did okay. In Yokohama, Katy's astonishing mid-game lead of 100+ points was significantly less humiliating at the end. She did win, though:

Katy 155

Adam H 126

I think Jon also played Just One before he left? It's a bit hazy now. I know Katy was insistent that Subway shouldn't be allowed to make up words, and at some point Joe said "Today's special is chrunch futtock". Reasons why now escape me. We scored 11/13. 

With numbers now dwindling slightly, Martin, Joe, Katy and Adam T began playing another epic, this time in the form of a trick-taker in Das Was Sticht?. At the other end of the table, there was the unusual case of a Babylonia game not won by Martin (because he wasn't playing it). Ian, Adam H and I played out a hard-fought battle that I edged by virtue of ending it before Adam could take another (game-winning) turn. 

Sam 139

Ian 132

Adam 122

Adam had some measure of revenge in Cabo, a 40 minute game that we played so badly it took about 15 minutes to end. 

Adam 62 (points are bad!)

Sam 87

Ian 119

I made a ludicrous Cabo call. Ian made a couple more reasonable ones that he still got fucked on by Hillmann's luck/shrewdness. Was Sticht? was continuing so we debated what to play before settling, perhaps a little optimistically, on Hansa Teutonica. Ian's fatigue hampered his enjoyment and, despite pursuing me up the scoretrack mid-game, his lack of a network saw him overhauled at the end. Just as in Babylonia, I won by virtue of preventing Adam having more turns. During this period, Joe won Was Sticht?...

Joe 5

Adam 4

Martin and Katy 3 each

And they began playing American Bookshop, which I didn't get a picture of. We three played Hammer Time, or as it's now christened, Dark Hammer, where the returning of gems to the box takes on a dickish perch-them-as-close-to-the-edge-as-possible dickishness. 

My inadvertent strategy of not playing games against Martin paid off again, as I filled my carts first for a win. Joe Martin won American Bookshop and we reconvened for another two bashes at Cross Clues, scoring 20 and then 23. There was another examination of the hole...

And then we found ourselves around the sofas for the final game of the night - Wavelength. I began taking notes but forgot as both tiredness and fascination with September 15th (Martin's clue for worst/best day of the year) overtook me. Martin's other clue (Craft gin for niche/mainstream) elicited Joe's thoughts that niche "Is dogging"and Ian regretted his choice of spectrum (Star Trek/Star Wars) before he even clued it. But his clue (JJ Abrams) worked well, as we hit the target. Overall, despite flagging limbs and minds, we limped over the line with 16 points.

And, apart from a swift game of Push It in the morning I know little of, that was Novocon for another year!!! On Monday Katy headed off to walk in the rain, Adam to train in the rain, and the rest of us to drive (or witness others driving) through horrendous weather on the way home. A slightly insane way to end a slightly insane weekend.

I hope we all slept the sleep of the just <played dozens of games> and awoke refreshed and ready for more of the same soon. Thanks all, it was something.

Blogger won't let me tag all the games! There are too many