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. 

A blue wizard and a purple giant walk into a bar

 Around 10 minutes late, I arrived at Sam’s kitchen with Adam T, Joe, Martin and Sam already playing Fellowship of the Ring. I settled down to watch the quartet struggle through a challenging set of criteria. They even needed two do-overs (or “Gandalf’s Magic”) to get as far as they did. But ultimately, the cruel forces of Mordor or whatever, foiled them.

As a five-piece we first turned to Ethnos. Adam got a rules refresher while the rest of us struggled with the game’s famously difficult-to-handle pieces. They fit together so snugly, but if you put any real pressure in your grip, they’ll slip apart and scatter themselves across the table.

As for the game, Martin spent round one playing very small bands that scored few points but got him a lot of presence on the board, especially two high scoring areas with points of 4, 8, 10. Sam made an early move for another area with points of 0, 0, 8.

Round two was very long, with the third dragon not appearing until the very last card in the deck. Round three, on the other hand, was over very fast. Too fast for Joe who had only played a single three-member band before the round ended. His disappointing third round meant that he barely moved on the score track, while Martin built on his already impressive lead. Joe was saved the ignominy of being lapped by only a single point.

Martin 105

Sam 91

Andrew 89

Adam 83

Joe 46

Next, we played Rebel Princess with Martin getting a rules explanation. We were all given our princess with their special powers. I was Cinderella with the, ultimately useless, ability to choose another player to lead if I win a trick.

And win them I did. Especially in round two were I completed a clean sweep of all tricks, picking up all fifteen points in the process. Except that points are bad and my chances of a win after a decent first round were in tatters.

After that bruising experience, I did okay. Sam evaded most pitfalls, arriving at the final round with just one point. But this round had a special power: points now counted as double, except for the player in last place. A final twist in the tale - Sam now collapsed to 14 points while second-place Joe went clear and took the win.

Joe 10

Sam 14

Martin 14

Adam 19

Andrew 26

I went home at this point, but the evening went on. The did two Bomb Busters missions (one success, one failure) and then after Joe and Adam left, Sam and Martin banged out a few two-players. They won one game each of Agent Avenue and then Martin beat Sam 2-1 at Schnipp & Weg.

Thanks all! See you next week!

The Big Band Theory

 Katy, Ian and I simultaneously arrived at Joe’s door under a steady downpour. Downstairs in the kitchen, Martin was already there and, to my surprise, the five of us were the entire attendance for tonight.

Five is always an award number for games, and Martin refused one new game – Franchise – on the grounds of its ugliness and so we played Zoo Vadis again. It was Katy’s introduction to the zoo-based game and she initially asked if it was ethical. Martin reassured her that the animals were in charge of this zoo and Katy seemed happy with that. Then again, when she learnt that the game involves buying votes, she didn’t have a problem with that but I suppose we all have our own red lines.

This time we played with the animal powers. With this extra rule, each animal has a power but they can’t actually use them – they can only sell them to other animals. Katy’s power of immediately moving a piece that had landed in a 1-space area was popular. Oddly, Joe’s tunnelling power wasn’t used at all. I stayed out of a lot of negotiations, only occasionally asking for help. Ian, though, came up with a nice plan that got both of us into the final area.

Joe was the last to arrive in the pivotal final area (anyone not there at the end of the game automatically loses) and Martin tried to bargain with him to squeeze out an extra coin. But the negotiation wasn’t too successful since Martin secretly thought he was winning and Joe was pretty sure he was going to be last anyway. In the end, Martin lowered his price because he just wanted the game to end while he was in the lead.

Martin 28
Andrew 21
Ian 20
Katy 16
Joe 15


The next game was Ethnos. We had to remind Katy that she had liked this game the last time she played, since she only remembered its bad first impression on her. Martin wondered if maybe it could do with a retheme since, as it stands, Ethnos is some pretty generic fantasy elements and a traced map of Slovakia. We also mentioned the notion that the big scores were to be found in the bands of cards you play – the bigger, the better – and not by area control on the map.


But as a game, it’s a lot of fun. In round one, I built up an impressive 6-strong band of halflings while Martin focused on getting pieces onto the map.


Round two was the longest possible as the third dragon turned out to be the last card in the pack. At least this gave Joe enough time to remember that it was okay to collect groups of the same colour, not just of the same type. In round three, a song came on the stereo about “safety Joe” which amused us, but maybe he played too safe. Katy’s impressive array of bands of 4, 5 and 6 cards was enough for a sizable win.

Katy 110

Martin 97

Andrew 75

Ian 67

Joe 65

Only two games played, but it was already after 10pm. We decided to play So Clover. Long story short: we were not perfect as both Martin and I failed. We mismatched Grenade/Device with Bomb on Martin’s clover and I thought that “Cock-a-doodle-doo” was such a good clue for Rooster/Siren that the others wouldn’t mind that the adjacent clue wasn’t terribly good. But they did mind.

 32 out of 36

I left at this point, and so did Ian, leaving the other three making noises about a second attempt at So Clover. Who knows how it panned out.

Thanks for another fun evening. See you all soon.

Mada as a March (on Kyoto) here

 At eight o'clock I stumbled through Sam's front door, wondering what gaming delights I was missing. Once in the kitchen, however, I found four of my friends sitting around chatting. Had I got the wrong evening? There was a board game on the table, but it was still firmly in its box.

As I was the last one expected for tonight we (Sam, Martin, Laura, Joe and myself) chose our first game: Mada. An intriguing push your luck game in which you play cards from your three-card hand but you have to play a higher or equal card to the one you previously played. If you can't then you're bust. When the first person goes bust then the round ends and everyone else scores according to the card they had last played.

The rules are pretty easy to remember even though I forgot one of them seconds after I’d explained to Joe why it was easy to remember: “You can’t hold a scorpion in your hand,” was my useful memory aid which lasted all of three seconds after which I drew a scorpion from the deck and put it in my hand.

Laura did amazing work when pushing her luck. Once she had a 13 and had to draw from the deck: she drew another 13 and stayed in the game. And on another occasion, in a similar situation, she drew a lemur and was therefore able to swap her cards with another player. However, relying on such astonishing feats of fortune isn’t a winning strategy.

Andrew 18

Joe 18

Martin 15

Sam 14

Laura 5

It was nice enough, and we entertained/horrified ourselves at the thought of playing it all evening. “It would be a madathon,” quipped Martin.

Next, because there were five of us and none of us were Katy, we chose Ethnos. Although maybe Katy doesn’t hate it as much as we like to pretend. Midway through repopulating Slovenia or Slovakia Laura got a call from a child who didn’t seem impressed by Ethnos and wanted her to come home now. 

But she couldn’t, not with a hand full of cards since she often had to choose a card from the top of the deck. So did Joe who grumbled about “topdecking.” He grumbled with good reason when, in round two, the second and third dragons came out consecutively (despite his extensive shuffling between rounds to hopefully avoid that predicament) and ruined his eight-card move.

Martin 108

Andrew 85

Sam 83

Joe 65

Laura 48

After this, Laura went home and the four of us played Joraku, a Japan-themed territorial control game where the number of scoring regions decreases during the game and the highest scoring region (number 6) in round one is worthless for the rest of the game while the opposite happens to region number 1, which is Kyoto: the eventual target for all our Daimyos and Samurais.

It was interesting. After round one, only two points separated the four of us, leading Martin to muse that “it’s almost as if nothing we do makes a difference.” Then in round two, I pushed myself into first, a dizzying five whole points ahead of Sam, only for us to concertina together again in round three.

Sam 62

Joe 61

Andrew 59

Martin 57

Despite his remarkable revival, going from last to second, I’m not sure if Joe liked it. It was a curious game and there was a sense of running out of things to do by the end.

Now it was my turn to leave and the remaining three played So Clover. They played twice, and got about 11 both times. In the photo, Sam points out Joe’s clue of Bunkbeds for Bedroom/Fry because “fry” is a young fish. Apparently.

Anyway, thanks all. I’m a no show next week but hope to see you all soon!

How Orc Board

 I arrived at Joe’s around 8 and watched as Joe, Sam, Martin, Ian and Katy played The Wandering Castle. It is not, as you might hope, a re imagining of the film Howl's Moving Castle, rather it is a cross between Verflixxt and Mord Im Arosa that involves being the first to put all three meeples into a castle tower. To complicate matters, this tower moves, and there are other towers that players can move in order to trap other players’ pieces and, hopefully, make their opponent’s forget where their meeples are. “Where am I? Christ!” wailed Martin, perilously close to an existential crisis or sudden conversion to Christianity.

It was entertaining to watch, even though I didn’t know the rules. Martin’s last meeple made a last dash for the castle, only to be covered by a tower. He was able to uncover himself, leap into the castle and trigger the end of the game. Katy, Joe and Ian were also able to get their third meeple into the tower but only Ian matched Martin in the tie-breaker.

Ian and Martin, 3 meeples,  1 potion.

Joe and Katy, 3 meeples, no potions

Sam 2 meeples

Next up, we went back to Solvenia in a rousing six-player game of Ethnos. We dealt out the races, minotaurs, wizards, merfolk and Orcs. This meant we each got our own little Orc Board to track our progress. "How orcboard," I said, hilariously, and the blog title was born.

Mid game, Sam questioned a rule about Centurions, asking if you could play them singly and chain them together. Martin checked and found that you could, but only if you were able to put down a marker each time. Martin then decided that was exactly what he was going to do, leaving Sam regretting that he'd ever asked.

In round two, Joe had ten cards and had to play. I was expecting maybe half of them would be left on the table for us to choose, but instead he was able to play nine of the ten. A superb move. It sent him up the scoreboard but he had a pedestrian round three and Martin was able to catch him.

Martin 72

Joe 65

Katy 62

Sam 56

Andrew 54

Ian 48

Next we pondered our next game, Texas Showdown or So Clover? We decided to do both, starting with Texas Showdown. Sam started round one in confident mood, saying he thought he could get a zero. He ended the round in joint last, having picked up three.

Round two was similarly bad for Sam as he discovered a new curse: he always loses when Joe leads, which he did whenever Martin was able to nominate the leader. Joe, meanwhile, had gone two rounds clear, with a three point lead on his nearest rival (Katy, Ian and Martin).

The game continued until round five. Sam arrested his decline, going clear on rounds four and five and he finished in third. But no one could reduce Joe's mid-game lead enough to be a challenge.

Joe 5

Martin 7

Sam 8

Katy 9

Ian 10

Andrew 11

Alas, So Clover was cancelled as Joe had to go out and look for his father who'd wandered off by himself. So we excused ourselves and said goodbyes, squeezing past four bicycles chained up outside Joe's front door.

Thanks all, see you all next week.

Old dragon drawers

I arrived at about 8.15, I think, and found five players: Joe, Laura, Sam, Mel and Martin trying out a new Oink game, Scout. But as I entered, they put it away and got out something more substantial for six: Auf Teufel Komm Raus. This game of luck pushing and devil dodging involves betting on how many points someone will be able to pull out of a furnace without taking a devil tile by mistake.

It is as cruel as luck can be. If round one was generous, then round three was devious, leaving Martin with just 20 points. Mel lead for most of the game, despite pulling mostly only devils. In round six, Laura was in joint last and needed to do something spectacular. She managed to fulfill her bet but did so by pulling 8 tiles, slowly edging towards her target. "It's like crawling a marathon," she exclaimed when it was all over. Then Joe scored 225 with only three tiles. I know it was random but it seemed like he was making a point.

In the final round, Joe bet low, only needing 100 to finish the game. Martin needed to reach his bet and he pulled one low tile after another, just as Laura had, only somehow worse. After 10 tiles he still hasn't reached his target so he pulled another tile. A devil. So cruel. 

Joe 1600

Mel 1480

Sam 1440

Andrew 1410

Laura 480

Martin 430

Next up was Ethnos, another six player game. This game was as quiet as Teufel was rowdy, but that was mostly due to the spicy peanuts that Joe offered. Instead, Sybil the dog kept us, shall we say, entertained with a constant stream of disapproving noises.

Round one ended in the most sudden way possible - all three dragons came out one after the other. Sam insisted he shuffled them properly after putting them in the deck separately.

At the end of round two the scores were Sam 39, Martin 36, Mel 31, Andrew 28, Joe 27, Laura 22.

I mention this because Laura suddenly embarked upon a rousing comeback that almost got her the win. She got a band of four trolls which meant she won any ties for area control. And there were a lot. She sped past almost everyone and came to a rest just short of triumph. Amazing scenes.

Sam 79

Laura 78

Martin 61

Mel 53

Andrew 46

Joe 37

This game also gave us the blog title as Joe referred to people who drew dragon cards as "dragon drawers" which we thought sounded like a nickname for someone. A mother in law from the 1970s, perhaps.

Then Laura and Mel left and we ended with So Clover. Dreams of another perfect score were shot down early as Martin's clue of "boom" seemed to fit equally well with "gas", "war", and "bang." It took us two attempts for us to get it right.

Another notable clue was "sweater" for "wool/oasis" It was Joe's clue and we thought was a lovely poetic name for a sweater: a wool oasis. The guess was right but Joe explained that sweater linked to oasis in that it was somewhere that you would sweat. 

Score 22 out of 24.

Then I left and the remaining three played Letter Press. A late night text told me the score…

Martin 24

Sam 22

Joe 16

Thanks all. See you next Tuesday.

Ethnos forgiven

 Having missed my Tuesday gaming fix for two weeks, I was determined to attend, even if I ended up running later than ever at 8.20. Joe (the host), Adam H, Katy, Gareth and Sam were all patiently for me, with Ethnos already set up on the table they were sitting around. They'd already played A Little Wordy, if I remember right, and had a chat. Sorry to be so late.

Ethnos has almost legendary status in GNN history, with Katy holding a special dislike for it, based on one game way back in the midst of time. Since then she's enjoyed far more unforgiving games than Ethnos so after a five year gap, she was reintroduced to the game. It's a simple game at heart. At least, it was for Adam who focused on the merfolk cards, giving an extra counter on the board and bonus points. Sam struggled, despite correctly predicting his next card would be a "shitty green halfling". Joe tried to flip the bonus token for giants like a beer mat and sent it across the board, dislodging a couple of counters from the score track. Sam was in the toilet at the time but I'm pretty sure we put his back in the right place.

By the end it seemed that Katy's long held aversion to this game was over. I suggested she could try Chocolatl again and she told me where I could stick it.

Adam 82

Katy 73

Gareth 65

Joe 57

Sam 56

Andrew 55

I wonder what other games people might be prepared to try again after years of avoidance. Would I play Quartermaster General again? I doubt it.

Then we played So Clover a couple of times. If you've ever played, then you know how it went. Lots of anguished moans followed by sighs of resignation as each player placed their clover face down. Except for Katy who has no issues at all.

After the first two or three were guessed first time, we started to become unstuck. Gareth had CHANNEL and TATTOO to link up and he went for TUNNEL which surprisingly we got with no trouble, but we stumbled on his clue FOGGY which should have been SMOKE and GRATE.

Joe finished last and was least confident. We went through several configurations and got to a place where we were happy but then got the jitters and changed our mind. Joe blurted out that we'd got it and then changed our minds, putting the squares back in their correct places. Against the rules but oh well. 

The correct result...now you see it...

Now you don't

I left at this point, leaving them to bang out one last game of So Clover. According to a late night text, they got 27/30.

Well done all. See you soon.

Real Life Trolling

We briefly threatened to be a six last night but as soon as Laura joined, Andrew dropped out, and a quintet it was. The sparsely-populated GNN evenings continue! Maybe Mel should host again, we had to turn people away that night. 

Anyway Joe was hosting and Ian, Laura and I were early enough to try a team crack at the officially-two-player A Little Wordy to kick us off. Each team draws vowel tiles (4) and consonant tiles (7) and from the available eleven letters, makes their own secret word: it can be any length, from one to eleven. Then the teams swap tiles, and try to work out what the other's word is. 

The deduction is done via cards that request X information from the other team. It might be the first or last letter, the amount of vowels, word length et cetera: but each card has a cost - when the other team gives information they are rewarded with a certain amount of berries, and when the words are finally guessed most berries wins. Asking if a particular tile is in the secret word is relatively economical: one berry. But asking the first letter is costly: 4 berries! Despite this Laura and Ian won the first game when they paid for the first letter and worked out our secret word was GIZMO (wrong guesses = two berries). Although Joe and I could have forced a tie (you keep playing, if necessary, until it's clear one team is berry winner, so despite us having more berries when they guessed right, we were forced to keep awarding them berries... ) we failed to do so.

Steve was yet to arrive, so we went again. This time Joe and I, after paying to establish the first letter was V, worked out the word was VERANDA and our secret word (AUNTIE) remained safely undetected as they made a vain, final tie-salvaging guess of UNTIED. One win each. Watching on for the final throes of the second game was Steve, looking somewhat windswept. With the classically tricky number of five to entertain, Joe suggested introducing Laura and Steve to Ethnos, and embarked on a wonderfully protracted and meandering teach - assisted/sabotaged by me - of a game that is very simple but manages to be extremely opaque in the learning. 

For the uninitiated, the isle of Ethnos (both curiously named and shaped, as it closely resembles Slovakia) is populated by various fantasy creatures, working in 'bands' that jostle for area control in the six regions. There's a slightly Ticket-to-Ride-y feel to proceedings as you either pick up cards or play them: cards of a matching race or colour form a 'band', allowing you to (probably) add a token to the board and also (probably) activate the power of the chosen 'leader'. The catch is when you play cards the rest of your hands go to the table, restocking the tableau for others to snatch up. Additionally, bands score at the end of each round - there are three - for their size, so you can compensate for underwhelming map presence by having 'big bands' and/or vice versa. 

Although the game explaining involved much laughter and Steve at one point sinking his head into his hands, one of the great things about Ethnos is the almost out-of-control speed it plays at, with turns coming around in literally seconds - unless it was Ian's turn, which was oft accompanied with Steve eventually saying "Sorry, is it me?" before Ian apologised and picked up a card. On the map, I got off to a good start and Laura was hampered by trolls not doing what she thought they did. This troll-related shenaniganery gave her a bad start she was to never fully recover from. Meanwhile, Joe's motley bands were bigger than everyone else's and he established an early lead.

We had one other way to score which was Orcs: when you played a band with an Orc leader, you could add a token to your Orc board, symbolising who knows what. These orc board tokens could be cashed in for points, something I took advantage of in round two when I kept picking up (and playing) orcs for not much kop on the map, but garnering me 20 points at the end of the round. Joe still led, however, and in round three he was first to lap the scoretrack, and proved ultimately uncatchable despite a late surge from Ian:

Joe 86 / Sam 75 / Ian 62 / Steve 53 / Laura 39

We all liked Ethnos and agreed Katy would too if we could ever get her to try it again. Next up was Raj, although we only actually played a single round as Laura and Steve, as if called by the night itself, suddenly upped and left. For what it's worth, I won (or was leading) the aborted game, aided no end by picking up the 7 tile with a bid of two...

The remaining trio played a trio of So Clover, pushing our scores slowly up (13-15-16) but never hitting the perfect (for three players) 18. I confess my clues were the smuttiest we've ever seen at GNN Towers, but in fairness with combinations like SEWER/KISS I was hard-pushed to keep them clean. Fortunately Joe and Ian were competently gutter-minded enough to decode them. I quite liked my romantic clue of 'lovemaking' for EVENING/SAFARI as well... despite some confusion over whether Godzilla resembles a bear or not (a long story, involving King Kong, who is "also not a bear" as Joe pointed out) we managed to decode enough to feel, if not triumphant, at least competent. And smutty. 

The evening had flown by and although Joe was up for a fourth crack at So Clover, Ian and I decided to hit the road. Lovely to revisit Ethnos, and a fun night once again. 

Pink Gravy

This Tuesday saw my return to regular weekday action for the first time in three weeks. Sam was hosting, with his two sons Stanley and Joe and the other visiting gamers were Joe, Ian and Martin.

The seven of us began with Just One, a co-operative word game where everyone is trying to give clues to one player regarding a randomly chosen word. The catch is that any duplicate clues are removed before the guesser can see them. This happened in remarkable fashion in round two. Stanley was the guesser and Pikachu was the word. The six of us managed to duplicate all our clues (Yellow, Pokemon, Electric) leaving Stanley completely clueless (literally).

In the end, we got ten right out of thirteen which, according to the somewhat patronising scoresheet, is "not bad at all."

The clues for "Fur". Joe's clue is "Yummy". That's the level he was operating on.

Some of grown up Joe's clues were a little oblique. For "gravy" his clue was "pink" (luckily, the guesser got it right anyway) and his reasoning was that Pink Floyd had a song called "Gravy Train". The trouble is, they don't. Sam pointed out he was thinking of "Have a Cigar" which does mention "riding the gravy train." But how you'd get there from "pink", I'm not sure.

Next was another word game. This time the two of us split into teams for a game of Trapwords. In this game a clue giver has to describe a word given to him in secret, while avoiding certain words chosen by the opposition. If he says one, then the round is over. His team has five guesses.

Trying to define a word while avoiding obvious descriptors is pretty tough. Sam's clues for "Traffic" ended up sounding like poetry.

It's like a row of automobiles
Crammed together
Waiting.

It was a draw. Sam put his sons to bed while Ian and I watched Joe and Martin have a very cyclical argument. Martin had read the rules to Trapwords and found that proper nouns can't be given as clues. Joe wanted to know if they could be used as trap words and Martin said there'd be no point because they can't be clues at which point Joe said yes, but... This went on for some time. They were actually agreeing, but you wouldn't have known that by looking at them.

Eventually, we decided to play Ethnos. Sam came down as we were setting up New Slovakia, or whatever it's called. The game had a couple of interesting areas which scored highly, even for the player in third. The opening stages went mostly in Joe's favour. He admitted to a little luck after playing six-card hands in both rounds one and two. Sam went for giants to supplement his area control while Martin's usual love of trolls was not enough to put him in contention this time.

Joe 79
Sam 65
Martin 61
Andrew 56
Ian 44

Next was a new game, Rebel Nox. It was a trick taking card game with hidden alliances. And lots of rules. At its heart, it's pretty simple. There are only three suits and each can trump one of the others, in a sort of paper-stone-scissors style. But some cards are assassins (discard the highest showing card) or scouts, I think (swap cards with another opponent). There are two teams, Rebels and Non-rebels who are only made public at the start of a round, by announcing they have a rebel card in their hand. It is up to each player to try and keep track of all the exchanges of cards to deduce who might have become a rebel.

No rebel cards here.

Add to this a triangular formation of cards that, for each trick, may change the winning conditions or how many points you win and a winning criteria that depends on how many people are on your team.

It was all a bit confusing and Joe wondered out loud "Is this actually what the future's going to be like?" Meanwhile, the game's Sulfur City was renamed Salford City, hinting at a distant future where Manchester has been eclipsed by its smaller neighbour.

For all its effort for mixing whist with The Resistance, it felt a bit strained. I rarely knew what was going on and when I and Martin won, it came as a surprise. Because Joe had taken a rebel card from me (which I had just got from Ian), there were three rebels and two non rebels. The winning conditions for two player teams are less stringent and we discovered that we did actually meet them. The game ended in round two.

Martin and Andrew, loyal to the core
Ian, Sam and Joe, rotten apples

An odd experience. A game that I can imagine some groups would delight in, playing it frequently. But our group was full of doubt about it, with Sam saying he hadn't really made a decision for the whole game.

But with that, I was done for the evening. It was eleven o'clock, but the other four were persuaded by Martin to try a new game that only suits four players. I bade my farewells and set off home. Goodnight all!

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.