As the name implies, it's a scaled-down version of Bridge, specifically for two players. There are three special cards called 'colons', leading to an amusing section in the rulebook headed 'Colon Irregularities'. Fortunately we didn't suffer from these.
Joe made a tentative 2 No Trump bid in the first round but my terrible cards meant he comfortably made it. In the second hand, I benefited from an odd rule whereby if an Ace is the turn-up card, the dealer can draw 9 extra cards and then choose the best 13 from 22. My hand of 11 clubs and two other Aces pretty much played itself...
We decided to move on to another one by the same designer - mad genius Joli Quentin Kansil (also responsible for Montage). This one is called Krakatoa and it's a part-dexterity dice game: you're trying to roll particular combinations of colours on the three sets of d12s, but each successive roll must knock into and move one of the dice lying on the table. The rules also stipulate that it be played on a soft surface such as a tablecloth, encouraging the dice to turn over when hit rather than just skidding.
Joe seemed to have an innate talent for rolling matching sets of three ('volcanoes'), raced into the lead and never looked back. I had a brief moment of hope when I achieved the best combo in the game - a 'Big Eruption' with all 9 dice showing the same colour (pictured). This quadruples your scoring for the next two throws, but sadly four times nothing is still nothing.
It was already 9.30 and we were yet to start the main event! Joe has recently acquired the long-awaited 'Distant Lands' expansion for our old favourite Manoeuvre, offering four new armies with interesting new powers. I went for the Indians while Joe was keen to try the Japanese. Unfortunately, after several minutes of meticulously shuffling the freshly-unshrinked cards, he realised he'd picked up the Swedes instead so an unlikely battle ensued.
The new armies seem to have lower basic strength than the original ones but with a few tricks up their sleeves - my Indians could launch rocket attacks! I made a couple of positional blunders and Joe seemed to have the advantage in the midgame. We settled into an attritional battle, mostly managing to heal wounded units before they could be eliminated, and proceeding through our decks quite slowly.
The tide started to turn when I drew a handful of cards for an infantry unit which had spent the game so far hanging around lazily far from the front line. Now they charged forward and delivered an instant kill to one of Joe's units. We'd now made 4 kills each (5 is needed for an instant win) but our decks were also close to depleted, which brings the game to an end with victor decided by territory occupied. Neither of us could quite manage another kill and my slightly more advanced units gave me a tight 9-7 win.
The ladies still seemed to be happily partying so we finished off with Joe's Secret Santa gift Qwinto. It's another roll-and-write game and most similar to Qwixx. However, while the decisions in Qwixx often seem quite obvious, Qwinto offers a lot more freedom. You can start a row anywhere - not just at the ends, but it's still quite easy to box yourself into a corner later in the round.
Joe easily won the first as I ended it with a sequence of 'fehlwurfes'. The second seemed to go much better than me and we calculated a 79-79 tie until I realised that I'd added 12 points I hadn't earned.
Midnight was striking and it was time to call it a night - and Sarah reported they were just having the last dance too!
