Bumped out of Bedford

This Tuesday was the first of the winter cold enough to require a hat, and as I walked Sam's under a starry sky, I wondered if there would be eight of us and would Joe bring Captain Sonar. There weren't eight of us and Joe did bring Captain Sonar. We suggested playing it with seven but Joe wouldn't be swayed. It was eight or nothing.

On my arrival (and Katy's arrival too), Sam and Martin were looking at Super Vampire, a physical game where the active player wears a slightly dubious black plastic prosthetic finger, using it to nudge a counter around a cardboard maze type thing held above the table by four towers. The fingered player is trying to get garlic and bring it back safely to their tower. But they have a time limit: the amount of time it takes the other players to roll six dice, one at a time, so they're all showing suns. It's all crazy knockabout fun , but we only had enough for a brief demonstration from Sam before Joe and Ben arrived.

The six of us split into two groups of three for some short gamage until Ian was due in half an hour or so. We chose two new games, the first was Jamaica (prompting banter like "My wife and I played a board game the other day." "Jamaica?"...) which is a game that involves pirates racing around an island for money and treasure. This was the option for Joe, Sam and Katy. Me and Ben were cajoled into playing another of Martin's recent acquisitions, Fresh Fish.

Put as simply as possible, Fresh Fish involves building businesses with as short a road as you can. Except you're not allowed to place the roads. These spring into existence according to a confusing rule set that insists that every area is accessible by road. Thus, when an area gets a bit crowded, they start popping up, often in plots of land already reserved by other players for future development.

Far from being about fresh fish, it's mostly about town planning. Martin seemed very happy with how different it was, and I grant it that much: I can't think of another game that ticks this box, trying to act as shepherds, pushing the road into areas that will inconvenience your opponents. It requires a lot of forward planning which was impossible given our lack of experience.

Halfway through the game, we realized we'd made a mistake in road placement, which had a domino effect across an area of the board. Very disheartening. Martin didn't seem to bothered, though, clocking up a negative score for a clear win.

Martin -5
Ben 19
Andrew 21

An interesting game, but I can't say I actually enjoyed it.

Jamaica began with Katy running away with it, while later on Sam started running away with it until, at game end, Katy asked me to note down that Sam had stolen all her money.

Sam 32
Joe 14
Katy 12

Since we were still Fresh Fishing, they played a game of Super Vampire. I was too wrapped up in my game to pay it much mind, but it did get a noise warning from non-gamers in the Sam household so it must've been quite exciting.

Sam 5
Joe 2
Katy 0

Reactions were mixed. Sam loved it, while Joe said he might like it if he'd designed it.
At this point, Ian arrived from work, with perfect timing. I'm not sure I greeted him properly when he arrived, so I'll do it now: Hello, Ian.

We split again into a three and a four. Martin, Joe and I played Isle of Skye (Martin's first go), while Sam, Ben, Ian and Katy played Lancaster. However, Katy made a last minute request to switch to join us in IoS, but Joe was unsure of the logistics, so she stayed in Feudal England.

It was around this time that talk somehow turned to "What is the average in a score of one to ten?" Katy said it was seven, since if people see 7/10, they assume it must be only alright. I follow the example set by Edge magazine, and say that five is an average score. Martin showed his statistical background by saying his average was six, and the scores are normally distributed.

Isle of Skye was fun, with slot of plans apparently ruined by other players buying their tiles. I ended up with a lot of money again, but it was more beneficial this time, pushing me into second. Nothing could stop Joe and his collection of scroll tiles.

Joe 70
Andrew 62
Martin 53

Joe's winning island

Martin was unconvinced by how much you needed to be aware of to play the game, and Joe insisted that he hardly took any notice of what the other players were doing, unless a particular time was priced highly and only then would he check.

Lancaster was still in full swing, with players threatening to bump each other out of Bedford and Sam telling Katy to stop moaning because she was in the lead, so we had a bit of a rematch with Ra.

I was quite happy at the end if the first epoch, as I had two pairs of monuments. I spent the rest of the game expectantly waiting for the rest of to come out, netting me lots of points. It was a futile wait.

My barely-scoring monuments

Martin was last in the epoch twice, and both times got hit by the last Ra tile before he could profit. Joe, meanwhile, serenely glided to the win. It was never in doubt.

Joe 58
Martin 29
Andrew 27

Lancaster ended around this time, with the scores at:

Ben 72
Katy 56
Sam 53
Ian 52

At this point, the majority of us set off for home. Ian and Sam weren't quite done yet, and they squeezed out a game of Biblios.

Sam 10
Ian 6

As for the division, little has changed. Joe has taken a healthy chunk out of Katy's lead, but she still looks pretty safe.

Where there's a will

As Ben, Ian and I discussed events of the day suddenly lightening flashed, thunder boomed. Then the doorbell rang: it was Joe, soon followed by Chris, and finally a slightly damp-looking Andrew, who didn't escape the downpour. The rest of us wrapped up our game of Pairs as it stood (Chris won) and went into the front room to discuss options.

I kept mentioning Lancaster, but nobody seemed that interested. However, as the discussion slowly broke down into a kind of collective diffidence, I realized people were weakening: I pushed for Lancaster again, and managed to rope in Joe and Ian. Ben also returned to the kitchen, allowing Chris and Andrew to make the choice for the other game: they went with Castles of Burgundy.

I talked Joe and Ian through the rules of Lancaster, and we were off. Because the heart of the game is worker-placement/bumping, the finesse of it comes in the voting for laws: at the end of each round certain laws reward certain players, so how you spend your votes (you potentially have many) can be crucial. Ian and I didn't manage to prevent Joe from ushering in a 9point swing in his favour, as he was rewarded for battling the French in three different places. In the early rounds I decided against screwy moves, and in the later rounds I failed to stop myself making stupid ones: twice I voted the wrong way on something - after the first do-over, there was no excuses.

Joe sped off into the lead and stayed there. Ian and I battled for second, and during the final round I realized that the strength of my knights meant I was looking at third place - so it ended. I didn't jot down the scores, but Joe was miles ahead on the scoretrack and Ian a solid 8 points or so ahead of me. Joe didn't rate the game though, only being able to raise a shrug of indifference. Maybe it was too easy. Conversely Ian and I liked it; the hidden voting gives it a flavour that Waterdeep doesn't have.

Castles of Burgundy was still ongoing, so Joe dealt out the cards for Money. This was new to me, but the rules are simple enough, as long as you're no fool. I was a fool, however, and had misunderstood the scoring to the point where I was literally throwing away points during the game, allowing Joe to pick them up. He won with a thousand points; Ian had 870 and I - thinking I was about to pull off a debut win - had a measly 520. I wouldn't mind trying this again, but it did feel a little like a mechanic more than a game.

Castles of Burgundy was finally over, and Andrew had pulled off a solid win:

Andrew 186
Chris 166
Ben 129

And while Andrew headed off into the night, the rest of us played Not Alone, Joe's new game of alien predation/human survival. Joe took the role of the alien, trying to second-guess our human destinations as we roamed the planet, holding on until the rescue ship arrived.

It was a close thing at the end: we were staring up at the sky, waving excitedly at the rescue ship, when Joe stole in and sucked the will out of Ben in a gruesome end to the evening.

Bombers

Last night Andrew, Matt and I assembled primed to journey back through history to the time of Henry V - intrigue in the courts, and blood on the battlefields of France: Lancaster. Because I had neglected to tell him, the first Matt knew of this was when he saw the game set up - but it's reasonably easy to explain, so having guided him through the high spots we were off.

 Lancaster!

In Lancaster there's worker placement (your knights, going to the aforementioned courts/battles) but there's also worker bumpment, as your knights have levels from 1-4 and a more experienced or highly regarded knight can kick a lower-level one back home. Lower-level knights can counter this by bringing squires as their wing-men, but squires are a flighty lot, and will bugger off after one use. 

The courts bring you little tasty morsels  (more squires, gold, votes) or a nobleman to eat at your table, reflecting your increasing political clout. Or, if you have a few coins to pay, you can take both. Heading off to battle the French gets you an insta-reward from the King, plus 'power points' (points) if and when the battle is won. Making sure you win the battle is also, like life, a better outcome than  losing it, points-wise.

my unavailable Knights

What gives Lancaster intrigue though is the laws. At the end of each round players vote on three new laws, a majority or tie meaning that law comes into effect - bumping an old law (the King only likes three laws at any time) and potentially rewarding everyone, or more likely, only one or two. Getting a law passed is a way of pushing your points up - the law that rewarded knights battling the French got me 15 points all told - a big swing. 

After the laws the courts and battles are resolved and you get rewards from your hopefully expanding castle. And after five rounds the jig is up: everyone scores points for the values of their knights, castles, and something else I've forgotten. We didn't write down the scores but the places were

Sam

Andrew

Matt

Having foisted Lancaster on them, I stayed out of choosing the next game, pouring myself a large glass of celebratory wine. They returned from the cupboard with Ascending Empires, the space-subbuteo mash-up. I'm not sure what the choosing mechanic was, but Matt didn't know the rules so I talked him through them, and we were off!

Matt builds a city

As ever with Ascending Empires, the early hours are marked by cautious expansion and developing tech for the inevitable punch-up to come. To mix metaphors slightly, I was first out of the blocks when I blew up Andrew's ships, and following that both Matt and I came lurching into his territory: I was after the silver planet - I'm not sure what Matt was after. Matt's flicking was reminiscent of Joe Berger's: time and again he flicked too hard, or (more likely) rather gingerly, as though he was trying to bump-start a galactic Ford Anglia. 

Andrew got his purple tech up to maximum (stop sniggering) and began ramming our ships to pick up victory points. This collective suicide by his people did enough to give him a convincing win, despite having to cope with Matt and mine's shenanigans. 

Andrew 29

Matt 25

Sam 22

I poured a glass of consolatory wine. Then we played Cosmic Run! This seems to be the new Biblios - our go-to game for the last half-hour of the evening. And kudos to Matt for agreeing to learn yet more rules! 

Cosmic

Give Matt a space game though, and he consumes rules like a sponge. I forsook my usual tactic of playing reasonably safe and went for several optimistic moves, none of which I recall paying off. It was a battle between the others, and it was Matt that won it by the finest of margins:

Matt 65

Andrew 64

Sam 41

We night capped the evening with Push It. I have no idea what the scores were because my glass of optimistic wine had by this point been consumed, and although I think I won, I can't be sure. The boys headed off into the night as Sally returned, and I stumbled into bed with the age of Henry V now seeming a long time ago...