Mille Fury

With a multitude of people unable to make Tuesday games for various reasons, including being elsewhere in the country or watching the football, it was a relatively small attendance. With Anja and Steve volunteering to host, Martin and I (Ian) headed up the short distance up the Bristol-Bath Railway path - there was a moment where it looked like we might have a fifth attendee as Adam cycled past, but he was on his way to watch the aforementioned football. Still, 4 is a fine number for games.

When we arrived though, Anja was settling Lennon to bed, and Louis, having recently turned into an actual teenager, was too busy with email admin relating to his VR headset to play stuffy old boardgames, so we were temporarily a three. Martin, Steve and I played Jungo first – classic Jungo rules, not the Hachi Train variant. Fate smiled on me as I had some very lucky cards and after picking up some played cards was able to play 7 ones in a single turn. My luck meant I reached the winning condition of 2 fairly swiftly.

Ian – 2

Martin – 0

Steve – 0

We then played an edition of Timeline – I can’t recall the exact theme, but it just seemed to be “events”, but again fate smiled on me as one of my cards was “The Extinction of Dinosaurs” which seemed such an outlier compared to anything else it felt like cheating. Steve and I both got rid of our cards in the same round. We decided to guess at the remaining card “First Superhero” in a homebrew tiebreaker, whoever guessed the closest would win. I guessed 1936, only slightly earlier than the actual year of 1938.

Ian – no cards left

Steve – no cards left

Martin – 1 card left (I think)

Having settled Lennon Anja was finally free to play games. If it had been Christmas, Anja’s red-and-white arm cast (following a nasty fall down the stairs) would have been very festive, but alas we’re in May. After some brief gaming debate we settled on an old favourite, Mille Fiori.

It was a strange game in some ways, lasting maybe a tad longer than expected but full of twists, and the Townspeople areas relatively untouched for most of the game. Martin had an early lead, but after a slow start I was the first to reach 100 points. Martin scored big in one round and rocketed back ahead. Anja played a steady game throughout though and was able to pull into a comfortable lead when her early placements started allowed to start scoring bonuses. 

There was a lot of swearing with numerous utterances of “bollocks” and Steve, seemingly stuck languishing at the back, could only say “fuck you all” after finding the spaces he wanted to play in repeatedly blocked.

Anja’s consistent approach proved victorious, and Steve regained a lot of ground towards the end for a close finish.

Anja – 205

Martin – 188
Ian – 188
Steve – 178

Next up was Catan – On the Road. This card-based twist on Catan has seen a few plays recently, and it’s good fun. At one point during his trade Steve asked, “Does anyone have a sheep?”, and when Anja offered the said sheep Steve responded, contemplatively “So, you’re offering a sheep?” as if the offer wasn’t the exact request resource. It amused me, anyway.

It became very clear that Martin was going to win on his next turn, unless we could stop him. We tried, and Steve agonized over his final choice but couldn’t catch up to Martin, who ended the game as expected.

Martin – 7
Steve – 6
Ian – 5
Anja – 3

Steve retired at this point, leaving Anja, Martin and I to play a final game of Misfits. I do wonder if playing an arm in a cast would hinder Anja slightly, and a couple of tower collapses on her go seemed to suggest this could be case, but I also experienced a collapse leaving Martin to dispose of his pieces with relative ease. As usual, Misfits gave rise to wonderfully pleasant constructions best represented with pictures.

And with that Martin and I headed back to Greenbank, another lovely games night. Thanks all.

Green Bum

As I drove towards Greenbank Cemetery last night, the rain came lashing sideways in waves, ending a period of relative calm. I texted Adam suggesting he might want to abandon his plans to cycle, and he agreed: joining Martin as they both materialised out of the rainy night to climb into the car. We set off for Steve and Anja's, where our host was Louie. Now accustomed to nerds coming in with bags of games, he furnished us with drinks, glasses and bowls for snacks. Soon enough Anja appeared as well, and then Pete, and after a brief discussion of comics Louie chose our first game: Telestrations. 

Oddly Martin had never played this, but Louie talked us through the rules and we set off on a drawing and guessing spree. Notable highlights were Martin's drawing of a needle in a haystack being identified by Anja as 'pin' - she ignored the haystack - and Martin's guess for 'grilled cheese' which hopefully gave nobody else the bad dreams I had. 

The scoring is kind of a nonsense, but for what it's worth Louie, Anja and myself took a joint win with 1.5 points each. Steve joined us for the last round, so as we pivoted to the evening's main courses everyone was already at the table. Anja, Adam and Pete chose Thurn and Taxis and myself, Steve and Martin went to Ape Town. 

Pete was new to Thurn and Steve new to Ape Town, so there was some Rules Mumblings for a little while before we struck out establishing a postal service/menacing simians. As is my habit - sorry - I lost track of the other game as I was laser-focused on trying to be a mafia monkey, succeeding in making the early running but becoming increasingly concerned about my lack of lemurs. 

My worries were well-founded. Though we clung onto Martin's coat-tails - or actual tail - for the majority of the game, he pushed his way forward in the finale far enough to take a pretty convincing win. 

Martin 100
Sam 89
Steve 73

Germany's network of postboxes was still being developed, so we blasted through a quick game of Jungo. Martin won this too, in pretty short order. 

Then we embarked on a brutal game of Misfits, with all of us collapsing the tower at different points - most agonisingly for me, it happened placing my very last piece. 

And when that happened we all had around ten pieces of wood each - almost as if the last 15 minutes had been a complete waste of time. As Thurn and Taxis was now packing up, we declared it a draw. I'll have to leave the German drama to the comments, as I was distracted by being clumsy and don't really recall any of the rules. I know Adam won though.

Adam 30

Pete 24

Anja 16

Astonishingly it was now late enough that our next game was our last: So Clover, of course! And a triumphant So Clover at that. Martin's Spinal Tap was almost portabelloed by Movie coming out, and Anja's clue of Gallery had us foxed for a while as well until we connected to the underwater elements in zoo/tunnel. Most contentious turned out to be my clue of Battle Axe for Dungeon/Accessory, as Steve felt manacles would be a better clue, and I said not all dungeons are sex dungeons, Steve. Martin fleetingly thought one might go in fancy dress to a poetry party, before blinking in surprise at his own thought process in a way I haven't seen before. 

Regardless, look at this! 36 points. 

Adam had been first to finish, and whiled away his waiting time trying to draw an actual clover leaf on the back of his clover, before deciding it looked more like a bum. I"m presuming he added the hair afterwards. To be honest, there are a couple of other things it looks like now. 

 

On that physiological bombshell, we called it a night. 

Nutritious Scarecrow

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and Joe was on driving duty: picking me up a little after 7 and then Ian and Martin en route. Joe insisted he knew where he was going and he mostly did, only losing the thread at the final corner, questioning "Where am I?" in a way that suggested maybe he was reflecting on bigger things than the geography of Barton Fields. But moments later we were relieved of any further existential concerns and in the house, where Arthur and Louie formed semi-adjacent participants for the first game of the night: Perfect Mismatch. 

This is a weird party game where playing co-operatively (there's also a competitive variant) one player is trying to successfully clue the others to one of six possible words on a card. The catch is that the clueing is bizarrely restrained to a series of spectrums - sort of - where the extremes are completely unrelated attributes. Is a scarecrow more unbreakable than it is nutritious? Is a career more legal than it is daytime? Ian, Joe and Martin all took turns clueing as Anja joined us for the finale. We had mixed success, succeeding with maximum points only once but avoiding the ignominy of placing the right guess in the worst place. 

Steve was briefly glimpsed but still focused on settling Lennon, so whilst Louie and Arthur began building a den we split into groups of three and four. Adam wanted a Cascadero rematch and so Ian, Martin and I joined him for that. At the other end of the table, Joe talked Anja and Pete through Sunrise Lane, and the mini-Kniziathon was underway. 

Cascadero had a cagey start - nobody wanted to be the first to offer up points to someone else, so the envoys were largely eyeing the towns from a safe distance. Then when things kicked into gear it transpired we were talking different strategic approaches. Adam was harvesting seals as much as he could, working towards not only that three-point bonus but a late-game salvo that would catapult him up the track. Ian and I were probably more tactically-minded, trying to nab opportunities as they arose. Martin didn't pick up a single seal all game, but we naively let him generate a lot of farming income, and he built a huge early lead. 

Sunrise Lane ended around the same moment as Lennon's bedtime, with Joe taking the win:

Joe 108
Anja 94
Pete 90

And with bedtime also, which Steve appeared. As we were still mulling, occasionally to excess, in Cascadero, they began playing Indigo, a game I've never played but thought it looked a bit like Tsuro. "It's Knizia does Tsuro" Steve confirmed later. 

Or in this case, Anja does Tsuro:

Anja 10
Steve 8
Pete 7
Joe 3

In Cascadero we were now coming to a grand finale - grand for Martin anyway. I briefly caught him only for our resident Kniziaphile to surge away once more, reaching the top of his track just in time before the game ended as we ran out of envoys. Adam's seal-powered surge was impressive, but there was no victory this time. 

Martin 47

Sam 41

Adam 36

Ian 28

Adam and Arthur now said goodbye and made their way home. Louie delayed for as long as possible but the Dalton-Dale hammer came down and he was packed off to bed. The Indigo quartet played Indigo again! 

As Ian and I went from taking a pasting by Martin in one game to taking a pasting by Martin in another: this time, Gazebo. We tried a new board, with 'raised patios', the specifics of which are interesting when you play but too boring to list here. 

As with Cascadero, Martin had a strongish lead mid-game, we caught him near the end before he surged again. I had an outside chance of pipping him to the post with my last turn, if by some wild chance he had no blue on his dominoes. But he did, and instead of a triumphant victory I shunted myself from second to third. Fucking gazebos. 

Martin all gazebos erected!

Ian - two gazebos still in their packaging

Sam - three gazebos thrown across the lawn in a tantrum

At the other end of the table, Indigo had already finished:

Joe 10

Pete 8

Anja and Steve 7 each

And they were blowing each other up in Light Speed: Arena.

Joe won this by Griffithesque margins, with Steve baffled by what just happened. 

Joe - 25

Anja and Pete - 15 each

Steve 12

"It's a silly game, but I like it" said Joe, reholstering his space blaster. I tend to agree, even if you spend longer scoring than you do playing. 

Now what? We shuffled seats with Martin Joe and Pete teaching Anja Gang of Dice and Ian, Steve and I playing Misfits. Here are the three hand positions of the former, illustrated by Anja (whut) Martin (er) and Joe (hah).  

There was to be much drama in both games. At our end of the table both Steve and I made it to our last piece more than once, only to have things collapse on us. Ian at one stage seemed to have All The Pieces, and we confected something so top-heavy that the Gang paused their Dice to watch in wonder. 

Meantime in Gang of Dice Anja found herself on the receiving end of fate's indifferent attitude to plucky against-the-odds dice-rolling, almost entirely bereft of dice halfway through the game. But though I missed the finer details, she staged an incredible recovery - just not quite enough to catch Joe. 

Joe 48

Anja 46

Pete 39

Martin 29

Misfits finished at the same time, after an epic of wild swings and roundabouts. In the end it was Steve who took the win, after Ian and I both knocked things over one too many times. 

There was loose talk of getting Perfect Mismatch out again, but was no time for an all-person closer with the hour now gone eleven. After a brief consultation about Steve's facial hair/lack of, it was time to go home. Thanks all. 

Swapping Secret Santa for Secret Hitler

Big T was first to arrive at my house for Christmas games yesterday, as we kicked off a few hours earlier than usual at 1pm. Joe was hot on his heels so after a brief catch-up and coffee, we reasoned that it would be silly not to start playing games, so we did. Joe brandished Take Time at us and we jumped in.

This is a fun little Mind-esque game of playing numbered cards around a clock face, with the not-insignificant caveat that each segment, going clockwise, must be of the same or higher value than the one previous. Add in a couple of extra wrinkles and that's pretty much it: but with no communication allowed after you've seen your cards, success proved occasionally elusive. Did we succeed on that final round? I don't actually remember now, but either way, Katy arrived and we shifted gears into sentient vegetable heroism with Potato Man. 

There was just time for a one-round game (won by me) before, as if summoned into being by Adam - compare above and below images - Pete turned up. 

We played another single-round game (won by Big T) and then Adam H and Laura arrived, so we split into teams and broke out Phantom Ink. Joe and I were the clues, with Joe's team at a slight numerical disadvantage (Joe, Pete, Big T) as I clued to Laura, Katy and Adam H. 

Our first word was Pancake, and despite my spelling confusion, our team's question of Who would dislike it was very helpful as I started <mis>spelling CELI(AC). When asked for a nickname I clued CRE(PE) and from there it was a straightforward victory. We went again with the Adams now clueing for the same teams, and midway through the game Chris arrived to bolster the numbers, joining with the short-staffed Pete/Joe/Big T gang. Unfortunately we lost our most coherent decoder shortly after, as Laura had to go off and escape from a room in Cabot Circus, and Katy and I spent most of our time looking at each other in confusion as Adam regarded us with a mix of long-suffering sympathy and crestfallen disappointment. We did figure out Snow, but our shot in the dark simply negated any opposition doubts and they guessed, correctly, the answer was Snowball. 

We realised with a large afternoon stretching before us we could now play some big ol' chunkers. Big T proffered The Barracks Emperors and Joe Chris and Katy leapt in to join him. I played the Christmas sympathy card to get River of Gold on the table and Andy Mosse arrived to find himself dealt in to it, charitably sitting down to an immediate rules-teach. 

In River of Gold, we're sailing up and down (well, repeatedly down, thanks to Rokugan's curious looping geography) the river and establishing trade routes. Despite the madness of the board, River of Gold has a certain simplicity to it: there are only three actions to choose from: move your boat, build a building or deliver to a customer. The goal is to move yourself up the six influence tracks to the east of the river, and the main difficulty we found with the game is remembering to roll the die at the end of your turn instead of the beginning. 

Andy took the laurels here, with Pete second and then myself and Adam lagging a short way behind. 

At the other end of the table, the Barracks were echoing to the sound of a lot of profanity, with Katy summoning her insult of choice for Chris as he did something or other she objected to. There seemed to be a lot of objecting, in fact - the game is a trick-taker of sorts but with a board where cards are laid and prizes - using the word loosely - to be surrounded and claimed. This chicanery continued as River of Gold finished and we began playing Poison. 

This was also new to Andy, but he took to it with his standard zen vibes and nearly followed his River of Gold triumph with a second win, but I just pipped him. 

Sam 13

Andy 14

Adam H 22

Pete 34

Around now the Barracks Emperors concluded as well, and Katy celebrated her debut victory by going off for chips, abetted by Joe and Adam. When they returned, Andrew was with them as well, like the fourth wise man, proffering a festive bottle of ketchup. We paused for dinner. 

After that, Joe suggested Secret Hitler and we split into liberals and fascists. Katy wanted to know if, should she be dealt into the fascists team, she could sabotage it. Joe admitted there was no rule against it, but it could get confusing. And in fairness the game was confusing enough with Joe and I not spotting that each other were fascists and me being convinced Chris was, even though he hadn't opened his eyes. I knew Katy wasn't because she seemed to be enjoying herself.  

I'm still not 100% clear on how the game works, but I did grasp that we all take turns being the president, and the president nominates a chancellor, and then there's a vote and then the president gets some cards and passes two to the chancellor to choose one of, and after this either a liberal or fascist law gets passed. There's enough fog over proceedings that nobody can be totally sure who is who, and Andy found himself shot dead simply for having the temerity to chat in chambers. Then Katy shot Big T who was Hitler and so the liberals won - perhaps for the best in these popularist times, and certainly for Katy's disposition. 

Laura was returning imminently so we split into three groups, with the Fellowship trick-taker, Babylonia and Mille Fiori spread across the table. But now I will hand the reins to our default note-taker and blogger, Andrew.

*

I was walking towards Sam’s house when I was caught up by Joe, Katy and Adam T. I was astonished as the coincidence of all of us arriving at the same time but this was soon explained when I saw the bags full of portions of fish and chips. I had got here just as people were breaking for food.

I had just eaten, so I watched while the gaming table vanished beneath unwrapped papers and various deep fried comestibles. The chat revolved around games, trying to think which games would work with non gamers. Joe told us about a game where you’re given a word and have to guess if it’s a Tolkein character or an antidepressant.

After the food was finished and the table cleared, Secret Hitler was brought to the table. As Sam has already said, it’s a social deduction game, it was capable of allowing all of us to play. In this game, the liberals have to detect the fascists - as determined by drawing an envelope with your secret identity within. And if that weren't enough, one lucky (?) player gets to be Hitler.

I'll be honest, I didn’t really get it. I was a fascist and, as such, I knew that my partners were Joe and Sam but it later transpired that Sam didn't know about Joe, since they were sitting next to each other and couldn’t see each others’ secret signal at the start of the game . Additionally,  Chris kept passing fascist policies. Maybe he was also a fascist and I hadn't noticed, I thought, or maybe he's passing fascist policies because they give the player a little special action. But then Chris, using a special action, assassinated the liberal Andy M, so then I was quite convinced he was a fascist and I’d missed it. Sam voted against himself as President. “I changed my mind,” he explained. I was bemused.

In the end, Katy was the one who identified Adam T as Hitler and killed him, and the game ended with the liberals victorious. It was quite sedate, apparently. Previous (non GNN) games have been quite rambunctious, we were told. Maybe it was the chips, but it was all very low key. I had no idea what was going on at all.

Next, several people adjourned to the front room to choose a game, and Pete came back with a £10 note in his hand, making us all wonder what was going on in there. We hear from Laura that she’s on her way and so we devise a system in which we set up three games and she can join any of them once she arrives.

The choices in this devillishly complex method was Fellowship of the Ring (Adam T, Chris and myself), Babylonia (Sam, Adam H and Pete) and Mille Fiori (Hoe, Katy and Andy M). Although once Laura had arrived, both Fellowship and Babylonia had begun so she joined Mille Fiori. She seemed happy enough.

In Fellowship, the three of us took on Chapter 16 - a tricky hand for a trio containing two relative newbies. But we persevered at Adam’s behest (he wanted to complete all 18 Chapters before the end of the year) and, after three attempts we nailed it! I was quietly smug and keen to try Chapter 17, but Adam checked the game and discovered the next bit was Chapter 16a and looked like quite a long endeavour.

Since Babylonia had finished at the same time as us we decided to leave 16a to another day.

Sam 163

Adam H 156

Pete 127

I remember remarking that Sam’s position on the board didn’t look like a winning one - a couple of small disparate areas, until Pete pointed out all the cities Sam had taken with his strategy.

Mille Fiori was still in full flow, and I heard Joe take a turn that went on for so long that he apologised halfway through.

The six of us played Fuji Flush and I was quietly confident, since this game is - for some reason - my strongest game. Back when we had a Division charting our results, I had a win rate of 50% which is odd for a luck-based game that usually plays five or more. I didn’t say anything, in case I made a target for my back. Plenty of dick points on display and poor old Pete seemed to have a hand made up entirely of 2s and 3s. And I won again, adding my final card - a 7 - to an already existing chain of 7s.

Next up, the six of us bided our time with 6nimmt. Adam T was hesitant to play, but didn’t have the energy or inclination to veto it. And a good thing too, as he ended up a comfortable winner.

Adam T 12

Pete 23

Adam H 24

Sam 32

Andrew 39

Chris 41

And talking of comfortable winners, here are the results from Mille Fiori.

Joe 239

Katy 217

Andy M 167

Laura 154

Joe, Andy M and Adam T left at this point and the six of us played Ito, using the chevrons from Fun Facts as a handy way of keeping track of everyone’s numbers. The categories were vague enough for some details to be clarified. Is a “popular villain” one who is generally beloved by the public, or just very well known? Good job we did check, because we got that one 100% right.

Another curio that this game threw up was when Sam’s reply to “Things that give you goosebumps” was “thinking about goosebumps”. This is about as close to breaking the fourth wall that real life can get but then Sam explained that when he started to think about what might give him goosebumps, that itself gave him goosebumps. Perfectly valid, I suppose.

Things that give you goosbumps - the lower reaches of the scale

After that, I had enough in me for one last game. We split into two groups. I played Katy and Adam at Biblios, and it went pretty much as you might expect. Halfway through I got that sinking feeling that I wasn’t very strong in anything, but it was far too late to do anything about it. And I was right. Amazingly, though, no one finished the game with any orange cards at all, meaning that die was discarded, unscored.

Katy 5 (plus brown die)

Adam 5

Andrew 0

The other end of the table played Soda Jerk which I'm afraid I was completely oblivious to.

Whiskey and soda jerk, anyone?

With that, I was done. Many thanks to everyone for another exciting year. I’ll hand back to Sam for the final part of the blogging.

*

After Andrew left we were down to a quartet - or at least I thought we were. We set up for Misfits and and then saw Pete was quietly watching us, as though not wanting to interrupt. He'd decided to get a later train home and so we redistributed the pieces and set about it. I criticised Katy for going gong-ho saboteur on her very first turn, but the structure survived, long enough to grow big enough that when it collapsed on Pete and later Laura, they were handed enough wooden pieces to start a small fire. 

Chris then drove Pete off to the station and we were left as a trio. And what better way to end the evening than three cracks at So Clover. We kicked off with a 13/18, did about the same in the second game and then finished off with a triumphant 18 in the finale, by which point Katy was sure we had played four times but Laura and I demurred. 

Now a whisky or two to the good, there was even some post-game chat comparing dysfunctional families and putting the world to theoretical rights. Midnight was not tremendously far away by this point, and after a full shift of gaming, it was time to say goodnight. Thanks all for coming, it was epic!