Chocolate cider

 This week’s games night seemed to start early for me this week, as I awoke on Tuesday morning from a dream in which me, Martin, Joe and Ian were in a badly stocked off licence trying to buy alcohol. Ian was tempted by the chocolate cider by Thatchers while Joe had to be content with a 2 litre bottle of white wine called Sembrini that had party balloons on the label.

And then, as I approached this week’s venue, I arrived at Sam's at the same time as Adam T and Joe. Katy opened the front door to greet us. At least, she greeted Adam. He got a hug on the doorstep that lasted long enough for the silence between Joe and I to get awkward.

Once Katy was finished ignoring us, we all went into Sam’s kitchen which now held eight gamers: me, Adam, Joe and Katy as well as Ian, Martin, Pete and, of course, Sam.

Since there were eight, there wasn’t a chance for an initial communal game so we immediately split into two groups. Martin, Katy, Adam and Joe played Divinare - a rare but familiar game here at GNN, while Ian, Sam and me introduced Pete to Quantum - a very familiar sight on our tables.

Divinare played out on the far end of the table, and I couldn’t follow it’s progress although I was aware of Martin’s increasing despair and his insistence that he used to be good at this game. Katy procrastinated at one point, saying “I’m just touching cards,” to which Adam supportively replied “we’ve all been there.”

Katy 16

Adam T 16

Joe 12

Martin 0

There's no tie breaker in Divinare but Katy graciously accepts the win “because I'm a witch.” Joe found it intriguing: “I've never played it before,” he said. 

“But you said you just needed a rule refresher,” said Martin, aghast.

“Yeah…” Joe replied. And we'll probably never know what he meant by that.

As for Quantum, Pete got a rules explanation and, thanks to a fortuitous roll of dice, was able to place a cube in his first go.

Pete and Sam were the early leaders with two cubes each, while Ian went warlike, even managing to wipe out four ships in one turn (attacked three, put cube down for dominance, picked up card with two extra moves, attacked again) and I expanded my fleet to the maximum five cubes.

But late in the game, i am in a winning position. I have the Agile card, meaning that deploying isn't an action and so i actually have three turns in a row where I'm able to set myself up for a win. But each time, someone attacks me, and the chance is lost. 

Ian is too spread across the map to get a cube down (“I'm very vulnerable,” he says. “We're here for you,” Katy reassures him) and Pete still has two cubes, so it's between me and Sam when suddenly he deploys, warps and puts down a cube to win the game.

Sam 0 cubes

Andrew 1

Ian 1

Pete 2

The Divinare group had started playing Maya while we were still midgame. The only thing I remember about that is all the comments about Joe's massive rack.

Martin 173

Joe 144

Adam 129

Katy 115

And now we were all free of our respective gaming commitments, we could reassemble ourselves as our whims dictated.

Ian, Pete, Joe and myself all whimmed ourselves into a game of Wandering Towers, while Katy, Sam, Adam and Martin played Fearless. 

Shockingly I didn’t note the result of Fearless, but I did note that leading with a zero seemed to be a dick move - and observation based on Martin's “fuck orrrrf” to Sam after he kept leading with zeroes.

As for Wandering Towers, we rapidly forgot where our wizards were as we built an incredibly tall tower. 

Mid game, we checked the contents of the Raven tower to see how well we were doing and Joe was upset to see only one of his wizards in there, since he was sure he'd done two. In the Ian, Ian was most nimble, getting his fourth wizard into the black tower while no one else could manage that on the same turn.

Ian 4 wizards 

Andrew 3

Pete 2

Joe 2

And with that, Katy and I set off home. The remaining sextet played so clover. Sam texted the score: 34/36

And then they played again as a quartet, but Sam was stymied by a card that could've gone on all four sides of his clover.

19/24

And so it ended. Thanks all, another evening of dreams coming true especially since Ian told us that chocolate cider does actually exist.

Space Merchants

As it was Ian's birthday, there was an impromptu games night last night at Adam's house as he, Katy and I joined with the birthday boy. My automated calendar insists his birthday is today, although Ian demurs and I guess we have to trust him (even though I clearly recall him struggling to remember how old he was a couple of years ago) but the debate of the night was What To Play: I'd brought along Black Forest but wasn't actually pushing for it as a four-player, as I suspected it would run rather long. I'd also brought Quantum, as it's one of Ian's favourites and - as we reminded ourselves throughout the evening - it was his birthday. "Is it space-themed?" Katy asked.
"Yes" said Ian. Katy wailed.

"We can pretend it's trading in the Meditterranean though" I said. 

"At night" Adam added. 

Katy seemed unconvinced but as it was Ian's birthday, she relented, and after a brief visit to the front room to witness Arthur's rather impressive Star Wars Lego diorama, we set up for a rare four-header.

Adam kicked things off in sedate fashion - moving a single ship on the board, and taking two Research. Unusually, Ian and I did the same: everyone clearly lining up their ducks for turn two. But Katy jumped into an embryonic lead with a cube down on her first turn: we were away. 

With a fairly expansive set-up everyone had some room to manoeuvre, but whilst Katy and I kept to ourselves, Ian found himself targeted by Adam fairly early on. Birthday reminders came through the galaxy PA but to no avail: with Adam's ships all low-numbered, fate was encouraging him to go aggressive and Ian was closest. Normally in Quantum there's a kind of compacted Eclipse-shaped curve of building your engine (Eclipse) or getting cubes down while you can (Quantum) before eventually everyone merges into a punch-up. 

But despite Ian's impressive rally to catch Katy and I (down to two cubes, with zero attacks) my command card of Resourceful (remove a ship for an extra action) was working wonders for me, as I used it to get a cube down three turns running and snag the victory. "That was actually not too bad!" Katy surmised, who took an extra turn after I'd won which we'll have to ignore - otherwise, chaos. 

Sam - no cubes

Katy and Ian - two cubes left

Adam - four cubes left

Arthur came in and when Adam told him that he'd lost, his son muttered "That was inevitable". He's never seen his dad play a Rosenberg, obviously... We moved on to Fishing; new to Ian and Adam. Basic trick-taking rules apply and the idea is that your 'catch' - won tricks - are all worth a point per card. The conceptual catch is that they're also your hand for the next round, and any shortfall is made by drawing from the 'Ocean deck' - which introduces more powerful cards. 

This was the closest game of Fishing I've seen - there was only 12 points between first and fourth going into the final round. Unfortunately my impressive penultimate-round haul gave me a hand of shite and I only won a single card (courtesy of a zero). Katy caused a stewards' enquiry when she was a card short, drew a trump from her stack to win the trick and then subsequently discovered a bland old red '1' on the floor after the game. Adam - who else - took 15 points and returned home most boastful fisher. 

Adam 85

Katy 82

Ian 80

Sam 77

Although Arthur was still up and we could hear him and Hannah giggling in the next room, Katy said it was getting late and she would go home unless Ian opened his birthday Toblerone, so he did. Ian had asked me to bring So Clover but, portentously signalling the mid-life fog he is headed towards, I'd forgotten. So we played No Thanks instead. I didn't take any photos at this point, but we re-established whose birthday it was, perhaps all secretly hoping that Ian would get a victory to take home. Unfortunately his Andrew-esque strategy of nabbing a lowish-card early on didn't pan out - although he did at least beat Adam out of third place. Katy was pleased to end the night on a high:

Katy 22

Sam 29

Ian 50

Adam 65

And we ended Ian's anniversary with a discussion on the deceptive nature of time: Ian's recollections of the last two decades' events all being "a couple of years ago"; my brain's default of up and coming band being the Arctic Monkeys, Adam's confession that he doesn't remember "anything". Katy said as she got older she found herself knowing and more and more people and it was wonderful. Adam replied sonorously that, at some point, that trend will begin to reverse. 

But before then there are more games to be played. We headed out into the now-misty Easton air with the promise of that soon... 

Elephant, Eldorado, 'elicopters

 When I walked into Sam's kitchen at about 7.10, the games were already underway. Sam, Ian and Adam T were deep into a game of Dice Miner. This game involves a nicely designed dice stand in the shape of a mountain and players take turns to pick dice from it. Players are aiming to pick up runs of numbers, point scoring dice, or beer dice which they can then sell to opponents, allowing them to take two dice from the mountain.

In the final round I watched, Ian sold a lot of beer to Adam which made him mine more efficiently but also gave Adam an extra dice each time, which he rolled with great skill/luck. 

Adam T 69

Ian 58

Sam 57

Next up, with Katy, Martin and Adam H expected soon we decided to play Cross Clues, a game that people can just jump into halfway through. In fact, Sam was on domestic duty elsewhere when Adam T, Ian and I began. Sam joined in and then Martin and Katy joined in too. We were going well until we became unstuck on Adam T’s clue of “Robin” which we did not guess was “Detective/motorcycle.” Perhaps we should have been more aware after his early clue of “Batman” for “Detective/car.”

24 out of 25

Interestingly, we had five chances to clue “helicopter” but no one said “Airwolf”. Tragic.

Next the six of us dug out Wilmot’s Warehouse, a curious memory game in which tiles with vague images are drawn at random, one by one, and everyone decides what it is and where to put it in the “warehouse”. It is placed face down, but we invent a story to help us to remember where it is. Then we all search through cards and place them on top of the matching tiles.

Thanks to our memorable tale of an elephant with, trunk, ears, poop, who was standing on a flower and there was an information booth with someone who had cake, and there was weather overhead. Sometimes new rules are brought into play. Some are odd and pointless, but a highlight was the round in which we could only talk in single syllable words, making us all sound remarkably like cavemen.

Adam H came in halfway through and he kindly operated the stopwatch, timing us in the final stage of the game where we all race to match cards to tiles. We did it perfectly, no mistakes, in only 2 minutes and 38 seconds. Eagerly we checked the rule book to see what brilliant rating we’d achieved.

“Congratulations. You’ve met the operational requirement.”

A strangely discouraging result. Like a team leader at an Amazon distribution hub grudgingly accepting that you’d hit your daily target.

Now we were all together, we split into two. Ian, Adam T and Adam H wanted to play Quest for Eldorado and I agreed, purely on the basis that I didn’t want to change seat. Martin, Katy and Sam played Klink.

I didn’t follow Klink at all, but I couldn’t miss the end of the game, with Martin announcing “And Katy loses!” sounding like a game show host revealing that night’s big prize.

Martin 46

Sam 71

Katy 84

In Quest for Eldorado, Ian and the two Adams took their time early on, picking up tiles and trashing weak cards, while I sped off into the distance. I had a healthy lead - at one point a full tile ahead of my nearest rival - but it was an illusion. My opponents’ better cards meant that all passed me by. But Adam T also seemed to struggle with his hand, deciding twice to simply discard a hand when it was his turn. 

Adam H 1st

Ian 2nd, one tile away

Andrew 3rd, two tiles away

Adam T 4th, six tiles away

But Adam T felt that the win was tainted by the three of us all picking up barriers between tiles without passing through them, strictly speaking against the rules of the game.

Sam and Martin had, by now, introduced Katy into the world of Cascadero, with Sam promising her “at least second place” emphasising how bad he was.

They were still half way through the game when I decided to call it a day. Ian and the Adams were considering Mlem as I left, but I later found out they’d chosen Quantum, with Adam H just sneaking a win over Adam T.

Cascadero ended with Martin scoring 50+ with Katy and Sam tied on 44 and as the games that went on into the night, Katy won Spicy and then two attempts at So Clover scored 18/24 and then 19/24.

Finally, a quick recap of the scores from last week’s unblogged games night:

Spots

Adam 6

Martin 3

Ian 0

Cascadero

Adam 53

Ian 49

Martin 43

(and Martin came last after being in the lead right up until the final round)

Havalandi

Adam 79

Martin 69

Ian 64

Klink

Martin 73

Adam 82

Ian 82

Squid Games

Six doughty gamers assembled around the table last night - Gareth and Martin were first to arrive, followed by Joe, Ian and finally Katy. We kicked things off with My Gold Mine, an Incan-Gold-esque escapade of trying to make out of the mine with the most gold and not be dead. On your turn you can either move towards the exit, or stay where you are and grab some gold; the catch being that doing so may provoke the ire - and movement - of the dragon, who will roast you its fiery flames if you're caught, like it's been reading the Daily Mail its entire life.

Some movement cards allow you to swap places with someone. I was discouraged from doing this and praised when I took Katy's advice. She then praised Gareth for swapping places with me! I had won round one, I suppose, and put a target on my back. The game was mainly notable for these dick moves and Joe despairing at everyone else referring to the exit direction as 'forward' - he explained it's obviously backwards because we were returning the way we came in. But are we? Other rationales were discussed. 

Maybe we should have paid more attention to Joe, even if his talk of being roasting was conjuring some unsolicited images in our heads:

Joe 6

Gareth/Sam 4 each

Ian 2

Katy/Martin 0

We split into two gangs of three, with Mille Fiori  set up one end of the table (Martin, Katy, Ian) and Calimala the other. One game involved passing cards and swearing, the other was a weird mash up of area majorities, token activations, and silk. 

Calimala's USP is that each turn you take an action, but if someone took it before you at any point in the game, they get to do so again as well. The actions are generating resources, using them to build infrastructure, or shipping silk to far off destinations. Whenever an action is taken a fourth time a scoring round is triggered, meaning the game starts off sedately but escalates into an every-turn-scores display. I thoroughly enjoy that mechanic and the manic pace it gives rise to, but it's not an easy one to jump into from a strategic perspective, and Joe confessed to being bamboozled by it. "I thought it was about calamari" he rued, leading to the post title. 

Despite that however, he did enough to ultimately draw on points with Gareth, who claimed the win on the tiebreaker of council seats. I was some way behind!

Gareth 35

Joe 35

Sam 28

They'd finished Mille Fiori and Ian's romance with the game continues to endure:

Ian 208

Katy 175

Martin 165

And also reversed their positions in Gang of Dice:

Martin 96

Katy 38

Ian 27

We shuffled seats with Joe, Katy and Martin setting up Tajuto and myself Gareth and Ian embracing Quantum. I confess I lost track of the meditative bag-plunging drama at the other end of the table as Quantum developed into an epic. Things didn't look promising for Gareth and I when Ian got a cube down on his first two turns. Moreover, he picked up beautifully synergising cards that allowed him to tweak resource and dominance in either direction, like a madman with a nuclear etch-a-sketch. 

He needed stopping. 

Somewhere in the stopping-of-Ian, we managed to eke our way forwards as well, slowly catching him up and placing the game into a fragile state where all of us were poised on a single cube for the win. Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Tajuto continued apace, complete with what now looks like a face-pulling contest amongst the fun-loving monks.

Ian kept engineering himself into one-turn-to-win conditions, cooking up a seemingly-imminent victory, and Gareth and I kept shitting in his pie. We hampered him with attacks and when that didn't work, I sabotaged him by moving one of his cubes into the planet he was ready to win with, meaning he now needed to migrate elsewhere.

It was a dramatic and ding-dong battle, and I managed to sneak the win courtesy of a bit of guerrilla tactics and a couple of spawny dice rolls!

Sam - 0 cubes

Ian and Gareth - 1 cube left

With everything in cosmic balance on Tajuto, they wrapped up at the same time. Joe proved to be best at monking:

Joe 18

Katy 16

Martin 14

And although I waved my new purchase Cafe Order Overload around hopefully, we elected to finish the night off with the classic that is So Clover. And it was so clovery, as Martin and my clovers kicked us off with a couple of six-pointers and we followed that with Joe's, which was nearly a car crash until we spotted some links we'd missed. We did less well on Katy's, surged back with Ian's and then Gareth revealed he'd ignored our demands he not make up words when we saw he'd written Margarglerita and Mashhhhhh on his clover. For shame, Gareth!

On the other hand, they were damn fine clues and we got all his clover leaves immediately. And then everyone left immediately, as another fine Tuesday came to a close.

The Suiting Floatcases of Smalmsbury

It promised to be a bumper nine of us at one point, but unfortunately we lost Anja to fatigue. With Katy arriving a bit later - distracted by the Tour de France - just after 7.30 there were seven of us raring to go: Adam T, Ian, Laura, Joe, Martin, Gareth and myself (Sam). We kicked off with That's Not a Hat. 

Each player gets a card with an image on it to start from a deck of distinct images. Then someone takes a new card from the deck, flips their first one over, and passes it to a neighbour (the back of the card instructs which way to pass). When they do, they say aloud the image that's on the card. The receiver then flips their own card over and passes that one, doing the same thing. And so ultimately all the cards are face-down and everyone's trying to remember what their own card is as well as keep track of what the card that's currently travelling around the table is.

If you doubt the accuracy of what the card you've been passed was described as, you can challenge and flip the card over. The loser keeps the revealed card and we go again. First to three lost challenges is the loser, which in our case was... Laura, I think? She seemed to enjoy it despite that. Fun!

We still had some pre-Katy time so busted out Not that Movie, which regaled us with dubiously-monikered cinema such as Pulp in the Hole. In our first round everyone chose the same movie except me. My crestfallen shame was to be diluted though as first Adam, then Ian, fell foul of the same fate.

I think we only got the perfect score once, aided in no small part by the reviews seeming to very much suggest a particular movie:

Then, with Katy imminent, we decided she'd be fine with playing Mille Fiori so Joe Ian and Laura began setting it up. The rest of us tried our hands at Martin's new fave, Hooky. Has Andrew explained this before? I think he has, but with two newbies in Adam and I Martin ran through the simple rules.

Simple rules, but a brow-furrowing experience as everyone tries to figure out what letters everyone else has in order to then figure out what the three 'missing' letters are. We lapsed into long pauses whilst at the other end of the table, the pace was brisker and the mood more buoyant. Katy looks like she's hating here, but I think that's just the curse of my camera.

Hooky ended after an intense hour with all of us throwing up our hands in various degrees of confusion and disgust. It transpired that Martin's workings-out had been thrown by Gareth assuming 'smarm' was spelled 'smalm' due no doubt to his psychological preoccupation with Malmsbury. "It's the only word we didn't spell aloud" Gareth lamented, which was oddly true. I have to say though, smalm made no difference to me. I was chucking stones in the dark at this point, which proved good enough to claim second:

Martin 35

Sam 24

Gareth 23

Adam 8

I enjoyed trying it out, but for my tastes (not to mention brain) it's a bit more like work than fun. It's a curious theme, too, for such a brain-exercising puzzle. 

Mille Fiori ended now too, and Katy definitely enjoyed it:

Katy 213

Ian 204

Joe 190

Laura 152

And we split groups again, with Joe, Martin, Katy and Adam playing Inside Job, new to Katy. 

The rest of us Quantum. A learning experience for Gareth, but his ability to absorb rules and Quantum's exceptions largely being printed on cards meant we were off and running inside ten minutes. 

Laura took an early lead and found herself targeted. I found myself with multiple '3' ships and used them to go around being a pain in the arse for everyone, getting my dominance up to 6 and drawing level. But on the other side of the board both Ian and Gareth did likewise. 

Gareth found a great card combo of deploying for free and removing a ship to gain an extra action. As the game rapidly escalated, I got a belated ass-kicking myself and Ian snuck in ahead of Laura, who was poised to get a cube down. As Ian was primed to win on his next turn - if left unmolested - Gareth snuck in ahead of all of us for a debut victory!

Laura now left us, bound for bed. At the other end of the table, they were still playing Inside Job, but promised us they were on the verge of finishing. We had a couple plays of Win Lose or Banana while we waited, with both Gareth (winner) and Ian (winner) successfully identifying the banana (me) on each occasion. I just have a trusting face. 

I think it was around this time that, a propos Inside Job's intel, someone spoonerised their way to 'suiting floatcases'. It may have been Gareth again? 

Either way, Inside Job's third play ended with:

Katy insider loses
Martin insider wins
Martin insider wins again

Joe was forlorn. "Everyone always suspects me" he said, which I found surprising, as I feel Joe's face is of the largely trustworthy kind (like mine). Adam left to drive home and we remainders gathered into a single group for So Clover. The grumbling was pronounced with this one, especially from Martin despite sitting down last and finishing first. And we did struggle with this opening clover, as there seemed to be not so much too few possibilities as too many. A 3 to begin.

After that however we picked up speed with a fairly rapid bunch of sixes, with Katy spotting that Capital Garbage went well with my clue of 'bankers'. There were some excellent clues from everyone and even a mid-game googling after Martin threw us with a word we were unfamiliar with (sward).

We stumbled slightly at the end but still pulled off a more-than-decent 31/36 to finish the night with a flourish.

The smell of bull

Saturday night. After a day of entertaining nine 13-year-olds (-little Joe's birthday party), what I should probably have done was go to bed. But I wanted some me-time and what better what to spend it than with other people. Specifically, in this case, Ian and Adam H, who arrived at 7.30pm. I had the Great Zimbabwe set up and waiting for them, and proceeded to explain the rules. Every time I go through them the game seems a few degrees easier, although I still had to reference the book twice. 

But essentially it's build and raise - literally - monuments for the win, with the caveat that to do so you need craftspeople, and having craftspeople raises your victory point requirement (VR): it begins at 20, and in theory at least could remain there throughout the game, if your opponents give you the freedom to play using their craftspeople instead. I thought Adam might have bitten off more than he could chew when his VR hit 31, but he combined his craftspeople, specialist and God - both of which give advantages but also push up your VR - to utterly tank Ian and I, hitting something like 38points as we lagged in the late teens. 

Adam admitted he enjoyed himself. I complained aloud about Adam winning. Ian remained silent. 

At this point however, Laura arrived and we blasted through Viva Pamplona!, the somewhat dubiously-themed (in terms of animal welfare) game where you partake in the Running of the Bulls in Spain.

On your turn you roll the two dice and move (or not; the arrow result lets you advance 0-6 spaces) two of your runners. After everyone's done so, a card is flipped, and the bull moves too: often 1,2 or 3 spaces. Occasionally a little faster:

Your goal is to try and remain as close to the bull as possible, so close you can smell his animal scent. If the card flip reveals a scoring card then the bull doesn't move and the runners score: 3points for being on the same spot as the bull, 2pts for just ahead of it and 1pt for two spaces ahead. All runners behind the bull lose points!

Orange spaces cost you a point when you stop there, and there's a double-space full of tomatoes that you need to fully pass, or you'll slip back. If you arrive on a space and your runners outnumber another player there, you can push them back (or forward) a single space. 

This continues until the bull arrives in the arena. Any runners who beat the bull there receive points - as late as possible is better than earlier - but being behind the bull at this stage costs you points, of course. Ian found his bad luck and continuously rolling high worked ultimately in his favour. As we clustered around him on the final corner, he suddenly sped up and gambolled into the arena, leaving everyone behind him! But Ian was the least far behind by some margin, and picked up a win. 

We followed that with Kingdomino Origins, where I missed the drama of the scorecount as I had to go out and collect Joe as the hour hit 10pm. Despite the time though, Laura wanted to revisit Quantum, and Ian and I needed no encouragement. Adam gained a refresher and off we went...

I was first to go and having gotten a cube down, took a two-action bonus card to ready myself for a second. Then I spotted I could get a third cube down on my third turn, and as a result I found myself on the receiving end of unwanted attention (and commentary) from everyone else. My ships were blasted off the board, but thanks to my Tyrannical power, I pushed my dominance up to six twice to get my final two cubes down for the win. As Adam pointed out, going first doesn't harm your chances in Quantum at all, but I was pretty pleased with my win all the same, as Ian and I agreed Quantum remains a top ten game for us. 

Another top night, thanks all!

The Dirty Pipe Slapstick Squadron

 I arrived at Sam’s at 7.40 and, once I’d recovered from the surprise of seeing Andy B for the first time in a year (?) we all sat down (me, Andy, Sam, Martin, and Joe) for a quick game of Rapido. It’s such a simple game that Martin explained the rules to Andy while we were playing so that when it came to his turn, he would have no excuse for doing badly. Except for bad luck, of course.

At first, the main recipient of bad luck was Martin who was the last one to score any points at all. Then, mid-game, a run of misfortune meant we all started moving backwards. But eventually it was between me and Sam for the win. Sam edged forward onto space 18 and then rolled a double three to take the win.

Sam, then Andrew, Joe, Martin, Andy

During this game, Katy and Laura arrived. We checked if Laura and Andy had actually met, and they had. We still think of Laura as a newbie even though, as she pointed out: she’s been coming to games nights for years – some of us found this hard to believe.

Andy had to leave in about fifty minutes, so we began to think about what to play. Time pressures didn’t make things easier and before long, Andy had to leave in forty-five minutes and we still hadn’t chosen. Finally, we decided on Diamant. Laura hadn’t played so she got a rules explanation and we set off into five temples.

Since there were seven of us, a lot of jewels got left behind on cards such that Martin, Sam and Laura all left early and got three jewels each. That seemed like a good move until an artefact came out. Katy nabbed that one which also looked like a good move until Andy stayed in til the end and got a 17-jewel card all to himself.

The rest of the game followed suit: paying out generously. Sam went out early saying "I've got a feeling" and then the rest of us died in a fire. Laura picked up 17 jewels in artefacts and then Katy got 20 jewels. Martin, however, had to keep pushing his luck as he fell further behind. We had to explain to Laura that it wasn’t usually like this. There was one temple that behaved as expected: giving us three traps and then a single jewel.

We finished in good time so that Andy wasn’t late for his appointment although I suspect he could’ve left halfway through the game and still won.

Andy 44

Katy 40

Laura 28

Andrew 24

Joe 21

Sam 20

Martin 3

Then we split into two groups of three. Sam, Laura and I played Quantum. I asked Laura if she was okay with something a bit fighty and she said it was fine since she was from Yorkshire. Andy stuck around to watch Martin, Joe and Katy play the first few rounds of Mille Fiori to see if he could work out the rules. Katy must’ve felt nervous as they set up because she seemed unable to finish her sentences (“I think I might need a quick…”)

As for Quantum (or Yorkshire In Space, as it will now be called) Sam explained the rules to Laura and then, sheepishly, made her first move for her. Then it was gloves off. Sam and I were both down to one die at one point or another and Laura managed to win the game when she won two battles to put her aggression up to six and place her last cube.

Laura 0 cubes left

Sam 1

Andrew 2

As for Mille Fiori, it ended

Joe 215

Martin 180

Katy 166

Laura left after this (high on victory, no doubt) and the rest of us played High Society. I bought two cards early on but then I lost track of what other people had paid. I put to 20,000 francs for a late x2 card thinking that my 31,000 in my hand would be enough to avoid elimination. It wasn’t and I was out, finishing behind Katy and Martin who both had a x2 each and nothing to multiply with it.

My multiplier had a picture of a woman laughing at her drink

Sam 9

Joe 8

Martin 0

Katy 0

Andrew OUT!

We finished with So Clover. Katy was first to complete while Joe fretted long enough for their to be a toilet break. Alas, Katy’s intuitive approach to clue-giving came undone as we struggled him “humbug”. Thinking it might be a reference to A Christmas Carol we went with “Candy/grave” when it should’ve been “candy/mud”. The other clovers were all cleared, I think, with some great clues. Martin's four clues were Dirty, Pipe, Slapstick and Squadron which at least saved me the bother of thinking of a blog title. I loved Sam’s clue of “candle” for the words “cake/dynamite” and Joe’s “sideboards” for “moustache/travel” because if a moustache could travel, it would become… 

Joe seemed touched that we got his clover correct on our first attempt. As if he’d finally found people who understood him. 

27 out of 30

Crazy times. Thanks all. See you next week.

10cc on a plane ordering snacks

 This week’s GNN started unusually early for two lucky gamers, with Ian joining Sam at around half six for a two player game of Quantum before Joe and Katy arrived and enjoyed a rousing game of Perudo.

When I finally did get there, the table was set up for a five player game of Free Ride, with Joe, Katy and Ian the newcomers on board.

Compared to the only other time I played it, we started much more centrally, which meant a lot more blocking and nationalising of routes. Ian barely moved at all, preferring to stay in Napoli and make lots of money with his sensibly placed routes.

Katy went through a smorgasbord of emotions, at one point saying she was pleased and angry at the same time. She also said she enjoyed it. Joe was the other moneybags, as he almost monopolised East Europe and the Urals. My track in the UK was totally ignored for the entire game.

Sam zipped around the map, only briefly distracted by a wine spillage which dampened an Oslo card and some coins but not his enthusiasm for the game. At the end, as we counted up our scores, he revealed he had no duplicate cities in his stack of cards. Professional level gaming.

Sam 100

Joe 92

Ian 86

Katy 82

Andrew 81

After this the next (and my last) game was a co-op game of Wavelength. In this variant you score points for being in the Segment of Correctitude (possibly not it's official name) but only a perfect hit will get you another card and the chance to increase the score further.

It was fun as always. Katy wanted to know how long a clue could be; could it be a sentence? And that's when Sam uttered the blog title by means of an example of how long a clue could reasonably be. Trying to ignore the image of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme arguing over peanuts or olives, we began.

There were a few duds. I can't remember if we thought Katy's example of "buying your mother imported flowers" was more or less ethical than she did, but we were definitely wide of the mark.

Sam's clue of "day old bread" for "smelly in a good way/smelly in a bad way" seemed very specific but a bullseye eluded us. My clue "beer" for "guilty pleasure/openly love" was the shortest of the evening and was close but still no cigar.

Ian's clue for "normal greeting/weird greeting" was to say "helloooo" in a high pitched slightly Irish accent. Our mistake was misjudging the frame of reference, thinking it only slightly weird especially compared to a punch in the face as a greeting, and we put the Indicator of Opinion in the normal half. But Ian thought that slightly weird meant it should go in the weird half. 

I think we scored 11. And Katy discovered that you could run on custard.

By now it was 10.00 and my choice was a sensible early night or risk a late one, so I took the easy option and went home. Sam messaged me the late results.

The rest of them played For Sale twice.

Joe 62

Sam 61

Ian 51

Katy 40

And...

Sam 79

Ian 59

Katy 49

Joe 37

Then they ended with good old Tsuro.

Joe and Ian die in first 

2 Sam

3 Katy

Thanks all. Special as always.