American Express

Recently, non-Tuesday events have been limited to myself, Sam and Ian but tonight a sudden rush of people accepting Sam’s invite pushed the number of attendees up to a giddy six: Sam, me, Ian and Andy, Steve and Chris who’d come visiting from the Bracknell branch. We all arrived with tales of picking our way through Bristol Rovers fans, and cyclist Steve even told us about how he yelled at a careless pedestrian, knowing there was a policeman nearby and he was in no danger of getting beaten up.

Any discussion of the first game to play was circumvented when Andy casually put Colt Express on the table when he came in. Since it played six and it was only forty minutes long according to the box, we decided to give it a go.

Our previous reluctance to play it in Bristol was due to it being compared to Robo Rally, but on actually playing it, I found it to be a shorter and funnier game. Due to the limited space, there’s always something happening to you. Each of the six characters had their own special power. Cheyenne can steal money from people when she punches them, Django can shoot people into the next carriage and Belle is so pretty that she is never chosen to be shot or punched if someone else is available. Ian was Belle, and he found his newfound physical attractiveness very useful as he/she stayed in the most crowded part of the train and picked up gems. Sam/Cheyenne got shot a lot in his/her dash along the roof for the Marshall’s $1,000 suitcase. Chris/Tuco got picked on.

Ian $2,750
Andrew $1,900
Andy $1,700
Sam $1,500
Steve $1,300
Chris $250

After that amusing episode, we split into two groups: Sam, Ian and Chris chose Rialto and Andy, Steve and I chose The Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Not sure how Rialto went, but I shot into an early lead on CoMKL thanks to plenty of bonuses for a particular room that then scored again on completion!

Talking of completing a room, a rereading of the rules about putting doors next to walls reassured us that this was a legal move, but it meant that the room couldn’t be counted as “completed” – a subtle distinction. As it happened, it didn’t change the placings as I managed to win by a single point with my castle built in the style of Number 5 from the film Short Circuit.

Andrew 113
Andy 112
Steve 70

In the time it took us to finish that game, Rialto had ended:

Sam 69
Chris 61
Ian 57

And they had enough time for a game of Raj. This game always throws up amazing strokes of luck as ties cancel each other out, but none perhaps as remarkable as Chris picking up a 9 tile with only a 1 card as Ian and Sam both played their 15s.

Ian 53
Chris 51
Sam 34

After this, Steve and Andy went home, and I stayed on for a game of No Thanks. I watched in amazement as Chris went for a coin-focused approach, picking up cards with lots of coins even if there was little chance of chaining them together. At the end of the game he had 37 out of the 44 coins available in the game.

Didn’t help, though.

Andrew 22
Ian 36
Sam 45
Chris 68

And with that, it was back out into the Spring drizzle and off home to bed. A fun-packed evening, and we didn't even get to play Buckaroo!

Oregon and on

The final night of the season was held at Steve and Anja's place, a welcome return for them after a lengthy absence.Also absent were Joe (abroad), Katy (unwell) and Matt and Hannah (don't know) leaving Adam, Martin, Sam, Ian, Andy and myself joining our two ghosts.

Anja was expected to arrive later and Steve was finishing off family things, so the six of us played Pairs, the game where a doomed sense of inevitability doesn't stop the passionate gamer, as Martin demonstrated. He declared "These goddamn peppers will be the death of me," just before he drew another pepper to send him out if the round. Adam overcame his distaste of luck based games by clocking up a comfortable win.

Adam 22
Andy 14
Andrew 13
Sam 10
Martin 8
Ian 6

Then we split into two groups: Ian, Sam and Andy played Rialto, while Steve, Martin, Adam and I chose Oregon. This game is a bit of a rarity at GNN, but we were pleased when we discovered that everyone had played it before. After a brief rules refresher, we got stuck in.

No, Adam's man hasn't just shot three of Steve's men.

They're just lying down because they've scored a bonus.

Steve went for mining in a big way, picking up coal and gold. Adam and I also dabbled. Martin used buildings to re-use his jokers, and I scored big when I dropped a church in amongst a group of my own men. In fact, I was doing well, until I went to the toilet. When I got back, I got confused, accidentally discarded the wrong cards from my hand, and generally wondered where my mojo had gone. I just did enough to cling onto Adam's coat-tails. It may have been last, but it was a respectable joint last.

Martin 91
Steve 86
Adam 85
Andrew 85

It was nice to get this underrated game back on the table and, despite what I implied with the blog title, it's a fairly speedy game, packing in a lot of thinking into its forty-five minutes.

Rialto still had another half an hour to go, so the four of us played Potato Man. This was Steve's first go, and Adam's second. It looked like Steve's beginner's luck hadn't left him, as he shot off into an early lead. It was an odd game, with each round lasting much longer than usual. Martin reaped the rewards in rounds two and three, while Adam's late surge dragged himself from distant third to almost first, much to his apparent bemusement.

Martin 39
Adam 31
Steve 21
Andrew 17

By now Rialto had ended, with Sam coming out on top without resorting to spamming the green building action, which had previously seemed like such an easy win. Andy seemed non-commital after his first playthrough.

Sam 78
Ian 76
Andy 54

Also, Anja had returned from her evening of politics and so was able to join us for one last game before the end of season firework display (in my head). 6nimmt was voted in, and so the eight of us began.

What a game it was. Steve appeared to be doing cow impersonations for much of the game, and Sam commented on the Mexican wave of curses and grumbles that went round the table every time a new round started. It was tense and quite painful. In one round, all of the rows ended with cards in their eighties.

But it was Sam who really suffered. One full row, ending in 89, had been on the table a long time. Martin said that there must be someone with a card in the nineties that keeps bottling it. Sam, as he later explained, interpreted that to mean that there was still a space on that row. Next turn, he was the last to put his card down, and he sighed with relief “I don't believe I got away with this,” only to realise instantly that he had to pick up the whole row, full of bad cards. It was a turning point: after a good first round where he was leading, he dropped down the placings. Meanwhile, Anja won comfortably.

Anja 25
Adam 29
Steve 30
Ian 38
Martin 39
Andrew 39
Sam 59
Andy 78

And so, that was that! Despite Katy's absence, the gap to first place couldn't be bridged, and she wins on points and on the medal table. Big congratulations! Anja wins on points ratio, just sneaking in at the last minute. More congratulations for her!

Finally, it's a last hurrah for the form table, since it's too much of a pain to format. Well done to Adam who will, unless we have a change of heart and decide to bring it back, remain winner of the form table for all eternity!

						Points
Adam	2	2	3	1	2	10
Hannah	1	4	1	5	1	12
Katy	1	3	1	2	6	13
Joe	4	2	3	1	3	13
Steve	3	3	2	3	3	14
Andy	7	3	2	1	1	14
Matt	3	3	3	2	5	16
Ian	4	2	6	2	2	16
Sam	6	1	4	3	3	17
Martin	5	1	1	5	6	18
Andrew	5	4	3	3	5	20
Anja	1	6	5	5	5	22
Dirk	5	5	5	5	5	25

Ten out of ten

Tonight, we were ten in number. Ten players and ten games!

There were nine players at first: me, Sam, Martin, Matt, Steve, Ian, Katy, Joe and our hosts, Adam and Hannah. Although, to be exact, the offer to meet up at A&H’s came from Katy’s email. On our way, we did wonder if perhaps tonight was a huge practical joke by Katy, and that actually Adam and Hannah weren’t expecting us at all. But it was all kosher in the end.

We decided on a rousing ten-player game of 6nimmt to begin the evening. Steve hadn’t arrived yet, but we dealt him in anyway, choosing random cards for him as we played without him. In the end, he didn’t turn up during the single round that we played (although we kept checking the front door, thinking we heard someone knocking) so we awarded his position to our imaginary player, Dirk.

1. Adam 0
2. Martin 1
2. Katy 1
3. Joe 3
4. Hannah 13
5. Sam 19
5. Dirk 19
6. Matt 24
7. Andrew 25
8. Ian 45

Then we tried a new game, Pairs. So simple: a deck of cards has values one to ten. Each value has the same number of cards as the value (ie, there is one 1 card, two 2 cards, three 3 cards, etc). Each player is dealt one card at the start and then a player can either chose to stick or twist (get a new card). If they get a pair of anything, they are out. Highest points according to values on the card wins: eight points for first (because this was an eight player game: Dirk bowed out and Joe was dealing), seven for second, etc. No points at all if you had a pair. First to 21 points wins.

It was a fun game of pushing your luck and then cursing it when it let you down. Katy and Matt both scored nothing in three out of the four rounds we played. I stuck early, hoping that other people’s greed would improve my rankings. As you’d expect from such a timid technique, I finished more or less in the middle.

Adam 23
Ian 21
Martin 19
Hannah 19
Andrew 18
Sam 15
Matt 8
Katy 4

During Pairs, Steve arrived and we split into three groups. Four played Potato Man (Martin, Joe, Hannah and Katy). Three played Casltes of Mad King Ludwig (Adam, Matt, Steve) and the final three played Rialto (Sam, Ian and me). We were in the kitchen, while the other seven went into the front room. Judging by the amount of chatting and laughter, they had a high old time. Apparently, though, they were all briefly distracted - and amused - by Sam yelling “Bridges!” at a moment of high tension.

As for Rialto, I found it less intriguing this time. My initial impression, that there were several ways to win, took a knock. Sam bought up three buildings that helped increase his hand size, and when one player has seven cards while another has eleven to choose from, it becomes almost impossible. Maybe it’s sour grapes as I clock up my second last place in a row, but unless I’m missing something, it’s not as deep as I’d thought.

Sam 90
Ian 62
Andrew 49

After this, people in the other room were still knee-deep in their respective games, so we played Tinners’ Trail, convinced we could squeeze it in before it was time to go home. Speed Tinners’ Trail, we optimistically called it.

My Little Kingdom in Cornwall

It all went surprisingly well for me. I established a little network in the south west of Cornwall, while Sam and Ian fought over the same areas, bumping up their costs for mines as they did. The prices of tin and copper, too, seemed to suit me when it mattered.

Andrew 124
Sam 111
Ian 92

In the other room, the Potato Man people had finished:

Katy 23
Hannah 23
Joe 21
Martin 10

And had also completed another quick game of Pairs...

Hannah 11
Martin 10
Joe 5
Katy 4

This was Hannah’s last game of the evening, as she retired to bed. The remaining three on that table tried Trump Tricks Game! A card game that Martin often brings along, but has never appealed to me in the same way that a TV show called “Endless Laugh-a-thon Chuckle Show” would make me run the other way. I’ll leave it for them to describe its charms, because they seemed pretty impressed with it once it had ended.

Katy 143
Martin 125
Joe 118

Castles of Mad King Ludwig had also ended by now. No danger of Explainer’s Curse for Adam here. But it was close. Mighty close.

Adam 92
Matt 91
Steve 87

At this time (this blog post is a bit like Pulp Fiction how it plays with chronology, don’t you think?) we were still finishing off Tinners’ so, after Steve went home, the five of them played No Thanks, with Adam getting the first negative score since Joe managed it in the pre-blog days.

Joe is upset at having to share his claim to fame with Adam

Adam –2
Matt 13
Martin 23
Katy 30
Joe 34

Finally, we were all together again. Sam went home, but the rest of us clung on for one more game of Pairs. At first, Adam bowed out. We asked why, and he said he had to wash up the bottles in the kitchen. He also added, foolishly, that he’d just won four games in a row. Of course, now we all insisted that he join us for one more game. History beckons! We cried (even though Adam has already achieved a Perfect Five).

Of course, one of the secrets of a Perfect Five is to hope that no one else notices that you’re about to achieve it. Ian knows this, Steve knows this. So why did Adam announce it? We will never know. Maybe he was drunk. Either way, trying to finish a Perfect Five on such a luck based game when everyone wants to stop you was a hopeless cause.

Ian 24
Katy 21
Joe 16
Adam 14
Martin 11
Matt 10
Andrew 6

Finally, it was over. What a roller coaster of an evening. Ten whole games. Some people managed to squeeze seven into one evening.

The form table looks like this after a brutal evening. I have two sevens and Matt has three sixes! Adam missed out on his Perfect Five (and we all apologised afterwards), Katy worked hard to get rid of the seven she got at the start of the evening, and with good results.

						Points
Adam	4	1	1	1	1	8
Katy	2	4	1	4	1	12
Hannah	1	1	3	4	5	14
Sam	2	1	5	5	2	15
Martin	5	3	2	2	3	15
Ian	1	3	2	2	8	16
Andy	2	3	6	2	3	16
Joe	3	5	3	3	2	16
Steve	3	3	3	4	5	18
Matt	6	2	2	6	6	20
Andrew	7	1	3	4	7	22
Anja	6	5	3	4	5	23
Dirk	5	5	5	5	5	25

Anyone for Venice?

They say that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can set up a series of chain events that leads to someone from GNN getting a perfect five: that’s how unpredictable it is. Tonight saw Ian come so close, but so far from that historical moment. (Rumours that anyone who gets a Perfect Five will have their face carved on the side of the Avon Gorge a la Mount Rushmore are, as yet, unconfirmed.)

Tonight was only meant to be a first play of Rialto, a game that Sam’s had tucked away in his cupboard for a few weeks now. This game of area control and building bonuses is set in Venice and, as such, reminded us a lot of San Marco, simply because the names of the different areas were the same.

The game itself is quite different. While the initial aim seems the same (get more meeples into each area than anyone else) the way it’s done is quite different, using a hand of cards to activate different actions, and then having buildings to boost these actions. Plus, you can influence how much each area is worth by building a high-scoring bridge to it, or a low-scoring gondolier.

It was new to all of us, but I showed the greatest lack of understanding when it came to getting meeples on the board. My presence on the map by the end of the game was so sparse it would make even a Liberal Democrat laugh. Ian, though, won handsomely, despite having only a few buildings.

Ian 71
Sam 68
Andrew 51

Ian and I were especially impressed when Sam, unable to find the elastic band that held the cards together, fashioned a quick and efficient solution: just throw enough string at it until it works.

By now it was half past nine and we thought we could squeeze in one more game before it was too late. Then again, if we chose 7 Wonders, we could squeeze two games in. And so that’s what we did. It was an odd game of 7 Wonders, with no one specialising in anything, really. I, at first, cursed my stupidity in building a parchment card when my wonder already produced parchment.

But then, I used a parchment card to build part of my wonder, which gave me a monopoly on this resource. Excellent. Maybe I’d stumbled upon a new tactic. It was a resource-lite game, too. But despite that, Ian came through with a little bit of military, a science guild and a bunch of blue buildings.

Meanwhile, I remain very impressed by the artwork on even the most insignificant cards.

Ian 51
Andrew 47
Sam 43

And then we played Biblios. I tried so hard at this, and fell on my face. A pretty galling experience. I was especially upset about not winning the blue dice, and allow me to explain why in detail. At one point I had 17 points of blues in my hand. Since there are only 25 in the pack, and some cards are discard at the start, I thought it was unlikely that the other eight points would all end up with one player. As such, I discarded my blue cards until I had eight. When it came to adding up, Ian had eight! And he won the dice on the letter tie-breaker! And he won browns from me! Two dice that I had boosted during the auction round!

Ian 10
Sam 4
Andrew 0

Oh well, you live and learn.

By now, the chance of Ian getting a Perfect Five had occured to us so we thought we should keep going. I guess the whiskey macs helped fuel our enthusiasm. So we dug out another quick game to see if Ian could maintain his good form. It was Timeline, but it was not to be. The details about when the cork was invented escaped him, and he ended in third.

Sam 0 cards left
Andrew 1 card
Ian 3 cards

I was ready to go, and I was getting my stuff together while Ian and Sam debated what they should play next. Someone said No Thanks, and I was persuaded to stay. Ian has taken my tactic of taking low cards and, even more annoyingly, he’s managed to win with it! I was stung by a late 33 that I had to pick up.

Ian 22
Sam 25
Andrew 45

So, four wins out of five. So close, yet so far away. All of this leaves Ian on top of the Form Table, but still dreaming about what might have been...

						Points
Ian	1	3	1	1	1	7
Sam	2	1	2	3	2	10
Adam	4	1	1	1	5	12
Andrew	3	2	3	2	3	13
Katy	3	3	1	1	5	13
Joe	2	1	2	4	5	14
Matt	2	3	4	5	1	15
Andy	2	3	6	2	3	16
Martin	1	1	4	5	5	16
Steve	3	3	4	5	5	20
Anja	6	5	3	4	5	23