Ten More Years!

 This week’s games night was in celebration of Laura’s birthday and when I arrived, she (hosting), Katy, Sam and Martin were in Laura's newly remodelled kitchen playing a card game. Martin suggested I try to work out the rules of the game, which I failed to do except you had to get rid of your cards by putting them on the table and reading out the number they made, but didn't understand it apart from that. I also failed to make a note of the name. But Sam won.

Sam 2

Katy 4

Laura 5

Martin 7

Then Adam H arrived and since everyone was here, we got out the cake: a caterpillar cake, which was sliced up and served with ice cream! Katy also asked if there was any coke available, apparently thinking this was a children’s party.

When we raised out glasses and made a toast, Katy happily cried out “Ten more years!” which I said was a bit bleak. Katy said she didn’t mean it like that: she meant ten more years of gaming with us, at least. But the joke stuck that Katy had wished Laura ten years of life, maximum, and it was referenced throughout the evening.

But what about the games? We split into two groups. Laura, Martin and Katy played Captain Flip which was GNN’s present to Laura. Adam, Sam and I played Guild of Merchant Explorers, a very short eurogame in which you have to explore a map within the turn of a few cards. In fact, I don’t think Adam or I really appreciated how quick the first round would be and after five cards had been played, Sam told us to take our cubes from the map and start again.

With this regular reset in mind, it’s important to build villages, which allow you to start exploring fro a point other than the centre of the map. Also, there are things like treasures and towers and trade routes to discover. Before long Adam was muttering to himself and trying to max out his moves. In fairness, it worked.

Adam 149

Sam 144

Andrew 127

The first game of Captain Flip ended in the most amicable way possible, with a tie for first.

Laura 45

Martin 45

Katy 35

Katy mused that she used her lookouts too early (don’t know what that meant, but I made a note anyway). They played again.

Katy 46

Laura 43

Martin 33

Then we drank some “pink fizz” and gazed at Laura’s games cupboard. Then Martin, Laura and Sam played Via Nebula. Adam, Katy and I played Cascadero. Martin and Sam had actually brought one copy each, meaning for a time we considered everyone playing Cascadero at the same time. But then sanity prevailed.

Katy wasn’t sure about playing, and throughout the game she complained that she didn’t really know what she was doing, even when she was about twenty points ahead of Adam and I. Then she completed all of the bonuses for linking cities together and admitted that that was her strategy.

Now she was in a fix - in the lead but way behind on the track that you have to complete before the game is over. I was in last in terms of points, but my track was all but complete. I had to use up all my meeples before either Adam or Katy finished their tracks. Adam was in the middle - behind me on the track and behind Katy on points.

Of course, he won, hitting the game ending 50 point mark at the same time as, or the turn after,  completing his track. I came second and Katy seemed to think she’d never play the game again.

Adam 50

Andrew 34

Katy 47 (DNF)

I missed most of Via Nebula apart from Sam saying “I’m going to finish the game,” in the kind of excited voice you used to hear on adverts for MB Games.

Sam 27

Martin 23

Laura 13

And while we struggled through the end of Cascadero, they played a quick Captain Flip.

Martin 44

Sam 37

Laura 25

Then, because it was Laura’s birthday, I didn’t leave early but stayed on for a game of So Clover. With six of us, there was a chance of a golden 36! 

But it didn’t last beyond my clover. Sam’s was first and we got a bit of luck - one of his words was “Tiny” and “tiny” also appeared on a card so we were fairly safe in assuming that was the decoy. 

Then we finished Adam’s with no bother before we got to mine. Two of my words were LOOP and KISS and I couldn’t link them apart from the fact that they’re both rock bands, so I wrote “bands”.

Alas, a word on the decoy card was “DREAM” which everyone linked with D-ream. The other word seemed to match too, so they were happy to offer up their guess. Katy was so confident that she'd picked up the fifth card and stuck it back in the box. I sadly told them they were wrong and Katy had to start looking through all the cards in the box to try and get the fifth card out again. 

Katy searching for a card

On their next attempt, they got it - although Sam and Adam thought it was a reference to Looper. Only Martin mumbled something about Loop being a noise band.

Then the remaining clovers were all completed successfully, although there was a lot of anguish over Martin’s clover. “Lemon” either related to “RECIPE/SHARP” or “RECIPE/YELLOW” and in the end we got it right (Sharp was the correct word).

34 out of 36. Close but no clover.

Then I did go home and found out that they’d played So Clover again.

17 out of 30. Never mind.

See you all next week and happy birthday Laura!

The envoys are all glistening with chip fat

 I arrived at Joe’s to see the host, Ian, Katy, Sam, Martin and Adam H in the middle of a game of Cross Clues. I was offered a card to join in, but my mind hadn’t caught up with my body and was still a few minutes from getting here. There were a few mistakes, which I didn’t note, and a nice clue from Martin, using “Vet” to signify “cow/firefighter”. Amazingly, Katy started chatting before the game had concluded.

22 out of 25.

With all attendees present, Katy instantly suggested Lords of Vegas - insisting that the usually dice-phobic Adam was keen. Katy put the box on the table, "just in case anyone was interested" and Joe and Ian joined. No doubt Ian was keen to erase the memory of his last game where he scored only six points.

Martin, Sam and I played Cascadero. I was keen since I hadn’t played it since I’d learnt it, and needed to revisit it before I forgot everything. Apparently, I was up against the two most experienced players in the world, according to game count on Board Game Geek. An awesome achievement.

Early on in the game, Martin professed to being worried by Sam’s lengthy caravan of meeples. “This disquiets me,” he said. But he soon started to chain moves together, storming off into an impressive lead. “We're sitting at the same table but that's as far as it goes,” says Sam as Martin reached the top of his track and opened up a 29-13-12 lead.

I finished the last crisps in a bowl, reaching the point where Ian’s high class posh sea salt and peppercorn crisps mixed with some fake frazzles, and Martin made the observation that now adorns this blog post: “The envoys are all glistening with chip fat.” At first, Sam and I thought he was being poetic and commenting how rich and opulent the envoys would be if they were real but, no, that was the literal state of some of the meeples at this point. An amazing sentence, though, and one that could only be used in the context of board games. Or one of those orgies in Ancient Rome, perhaps.

It ended as a cake walk for Martin. “But you enjoyed yourself?” Katy asked Sam. “No,” he bluntly replied.

Martin 52

Andrew 20

Sam 21, but didn't finish his track 

Vegas was still barely halfway through, with various quotes drifting across the table such as “You can't lose more than you have,” Joe. “That really hurt,” Katy and “Fuck it, it’s Vegas,” Ian - at that point he was once again in a distant last.

Martin, Sam and I played Via Nebula. Before we began Sam told me and Katy that we’d played it before. “It's like being gaslit by Martin Wallace,” I said, as I couldn’t remember anything about it, if I had ever played it.

After the rules explanation, I went first and - not knowing what else to do - I made some resources available. Martin expressed bemusement about what he was actually aiming for. What “the shape of the game should be,” I think he said. He checked the rule-book mid game and found a rule that made the game less of a dickish co-op game and more conventional. Sam admitted to some disappointment.

Martin built buildings and I kept uncovering resources, both of which gained points. Our two very different strategies got us a joint first place.

Martin 22

Andrew 22 tied, and we shook hands as per the rule book's instructions

Sam 15

Then we played seaside, a game of pulling tiles from a bag and deciding which side of the tile you want to action. One side will usually let you have another turn, while putting more resources into the shared area in the middle. Or the other side will let you pick up some of what is available. At the end, we stacked up your tiles to see who’s the tallest!

Sam wins!

I was dimly aware of a lengthy discussion in LoV while Joe asked for donations to reroll a casino, but eventually the game ended with an impressive win for Katy. And an almost-as-impressive comeback for Ian.

Katy 54

Ian 23

Adam and Joe 20

Katy commented that Adam only rolled ones throughout the game. Adam the dice-skeptic didn't seem to want to comment.

And that was it for me. But the others played on and scored a perfect 36 out of 36 in So Clover.

And finally Martin, Joe and Sam played Klink.

Joe 93

Martin 82

Sam 64

Thanks and see you all soon.

Robot Bedtime

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and though the rain did its best, Ian arrived by bike to join Anja and Louie, Martin, and myself. While we waited for Steve - at work - and Adam - waiting out the rain - we cracked out a one-round game of Cabanga. 

There was a notable lack of Cabanga-ing. Everyone seemed to have a card that was adjacent, and when they didn't - see Anja's 16 below - nobody had the Cabangability. 

Ian won the round with three of us on 2 points and Louie on 3. But with the late arrivals now here, it was time to split into groups. Anticipating Louie's keenness, I'd brought Robot Quest Arena and he got that set up with Dad and Adam. Meantime Martin talked Ian, Anja and I through the quirky rules of Cascadero. Andrew has already covered this in the previous post, but it felt on first blush a bit like Reiner thinking How can I make Babylonia more thinky, and longer. The map is still dynamic and it's still about connections, but no longer predominantly focused on having a huge network - although it doesn't hurt. 

I'd helped them set up RQA but I didn't have time to do a brief overview as I was trying to hold everything about Cascedero in my head, a task I was to fail at. But Adam scanned the rules and they were up and running. Louie had a P2 W2 record at this, could he keep his 100% intact? As you can see, Steve had other ideas. 

We kicked off in Cascadero and despite Martin's clear explanation I had already rearranged a pivotal rule in my head, and I began what I thought was canny play only to subsequently notice everyone else was scoring points. For myself if nobody else: you don't score a point per envoy in a network that joins a town. But you do want to arrive later than the other players, with at least two envoys. Or one envoy with a seal. Where do you get a seal from? From Reiner's five available tracks up which you are pushing cubes for bonuses. 

Many of these bonuses are better for the first claimant, so each track has an element of racing to it. But Cascadero also has objectives - eg first to connect like-coloured towns, first to get all cubes to x spot or above on the track - and, lest we forget, the very Knizian bunfight taking place on the board itself, where there is racing-to, blocking, hoping-none-will-block and general chicanery. My head was hurting, but I was at least entertained by the play on Radio RQA transmitting from the other side of the table.

LOUIE

                I have a Tesla Coil, and you don't

STEVE

                You can sit on that coil and swivel

Pinter would be proud. I advised Louie to make a note of social services number and then wondered who I could call as Anja and I watched Ian and Martin sear off up the track, fifteen or so points ahead of us. Martin's blue cube had already reached the top of the track (should you not complete the track of your own colour by game-end, it's an auto-lose) whereas we were also lagging in the cube department. The board looked like a dog had eaten some Totterdown Lego and thrown up and Anja and I, united in our despair, agreed that discs would have been better than horsemen for 'legibility issues'. I insisted on lying my envoys flat, telling everyone that it made the board easier to read, but secretly feeling that they deserved no better, having disappointed me. 

In the Robo Arena, Adam was telling Louie "This is how it feels" in a tone of voice that suggested some kind of frozen dish was being served. In Cascadero, the end was approaching. Ian had few envoys left and Martin kept bemoaning his lack of seals. From somewhere, Steve had produced a cuddly seal and kept making it talk, adding a modicum of surreality to proceedings. But when things ended, they ended surprisingly. It was tense, so tense that when Martin mentioned closing the purple curtain nobody had the will to say anything juvenile. Anja and I had staged a mini-recovery of sorts, though we still lagged and Anja's cube hadn't reached the top of her orange track. I knew I needed to place just one envoy to get the yellow cities connection award (2 points) but I'd totally forgotten the 10 point bonus for connecting all coloured cities. I think Anja may have too; she got the reward but seemed remarkably underwhelmed by it, not even bothering to announce, or maybe even award, her big points swing after quietly placing an envoy:

SAM

(next in line)

                Is that it?

ANJA

(forlornly)

                That's it, yeah

Then I made my final connection and we both scored our points. It catapulted me past Martin and Ian to claim a very unexpected and, let's be honest, undeserved debut win:

Sam 43

Ian 41

Martin 39

Anja 34 (did not complete orange track)

And Robot Quest Arena finished at the same time! The final count-up took a while despite Louie's pressing bedtime, but if the reigning champ was concerned he had no need to be. It was another victory for the Man City of automaton wrestling:

Louie 33

Adam 31

Steve 28

A close thing. Louie was packed off to bed and we looked at the time and had the GNN classic of what-to-play next, before settling on Mille Fiori (Steve, Anja, Martin) and Via Nebula (me, Adam, Ian). Mille Fiori's opening was a classic: all three played into the same area, blocking starting player Martin in before he got going, triggering 45 minutes of almost constant swearing, at one point Steve yelling FUCK OFF loud enough to wake the kids. 

Via Nebula was equally spicy, if not quite as demonstrative. Apologies for hassling both my opponents on their first two turns, but I thought the game was going to be a lot longer (we finished before Mille Fiori did). Maybe my victory comes with an asterisk, but twice I utilised Ian and Adam's hard labour to complete contracts and build buildings. Once I even apologised for it. 

It felt like a speedy game. Having an extra contract in hand was helpful in giving me options, but the devil in the nebula is really the risk of loading up sites you share with someone else. Or sites that you're ready to build on before someone else swoops in. It has more than a smidgin of dastardliness, and as chief Dick I ended the game before the others could get their fourth building down:

Sam 27

Ian 18

Adam 16

While we were counting up they finished the other game too, with more chagrin from Steve and an exceedingly tight finish!

Martin 194

Anja 193

Steve 146

And that was that. No tapas night by any means and no So Clover to finish, but two significantly dickish main courses for everyone, with another Knizia-Wallace double bill! Thanks all. It was horrid. 

Bum Puppet

Today, the postman had pushed a whole load of mail through my letterbox for an entirely different house. Luckily, it was a house on Joe's street and so I set off to games with a little more intent than usual. So much so that I didn't notice Katy's other half, Rob, until I'd gone past and he'd said hello.

I arrived at Joe's where the host was already entertaining Adam T, Sam, Katy, Ian and Martin. Adam H got here soon after and we sorted out chairs and seating arrangements. I said that this was pointless since we'd surely swap places for games but it turned out we didn't need to. Half the table played the new Martin Wallace while the other half played a new Knizia. Wallace versus Knizia! What an occasion!

Sam, Adam T, Ian and Katy played Via Nebula, which seemed to be about clearing fog. But I didn't follow it much after Katy said “Let's play nice.”

And she did!

Katy 23

Ian 22

Adam 20

Sam 16

Sam said he liked it, despite “getting rinsed.”

Meanwhile, Martin, Joe, Adam T and I played Cascadero. When introducing it, Martin dismissively said it was some bullshit about kings but then we insisted that we needed to know the backstory and insisted he read it out. And he did. In character.

I can't remember it, though, except that we were ministers of industry, agriculture, textiles and money or something. The idea of the game is to put your envoys on the board so that they link up cities and push cubes up several bonus tracks to trigger extra moves/more points. Each minister has a particular bonus track that they must complete otherwise, in fine Knizia style, you are disqualified.

During this game, Joe pondered that whenever he saw a bonus track, he always wanted to bump up it. This was deliberately misheard fro comedy effect and gave us this week's blog title.

It was fine. I think we were far less shitty to each other than we could have been. Especially to Martin who got a juicy ten point bonus but Adam always seemed to be at his shoulder.

Although the end of the game was made notably more exciting by Joe's cat who decided to sit on Adam's lap and stare at the game as if it were easy prey just waiting for a pounce.

Martin 49

Adam T 44

Andrew 29

Joe 29 (but an incomplete bonus track)

It was good, although an odd ending. Options were sparse. Martin couldn't finish the game by reaching 50 points and we eventually ended when Adam ran out of meeples.

While we finished, the others played Little Tavern, with a little variant where they read out the flavour text on the card they drew and the others had to guess if they were goblin/witch/elf etc.

Ian 26

Sam 19

Katy 19

Adam H 19

Then, amazingly, Lords of Vegas was brought to the table! At 9.15! But it was chosen because it was Katy's last games night for a month, and they seeded the game over card a little earlier in the deck than normal, to shorten the game. 

Ian explained the rules to Adam T and I was a little surprised to see the dice-averse Adam H as one of the participants. “Do you usually win?” asked Adam T, seeing Katy’s excitement at playing. She insisted she didn’t (which, in fairness, is true) but next time I looked over, Katy had a very early three-tile casino on the Strip.

We played Spectral, a deduction game in which players secretly look at cards (in a 4x4 grid) and note the clues revealed in order to deduce where the most jewels may be. And to avoid the demons. It was okay. Sam seemed to struggle, although he said he felt confident heading into the closing stages, while I was confident of where to avoid but didn’t pick up enough gems to make an attempt on the lead.

Joe 48

Martin 38

Sam 27

Andrew 24

In Vegas, meanwhile, Adam paid $40m to sprawl into a new square and, in doing so, took over a seven-tile casino on the strip. Ian, meanwhile, was stuck on 3 points while Adam H had 12, Katy 16 and Adam T was on 20. His exclamations over disdain as his luck echoed around the room. Meanwhile, Adam H sprawled into a new plot and got himself a new seven-tile casino for “only” $40m.

After Spectral, we played Cabanga. Martin told me it was fun because you got to say “Cabanga” and I pointed out I could do that anyway. But it’s all about context, and saying “cabanga” meaning “fuck you” was more fun than just blurting it out like an idiot. 

Sam 4

Martin 4

Andrew 6

Joe 7

We only played two of the regulation three rounds because Lords of Vegas ended, with a possible lowest score for Ian.

Katy 44

Adam T 32

Adam H 26

Ian 6

The two Adams left and we ended on So Clover. With six of us, there was the chance of a legendary 36 out of 36. Joe actually exercised the rarely used rule of being able to reset your clover, after he admitted to just staring at “magnascope.” We began well, although we had a few close calls. Ian, in particular, had a mean decoy with “rifle” that fitted his clue of “killer” perfectly until we reconsidered that “white/colour” wasn’t a good fit for “wedding”.

With five out of five, it was all down to Joe, but alas it wasn’t to be. Despite his second chance at getting some workable words, we failed twice to get his clover right.

33 out of 36

No fame for us tonight. But lots of fun.  Thanks guys.