Bab alone

Some additional Thursday night gaming this week, as Ian and I (Sam) kicked things off with Zombie Kidz as we waited for Chris and Gareth to show up, the co-op game of rushing around locking gates before the undead overcome you. Whether it was fate, luck, our brilliance, or a bit of all three, we wrapped things up in ten minutes with an easy win. Chris arrived a quarter-way through it but didn't have long to wait.

After briefly catching up we set up Babylonia, knowing Gareth had played before. Because he was running late though we decided to begin, with me taking his opening move. I thought my second turn on Gareth's behalf was pretty good, but as he showed up then we reset to allow him autonomy, and he did something very different. 

It was an unusual game in that we didn't interfere with each other much at all in the early running, perhaps all hoping that the others would do so on our behalf. Instead everyone carved out a section of the board to themselves in a strange isolationist approach. 

Chris (white) and Ian (brown) did so the most effectively. Chris' final score of 153 beat Ian by a point! Gareth was back on 128 and my score wasn't worth speaking aloud. A dreadful effort on my part, especially considering I felt reasonably confident for the first half of the game. But excellent chaining from the others. 

I would extract some measure of revenge in our next Knizia: The Quest for El Dorado. I forgot to take photos at this point but my only strategy was gutting my deck of starting cards. Having a tiny set of cards (7), one of which allowed me to draw two more almost every time, meant I stormed off into a convincing win, although it should be noted that both Gareth and Ian were blocked in on two or three turns when they wanted to move - it could have been very different had this not happened...

Gareth had to head home so the three of us finished off with Thunder Road. 

The deliberately dumb racing game was as fun as previous visits, as we slammed into each other, shot each other off the track, and in one instance blew up our own car. Three cars each start on the finish line and the two ways to win are either last one standing (bully win) or first to the finish line (skill win) - but the finish line only appears the moment the first player is eliminated. Otherwise the modular tracks keep cycling down a never-ending road, presumably downhill considering the lack of petrol stations. 

I lost a car on the first turn when Chris shot me and I skidded off the track. Then Chris was victim to his own helicopter, then we realised Ian still had all three cars and began shooting at him and missing. 

If Ian eliminated Chris' last car, I was well-placed to reach the finish-line first. So he went for me and missed. I shot at Chris and missed. Chris shot at Ian and blasted his last car out of existence (I think - it was pretty hurly-burly at this stage). Then he eliminated me as well and didn't even need to reach the finish line as he blew the smoke from his muzzle. Bully win!

And that was that. Thanks chaps!

Because he saw the salad dressing

 Joe answered to door at Sam’s place at 7.47 and let me in. At the kitchen table he, Sam, Katy, Adam H and Ian were all playing Zombie Kidz Evolution. Ian rolled a die and it was blank, which was good, but then Katy rolled a red side and that was bad and the game ended. Then they spent about five minutes opening envelopes and sticking stickers because the game had been played often enough that a new zombie card and rule had been unlocked.

Then we were six. Should we split into two? Adam was keen on six-player Railways of the World, while Ian mentioned Heat. But we chose Decrypto since it hadn’t been seen in literally years (since 2022, according to the blog). Joe, Ian and Katy teamed up against Sam, Adam H and me. Round one and two were clear, but it all started going wobbly on round three. 

Katy’s clue was intercepted by us (more by luck than judgement: we were pondering our options when we noticed that we could just make the same guess as last round, so we did. And we were right) and then Joe and Ian got it wrong! But then Sam and I misunderstood Adam’s clue.

In round four, Katy, Joe and Ian intercepted my clue. It was getting harder to think of a reference for “Cyclops” which had appeared in every round. Telescope, Forehead, Hades and Blinks were clues to date and then it came up again in round five. Sam clued all cinematic references: Speilberg for ET, Scorsese for Money and Harryhausen for Cyclops, which was better than any film reference that I could come up with: I’d been trying to remember who’d played the one-eyed giant in Krull since we’d started. But anyway, Sam’s clues were intercepted, and the game was done.

Joe, Katy, Ian: superspies

Adam, Sam, Andrew: superfluous

Then we split into two groups. Adam, Ian and Sam went off to conquer Planet Unknown while Katy, Joe and I played Luxury Ra. With these two games, there wasn’t a huge amount of table space left so it’s lucky we’d already eaten all the crisps.

This was my first time playing this copy of Ra and I was rightfully impressed by the tactile experience although my tactics didn’t improve. At least it was close, with Joe’s grip on the game continuing. All thanks to his sudden switch in round two to collecting pharaohs despite telling us earlier that he really wasn’t interested in them.

Joe 43

Katy 41

Andrew 36

Remarkably, Planet Unknown ended at the same time and they totted up the scores as Sam told us that he loved the solo version so much that he’d played it fifteen times.

Sam 44

Ian 43

Adam 40

Then it was all back together for a game of So Clover. Any dreams of 36 out of 36 were dashed early on. We cleared Sam’s clover fine but then stumbled on Katy’s clue for fire which I think was “lighter” and “traditional.” Then an unlucky mix up saw us fail with Ian’s even though I was pretty confident we were right.

I was so convinced we were right I took a photo

I’m relieved that my clover scored the maximum 6 points as they pretty quickly realised I’d misread “envelop” as “envelope.” But I feel genuine regret that we didn’t get Adam’s clever clue of “seawee’d” which is a punchline to the joke “Why did the sea blush?” and we guessed accordingly. Unfortunately he’d wanted to do “why did the tomato blush?” but he couldn’t remember it.

I think we got 29 out of 36. Sounds about right.

Then Katy, Adam and I went home. On the way back, Sam sent me this gem from their game of Not That Movie...

And Katy found a wall with a few odds and ends that she had to peruse.

Thanks all. See you soon.

Stop on Red

A bit of a Thursday night gaming sortie last night as Ian, Katy and I sat down to play Scythe. It had been a while for Katy and she needed a refresher, so we talked her through the objectives and turn by turn beats, and then were off into fictional Europa. 

I realised that in choosing three different factions from Saturday we'd ended up red (Ian), yellow (Katy) and green (me). As I spread across the board I could place flags, potentially doubling the value of controlled hexes for myself; a fact I kept forgetting. Katy could spend combat cards like resources and Ian had the oft-heralded power to not change slots between turns. 

Katy found it hard to get going, penned in her corner of the board and seemingly caught between two stalls at regular intervals. I was busy on my homeboard upgrading and enlisting; preparing for the future. But Ian was making geographic progress; sprawling out over the continent, banging out mechs and nabbing the factory for himself. His faction power of staying in the same slot was working well for him: he also got a couple of stars down before we'd done much of anything. 

And despite our increased activity and progress, it looked Ian's game to lose from fairly early on. He made no mistake, remorselessly advancing towards a sixth objective star and a reasonably convincing margin of victory:

Ian 63

Sam 51

Katy 46

It was only about 9.20 so we bashed through a quick game of Block Party which was notable for a serial failure to guess pretty much anything! Katy and I shared a win with a grand total of four points each - on a scoretrack that goes up to 20 (Ian had three, I think). I forgot to take any photos though.

Then we ended with a triple whammy of Zombie Kidz Evolutions.

We were only going to play once but each play is so rapid, and the next legacy envelope was so close, that we did two more, winning twice and losing once, and in the envelope was a special ability for Ian's nerf gun character. We'll try that next time. 

Euro Currencies

Last night's GNN meet-up unusually had no Martin at it, as he was away in the US. There was also the rare and welcome sight of Steve, giving the room a slight 2013 kind of vibe. But before he, Adam H and Joe all turned up, at 7.30 there was just Katy, Ian and myself (Sam). And after comparing our weeks - they'd both been to gigs; Katy had crowdsurfed - we played Zombie Kidz Evolution. 

This is a couldn't-be-simpler co-op game of trying to padlock all four school gates before you are overrun by zombies. On your turn, you roll a die and a zombie (probably) arrives in the school. You can move one spot (or stay where you are) and eliminate one or two zombies in the room you stop in. Padlocking the gates is an automatic action, but the catch is there must be two of you present to do it, and if a room ever gathers more than two zombies you can do nothing about it. If you're asked to add more zombies and you've run out, you lose! Which was exactly what happened to us on our first attempt - each game takes about 5-10 minutes - before triumphantly applying padlocks on our second try. 

The game has legacy aspects too: win or lose, after X amount of games there are envelopes to be opened that will change it fractionally. Katy however was more excited by the stickers that get applied to the back of the rulebook, heralding victory or defeat. 

A freshly-shorn Joe arrived. He too had had an interesting week, removing his beard for the sole purpose of a fancy-dress party. One has to admire his commitment to character. With Adam and Steve not here yet, I thought we could bash through a quick play of Coral, as I (erroneously (obviously)) thought I remembered the rules.

This is another speedy game, but rather less co-operative. Each player wants to have the most visible coral (-the colours) from a bird's eye perspective at the end of the game (height being only a tie-breaker). On a turn you can either add a block adjacent to your coral piece, or move your piece: it can travel as far as it likes along the colour it currently occupies (ignoring height differences) or you can remove it entirely, to be returned on your next go. This option is a kind of hedge-betting; holding back your pieces to see what develops. But it can bite you on the bum if nobody else is doing it, as when someone runs out of blocks turns continue, but if you still have blocks after placing one you discard another. I'm not sure who won; it was either me or Joe, but Joe knocked the tower over at the finale and then Katy dove in and scattered the remains across the table - in delight or fury, I'm not sure.

By this time Adam and Steve had arrived and Adam was pointing out we were playing something wrong. I forget what now - there was a flurry of snack bowls on the table and I think I was tripping on sugar and salt. 

We split into groups of three, delighting in our opportunities to play euros without Martin making desultory comments from the sidelines. And indeed, he may have to hold back a gag reflex as he sees we covered the table in big, detailed  and chaotically garish boards. Ian talked Steve and Adam through Terra Nova, as I explained Rajas of the Ganges to Joe and Katy. 

Despite some minor options-overwhelm, Joe seemed to begin strongly, scrutinising the board, asking for one or two rules clarifications and discovering we'd been playing something (erroneously (obviously)) incorrectly about activating markets. I deflected blame by saying someone else taught me it. Joe was going the market route, pretty much ignoring the glorious buildings, whilst Katy and I did the opposite. Katy's early-game progress stalled, though, and she bemoaned her lack of dice, seemingly spending them the moment they arrived. 

In Terra Nova, things were marginally less boisterous, and Adam noted that it sounded like we were having more fun. 

"I'm not" Katy clarified. 

Perhaps she was dreaming of better times; being carried aloft by a crowd. 

Joe meanwhile continued to scrutinise, but his early momentum was lost as well - Rajas is a game of surges and lulls, I think - and as we entered the final stages, Katy's love of buildings surged her past Joe. I triggered the end of the game as we all built like deranged constructionists.

Katy's markers passed each other as well, but not quite enough to catch me. Joe's markers halted within touching distance of each other, making him slightly sad, even though he said he liked the game. But I managed to successfully navigate my way past explainer's curse to claim a win, albeit aided by a familiarity my opponents weren't equipped with. 

Ian wasn't so lucky. However it happened, the winner was the most-likely when they sat down to play it:

Adam 74

Steve 68

Ian 50

We'd squeezed out a quick game of Zombie Kidz while they wrapped up (and won! more stickers) but now Katy went home, perhaps with her interview in mind, and most of us agreed that So Clover was the next logical step. I'm not sure if Steve agreed or not: he said he wanted something fun. We were all immediately stumped by our words, except Joe, who finished in no time at all and started a side-game of competitive number-drawing. I was a bit slower, and less accomplished.

I didn't get a picture of Joe's as at the time I was trying to make sense of my words. 

Steve's Hare for March/Jelly was nice and I was impressed the group got Young/Berry from my clue of Virile. We overcame our collective pessimism to score a faintly remarkable 28/30. Excellent work! But now Adam and Steve left us as well, and the remaining trio played a vintage GNN game in the form of Love Letter.

I warned Joe as we established our 3-3-0 lead over Ian that he has form for coming back from the dead, and even reminded Ian when he complained about zero points that he'd recovered from worse. And so it was! I tried ejecting Joe with a Baron and got my just desserts, then Ian won two rounds in a row with a spy to claim victory! 

I didn't take many pictures, sorry. But a very fun night, thanks all.