Doorstepping

 This week, on approaching Joe's welcoming door I found Adam H, Sam and Katy all having just arrived too. We said our hellos on the path to the front door and then Martin arrived too. A few more welcomes were shared when I asked if anyone had actually knocked.

Happily, someone had and Joe opened his door and greeted us all with a look of mild bemusement.

We went down to the kitchen where we found Adam T already sitting at the table. We chatted admirably and established that we 7 were the night's attendees. 

We split into two, poured pickled onion Monster Munch into a bowl, and began the games. Sam, Martin, Adam T and Katy played Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game. Martin described it as The Crew but Lord Of The Rings. A collaborative trick taker where the players adopt personas from the books in order to achieve certain trick taking criteria each round. 

I don't know if Sam was ever Sam but I did hear him say “I'll try being Merry,” as if he were begrudgingly agreeing to enjoy himself.

Four chapters complete. Managed to leave The Shires.

Joe, Adam H and I played Expeditions. This trailblazing game of gratuitous tourism pitted the three of us in a challenge to see who could visit all the locations on the cards in our hand first. 

The game begins with each player putting down four markers indicating four of the twelve locations in our hands. Adam put all of his markers in Africa. A bold move.

 As the game progressed,  we soon learnt that he had other locations in Africa, conveniently close to the starting point of Essen in Germany. I also had a cluster of locations but they were in far flung Australia.

The trick of the game is to use the non-locations spaces to get extra turns or tickets (allowing you certain benefits). Both Joe and I ran out of tickets at one point while Adam never did.

When the game ended,  all my remaining markers and cards counted against me. But Adam's victory was never in doubt.

Adam H 17

Joe 14

Andrew 7

At this point the two games ended and we rearranged our seating slightly.

Joe, Adam T and Martin played Bebop, the game about crowds at a Jazz festival. I was tempted to volunteer too but the only way to allay Sam's doubts about starting so late (8.30) was by Martin insisting it'd be shorter with just three players. 

Instead, I joined Adam, Katy and Joe in a game of Las Vegas. Katy had initially asked for Lords Of Vegas and was appalled when she learnt there wasn't copy in the house. 

But Las Vegas scratches a thematically similar itch. We rolled our little cubes of destiny across Joe's new dice mat and did our best to control the casinos along the Strip. We managed some pretty snazzy rolls, beginning round two with three of us rolling three 6s among our dice, only for Joe to let us down - he only had three fives.

Joe also amazed us by telling us he’d actually been to Las Vegas. Katy was especially stunning, reasoning that during all the times they’d played Lords of Vegas, he might have already mentioned it. Maybe his first hand experience came in handy, because he came first after I lost my winning position thanks to a dry last round and him picking up $200k..

Joe $530,000

Andrew $490,000

Katy $310,000

Adam H $290,000

As for Bebop, I didn't follow much after the ceremony of popping out the cardboard pieces but I did hear Martin remark on Sam’s early lead and Sam replying “I’ve got to make hay before I know what I’m doing,” adding that understanding the rules of a game is usually when his results start to tail off.

I left after Las Vegas but got the scores from Bebop. Looks like Sam’s early surge was enough to give him the win.

Sam 96

Adam T 75 (win on tiebreaker)

Martin 75

And after that they played The Gang

And good old So Clover.

And all that jazz

 Late as usual, I rocked up at Sam's place at 7.45. Most of tonight's attendees were perusing thr games collection while I got my coat off. Martin asked me if I liked the sound of a tile laying game about Jazz. An easy sell. I replied in the affirmative and booked my place on today's big thinky game, Bebop.

There were eight of us tonight. Sam, Martin, Katy, Pete, Ian, Andy M and myself. Katy expressed concern that she may have to reign in her usual aggressive style in the face of two relative newcomers but when she found out she was playing a game against three old familiars, she was happy that she could be a dick again.

I was joined by Martin, Pete and former semi regular Andy M, who I hadn't seen in years but in finest Games Night tradition, we just nodded and said hello. 

The other game,  chosen by Sam, Katy and Ian with Adam H in mind, who was on his way. He phoned once he was at the door, apparently unable to be heard by us in the kitchen. Once at the table, he got a rules explanation from Sam while Pete guided us through Bebop.

Any idea that this may be about Jazz was quickly quashed - it’s about a Jazz Festival and the idea of the game is to put our “fans” (the dice) next to the stage hosting their favourite instrument (drums, piano or trumper). First you put your seat down and on top of that, you put a die. The idea is to chain colours together in such a way that you have the majority of one instrument on your seats.

The game had a pretty simple mechanic, either place a seat or a fan and five of the seats had special abilities. But the strategy seemed to elude us. “What do I want?” cried Martin midway through the game. Even Pete, who’d only played once before - against himself - couldn’t offer any pointers.

Meanwhile, in Instanbul, Sam worked early on his wagon while Ian got the first jewel. There had been talk at the start of the game about Katy breaking the game last time she played.  I remember hearing about this but tonight she stayed firmly in the middle of the pack. Right up until the end. 

Ian 5

Adam 4 plus cash

Katy 4

Sam 4

After Istanbul they set up a game of misfits. Our jazz fest was showing no sign of ending. 

Whatever plan Katy had once had about being a dick seemed to have dissipated by now as she began with a disc placed flat on the table. Sam, far less amicable, put a cylinder on top of the disk, lying on it's side. 

After that, it was your usual recreation of 1970s public sculpture with exhortation to us not to bang the table. Not much chance of that, as we had entered the thinky standing up period of the game. 

Adam won Misfits 

After this, they played Gold Fever. Adam seemed to play the first part of the game while studying the rule book. They played twice, with wins for Katy and Adam. At the end of the game, Sam seemed to find a number of stones in the lining of his bag. 

Finally our Jazz Festival came to a close. We had, by now, long since passed the playing time suggested on the box. We were heading towards the final scoring with still not any solid idea about how well our strategies do. 

Andy M 98

Martin 97

Pete 87

Ander 71

Andy said he was happy with his win since he liked jazz. I don’t know what to make of Bebop! It was quite long and I never really got a grip of any possible tactics. I was tired, it was approaching 10 by now and I decided to bail out early.

Without me, the evening tore through more games@  Tower Up, Wavelength and two offerings of So Clover.

Some beautiful clues in there. Vampire/Pigeon for Bat is perhaps my favourite. Also, Sam played Agent Avenue four times, losing to Martin 2-1 and then playing against Pete later on. What a night.