Overstocked and Underllama-ed

This week was Laura's turn to host, but perhaps because of the heat (and Joe's being in France) we were down to five when the allotted hour arrived - as well as Laura, there were Ian, Adam H, Martin and myself (Sam). Mostly the introductory talk was about Laura and Lucy's fridge, being as it was enormous and semi-sentient, with a screen on it that could play music and order shopping. We all liked the fridge. 

But there were games to be played too, and with Katy coming later we kicked things off with Martin's new card game of 1980's toy crazes, Overstocked. There are super-simple rules here, but tricky decisions: over six rounds everyone plays one of six cards from their hand before revealing simultaneously, and they're then resolved in number order. On your turn you have a choice - add the card to your tableau, which will (hopefully) get you points, or add it to a shared tableau, which defines how much: when all cards have been played, you multiple your largest group of x on your tableau by the largest matching group in the central one.

The catch - of course there's a catch - is that the largest group on that shared tableau at game-end scores minus points, having blown it's popularity out on a wave of oversaturation. So Overstocked contains a wide seam of dickery as everyone tries to devalue each other's wares, a fact that made me encourage everyone to screw over Martin's teddies. 

Sadly, they didn't listen. 

Martin 26
Laura 25
Sam 12
Ian 10
Adam H -10

Then we had a quick blast through Cross Clues whilst Laura generously plied me with spaghetti bolognese. Fortunately I had a combo (Firefighter/Salad) which I had no idea what to do with, so I made the most of our ten minutes by eating. There were some tricky words out there, but I'm glad to say it wasn't a shocking repeat of mine Joe and Katy's four out of 25. 

I canvassed for Powerships next, hoping to break my staccato run of last-place finishes, and everyone was amenable. We went through the standard bewilderment over assembling the board, then Martin explained the rules to Laura, and we were away. 

Ian and Martin sped off early with Laura and I tailing at a little distance. Would my plan to take all the marker planets wide prove a foolish one? At the moment, it was Adam lagging at the back, and seemed to be shaping up a two horse race between Hickman and Griffiths. While Adam was first to crash, around the second marker the rest of us sped, although I - needing to roll a 2 or a 3 - rolled a 1 and my plans turned to cosmic sand: I crashed as well, and watched Adam speed by me. 

Martin made a miscalculation over the final planet and shot past it, allowing Ian in for the win. Martin recovered for second and Adam swept in third. It only remained for Laura to nab 4th with me still trying to get out of second gear on the other side of the solar system. 

Then disaster! She missed the planet (above, Laura pink) and had to turn a wide circle in mitigation. Sensing an opportunity, I (blue, above, in the distance) swept home and celebrated my fourth place like I'd just destroyed the Death Star. 

1 Ian

2 Martin

3 Adam

4 Sam

5 Laura

Katy had arrived in time to see the dramatic finale play out, and now - whilst Laura and I aired our misgivings about the idea - she joined Martin and Ian in pushing for Wandering Towers. 

In fairness, even though it was chaotic and frustrating in equal measure, it was also hilarious. I think it took us about an hour of complaining, agonising, cursing and wondering in equal measure. I was first to get a wizard in the Raven Tower, but after that spent a lot of time with visible wizards miles away from reaching it. Martin forgot where his wizards were, and Katy made the mistake of having a conversation with Lucy and returning to the table to ask where her wizards had gone. How we laughed at the idea of charity. Ian triggered the finale whilst I was away in the loo and by the time I returned I had no more turns, and Adam had already won and it was a contest for second. "I just need to roll an eight!" Martin said hopefully.

1 Adam

2 Ian

3 Everyone else, although Katy wanted it noted she had four full potions and was therefore more 3rd.

We split into two groups of three, with Adam and I introducing Katy to Llamaland (without objectives) and Laura, Martin and Ian trying their hands at High Score. 

Katy loved the llamas, especially as we weren't eating them. I loved tesselating. Adam loved winning. Although I set the pace llama-wise, Adam's cunning guile somewhat incongruously suited llama farming and even the arrival of Chai, who walked across the board, couldn't disrupt his chain of thought. 

Adam shrugged off the interruption, and I snagged another llama. Whilst Katy was concerned at my ungulate overwhelm, I ran out of options on the last two turns just as Adam's strategizing came to fruition:

Adam 66

Sam 53

Katy 49 

Whilst Ian had ousted Martin and Laura at High Score (15-13-12) and Martin had his revenge in a three-player rematch of Overstocked: 

Martin 54

Ian 20

Laura 10

Then Adam and Ian left, bound for Easton, and the four of us settled on Laura's Ebay find of Marrakech to finish. Martin was keen on the dickish version, but this was vetoed. Marrakech has plenty of inadvertent (and occasionally vertent) dickery anyway. Omens looked good for Laura as while the three of us squabbled over territory, she built an enormous, sprawling carpet across a third of the board. It was so big that we kept running away from it until there was no option but to embrace the peril. However despite a couple of hauls, we got away with relatively little taxation and struck back, carpet-wise.

Martin and Katy were soon cash-poor and complained about being oppressed. Laura and I agreed oppression was fun from our perspective. However, thanks to some spawny rolling it was me taking the honours at the end of the day!

Sam 55

Laura 50

Katy 39

Martin 19

Another GNNight concluded, then, with much fun had in the July heat. Until next week!

Sumatra enchanted evening

 I arrived at Sam's just as Sam, Joe and Ian were in the final stages of a game of Llama Land. I watched them voice their regrets at previous decisions and lack of future opportunities. Joe even said he thought the game was designed specifically so he couldn't do anything. But despite all this, once they'd finished, they all said and they liked it and would happily play it again.

Sam 62

Ian 57

Joe 56

Next, to fill the time before Katy arrived, we played Schnipp & Weg. This game of flicking dexterity is simpler than its brethren, Flick Fleet, Cube Quest etc. Despite the simplicity, we still overcomplicated matters by missing simple shots at crucial moments.

We paired up, Joe and Ian against Sam and I. I started brilliantly, taking out most of the opposing counters and for the rest of the game I sent my shots skimming harmlessly off the board. Joe, despite his reputation for the yips, did well, clearing one round single handedly.

Ian and Joe won

Then Katy arrived, back at games night for the first time in a month. She found herself recruited into a new game: Sumatra. It's from Reiner Knizia and we were keen to play it before Martin did, hoping a head start would improve our chances when we finally play against him.

The devilish detail here is knowing when to abandon a particular area and move onto the next. This means you leave stuff behind but you also get first choice of whatever tiles are drawn for the new area.

It was fun. Joe confused backpacks and volcanoes (understandable considering our earlier conversation about how bad our eyesight was getting), Katy went big on crafts while I ignored people almost completely. I did, however, score in every other category. It was very close.

Katy 45

Andrew 44

Sam 43

Ian 43

Joe 42

Then we broke out an old favourite: Bandu - the dexterity game whose name you have to say in an Australian accent. It had been at Sam's brother's house for two years so it at least deserved a welcome home.

I went unconventional right from the start, laying down curved surfaces because I'd noticed they were all the same height and could work as a potential surface.

Everyone else built upwards, trying to keep as much of the base as free as possible. All except Ian whose sculpture was even shorter than mine. But too many curves, it seems and he was out first. Katy fell next and then Joe. He nudged the table while picking up a piece off the floor, sending mine and Sam's structures toppling. We quickly rebuilt them and continued, though. 

Sam ran out as the eventual winner. Once my building fell down he then started showboating, adding new pieces to his creation at breakneck speed until, after four, it finally crumbled to his foundations.

Sam

Andrew

Katy

Joe

Ian

And with that, Ian and I left. According to Sam's texts, Joe Katy and Sam played Ninety Nine, which Katy won. Then they played Cross Clues and scored an astonishing 6 (six) points. I asked Sam what the words were, unable to imagine what they could be. 

He texted back...

Costume trailer chocolate spider fast 

And...

Shark mushroom goat tall blue

I can see their problem. Combinations like "fast mushroom" and "blue chocolate" don't suggest any obvious solutions to me either. Suggestions in the comments please.

But anyway, thanks for the evening. See you all soon.

All's well that Gravwell

 It was almost like old times as I arrived at Sam’s at an almost-on-time 7.40. It was already full, and we had two more to arrive so we (Sam, Joe, Ian, Adam T, Gareth, Martin and me) played Cross Clues. Across the top we had Disgust which caused some interesting clues, such as “jizz” for Digust/Helmet. We ended with 22 out of 25, with all three mistakes linked to the word “Monkey” for some reason.

Adam H arrived with chips and Laura was expected at “around 8” so we split into two groups. The quartet (Joe, Martin, Gareth, Adam T) played Mille Fiori, a game so generous with its scoring that “points salad” seems inadequate (despite Martin clearly saying “broccoli for two points”) and is better described as a “point smorgasbord”. Despite the myriad of scoring opportunities, it ended very close. Joe maintained his 100% record in the game.

We played Gravwell, a game in which you don’t go backwards or forwards, you go towards or away from the nearest mass. Laura texted that she’d be there at 8.15 so we began without her: initially choosing her cards at random before Sam started playing for her. As such when she arrived she was already in the lead. The game was frustrating, but some of that could be down to lack of familiarity. For example, blue cards are useful at first but if all the ships are behind you, you need red cards to push yourselves away from them.

 

I found myself becalmed in a section of space as evidenced by two photos taken half an hour apart in which I clearly have barely moved. Adam H had similar problems, dawdling aimlessly at the far side of the board before he suddenly leapt into action, moving past all of us until he was so close to the finish that when Laura played her card (repel all objects three spaces) it pushed him onto the final square.

Adam

Laura

Ian

Andrew

Sam

 

Then we split into three groups of three. Martin, Gareth and Laura played Keltis at one end of the table. Ian, Adam H and I set up Flamme Rouge at the other end and Joe, Sam and Adam T squeezed a game of Ninety-nine into the gap in the middle.

It was lovely to play Flamme Rouge again, although we needed a rule refresher. It wasn't long before we were enjoying the thrill of the chase. Adam broke away first, causing Ian and I to send our sprinters after him.

It was very close at the end. Adam was approaching the final corner with Ian and I right on his tail. It all depended on who had the better cards in their hand.

I did. Although we all crossed the line, I went furthest. Adam claimed a victory of sorts, because he got two riders across the line. For the sake of completeness, these were the standings…

1 Andrew

2 Ian

3 Adam H 

4 Adam H

5 Ian

6 Andrew

As for Keltis, Martin won with Laura and Gareth both tying for second/last about twenty points behind.

Ninety nine ended with Adam T securing the win, despite him declaring at the start that he was terrible at the game. Sam finished one card away from completing his bid, but ninety-nine is a cruel game and he finished a distant last.

Then Laura, Adam T and Gareth left and the remaining six of us finished on So Clover. Let’s just say that the pressure to all be perfect was off fairly quickly after Sam’s success (Travolta=Grease+Fool) Martin was undone by a number of possible combinations and we failed to choose the right one at all. Joe also came a cropper as we failed to note that Couch links to Observer in that someone on a couch is probably observing something.

After that, I set off. My clover had already been dealt out but I was determined not to give in to temptation. So Sam did mine for me. And, just like when he was playing for Laura at the start of the evening, he did pretty well, getting a perfect score on mine.

Thanks all, see you next Tuesday.

oceans a-livin'

 Having missed Tuesday’s regular meet, I was pleased to hear of a Thursday meet up at Sam’s. This was, I thought, just a three-hander with Sam, myself and Adam H playing Dominant Species Marine. Imagine my (slight) surprise when I arrived at the uncommonly prompt time of 7.35 to find Martin also there, with Joe expected shortly.

Martin and Joe played each other at Watergate, a game in which one player is Nixon (Martin, possibly typecast) and the other plays the role of the journalists trying to uncover his evil plot.

I know nothing about it, nor who won. 

As for this end of the table, Sam talked us through DSM and it was a little complicated. When Sam was called away from the table on family business, Adam and I tried to work out what an"action space" might be. But once we began, it seemed to make sense and my source of AP was whether or not to dawdle at the top of the list of actions or head straight to the good stuff at the bottom. Tricky because once you play an action, you can’t choose another action from further up: you must keep going down. Unless you have a special pawn, then you can go anywhere.

I seemed quite good at choosing actions that Sam was relying on, which is a positive sign for a beginner. Adam seemed to get the worst of extinction events, despite him also being a newbie. But I think both Sam and I tried to be fair in who’s animals we killed off.

At the end (after the asteroid), we counted up the points scored for special pawns. I had none while Sam and Adam had three each. This pushed Sam into first place and he celebrated his win for a second or two until Adam reminded him (and me) that we needed to score the board too. Sam’s demeanor instantly fell, as he had little presence on the board whereas my clever use of the aforementioned asteroid meant I had plenty of high scoring land to myself.

Andrew 87

Adam 84

Sam 78

I think being a reptile helped, since I always won ties. Would be keen to play it again. Even though Sam slimmed out the deck beforehand for a shoreter game, it was still a substatial two-hour game that filled me up nicely and I set off home for the evening. The rest of them continued. According to Sam in a text later, Adam beat Sam at Clubs (not sure what Joe and Martin were playing when I left) and then after Sam beat Adam at Schnipp & Weg, Adam went home.

Finally, Martin beat Joe and Sam at Letterpress.

Thanks all, a nice little soiree. See you all soon.

The Death of Brian

 I (Sam, our de facto blogger Andrew being a late drop-out) arrived at Joe's place a little later than usual to find just three gamers at the table: the host, Ian, and Martin. They were puzzling out hidden codes in Break the Code, a game that broke my mind when I played it. All I can remember at the time is thinking what the fuck do all these numbers mean just as Joe announced he'd cracked it. Martin and Ian had no such qualms, though, and whilst I munched through a sandwich they all won the game at the same time. 

What next? Martin began campaigning to play Brian Boru, the trick-taking game of Irish border control. Despite my emerald heritage, Joe's love of trick-taking and Ian's fascination with borders, nobody really bit. Both Joe and I said we'd be up for playing it again, but it wasn't high on our wishlists. 

"Yeah" Martin sighed. "That's the problem with games" 

He rattled the box seductively one last time, and then put it away. But for how long?

Instead we played Babylonia, reducing Martin's chances of victory from 100% to a more competitive 90 or so. Joe began well, harvesting point-scoring opportunities in a kind of guerrilla-esque approach. Martin and Ian schemed. I attempted to build a connection of tiles all the way across the map, and found my plans regularly harpooned by three dickheads who kept getting in my way.

Or possibly it's more correct to say I sucked big time. As Joe's momentum slackened a little mid-game, it became a fight between Martin and Ian, and Martin snuck his farmers into operation a fraction before Ian could, pushing his narrow lead into a more substantial one. 

Although Ian was scoring plenty for cities, it wasn't enough, and he ended the game before Martin could scalp any points for himself:

Martin 168

Ian 141

Joe 127

Sam 114

Next up was Set & Match: Doubles, as Martin and I took on Ian and Joe.

This was hilarious. The scoring is identical to real tennis, and the court is pretty much the same too. Where the game comes to life is in both the flicking, and the clever way momentum swings during rallies, pushing one side further towards the point if your 'shot' lands in a tricky-to-get-to place: the corners of the court; right by the net and so on. 

Joe and Ian kept getting the yips and hit multiple double-faults. Joe managed to serially flip the tennis ball disc over and send it rolling off court. I was more at home with this game (push something with your finger) than Babylonia (use your brain) and enjoying thwacking the 'ball' diagonally cross-court: Martin and I ran out winning three sets to love.

We then swapped Wimbledon for the Mariana, and crewed up for Mission: Deep Sea. My notes here say

1 Sam fucks up

2 twice

3 we succeed

which is probably as succinct a way of putting it as any. Computing all the possibilities in a round of The Crew is a struggle for me at the best of times, and I was starting to feel tired. I'm glad we managed to succeed in our mission, even though I've no idea what it was.

Joe had insidiously laid out Memoarrr! on the table and we were tempted. I'd forgotten how much fun it is - a simple memory game where whatever the player before you turned over, you must now reveal a card that matches either the animal, or the colour.

We all struggled at times, Martin most of all, and cursed the seeming absence of tortoises. And although Martin won the last two rounds, thanks to the skewy scoring system it didn't do him much good:

Sam 6
Joe 4
Martin 3
Ian 2

It was only just gone ten but I was shattered and had to head home. In my absence, they played Art Robbery (not sure who won) and after Ian left, Joe beat Martin at LLAMA. Until next time!

Breaking the fours, breaking the fours

 I arrived at 8.10 having already missed two games of Spicy.

Joe 29

Adam H 27

Sam 10

Adam T 10

Sam 27

Joe 25

Adam H 20

Adam T 7

With my feet snugly under the table, we now numbered seven since Martin and Gareth had arrived. We split into two groups of three and four. Sam, Adam H and myself played Llama Land while Joe, Martin, Gareth and Adam T chose Mille Fiore which is a Reiner Knizia game, albeit one that's somewhat over produced with shiny plastic ships and diamond shaped tiles.

Llama Land resembled NMBR9 inasmuch as your tessellating pieces while slowly building upwards. Collect items to complete sets and score points, but this means putting a Llama on your land, making further upward building a bit tricky.

It was okay. It felt as if someone had once played NMBR9 and wished it had more potatoes. Adam took to it like a duck to water and won by miles. Sam was hit by explainer’s curse.

Adam 137

Andrew 92

Sam 88

While Mille Fiore continued, we three played out two rounds of Take It Easy. Sam’s category was animals and after it, I was in a slender lead. But then I was caller. I chose snacks (including “pouring hundreds and thousands into your mouth”) but my mojo had gone (breaking the line of fours was the least of my issues) and I didn’t even break three figures.

Adam 314

Sam 309

Andrew 274

On Mille Fiore, it all looked very complicated. People were berating Joe for insisting that he had no idea what was going on while building up a healthy lead. In between people asking “Is this Nick Lowe?” to the music, Martin likened it to being “stuck inside a pinball machine” and Adam T had a late surge to finish in a respectable rather than disastrous fourth.

Joe 183

Martin 163

Gareth 160

Adam T 145

During this time, Joe’s wife Charlotte interrupted us to offer fruit cake which was a keen to finish off soon. “Cake Rubble” she called it, as most was in moist chunks, but it was still very tasty and made a change from chipsticks.

Now we split up and reshuffled again. Well, Sam and Gareth swapped seats. Adam H, Gareth and I went for that game of skill and technique, Kribbeln. Sam, Martin, Joe and Adam T played Scout.

Adam played Kribbeln almost as annoyingly as he’d played Llama Land and Take It Easy. On his first Krib (goal: just roll a high score) he got 24. And then on the following Kribs (goal: score higher than the previous Krib) he rolled 25, 26 and 27. Gareth recovered from a slow start to finish comfortably in second.

Adam H 20

Gareth 15

Andrew 10

As for Scout, apart from Adam T’s opening move of playing four 9s, I didn’t follow it.

Martin 27

Joe 26

Sam 22

Adam T 16

And with that, Adam T and Gareth left. The remaining five got out good old So Clover. The first two words I got were “Toy” and “Outlet” and I blurted out how easy it was. I found other words harder, but I’m relieved that I hadn’t jinxed myself and my clover was correctly solved. So was everyone else’s except Sam’s who was unlucky enough to have Shell and Painting among the possible answers for his clue of “Oil”.

There was a brief interval as Charlotte made another intervention, this tiem to tell us about the remarkably pretty full moon currently visible. We went up to Joe’s living room, cautiously avoiding hitting the coffee table with our shins since the light was out, and admired it’s bronze hue.

Back in So Clover, I must tip my hat to Martin who had to distinguish between “trophy” and “award”. To do so, he chose “Wife” as his clue for “trophy” especially since it also went with the other word next to “trophy”: “screw”.

With that, we were done. Off into the sultry night, under a fat orange moon that was so pretty that even a total stranger in the street told me I needed to see it. Thanks all. Next week, eh?

Spy Power

 I arrived just in time to see the last couple of clues of Cross Clues being posed. Ian, Laura, Joe, Martin and host Sam did well for time but fell short of perfection, getting three or four wrong.

The six of us stayed together for a six-player game of Wandering Towers. This was my first attempt at this simple game, new to GNN last week, and I managed to put a meeple in the tower with my first move. But any notion that I might have had that this would be easy was soon dispelled – I wouldn’t get another meeple into the tower until after Ian neatly dropped his third guy into the castle, triggering the end of the game.

Laura was the last to play and she thought she could get her last meeple in the tower, if only she knew where it was. Her first card allowed her to move a tower. She chose a tower, hoping to see her third guy underneath. No joy. Such is Wandering Castles.

Ian 3

Sam 2 (and four filled potions)

Joe 2, Laura 2, Andrew 2, Martin 2

Then we split into two groups of three. Joe, Ian and Sam chose Switch The Signal, a co-op train game. Laura, Martin and I played an ancient classic, Web of Power. This was Laura’s first game and my first game for about ten years, so a rules explanation was duly doled out by Martin.

But Web of Power has a few quirks that kept tripping Laura up, such as only one cloister in a new territory and that the maximum number of advisors in a region is equal to the number of cloisters in that territory owned by leading player in that region.

I enjoyed it. It was nice to go back after all this time. I don’t think I did particularly well, apart from a move that annoyed Martin, robbing him of ten points. That was satisfying.

Martin 75

Andrew 58

Laura 48

I didn’t really follow Switch The Signal, apart from catching the phrase “he’s got an itchy bum now,” uttered by Sam. At the end of the game, they declared themselves winners but only after awarding themselves an extra turn which, according to the rules, shouldn’t have been given.

While they were finishing off Switch The Signal, Laura, Martin and I banged out a quick High Score. As Martin explained the rules he demonstrated with a number of successful dice rolls. He put his cube high up the score track while I argued that those were just examples and shouldn’t count. My logic wasn’t taken seriously but I needn’t have worried. A run of good results for me (in round four, I scored 32 while Martin scored 8) meant I went into the final round just needing to avoid going bust to win. I accepted my first legal roll and took first place in a close match.

Andrew 15

Martin 14

Laura 13

On the other half of the table Sam won a quick game of Spicy, having won two 10s which was the first time he’d ever done that, apparently.

Then Laura left and the five of us played Decrypto. Joe and I were a team and we got a miscommunication in our first round. Joe’s clue of “Pret a Porter” should have pointed me to “Pocket” but instead I thought “Porter” was a reference to portaloos, so I chose “toilet”.

But I made up for it, noticing that Sam’s clue of “Ant/Zebra” seemed to reference A-Z, eventually leading Joe and I to guess Dictionary for that word. We got an interception for our second white token and won the game. Interestingly, I think both teams were on the right track for most words, even though we’d only played three rounds. Clearly we are all out of practice.

Joe and Andrew, I spy with my little eye

Sam, Martin and Ian, Blind Man’s Buff

At this point I went home, leaving the remaining quartet to play Ghosts of Christmas.

Martin 16

Joe 16

Ian 3

Sam 2

Thanks for the evening, everyone. See you next week.