Helmet by moonlight

 This week’s games night was heralded in the sky by a full moon veiled behind gossamer thin clouds, giving my walk to Sam’s the air of an 18th century oil painting. Ignoring all the traffic, of course.

At Sam’s it turned out we were five in number: Sam, Joe, Adam, Katy and myself. When I arrived, they were in the middle of Destination X, and Adam was hiding somewhere among 6 locations. We had cards in our hand, allowing us to ask certain questions while Adam looked up the answers in a book.

Of the 6 locations, Sweden was very much the odd one out, with the rest being islands or archipelagos in the Southern hemisphere. 

We soon outed Adam from his hideaway in Mauritania. Katy wanted to try another round but the overall consensus was to love on to something that was a bit more like a game.

We chose Vegas Strip. A recent arrival to these shores, it's similar to Las Vegas in that players are trying to control casinos but instead of the vagaries of dice, you can chose what value you place on your turn.

You also have a colleague who is aware that you have deemed two casinos “rigged” or “secure”. In a rigged casino, only the highest valued player wins the $15m bonus, whereas in a secure, everyone except the winner gets the money equal to the value they had in that casino. The way that the two team mates share knowledge is by an exchange of cards, being told “this is rigged,” and “this is secure. “

Since there were five of us, one of the three teams was made up of a single player. I round one, this was Katy who couldn't get a grip on the game and, with no team mate to work with, felt quite frustrated. She ended round one with 6 points while the rest of us were in the mid-20s.

In round two, I was the solo player and, initially I also felt out of my depth, just putting down figures at a whim. But soon I thought I saw some patterns and by the end I had won one casino and done well in a couple of others.

Round three, I was one of the players given two casinos and had to decide which was rigged and which was secure. I was actually given the same two casinos that I’d had in the previous round so I just gave them the opposite role as before and gave the two cards to Sam saying “this is rigged” and “this is secure.”

Except I hadn’t swapped them. I didn’t realise until the end, when the round was scored, that we’d been playing with different priorities. It didn’t benefit either of us, so no harm done, but I was disappointed I’d messed up, especially since I’d spent most of round three thinking that Sam was the best bluffer in the world.

Adam 76

Andrew 67

Sam 63

Joe 51

Katy 43

Next Katy was in the mood for So Clover, but Sam thought it too early. Instead we played Fun Facts where we have to answer questions like “How well dressed are you, on a scale of 0-100.” Our answers were meant to be secret but Katy complained that she could see mine quite easily. I told her not to look and she likened that to someone putting their cock on the table and then saying “guys, stop looking at my penis!”

Katy and Adam had two rounds in which they chose 43 and 44 for their answers, one of which being how much you’d pay for a really high-class meal in a restaurant. We got 5 out of 5 in one round which was “How much do you enjoy abstract art”

Final score 29 “nice score, you’re hitting your stride.”

Hitting our stride.

After 15 years, we’re hitting our stride. Because, as Sam pointed out to me later, Friday marks this blog’s fifteenth birthday. That’s insane. That means I was in my thirties when we started, and that can’t be right. But anyway, here we are. Well done everyone.

After I left, they had a game of So Clover which contained the word “helmet” three times! Crazy days. 

Oh, and Sam and Joe had kicked off the evening with a two-player game of Can’t Stop. Just as well they played before Katy got there, since it’s almost prompted a seizure before, due to her literal inability to stop.

Another lovely evening. Thanks all.

Cat on the Table

We - Joe, Martin and myself - arrived at Steve and Anja's a little late, but just in time to catch up with Pete at the front door. He wasn't sure if he was in the right place, an affliction that also seemed to clasp hold of Joe as he'd initially driven past the house and turned right, headed for who knows where. Eventually Louie let as all in and we were treated to the sight of Steve in marigolds.

Then Adam arrived. He went into the kitchen and then arrived again, causing speculation about how many times he might continue to show up. "Imagine if Adam T was here" Ian ruminated, pondering how many Adams we might end up with. Steve finished disposing of the dead bodies and joined us at the table, where Martin flourished his new card game, Llama Llama, and I flourished - sort of, the box is bigger - my new edition of Magical Athlete. With little ado we split into two groups: myself, Louie, Adam and Steve racing the aforementioned athletes and everyone else Llama-ing. I unfortunately missed the explanation because we were preoccupied with magic. 

Louie's first racer was the Skipper, who is always next to go if someone - including themselves - rolls a 1. And boy, did we roll a lot of 1's. Adam - to Louie's right - had about 3 turns the entire race, but did pretty well anyway thanks to his Suckerfish grabbing the backsides of other racers. We flipped the board for race 2, where the previously-simple track now has setbacks and booster spots. Adam took the win here, leaving Steve's Big Baby for dust. Then Louie won race 3 thanks to a surprisingly fast Zeppelin and we were set for a grand finale. Grand for most, anyway. Anja arrived in time to watch me roll four 4's in a row, each time landing on the go back 4 space. My special ability was copying a previous winner - I copied the skipper, but everyone decided that rolling 1s was now passé. Adam won the race...

...and the game!

Adam 12

Steve and Louie 10 each

Sam 7

Llama Llama had finished too. I had remembered to bring a notebook for a change and happily scrawled everything down. But I forgot to bring my notebook to the studio this morning, so who knows what it all says. Pretty sure Martin won, though. We had a quick reshuffle with Ian joining myself, Adam and Steve for Monkey Palace. Joe bravely took on teaching Silos (previously Municipium) to Martin, Pete and Anja. Louie went to bed. 

Adam schooled us at Monkey Palace. He shrugged off being last in turn order and developed an engine that saw him generating several arches early on. And he seemed more capable than any of us at spotting where they might go - I think we all accepted his advice at one stage or another. It seemed genuinely helpful, too, but our contributions to the palace rarely matched Adam's, who would launch each turn with an impressively pre-fabricated element that seamlessly slotted into place. 

On the other side of the table, Silos sounded as dickish as advertised. Judging by the expletives being directed his way, Martin seemed to be doing well. Joe called him a bastard and at one point Anja lamented "Why me?" - although it transpired she was his closest competitor in the end. Maybe that was why. Monkey Tennis Palace wrapped up with no-one too surprised at the victor:

Adam 5million

Steve and Sam 30 each

Ian 26

My very last turn hauled me in 12 points, thankfully. Torture and rage was continuing in Silos at this point, so we bashed out a quick play of Vegas Strip. 

Despite appearances, this is not a Vegas-esque boisterous dice-chucker, but more a canny table-reading situation, with temporary alliances in each round and some insider knowledge on (one of) which casinos are rigged - winner takes all - and which (one of) casinos are secure, in which case everyone but the winner gets their investments. Ian had played it at the weekend and found it somewhat inscrutable, but was game for another go. Adam and Steve both found the vague greys closer to charcoal though, and one round took us half an hour. As the entire game (three rounds) is only meant to be 40 minutes, we packed up at this point. Ian won this, as his and Adam's teamwork eclipsed mine and Steve's: their scores were in the 40s and ours considerably less, and Steve's promise of showing me 'How clever I am' was, as yet, unfulfilled. 

We also stopped because Silos finished now too, with Martin earning the victory-triggering fifth medal, Anja poised on 4, Joe with a couple (I think - see notebook tragedy above) and Pete entirely bereft of medals. The jury seemed to be out on the game, with Martin alleging that the new theme (aliens instead of Romans) and the new aesthetics (bonkers instead of beige) were both wrong steps for him. 

Anja had to temporarily corral Lennon bedwards, so whilst we were polishing off Vegas Strip, the remaining Silos trio played TowerBrix, where they collaborate on a construction with each player having a rule the tower must obey in order to succeed. They seemed to succeed until Joe revealed his second card at which point he was barraged with insults. "Joe fucked it up" Martin clarified to me. 

Vegas Strip was now mercifully back in its box and we now had an open table waiting to be covered with what my autocorrect likes to call Maples. Adam left - just the once - and Martin pointed out that TowerBrix plays six, so we all doffed our metaphorical hardhats and got stuck in. Steve and Martin however found that they could not agree on the construction at all, and kept moving something only for the other to cry "No!" in indignation. Rarely, they would come to terms on something, only for someone else to say "That doesn't work for me". Thank God actual architects don't work this way. 

Around now two more people joined us at the table. Anja was happy to watch the unfolding bickering, whereas Molly felt it had all gotten a bit out of hand and we just needed to chill the hell out. 

At one point we pretty much gave up our chances of success, before someone - I forget who, possibly Pete - built again from the ground up and we stumbled into something we all agreed on. Hurray! 

But with time ticking away, Joe had '15 minutes' to play one last game. We spent the first five of them making the same joke about a number of games that we couldn't play in this time - a quick Wallenstein? etc - before finally settling on Flip 7. Steve announced - I'm not sure if it was because of the game - that he was now going to bed, so our hosts were now effectively Anja and Molly. 

I don't think Pete had played before, but he was treated to a succession of unlikely bustings, notably on a pair of threes, as others - at first Ian and Anja - sped off into three figures. Martin heroically began busting too and went from in contention to in dudgeon remarkably fast. I had a mid-game surge and collapsed, and  in the penultimate round Joe flipped seven to make Anja - now poised on 197 - conceivably catchable. But it didn't happen - he busted in the ultimate round and Anja won convincingly, something like 227 points. Nobody else broke the 200 and Pete and Martin were back in the 70's (points, not years). 

That was that. Molly barely moved as we packed up and said our goodbyes... until next time. 

Fishing for Experts

Although we had unfortunate late drop-outs (Pete and Andrew) there was still a solid six last night at the table. Long-time absentee Adam T was back, and he, Ian and I kicked off the evening whilst we awaited the others with a game of sumo-wrestling shoving match Slambo. I didn't snap pictures but here's my hand v Martin at the weekend.

It's super-simple. All we're doing is playing cards to a shared discard where we keep track of the current, cumulative value, as blue cards (positive) force it up and red cards (negative) down. If anyone is forced to take the value over ten or below zero, they have lost the bout and everyone else gets to crow 'Slambo!' at them. Shame is enforced - in the form of a card - and as soon as someone loses three bouts they lose the game - whomever has least shame at this point wins. We didn't get to three, as other sumo wrestlers were arriving around us, but Adam was least shamed when we packed it back into its tiny box again. 

Adam - top sumo
Sam - average sumo
Ian - abashed

Now Katy and Adam H were here I took the liberty of setting up Whirly Derby. Martin's infamous greens (win most races) had been replaced by a new set from the publisher, and Katy dismissed insider advice on the outsider-ranked black marbles, saying she would navigate the problem with skill. Joe arrived to find himself already marbled, so to speak, as we began racing in earnest. 

Katy's confidence seemed to evaporate fast as the blacks stayed true to the bookie's predictions early on, and Ian - playing green - got off to a solid start. Despite the new green marbles being clearly larger than the old set, class is permanent and they seemed keen to dominate. 

Not entirely though - Adam T's reds pulled off the result of the game with this finish...

...causing him to - temporarily - change his feelings about Whirly Derby not being a 'proper' game. However, it wasn't enough to catch Ian, and again there was talk about perhaps adding a bidding phase for the marbles: green still seem strong, and blacks trailed in nearly last:

Ian Green 45
Adam T Red 43
Sam Blue 21
Joe Orange 20
Katy Black 14
Adam H White 10

We split into trios for the evening's main courses, with Joe, Adam H and I keen to try out Martin Wallace's condensed Railways of the World game, Steam Power, and the others perusing the alcove of joy before deciding on Mille Fiori. 

Steam Power shares a lot of genetics with Railways. There's no turn-order auction or special cards, but you're building track to deliver cubes from factories - this time to fulfil contract cards. There's only four resources and, as with Railways, you can share connected networks. Unlike Railways, once you've started building track, you can only extend from there and not jump around the map - Germany, in our case.

Adam - yellow - and Joe - red - began contesting the mid-west whilst I struck a more independent note in the south. I forgot to take any photos again (apart from the one above) but overall the vibe is recognisably Railwaysy whilst being faster: as soon as anyone completes X amount of contracts (11 with three players) endgame is triggered, so there's a balance between building an empire and exploiting it for all you can. As players can take cubes from opponents factories there's a tangible, and not always totally inadvertent, dickishness to things. We enjoyed it, although Joe and I probably knew what would happen score-wise going in:

Adam H 64
Sam 60
Joe 48

Mille Fiori wrapped up at exactly the same time, having exhibited the same levels of shenanigans and muttering throughout. All three players had taken turns leading, but it was Ian - green! - who emerged triumphant in what, for Mille Fiori, was a tight finish. 

Ian 210

Katy 202
Adam T 190

We shuffled seats. Adam T suggested getting back in the Fellowship trick-taking saddle, and Ian and I joined him. The others went to bathe in the alcove's golden glow and returned with a selection of boxes before ultimately deciding on Fishing, which all of them had played before. I'm not as good as Andrew at keeping track of what's happening on the other side of the table, but I did snap Katy looking very excited by the prospect of fish. 

In the Fellowship, we took on Chapter 13, where we set out from somewhere or other hoping to reach Moria (I think) and mechanically, this meant a 'long' chapter where multiple hands are played until all 7 (or 8, if you include the optional Bill the Pony) characters have made it through.

We got off to a solid start, with a clear opening round as Frodo, Merry and one of the Elves made it through the gauntlet. But Boromir - morally compromised - and Aragorn - picky with numbers - both harpooned the second round. 

Then we rallied somewhat, used the Mithril shirt to protect Frodo, and finished our jaunt to Middle-Earth with a solid victory. There was a brief debate about continuing into Moria, but it was another long chapter so we elected to move on to the different speed of Gadget Builder. 

This is an UNO-inspired card-shedder where you can play like UNO - play matching colour-or-number cards to a shared discard pile - but you can also spend cards to build gadgets which give you special powers. The gadgets are helpful, but you can only use one per turn and you can't go out if any of them are unused. First to three rounds wins, and we were poised at a 1-0-0 score when the others finished Fishing, with Katy the victor in an incredibly tight finish, as all anglers brough their hard-won North Sea experience to bear:

Katy 94

Adam 93

Joe 90

We were going to pack Gadget Builder in, but all three of them were exhausted by their time at sea and bade us goodbye, not even taking up the offer of So Clover! Incredible scenes. More credible scenes followed, as we continued Gadget Builder with all of us utilising gadgets and winning rounds, leaving us poised again, this time on 2-2-2 with a next-round winner. Ian and I conferred this morning that we'd both forgotten who won, but knew it wasn't ourselves. So it must have been Adam!

Adam - 3

Ian and Sam 2 each, plus bonus senior moment

And that was that!

Two-sday

An unusually quiet Tuesday evening saw just two gamers present. I (Ian) made the short walk to Martins for an evening of two players.

We started off with Rebirth, on the Scottish map. 

This recent Knizia works well with two players, which sees a number of spaces blocked off to reduce the player area. Martin managed to build a fairly large Energy Farm that scored big points repeatedly, and despite picking up more personal missions (or maybe because of, as my attention may have been more on reaching those targets than the state of the board) landed in a comfortable victory.



Martin 196

Ian 176

Next, we played Chu Han. We used the event deck, and after the “no-effect” event was drawn a couple of times, we opted to ignore fate and draw a new event. There was an event neither of us had encountered before, Mandate of Heaven (I think it was called), which allowed the player passing to draw from that trick, which gave the hand an interesting twist.



Martin pulled into a lead early (helped by me deciding to use the “pass to take lead” card a few times, giving him points, and I just couldn’t catch up


Martin 31

Ian 19

Next, we played Toy battle, with Martin taking a fairly aggressive stance and rushing into my base for the instant win. Three times. My defensive approach clearly no match for an influx of T-Rexes.

Martin wins (x3)

Ian loses.

Marabunta was suggested by Martin, a game I hadn’t played before. I quite enjoyed this recent Knizia area control game. Simple mechanically, with each player taking it turns to roll a set of dice, splitting them into two groups. The twist is that the opponents get to choose which set they want first, so there are nice considerations to be made.

Despite offering up a few dice-splits that gave Martin pause for thought the game was perhaps inevitable his. I would like to play this again though, a surprisingly deep game for such a small box.

Martin 15

Ian 9

We finished with Viking See-Saw, another Knizia, though possibly the least-Knizia like Knizia I’ve played, being a dexterity balancing game. I do like the pieces, the metal cubes having genuine heft.

This proved to finally be a game I could win, and finished the evening with my sole victory, though I didn’t make a note of the exact score.

Ian wins

Martin Loses



All in all, a most enjoyable evening of two-players.

Losing ones marbles

Joe, Martin and I rolled up to Steve and Anja's last night at the allotted hour of 8pm and whilst we waited for our final member Pete, I took the liberty of setting up Whirly Derby, which I'd brought with Louie in mind - but also myself, as I find coloured marbles spinning in ever-decreasing circles somewhat hypnotic. 

Pete arrived and without further ado we began racing. The rules are simple: each player has a 'paddock' of five marbles and over eight races you secretly choose how many to enter. Any raced marbles are lost - maybe they use the opportunity to escape captivity - but twice a game you can re-up and refill your paddock again. The basic game offers points prizes for first, second and third, but we played the advanced where some prizes combine (for example. the player with the most 1pt cards scores 15pts). 

There's some fuzzy edge cases that the brief rules don't cover, so we house-ruled them. The 'Slowness' bonus of the last marble to finish returning to its owner was a good rule, almost raising more drama than the winners did. But the game - or my copy - we found somewhat flawed as both our 8 races and several experiments we did after proved that Martin's green marbles were marginally smaller, and Joe and Louie's black and orange marbles seemed destined to finish last. Steve's blues were also quite innocuous.

Martin 54

Sam 29

Pete 15

Joe 11

Louie 6

Steve 5

Anja returned from packing Lennon off to bed just as we packed up, and split into two groups, Joe talking our hosts through the delights of Into the Blue as Martin explained Tower Up to Pete. 

Pete took to the game rather well. I think I got my best score ever as I decided to forego my usual flippant moves for a marginally more considered approach. This kept me competitive and elicited the odd satisfying noise from a chagrined Martin. But it wasn't enough to stop Pete, who nabbed first place on two objectives and took the laurels. 

Pete 56

Sam 54

Martin 48

We took a stroll to the impressive front room, where the contrast between the decor (floridly resplendent) and the activity (a Knizia dice-chucker) made for an enticing spectacle. Molly felt there was room for a final touch, however, and she sat on the activity to prove it. 

Steve took this one, pipping Anja by the narrowest of margins.

Steve 20

Anja 19

Louie 17

Joe 13

Louie now made his way to bed too, leaving six of us. We plumped for For Sale, which - I seem to say this a lot - was more fun than my photo makes it look. 

We actually played twice. In the first game Joe ran out of money and ended up with two very high property cards and three rather low ones. In the second he changed strategy but suffered a similar fate. Steve forgot that money was also points in the second game, and a recount boosted him into runner-up position. I managed to win both; I'm still not sure how. 

It was getting late-ish now so we pulled out those green plastic clovers and set about it. Oddly the clue 'marble' came up here, on Anja's clover, and we debated how likely a marble cup might be, although this gave way to Martin saying 'a jar of marbles' several times. Martin's 'Ramadan' for moon/fast was a highlight, and we successfully matched marble with dream/hearth. Despite some stumbles over Steve's clue of Argos (our mythology was a bit foggy) this was a broad success, racking up four sixes and two fours for 32/36.

And that was that for another Tuesday. I'm not around next week, have fun!

49 auctions

 Tuesday games night began with message fro Sam containing a photo of a pile a Heck Meck tiles with the comment “Joe just beat me 15-0”

By the time I'd arrived, though the attendance had swelled to six of us. Joe and Sam were joined by Martin, Pete, Katy and myself.

Katy joined last and tried to remember if she'd met Pete before and she wondered whether or not to turn down the c*nt level. She discussed this out loud such that, whatever level she finally chose, Pete was prewarned about what to expect. 

Although, as it transpired, there were to be few opportunities for evil tonight, as the games tended towards the more party end of the scale. We began with Invaluable, an auction game in which players bid on cards of two colours and add it to their tableau to try and make continuous runs of the same colour for points. All cards were dealt out, and each one would be put up for auction by the end of the game.

“49 auctions?” asked Joe, incredulously. And he kept a rough count of how many auctions were remaining. “Only 25 auctions left,” he cheerily pointed out, mid game.

Martin and Katy were the last players who bought anything, with Martin bidding 3 every time, trying to push up the price. We began with only 12 tokens, so I wonder if we were too timid. The money from winning bids would go to the player auctioning the card and if the auctioneer bought their own card ("eating your own shit," we soon dubbed it) then the money would leave the game entirely.

In the final reckoning, my row of seven yellows scored me a bumper crop and I ended up winning.

Andrew 48

Sam 46

Katy 46

Martin 41

Paul 37

Joe 35

Interesting game, but that’s quite a slim game mechanic to stretch across 49 auctions.

Since there were six of us sitting around a circular table, it seemed to lend itself to a couple of team games. First was Team Trio, the game where you have to collect three of a kind by choosing from other peoples’ hands, asking “play your lowest card”. We split into teams of two, and every time someone completed a three-of-a-kind, the other two pairs were allowed to exchange cards, and Katy and I demonstrated some top level psychic connection as we kept swapping cards of the same value.

Martin & Joe 2

Katy & Andrew 1

Sam & Pete 0

We stayed sitting where we were for another team game: Team Play. Joe experience a little bit of a Mendela Effect when he seemed convinced that the cards in this game went up to 9, whereas they only reach 8. I was actually about to agree with Joe until Martin pointed out the truth of the matter.

So, with the fabric of the universe back in place, we began. It was close at first, with all three teams having three tricks each. Then Martin and Joe got three more tricks in their next turns.

I often got “style points” for completing missions that don’t rely on matching colours with cards in matching colours. But style points don’t have a value. Not even as a tie-breaker. Instead Katy and I went for high value missions, meaning that although Martin and Joe triggered the game end, we had more points at the final count.

Katy & Andrew 30

Joe & Martin 27

Sam & Pete 25

I had time for one more quick one and it was Captain Obvious. In this game, we use our wipe-clean board to write a sentence of random length containing a word chosen by a player from a card. Then our boards are passed to the left and our neighbours delete one word, replacing it with “blank”. The idea is to read out the sentence and hope the other players can’t guess what the missing word is. A point to the reader if no one can guess, but a point to the writer and the guesser if they get it right.

Martin 11

Joe 7

Katy 7

Sam 6

Pete 4

Andrew 3

And with that, I had my rucksack back on my back, despite talk of So Clover, and off into the night. Thanks all.