Saturday Night Farmer

Last night Sally and I made our way to Mark and Katie's for our irregular games match-ups. I'd brought a few 4-player options, but as Katie's son Jack was there - and willing to participate - we ended up playing blast from the past Carcassone. Once upon a time this felt the promised land of gaming, only to pale slightly as more complex, or thematically interesting games took its place. But it still retains something - even if your strategy is pretty much decided by luck, it's so simple to pick up and play, and looks lovely. My recent match-up with my own boys meant I was a little fresher than the others:

Sam 98
Mark 80
Sally 52
Katie 47
Jack 35

Carcassone cake, courtesy of Toniemn

After that most of us we still perky, but fancied something a bit faster-moving, so Mark brought Las Vegas to the table. This is even more down to chance, and lady luck smiled on me - as Katie and Jack fought an intergenerational battle, I managed to pick up some hefty first places (- their dice were tied, meaning they cancelled each other out). In mitigation of Sally, she at this point was trying to stay awake:

Sam $540,000
Mark $350,000
Katie $320,000
Sally $240, 000
Jack $130,000

Lots of dice, courtesy of diddle74

Full of good food, games, alcohol and company, we collapsed into bed.

But wait. Today was Father's day, so after a slap-up breakfast Mark and I found ourselves with the special treat of a couple of hours to ourselves as the ladies took the kids out. We decided to fill it with a couple of games, and Jack - now slightly jaded by the pirate-themed Soft-Play world - joined us.

First up was Samurai. Andrew and I can vouch for how more-ish this game is. And I think Steve can too, as he trounced us if I recall. But at the same time as having a simple rule-set it also has the head-scratching element of trying to work out your optimal move. Mark really liked it, though his appreciation was often expressed in cries of despair.

1 Sam
2 Mark
3 Jack

It was really close between the three of us, so we played again:

1 Sam
2 Mark
3 Jack

Again it was very tight, and Mark and I were probably lucky that Jack was focusing half his attention on his laptop.

Thanks, Club Amatent

Finally we bashed out three games of No Thanks. I won two and Mark the other, as Jack placed second each time. We all had at least one completely duff round, scoring overall (over 3 games):

Sam 126
Jack 127
Mark 184

magyar kiadás

And that was that. On the KMSS table (recording the Saturday night games only) I surge into a healthy lead as the incessant nerdiness finally pays dividends. Admittedly not the kind of dividends that pay for anything, anywhere, ever, but I'll take what I can get at this stage,

KMSS						Points
Sam		1	1	2	1	5
Mark		2	2	3	3	10
Katie		3	4	1	2	10
Sally		4	3	4	4	15