Cult of the New

Tonight Ian and I (Sam) did our best impression of assembling at my house, and cracked out a cluster of new games. First off we played Celestia, which is about sailing through the skies in the manner of Gulliver, each player taking turns to be the ship's captain and avoid the celestial hazards. It's very much a push-your-luck game, that we knew from the outset would probably suit more players. Nonetheless it produced the most laughs-per-game ratio of the evening by far. Whether that was the game or my diabolical shuffling remains to be proven.

Sam 57
Ian 49

Next up was Matcha, the tea-making game for two. This I find almost impossible to explain easily, but once we started playing the mists cleared and things began to make sense. Basically it's a race to collect a set of tea-making implements, and players are 'bidding' - I use the word reservedly - using alternating currencies of numbers and symbols. It's a really neat game we both liked, and won one game each.

Ian had been subjected to two new sets of rules already, but he remained open to the 7 Wonders 2-player option of 7 Wonders Duel. I played this with Andrew last week and we won a game each, with rather swingy results. This game was much tighter, with neither of us really pushing for a military or science victory (these options end the game instantly in Duel) and so balancing our play reasonably well. We both made mistakes, but my two previous plays counted for something:

Sam 71*
Ian 63*

*Weirdly I remember the Celestial score but anything after that I'm kind of guessing slightly. I blame the Leffe.

Finally another new game - or at least, new rules. Secrets is the Castles of Mad King Ludwig expansion, where you can build moats, secret passages, score for courtyards and collect swans (cash em in, or keep em for points!)  I feel the jury is out on this slightly. As is tradition in this house we played a couple of rules wrong, but Ian and I both liked the moats and swans - kind of - whereas the secret passages remained unimplemented, and the courtyards are just a scoring option really.

But a fun night all the same, and something of a trouncing for me from Ian in the finale:

Ian 87
Sam 65

- something like that anyway.  A bracing evening of new rules, and some decent finds.