On the Night of the Bunfight

Ian, Andrew and I gathered together in front of the alcove bedazzled by choices. Was it a Feast for Odin night, or a bunch of shorter games? Ian said he would prefer the latter, and despite him immediately adding "but I don't mind" we took heed of his unusual demonstrativeness by starting the evening with Flamme Rouge. I don't recall the name of the route we set up, but it was one of the games' own variations.

 blues making a break for it

Andrew shot off into the lead and seemed to spend the first part of the race picking up exhaustion cards as he led from the front. I panicked after a few rounds and shot into the lead, before dropping back again. If I had any strategy after that, it was to try and stay just behind the leader. Not rocket science, but it seemed to work, and on the final downhill stretch I made a break for it.

Sam - both riders home!
Andrew and Ian - joint second.

Staying with the brevity of shortish games, we set up King of Siam and I talked the guys through the rules, only missing out one or two finer details (by accident). I remain taken aback as to how playing eight cards apiece can amount to such a long (but not that long) game, and Siam's inscrutability was as evident as it was on Tuesday.

what the

I played what I hoped was the coup de grace in the penultimate round, but all I did was accelerate someone else's victory. In the final round Ian realised that playing his last card would only change the victor from Andrew to me, so he passed!

Andrew - wins!
Ian and Sam - lose.

Our ganders danders up, we broke out the perennial GNN favourite that is Quantum. Ian got off to a quick start, and I was hot on his tails. Andrew was slightly distracted by the capacity of the Void, and didn't seem to get much traction, even though he was researching like nobody's business... The game became combative early on and stayed that way.

Twice I was one move from winning, and both times I was stymied - in one turn Andrew built a spaceship and thus prevented my four-action turn (because I was arrogant) and in the next Ian came in and attacked me. I thought I could still win anyway until Andrew pointed out that you can't deploy ships where you have no quantum cubes! In the adrenaline of battle that cold hard truth had slipped out of my brain. And while I played for time, Ian swooped in to claim the win, pulling off an impressively convoluted attack by virtue of his being energetic. It was the grandstand finish our battle royale deserved, and we ended the night with one win apiece.

Ian - all cubes down
Sam - 1 cube left
Andrew - 2 cubes left

Ian (green) wins

A great bunch of games, and a classic to end on.