I'm totally incensed

This Tuesday's GNN-ness started a few minutes earlier than expected when I met former regular Steve as I walked to Sam's. He couldn't make it tonight, but he told me of a recent visit to a games shop in Germany. Has his flame been rekindled? We can only hope.

I arrived at Sam's to find the host and Joe already halfway through a game of Kribbeln and a margarita each. The roll & write game didn't last long with just two players, but despite its short duration it was surprisingly tense.

Joe 12
Sam 12

By the time they were done, Ian and Martin had joined us. We weren't expecting Katy and Adam for another fifteen minutes so we squeezed in a quick game of No Thanks! The game which, as Ian noted, you can't turn down because it sounds like you're agreeing.

Ian went for the low cards, with the rest of us going for higher cards. In my case, much higher. Martin seemed resigned to the fact that his favoured cards would be picked by other players, with a weary question (rhetorical, I hope) of "Who wants to kick me in the balls?" whenever he turned over certain cards. Turns out, the player furthest from wanting to kick his balls was the clear winner.

Ian 6
Sam 23
Andrew 26
Martin 29
Joe 29

Now we were seven, so we split into to. Three (Katy, Ian and Martin) took on the undead in Hit Z Road. The remainder (Sam, Adam, Joe and me) chose Tribes.

Tribes has been a recent hit of the summer with Sam playing several games and had enjoyed it. This time, though, for whatever reason, the wheels fell of the game's engine.

Sam's early bad luck with exploring didn't help his cause. He found a lot of incense, which is fine for ceremonial burials, but not much else. At least it gave me the blog title.

But it was probably the twin threat of two event tiles that exhausted tiles (ie, took away resources) that really caused problems. No matter how much we avoided them, eventually they got played, with Adam suddenly finding all his abundant fields were barren. On the other hand, he had almost all the shells (the game's currency, used to avoid choosing a tile) while the rest of us had only a few, if any.

This meant there were a few goes were we couldn't afford to choose our action and Adam could only explore, trying to find new resources to use. The game entered a sort of holding pattern, while we slowly tried to get our plans in place.

I was first to leap into action and, since I was already in the lead, my victory was pretty comprehensive.

Andrew 28
Sam 18
Joe 11
Adam 11

Tribes didn't get a lot of love, and Sam admitted that if that had been his first game, he wouldn't have been impressed either. He seemed baffled by how it had played out, as if he didn’t recognise the game at all. Perhaps the most entertaining parts were the text messages from Joe’s daughter on a camping trip wanting to know how to make a kettle boil faster. “Don’t look at it,” suggested Adam.

Hit Z Road, on the other hand, was all excitement accompanied by a steady flow of expletives, mostly from Martin. They had a hard time of it, and had only two survivors left by the time the tougher cards came out.

They didn't last much longer. No one reached the West coast, but Martin was last man standing.

Martin, one survivor still alive
Ian, died later
Katy, died earlier

Since we ended at the same time, groups were rearranged. And I think it was around now when Joe insisted he could probably kick himself in the balls. He even stood up, lifting his left foot up, yoga-like in the required direction. Just as a proof of concept: I don't think actual contact was made. I guess those margaritas were pretty potent.

Now Adam, Katy and Ian played Biblios while Martin & me and Joe & Sam teamed up for Montage.

Montage was tough and I kept getting the colours confused, and I had the embarrassment of giving a clue and then having to retract it. Sam & Joe were perhaps feeling the effect of the early margaritas, since the game was over quite quickly.

Martin & Andrew 4
Sam & Joe 1

Biblios (of the Extreme type) ended with some low scoring dice to fight over.

Adam 7
Katy 5
Ian 1

Then they played NMBR9 while we were finishing off Montage. It appears that Katy is not a fan of this game. Adam, on the other hand...

Adam 111
Ian 65
Katy 46

Then we rearranged again. Now Adam, Sam, Martin and Joe played Polterfass (with fresh margaritas). Ian and I chose Pickomino/Heck Meck as our game, thinking that Katy might be amused at other people's misfortune. Unfortunately the misfortune was all hers. She obsessed over the 27 tile, winning it, losing it, getting it back, and then losing it again. If we’d hoped to get Katy in a better mood, then we had failed. Ian, though, failed more constructively than I did.

Ian 8 (and the 30 tile)
Andrew 8 (and the 29 tiles)
Katy 0

Still needing a pick-me-up for a Katy suffering from a gaming lull, we brought out the big guns: Colour Wheel from Pyramid Arcade. With its bright colours and co-operative ethos, it’s like a board game equivalent of a My Little Pony film. Slowly the mix of shiny plastic and puzzling logic brought out Katy’s better side. And we even solved the puzzle!

By now Polterfass had ended too, with Sam scoring a last-ditch high of 13 points in a round to avoid ending in negative points, which is where he spent most of the game. Adam, though, won again.

Adam 75
Joe 41
Martin 35
Sam 11

They also played another game of Kribbeln which I only know about thanks to the photos on my phone.

I forgot to note the scores, but I did take a photo of the score card near the end. It looks like Joe nicked it in the final round.

Finally, it was time to the finale: Fuji Flush. Ian managed to put a new spin on his reputation of Le Coq Bloquer by repeatedly playing a card that wiped out the chain before I was going to join it. Amazing. Frustrating for me, but it seemed to be a winning strategy.

Ian 0 cards left
Martin 1
Adam 1
Katy 1
Sam 2
Andrew 2
Joe 2

And with that, we were done. Emotionally exhausted and really quite drunk. That’s Tuesday for you!