The Ethnos Committee

Halloween - the witching hour. As four hardy gamers made their way to Joe's house, we encountered all manner of ghostly ghouls and spooks en route. In fact, I bumped into my own children outside the co-op. What manner of frightful events awaited us at Joe's house? Dear reader, all shall be revealed...

We began as a four - the host, Martin, Katy and myself (Sam). With Andrew still away, and others otherwise occupied, we remained a four until Ian joined us an hour later.

Star Cartel

Martin arrived with two new games garnered from his birthday - Star Cartel and Auf Teufel Komm Raus, the catchily-titled game of coal collection. We began with the former - an unusual game of galactic trade. Each player has a ship, and they gather enough of five resources to fill it and trade the goods. The goods they supply most of gain value, the goods they supply least of lose value. Any in-between goods (and you really want to have goods in-between) you can stash some of, and at the game's end cash them in for whatever value they have currently in the market.

Crystals, flora

It's essentially an abstract - despite the sciencey vibe to the illustrations, it might as well be pork pies, socks, or - as we often referred to them - colours. But everyone seemed to enjoy the catch here - unavoidably the resources you're devaluing or increasing the value of aren't the ones you keep (in a given delivery, anyway) so you need to think tactically - and ideally keep track of what everyone else is doing. Martin proved the best in the cartel's inaugural outing:

Martin 71
Sam 66
Joe 58
Katy 54

Ian walked in just as the scores were totted up, and we broke out Ethnos, the game that is "Ticket to Ride with Orcs" according to Martin.

Ethnos

The ins and outs of this game were explained in a previous post, but we all seemed to settle into a pattern on our turn that was Ticket to Ride with Who's on First. I complained about the light. Joe complained about his cards. Martin said "This is nice!". Katy said "This is stupid" - or some variation thereof - and Ian stared gloomily at his cards until prompted that it was his turn again. Despite the previously-celebrated playing speed of Ethnos, it wasn't moving fast enough for Katy, who wanted it over, and seemingly Ian too, who announced his last place as early as halfway through the first age.

"I'm losing" he said. When Katy told him not to write himself off just yet, he retorted "No. I'm losing" as though his mind was made up, and no namby-pamby positive optimism was going to change that.  And to be fair, he was right.

Martin, meanwhile, shot off into the lead, but in the second age I caught and overhauled him, thanks to my abundance of halflings, or as Martin described them, "useless cocks". In the third age it all fell apart, for most of us points-wise, and for Katy in existentialist terms. Fortunately the third dragon came out quickly, and Martin's large bands sewed up a second win for him:

Martin 123
Sam  108
Joe 74
Ian 65 (wins on predictions)

Katy then apologised for her rage, but don't worry Katy. I still cringe when I remember my almost anaphylactic reaction to Age of Empires III, which for some reason just did my nut in.  That was about seven only five years ago.

We ended on Martin's second game, Auf Teufel Komm Raus, which is a luck-pushing thing of grabbing hot coal out of a cauldron and hoping not to end up with the devil.

Come on hell, get out

At the start of each round everyone bets how much coal can be gathered by a single player without them going bust - the coals are numbered, so you're betting on the total number value, rather than the total number of coals. Then everyone tries to pull some coal out without flipping over a devil, as if you do that, you're bust. You want enough coal to make sure your own bet pays off, but not enough to pay out to anyone who out-bid you.

coal

It's really quite fun. My downfall in these games is to play too conservatively, and I found myself outbid in every round. But on this occasion everyone was pushing so much to claim the win at the end that my pathetic shrinking violet act was enough to grab second place. Joe took first - and with some aplomb, as he led from halfway through the game and never got the yips:

Joe 1600
Sam 1490
Katy 1460
Ian 1390
Martin 1070

And with the time now hovering around 11pm, we bade our farewells and disappeared into the frosty, forsaken night. Thanks all! That was a proper roller-coaster of a night!