You wait ages for a dead man and then four come along at once

This week's gaming bonanza took place at Joe's house and consisted of eight gamers: Joe, Sam, Martin, Katy, Ian, Chris, Matt and me. We split into two groups. Ian, me, Joe and Martin went for Tichu, the red hot gaming craze of the age with Ian and Martin sticking together to see if their winning streak could continue. Katy, Sam, Matt and Chris chose the other red hot gaming craze of the age, Azul.

Our game of Tichu got underway without any real fuss (if you don't include the rearranging of chairs around the collapsible card table) since we all knew the rules. Martin got off to a flier, completing two Tichus while Joe failed his, which meant after two rounds the score was 335 to - 35. A healthy lead for Martin and Ian.

But there's no such thing as a healthy lead in Tichu and after two wins for Joe and I and a failed Tichu by Ian, the scores at the end of round four were 250 to 250. Amazing. With Azul coming to an end, we played one more hand as a decider. Martin called Tichu and failed, but he and Ian scored so many points for cards that most of the loss was erased. Most, but not all.

Joe & Andrew 260
Ian and Martin 240

On the big table, Chris was getting a rules explanation of Azul. It's a simple enough game and it seemed he got the hang of it quickly since Katy tried really hard to not be patronising when she told him that he was doing very well for a first-timer.

Katy emphasises her pig-tails which will, apparently, soon be gone.

At the end of the game, where they exhausted the supply of tiles, Katy played a spoiling tactic against Sam which was so blatant that she felt the need to apologise. While laughing, admittedly, but an apology nevertheless.

Katy 91
Sam 74
Chris 71
Matt 46

At this point, we were all between games, so there was a little bout of discussion. Katy was pitching for Lords Of Vegas, but no one was keen. Sam got four for Whistle Stop (himself, Ian, Chris and Matt) and the rest of us agreed to my suggestion of Hab & Gut.

It's been a while since it has been seen at a GNN night and Katy needed a full rules explanation. In the game itself, coal shot up in price and stayed there, firmly lodged against the top of the exchange rate for all of the second half of the game making it effectively worthless to us, having sold all our coal shares thinking it wouldn't get much higher.

Katy struggled with the rule about giving to charity. She thought she'd given enough at the end of the first round, only to find she was 200 Marks behind everyone else.

Martin kept buying shares I wanted, meaning I often ended up taking less than the optimal three and having to make do with Martin's leftovers. Plus, it meant any decision that helped me, helped Martin too. A terrible situation.

Martin 1205
Joe 875
Andrew 775
Katy OUT! Not pious enough! (but had 840)

Whistle Stop was still under way so we banged out a quick Potato Man. The most notable event was round three when all the cards were played and the scores fell in such a way that we were all tied on fourteen points. All except Katy, who had ten. The fourth round proved to be the decider.

Andrew 18
Joe 16
Martin 16
Katy 13

I'm afraid I know little about the shenanigans in Whistle Stop, but long after the scores were totted up and noted, I got an email from Chris saying they'd forgotten a rule in the latter stages that meant Sam should've scored an extra twenty points, thus his slim victory was invalid. This kind of honesty is worth thirty points in my opinion! But thirty points in life. Not in Whistle Stop. So Sam's victory stands.

Sam 130
Chris 115
Matt 111
Ian 94

With evening having firmly drawn in, we ended with a rousing and odds-defying game of Dead Man's Chest. It was Chris's first game and sadly, despite all our experience, a swift and effective rules explanation of this simple game eludes us. It is a grim truth that anyone's first game of Dead Man's Chest is a learning game.

And what lessons it taught us all! I got an early Dead Man and knocked a gem off Joe. Then the players started to be eliminated.

Katy, out when Martin challenged her bet
Chris, out when he challenged by accident by opening the box
Martin, out when I roll Dead Man and call 3-3. Joe passed it on saying 4-4. Martin challenged.
Matt, out when Sam called 3-3. Matt challenged. Another Dead Man!
Ian out when Joe shook the box, looked, shook again and then bid Dead Man. Ian challenged. It was Dead Man! Amazing!
Joe out when he challenged my bid of 1-1.
Andrew out when Sam bid 3-3. I sensed a bluff, since 3-3 had become the preferred bid if you roll Dead Man so I challenged. It was 5-5.
Sam wins!

What an astonishing end to the evening. Isn’t it great to have a hobby where this kind of thing happens all the time.

A Feist for Adam

Friday night games! Only with Andrew tired, Ian busy war crafting and others incommunicado, it fell to Adam and I to fly the flag for a weekend begun in the right manner. Martin flirted with the idea of joining us before declaring that we wouldn't be playing anything feisty enough. Right, I thought. I'll show you. But this fleeting feistiness passed in the fashion of a mild-mannered janitor realising he has no alter-ego, only a mop. And I set off back to my non-feisty self, with Whistle Stop and Queendomino in my bag. We played both!

First up was Whistle Stop. Previously at Joe's we'd played with rather too many whistles at our disposal, and found the game moved rather slowly as a result. With the correct rules (whistles hard to come by) it sped by in an hour. We even ended the game early, as I got all my trains to the west coast and sat back cackling (inwardly) not imagining Adam could get both his remaining trains home... he could, of course.

And not only that, he picked up two shares en route that put a 30 point swing in his direction, and claimed the win. How I screamed (inwardly) at my foolishness. If only Martin had been there - he would have enjoyed the moment, if not the game as a whole.

Adam 170 odd
Sam 150 odd

We moved on to Queendomino. I confess when I initially heard about it, I thought Oh it's Kingdomino with some extra crap tacked on. And to be fair that interpretation is factually valid. But unlike Hullabaloo in the Sausage Worm area, I rather liked this remake; where you can gather taxes and build buildings. Or you can ignore them and just score big points a la Kingdomino, as Dirk did to beat me in my playthorugh earlier in the week.

But Adam had told me he wasn't very good at Kingdomino, and I was merciless!

didn't take any pictures of Queendomino

Okay I wasn't merciless, as the little interaction here involves a dragon burning down unbuilt buildings, and Adam utilised it far more than I did. But I did enough to claim revenge his devious scheming in Whistle Stop, winning something like:

Sam 196
Adam 170 something

Hannah arrived home just in time to watch our fruitless search for the missing bags that the Queendomino bits came in, which had seemingly vanished into thin air. We never found them, giving the evening an air of mystery, as well as a sprinkling of charred brick.

Thanks Adam!

Happiness Park

Andrew and I sat down for a little extra-curricular gaming this evening with me eager to get back in the saddle after a week out of commission. I'd been so out of it I couldn't even play Fuji Flush with the boys for four days, so it was nice to have the energy to tackle a nice fast-moving euro, which is what we began with in Santa Maria. This has the generic theme of developing newly discovered (by Europeans (®Timeline)) lands, and building on them. Possibly the only really unusual thing is that victory points are actually happiness points, as shown by the rictus grin on the points.

The gears and wheels are the buildings, which you activate to get stuff. The activation itself is simple - a coin to activate a single building, a blue die to activate a row of them, or one of the communal white dice to activate a column of them. Or build more buildings. The game plays over three years and despite the rather bland appearance speeds rather nicely - like a cross between Barenpark (the buildings need to fit onto your board) and something more point-salady. Although it's not a Feld-esque salad - Stan had previously beaten me despite only building two buildings the whole game, whereas I expanded to seven. And I took a similarly constructional mind this evening, albeit having the advantage over Andrew on his first play:

Sam 60
Andrew 43

Santa Maria only took an hour, so we returned to our current favourite: Rajas of the Ganges. Andrew wanted to find out where we went wrong against Adam. I suggested that it was probably inviting him, as I didn't see us about to crack open the mystery of Rajas in the way Adam had any time soon.

But if there was a mystery, Andrew is closer to discovering it than I am. I went for a big glory scoring route, pushing myself around the board post-haste as Andrew generated a lot of cash at the other end of the board. But I found that I had to keep building up to my big moves, whereas Andrew's engine was ticking over at a faster rate, generating cash to the point where he suddenly began scoring glory too, and caught me up. My cash and glory markers weren't even in spitting distance when he ended it:

Andrew: wins
Sam: doesn't

And we rounded off the night with a blast from the past in Take it Easy. And a blast from the past in Andrew calling Things From the 70's. It was an utterly brutal round, with loads of '1' tiles coming out and both of us cursing our damned luck. I went for classical writers in an attempt to woo the tiles, and it partly worked: we scored more in the second round, but not enough to make our overall points anything but vaguely respectable:

Sam 291
Andrew 189

And with that, Andrew was gone, into the night. Thanks mate!

A night on the tiles

With an unusual amount of thinking ahead, this week's venue had been arranged a full two weeks in advance. Steve and Anja were hosting and Joe, Katy, Ian, Martin and I were attending, with one extra in the shape of Bekah, friend of Steve and Anja's. I don't know what they said to her to convince her that it was a good idea, but she knew enough about gamers to recognise us on the street as Joe hauled his Ikea bag of games out of my car boot, giving us a friendly wave as she drove past.

Once all inside, the eight of us came perilously close to having a conversation when Martin asked what we were playing. Since four copies of Tichu had been brought by three different people (Joe brought two) that was clearly a front runner from the start. Martin corralled Katy into a rematch along with Ian and Joe.

Meanwhile, Anja's eye had been caught by Azul in Joe's bag. I sold it as a puzzley combative game, so she needed no further persuasion and the rest of us set up to play.

Admittedly, a game of Azul with three newbies was never going to be that aggressive and I had to explain that the combat part comes with experience. The experience in question being playing against Martin. One of the main attractions of the game for Steve and Anja was that the tiles matched the tiling around their fireplace. This meant if they ever wanted to play Azul, all they had to do was take a hammer to their fireplace and they’d have (almost) everything they need!

The game was a pleasant affair and any attempts I made at ruining one player's options usually ended up benefiting the next player. Anja shot into an early lead, getting four in a column in the first round. Then my experience paid off and I edged into first until the closing stages when Steve's logical mind kicked in, giving him a clear win by the end. Bekah, though, became obsessed with her yellow tiles and filled up a row of them one by one. Not a winning strategy, but it was her first game. Everyone liked it, no matter how well or badly they did.

Steve 68
Anja 58
Andrew 56
Bekah 43

On the Tichu table was, I assume, the usual examples of luck-defying game play. Whenever I popped over, Joe always seemed to have called Tichu and I think he and Katy had an early lead. I could be wrong, though.

But the award for Hand Of The Evening was won by Ian who had a run of all fourteen cards, going from the Mah Jong card (value 1) all the way up to Ace High. Astonishing. And he had the presence of mind to call Tichu.

They ended when we finished Azul, so no one hit the 1,000 point target, but one team was notably closer than the other.

Martin and Ian 940
Joe and Katy 260

So now we were all together, we discussed what would happen next. Joe's new split level dice arena needed a run out so Joe, Martin and Katy chose Kribbeln, while the rest of us went for 7 Wonders.

7 Wonders is one of those games that I'm so familiar with, that I forget how impenetrable it is at first. I had to explain to Bekah and I did as good a job as possible but it's not a very intuitive game, and there was a certain amount of in-game coaching.

I didn't realise, though, that Anja hadn't played in years either. Once the game began she expressed regret that she hadn't taken the chance of a rules refresher, and was struggling a bit. To illustrate her situation, mid game, she pointed to an icon on her Wonder that she'd just built, asking what it meant.

"It means you can buy basic resources for only one coin." we explained.

"Ah," she said, "so I didn't need to build these," referring to the East Trading Post and West Trading Post in her tableau, which replicated exactly what her Wonder was now doing. Definitely not a great move.

Steve, ever the optimist, said maybe she'd get a Guild that rewards having Yellow cards. Anja did not look reassured.

Meanwhile, Kribbeln ended thus:

Katy 18
Joe 15
Martin 13

Then they played a three round game of Eggs Of Ostrich. All I know about this is hearing Joe's plaintive cry of "I've burst my two-sack."

Martin 33
Joe 31
Katy 29

7 Wonders was drawing to a close. Ian and Steve had both gone for a resource-lite approach and, since they were sitting next to each other, it was a risky endeavour. Anja had the only cloth in the game, making things difficult for Steve and me who were not her neighbours.

Other than that, the final round consisted mostly of people building armies since it was all they could afford. Everyone did that except Steve who, thanks to chaining together buildings or just affording to buy resources from me, built science after science. And an unchallenged scientist is a victorious scientist. Mind you, we were glad that science had won out over opportunistic military campaigns. It seemed morally appropriate. Poor Bekah spent most of the third round clarifying that there was no way she could get one more brick, so she could keep building her Wonder. If she'd finished it, it would have got her 13 extra points and a potential second place.

Steve 59
Ian 48
Andrew 46
Bekah 36
Anja 32

As we were packing up, the last game was wrapping up, too. Joe, Martin and Katy had squeezed in a quick game of Qwinto. I walked over to them just as the scores were being totted up. Joe seemed very disappointed, since he thought he'd definitely won. "I thought I was doing rather well," he sighed as he saw his certain victory turn into a decided last place.

Katy 55
Martin 53
Joe 52

Martin said something about "if only I hadn't rolled those double ones," or something. I was too tired to pay too much attention. It was quarter past eleven and time to hit the road. Thanks to our gracious hosts and hello to Bekah. Can’t wait for next Tuesday!

Tying up a few loose ends

At the end of 2017 I had plans for a big end of year review, but new got round to doing it. I’d even put together a division for the whole year, but now I can’t find the spreadsheet.

One of the ideas I toyed with was a Rothman’s Football Annual style fact sheet, which would list each regular’s achievements as if they were a football team, listing things like favourite colours, nickname, biggest victory, biggest defeat, etc.

Even that proved too much for me, but I did manage to complete a number of badges that would accompany each entry based on real football team badges from 1980 adding in new slogans with anagrams with some extra photoshopped letters if feasible. I didn’t make one for everyone, but a fair few. Rather than have it sit on my hard drive, I thought I’d share this much at least.

First is Martin’s. I’ll start with him, since I think he won the division for 2017. Plus, it was quite apt since his beloved Huddersfield Town lends itself well to a game-based interpretation.

Next is Sam. And once again, the team he supports offered up a suitable badge to work from.

Then there’s Joe. I don’t think he has any affection for Arsenal at all, but the only words I could reasonably make suggested Uwe Rosenberg’s Fields of Arle, which he owns.

Talking of Uwe, Adam's badge reflects his mastery of games like Agricola, Feast For Odin etc.

Cambridge United’s badge has (had?) a book in it, which lead me to think of our resident rule-checker Andy.

Matt’s nickname of The Dark Horse meant that Ipswich Town’s badge was ideal.

The closest I got to one for me was Colchester Town’s short-lived Roman Standard style badge, adding in the letters YPRF (Your Purples are Fine).

After this, I had a few generic ones that might fit people, if you use your imagination.

Phew, glad to get that off my hard drive and out into the world. Hope you like them. See you on Tuesday!

Fully Flushed

I've got a feeling we've used this blog title before, but never mind.

It was Tuesday. It was Bristol. It was games. This week held the promise of new faces joining us: brand new people just passing through and an old regular popping in to remind us that he still existed.

It was Quentin, gracing GNN with his presence for the first time in years. After a brief bit of chat where we established that no one's life had changed a great deal, he was dealt into a game of Fuji Flush while we waited for the late comers to arrive.

There were five of us to start with: Joe the host, Quentin, Sam, Ian and me. Quentin got the first of four rules explanations that he'd receive tonight, and we were off.

Sam was appalled at his poor luck, as all but one of his cards were between 2 and 5. Towards the end of the game, the next new face arrived, Matt M. He was a friend of Joe's and, by happy chance, of Quentin as well. Quentin was distracted by this tiny school reunion and more occupied with finding out what Matt was doing these days, but he still managed to win the game.

Quentin 0 cards left
Andrew 1
Ian 1
Joe 2
Sam 2

Martin and his visiting friend, Kian, were expected shortly so the six of us played For Sale to fill the time. It began quietly, which was understandable given the presence of two newbies. A 29 went for only five coins and I got a 28 for two. We commented that Martin would never let us get away with such low prices.

Then we realised that our references to Martin (such as during Fuji Flush when we opened with all twos and someone said that Martin wouldn't stand for that) had made him sound a bit... intense. We tried to reassure Matt and Quentin how nice Martin was but my assertion that he was "very good with strangers" kind of backfired, making him sound like an angry dog we keep in the larder

As for the game, Joe was the only one who spent all his money and he immediately regretted it. However, he was pleased when his 20 card picked up a $14,000 cheque in the final round. But it was Ian, who had picked up that 29 for five coins, who won. By a comfortable margin.

Ian $53,000
Sam $48,000
Joe $46,000
Matt $42,000
Andrew $41,000
Quentin $38,000

Then Martin and Kian arrived. Since there were now eight, we split into two. The old-hands Joe, Ian, Sam and me chose a new game, Whistle Stop. Martin was in charge of the newcomers and they began with the classic Flamme Rouge.

Whistle Stop was described by Sam as Railways Of The World meets Tsuro. There's the delivery of cubes by train but also the placement of tiles with tracks that are open to all.

As well as delivering cubes for points, there are tiles where you can pick up shares in companies which could score you an end-of-game bonus. Finally, there are also special tiles that you can take for yourself as an exclusive action that no one else can have, unless they then buy that tile off you.

Despite the simple rules, the game is one of those where you can't plan your move until it is your turn. This lead to quite a lot of down-time as the four of us pondered our options for profit maximisation. In fact maybe a bit too much down-time. I was quite grateful of the distraction of Flamme Rouge. Like flicking back and forth between the Channel 4 coverage of the Tour De France and other channels, I maintained an interest in the race until its end.

One of Kian's cyclists had fallen behind by the middle of the game, while Quentin managed to put himself in pole position as they reached the final flat to the finish line. It looked for all the world to be a straight battle between him and Martin, but the final cards in Flamme Rouge always throw up surprises. Everyone got a rider across the line, but Matt managed to squeeze ahead of Martin right at the end.

1. Quentin
2. Matt
3. Martin
4. Kian

Whistle Stop was still some way off completion, so they started on a game of Qwixx. This dice game is far harder to follow for the distracted spectator, so all I know is the final scores.

Kian 63
Martin 59
Quentin 51
Matt 47

Luckily, Whistle Stop is also slowly chugging into the sidings at this point. It had been an interesting puzzle game, but a bit too long for what it is. I’d like to try it with three players, though.

Sam 120
Ian 113
Joe 110
Andrew 96

Sam tried to diminish his win by saying he’d already played once, against his son. “Did he win?” I asked. “Yes.”

Quentin and Matt decided to bow out now, having clearly had too much fun already, but Quentin promised not to leave it so long before his next appearance. Kian had a train to catch so we filled in the time with a couple more games of Fuji Flush. I ended the first game in double quick time.

Andrew 0
Ian 3
Joe 3
Sam 4
Kian 4
Martin 4

I had less luck in the next game, though. I saw my 16 card being slowly whittled away and then banished completely by all five of my opponents putting down 4s.

Sam 0
Andrew 3
Martin 3
Ian 3
Joe 3
Kian 3

Then Kian left, and there were just five of us left, still with enough energy for one last game. Without prompting, Martin threw a copy of Voodoo Prince onto the table. There were no dissenting voices and, once Joe had been appraised of the rules, we were underway.

In my first hand I had the 7 of the trump suit. Since a trick won with a 5 or a 7 counts double and since you only score points when you hit three tricks, I decided to hang on to this as a useful Get Out Of Jail Free kind of card. And lucky I did. In the final reckoning it was me against Ian and he two tricks to my one. He lead with a green and I trumped it, hitting three tricks and being able to score the number of tricks won by everyone else. I felt quite smug after that. Ian was gracious enough to say it was well played.

I remained in first place over the next three rounds. But did I have an advantage having the scores next to me? In the fourth round, I kept looking at my lead and decided to get out early (for six) and not risk being last in and scoring a maximum of two points.

Good thing, too, since that gave me a ten-point lead over second placed Joe. All I had to do was avoid scoring no points at all. Which I did. Joe, though, ended up being last out for two points and ended up falling from second to last. Ouch.

Andrew 39
Ian 36
Martin 32
Sam 31
Joe 28

And we were done. Thanks all, especially to our host Joe and to the newcomers for putting up any obscure in-jokes we might have said.

Four emperors in one evening

January’s monthly Time of Crisis meeting saw a return to the usual four players: Joe, Martin, Ian and myself. I arrived a few minutes before eight and discovered that I was the last one there! I found the game already set up, with the last of the Christmas mince pies on offer as an early appetiser.

The opening stages of the game played out pretty quietly. I decided to forgo my usual attempt at an unorthodox opening and went for two red, three blue. Ian began in Egyptus, me in Africa, Martin in Pannonia and Joe in Gallia.

Early days

Ian quickly found himself with his hands full: the Sassanids were the most lively barbarians of the evening by far and if that wasn’t enough, barbarian leaders kept coming out. He had one to deal with in Galatia after a turn or two and there was a Priest King in Syria, annoyingly right between his two regions. Martin took on some Alammani and when Joe picked up the dice to roll for the barbarians, Martin asked “Are you going to roll well?” to which Joe said he would. And he did: he got two hits.

After I noticed that Joe’s dishwasher makes the same grumbling noise that his dog makes, he became Emperor! The first of the the evening at 9 o’clock. Then a shock: Martin became Emperor on his next turn. He was, he admitted, just trying to weaken Joe’s army in Rome when he won the battle. Joe retreated and Martin moved in. Then, since he had one blue point and a spare governor, he decided he’d have a go at taking over the Empire. And he won! Thus ended Joe’s eleven-minute empire.

I asked if a moving army can stop in the sea. “Not without drowning,” replied Joe.

Martin’s lead was too great to ignore, and Joe and I took regions from him, weakening his support in Rome, hoping that Ian could stop Martin from benefiting from another Emperor turn.

He couldn’t. Instead he took out his frustration on some barbarians. Martin’s next move was “a bit of a repair job,” as he simply put back all the changes we’d made.

I became increasingly irritated by the Nomads’ apparent shyness on my African border, so I considered attacking them for points but I didn’t want my army so far from the action in Rome. Another barbarian leader popped up among the Sassanids at this point, much to Ian’s sarcastic delight.

Joe attacked Martin in Rome and forced his army out of the capital. He then had two dice to get two votes and become Emperor again. He rolled 3-1 and his plans were ruined.

Ian failed to kill the Priest King and that Sassanid leader decided to take loads of his friends and move into Syria. It was looking bad for Ian. Emperor Martin clearly decided that the matter of the Priest King needed to be sorted out, so he moved an army into Syria and killed him. Ian just sighed.

Ian's complicated situation

Joe lost to the Franks in Gallia but beat the Alammani in Thracia. Then, at 10.21, he became Emperor again! Despite forgetting he had a Basilica for an extra die, he still won an election in Rome.

Ian took Asia and reinforced his Syrian army with a view to taking out a few barbarians. This was just as well because on the next crisis roll, yet more Sassanids crossed the border into Galatia.

Martin fought Joe in Rome, but didn’t win. Both were weakened though. The rest of his hand were all blue. Martin wanted Rome and one other region, eventually choosing Asia. He rolled for Asia first with two dice. He ended up with seven votes: 6-6, 6-6, 6-5, 4. He was appalled that he’d used up all his sixes on Asia. Of course, we know that’s not really how dice work. But, then again, maybe it is because Martin then failed to get elected into Rome.

I invaded Rome and beat Joe. Now I needed five votes from six dice. With my first roll I got four votes and a six among them. I re-rolled the six, but failed. I blame me for rolling the die into the barbarian chits, which stopped it’s natural path too soon. I’m sure it would’ve been another six otherwise.

My army in Britannia, not doing much

Joe’s next move was accompanied by the sound of his dog rattling her empty food bowl accusingly. And then Ian’s luck turned. While Joe was occupied with his pet, Ian became Emperor at 10.55. And he killed some Sassanids in Gelatia too for a bumper scoring round. I was now in danger of finishing last.

Martin lined up an army to take out two Alamanni. Despite there being four dice against two, there were no hits at all. Disappointed, he used his Flanking Manoeuvre, but to little effect. Just one hit for each side. “Well, that was fucking shit,” was his considered opinion on the matter.

The board at 10.48pm

After staying in play for ages, Bad Auguries finally went! Relief for everyone, except Ian because now Zenobi turned up in Egypt. His fourth barbarian leader of the game.

Joe had a dilemma. He had three blue points but he wanted both of Martin’s weakest provinces: Britannia and Asia. Boldly, he went for both and succeeded! Martin noted that they were “exquisitely vulnerable,” so Joe popped a Quaestor on both.

The scores now (as we began turn nine, according to Martin) were Joe 56, Martin 52, Andrew 42, Ian 39.

Ian then took out a load of barbarians in an impressive three pronged attack, defeating a barbarian leader and two Sassanids in Syria, Zenobi in Egypt and then, for fun, he invaded the Goths massing in their homeland and finished them off too. His regions were now finally clear of barbarians and Emperor Ian was up into second on 54 points.

Martin used his Pretorian Guard to force his way back into the Senate. At 11.45 he became Emperor again! He also killed some Alamanni for cheap points and triggered the end of the game.

On my final turn I attacked the three Nomads who’ve been sitting there motionless all game, just because they were annoying me so much. Then, at 11.49, I became Emperor too! I needed just one vote, with my army still occupying Rome. I had seven dice. I used them all. Five votes! Success!

Joe now had some sums to do. Become Emperor and tie with Martin on the Emperor score track, or get points elsewhere? The sums were so complicated that he had to stand up!

Thinking on his feet

In the end, he went for an election. He had nine dice to get eight votes. He only got seven votes: two ones and no sixes. Tragic. And so, after four (very short) hours, the game ended

Martin 72
Joe 68
Andrew 59
Ian 57

What an epic. In every sense of the word. Also, this time there was no single player that gets left behind (usually me) on the score track. It was all pretty even. Of course, I like to think that since I was Emperor at the end of the game, that is a victory of sorts. Right?

Martin’s away in February, but surely we have to play when he gets back: Beware the Ides of March and all that.

Angler Management

Adam and Andrew both arrived on the doorstep at the same time, with Uwe Rosenberg's latest pre-industrial sustenance game pre-agreed and laid out on the table. I(Sam)'d played through it by myself yesterday, and lived up to my new GNN moniker by mistakenly setting up for two. No matter: everyone was new to the game and no ill effects were had.

The game in question is Nusfjord, where each player runs a small fishing company in north Norway. It takes all the elements of classic Uwe games but with two twists - 1. there are shares in companies and 2. it doesn't take three hours to play.

Much of what happens is familiar from Agricola and the like; you're placing workers on a centre board and trying to build an engine really. Aside from some minor kinks - elders give you your own worker-placement spots but demand fish; you can feed all the elders for gold - the main deviation from the standard Rosenberg smorgasbord is the shares - each player has five, and as unissued shares count against you in the final reckoning, you really want to issue them if possible. But doing so means other players can grab them before you get them yourself, meaning you have to pay them fish every round, and lending Nusfjord a slight feel of Uwe being daring - breaking away from his multi-player solitaire, but in a somewhat inhibited way, as the shares, though worth considering, didn't feel pivotal enough to be, well, pivotal.

That said, when Adam, Andrew and I sit down to play an Uwe game, there isn't going to be much complaining, and we all enjoyed it for it's relative simplicity and speed, playing in just over an hour - including rules explanation! Mmmm.

Obviously, Adam won. Don't ask me how. I got two of his shares early on but he shrugged off the catch-tapping in the manner of a man born to run a small fishing company on the Lofoten Peninsula in the 18th century.

Adam 26
Sam 23
Andrew 18

We packed it away making approving noises and perused the cupboard, eventually settling on The Quest for El Dorado. This was new to Adam, but it's not too onerous to explain or perceive, so after a brief overview of the cards, we were off!

I surged into the lead, geographically-speaking, only to be caught by the others a third of the way to the mythical city.

After a round of faffing and hedge-betting, not much had changed:

Then I was off again! Only this time Andrew not only kept pace, but surged ahead. I tried to block Adam off, but he snuck by too. As I languished near a cave, looking inside for unlikely help in the form of a discarded compass, they both made it to El Dorado! And Andrew won the tie breaker convincingly!

Andrew - completes the quest
Adam - also completes the quest, but in less pioneery fashion
Sam - faints at the sight of water

There was just time to bash out a quick game of NMBR9, which remains as brilliant as ever, despite Andrew flipping the nine itself on the first card.

Adam 91
Sam 80
Andrew 73

And with that, we were done.  A good night, thank you gentlemen!

Dice Boobs

This week witnessed the first GNN of the year for a couple of regulars: Sam, the host, and Joe. However, any attempt at wishing Joe a Happy New Year were met with a dismissive insistence that it was far too late by now.

The rest of us trying to wish him happy tidings were Katy, Ian, Martin, Adam and myself. At the beginning we were also joined by Sam's boys, Stanley and Joe.

We began with Fuji Flush to get us under way. Sam began well, but then got stuck on three cards. Katy began slowly and then shed five cards in quick succession. Stanley played the move of the game, as four of us put down fours and were getting excited about our chances of beating two eights (if I remember this right) when he put down a seventeen and cleared the table.

Doomed

Adam, Katy and Martin were all sitting next to each other and were appalled whenever they had to team up together. It ended in tense fashion with more than half on just one card.

Little Joe 0
Adam 1
Andrew 1
Katy 1
Stanley 1
Martin 1
Joe 2
Sam 3

After this we split into two groups. Joe, Katy, Martin and I chose Majesty. Sam, Stanley, little Joe and Adam went for Blokus, the game of, well, blocking. I didn't pay it too much attention but when the final scores were announced, I was pleased that the two adults had not gone easy on their inexperienced opponents.

Sam 13
Adam 15
Joe 19
Stanley 26

Then it was bed for the boys and a quick two player game of Fugitive. This ended in a draw, as Sam explained "we're not sure who won because I don't have the board or the rules." which would explain the improvised card area.

Sam looked it up on the Internet, and concluded that Adam won. "Something to do with the 29."

Anyway, that was the exciting half of the table. The four of us playing Majesty had a fairly hollow experience. Katy complained throughout that it just wasn't her kind of game and the rest of us found it rather bland. The artwork was typical eurogame medieval subjects and the game mechanism of playing cards to get points was quite drab.

Joe 181
Andrew 177
Katy 159
Martin 143

Back as a single group again, it was time to split up again. Ian had bought the Tichu set he'd received in the Secret Santa, so he and Martin faced Joe and Katy. It started in fine fashion, with two Grand Tichus called and completed in the first two rounds.

Sam, Adam and myself played Rajas of the Ganges. We persuaded Adam by telling him that it was exactly the kind of game that he would be good at. In fact, I was preparing myself for a heavy defeat before we even began.

Near the start of the game, when Sam didn't take a particular option that got him a lot of money, Adam asked if there was a reason he hadn't done that. "Just stupidity," shrugged Sam when he saw what he'd missed.

Adam had clearly decided that money was the way to go, since it had all those bonuses along it. He generated dice so efficiently that he had to use his player mat's “dice boobs” to hold them all.

He also made good use of the Score Mixed Markets option. Then, once the money track had paid out its last bonus, he turned his attention to glory points and quickly finished the game. Sam matched Adam for glory, but not for cash. I was a long way back, having not even picked up my second extra meeple.

Adam's considerable lead on the money track.

1. Adam
2. Sam
3. Andrew

The Tichu group played out one last hand when we had ended. Not the full one-thousand pointer, but enough to give Ian a taste, I imagine.

Joe & Katy 600
Ian & Martin 500

Next up was another reshuffling of the groups. Katy, Martin and I played Azul. You'd have thought, after playing against Adam at a eurogame, I'd have learnt my lesson, but I must've been in a masochistic mood this night. Sam, Joe, Ian and Adam chose Poison.

During these two games, and I can't remember why, we all tried to work out our defining traits. We ended up with Martin – evil, Katy – annoying, Andrew – snide, Joe – avuncular, Ian – self-depreciating, Adam – calculating and Sam – mistaken. Joe, though, did not like his nominated trait. He pointed out that the definition was “kind and friendly towards a younger or less experienced person” which he found somewhat inappropriate. Katy pointed out that he was the oldest one here but, like the New Year's greetings at the start of the evening, Joe simply refused to accept his new defining trait.

All of this shouldn't detract from the gaming activities. In Azul, I was disconcerted by Martin's constant glances over to my board. He played a spoiling game, such that I scored only six points in my first round, but I was too distracted to do the same to Katy. She had no issues with putting together her mosaic and spent most of the game complimenting her own work, like a bird happily chirping in its nice new nest.

Only when she felt victory was assured did she look up and try to ruin Martin's game. He had to pick up negative-scoring tiles at the end of the game, which pushed me into an unlikely second.

Katy 75
Andrew 57
Martin 51

Poison ended:

Sam 4 (with two clear rounds, I believe)
Adam 17
Ian 17
Joe 29

Now it was the end of the evening and we were all together. Dead Man's Chest was suggested and pooh-poohed. Instead we decided on a subdued game of Hugo. This game is usually so loud, it's been banned twice, so we kept out cries of anguish to a minimum. It was especially hard for Katy who got so excited she had to insist she wasn't drunk on the gin she'd bought with her. Unfortunately it came out as “I haven't had any more Jill,” so no one believed her.

We played three rounds. In the first round, Sam was the last-man standing but a comfortable distance ahead. Hugo then sped around two corners and finished him off before he could move. In the second, it was the opposite. Joe was left alive in a precarious position but Hugo wouldn't budge. The dice went right around the table without a Hugo in sight. Then Joe rolled a 1 and managed to sneak into a +3 room.

It was a rare piece of luck for him.

Martin 25
Sam 26
Ian 30
Katy 32
Adam 35
Andrew 37
Joe 41

And with that, we were done. Another quality evening's entertainment done and dusted.