Quantum States

On Thursday the London Old Farts chapter of GNN (Andrew, Chris, Paul J and myself) met up - online of course - for our fortnightly battle of wits/luck/distractions as lockdown continues. Chris had mentioned Keyflower as a possibility, but despite its reputation as a euro of high-level interaction and fuckery, I had to damp squib that away with warnings of falling asleep during a vastly simpler game only a few nights before. So instead, with Andrew not quite ready to go, we started with a three-player Battle Sheep.

This is a very Hey That's My Fish style game of grabbing territory - albeit here you occupy the tile, rather than remove it - of moving your stack of sheep tiles in a straight line from their starting hexagon. You must start the game at the edge of the board, and you must move as far as you can along your chosen path. Then, you choose how to split your stack, leaving some (at least one) behind and others (at least one) where you arrive.

Chris red, Paul blue, Sam white

It's an aggressive-feeling passive-aggressive game, where after the first couple of turns people are making blocking moves and giving you a multi-directional conundrum of where you might go, and what you might sacrifice. We - or I - thought Paul looked to have things wrapped up, but it was Chris who proved to be the most tactically astute shepherd, claiming the win.

1 Chris
2 Paul
3 Sam

With Andrew now moving from intrigued  spectator to active participant, we moved on to the meat of the evening with Quantum. This needs no introduction, and with an additional player to the game of two weeks before it was a more combative game from the early turns. I managed to get into the lead with the help of being Curious, but then got into a muddle as found the bonus move this gives you can't be applied to the same ship unless all ships have moved. Although that's as complicated as it got, it kept stumping me.

Andrew caught me up as Chris and Paul seemed to be caught in their own tete-a-tete on the western (if there can be such a thing in space) side of the board. He had his dice in place for a win, so I spent a turn going on the attack and headed this off. I also got my penultimate cube down and, with classic Morrison oversight, missed an opportunity for the easiest of wins if I'd just increased research: given a six, taking aggression, and hitting 6 dominance too. Instead I foolishly bemoaned my mistake out loud and unsurprisingly found myself under attack to get said dominance down.

It still looked like a two-way battle for the win with Andrew and I poised, but then Paul suddenly placed two cubes in one go. I think. I'm still not sure how it happened, but one moment I was puzzling out my next move, and the next I was looking at Paul J Wins and Everyone Else Loses. Awesome work by Paul, however he did it.

Paul: wins
Everyone else: loses

It was now 9.30 though and I had to put Joe to bed, so I left them to start this occasionally protracted business as they moved onto Kingdomino. I can't speak to the drama of these games but maybe the scores can:

Andrew 60
Paul 34
Chris 31

and then

Chris 69
Andrew 60
Paul 57

Amazing consistency from Andrew. After that Chris' friend Stuart joined them for a game of Incan Gold that Andrew won - again, with 60 points! After that Andrew also left, and the remaining trip still had enough in the tank for a crack at Stone Age - won by Stuart. Phenomenal commitment.

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With apologies for indulgence (I know this is not the place, but I need to tell someone) one thing lockdown has done this end is help us get the garden sorted. Here is before and after..

   

I look forward to the day where we can sit on the deck on a Tuesday night and shout obscenities at one another in person...