Can't say pharaoh than that

I got to this week's GNN at the remarkably prompt time of 7.35, which was early enough to see Joe whizzing past me on one of those e-scooters that the local council borrowed from the future as I walked to Sam's. 

Sadly, though, I was not able to join in with a clever word game that I usually see in its final stages because they'd either been lent out or not brought. Instead we (Katy, Martin, Ian, Adam T, Joe, Sam and me) played  A game called: about Wee Whimsical Creatures and trying to identify them after someone makes noises. This is a very simple game with a very long name which involves five monsters being dealt out and one player is given a numbered card drawn randomly. That player then makes the noise that they think the corresponding monster would make. Then everyone has to guess which one it was. Points are awarded for being right or being in the majority.

It was interesting. Katy started very badly, not scoring at all for the first few rounds. Adam H and Mel arrived midway through the game and joined in with the guessing but somehow could not be persuaded to try making some noises themselves.

Joe 7

Andrew 7

Martin 6

Adam T 5

Ian 4

Katy 2

Adam H and Mel scored points too.

Then the nine of us split into two groups. For the second week in a row the table hummed to the sound of simultaneous Profiteer/Sheepy Time rules explanation. Mel, Adam T, Ian, Martin and I played Profiteer, a cynical game of black marketeering during wartime. The American Civil War, in this case. Adam T went big on the Union early on while Mel did the opposite. After two early ties in the game I went for the long-shot result of a tie (so my British factories would score big at the end of the game) while Martin and Ian both went for a Saloon/Undertaker combo so they wanted the game to last as long as possible. Despite their near identical possibilities, Ian squeaked a win after Martin bought up some Union Victory bonds, only to see the Confederate side win the Civil War.

Ian 37

Martin 33

Mel 24

Andrew 16

Adam T 0

Sheepy Time, which I hadn’t been following, was coming to an end, and what an end it was. Joe managed to land on his pillow and so did Adam H with his last turn. But a rule-check told us that Joe would win the tie-breaker as it stood, so Adam risked another lap before the Nightmare caught him and successfully too.

Adam H: past his pillow

Joe: on his pillow

Sam: within sight of his pillow

Katy: pillow still some distance off

Then we reshuffled our chairs. Joe, Ian, Mel, Adam H and I played Ra. I was Mel’s first go and as she got a rules explanation, we admired Joe’s newest addition to his increasingly pimped out Ra set: a tile cube, to replace the cloth bag of the standard deluxe version. It looked nice but I’m not sure it worked in practice. 

For a moment Joe thought he’d forgotten the rule book and so we didn’t know how to distribute the sun tiles at the start of the game. Luckily Martin told us how to do it (lay out two to six, then seven to twelve in a row beneath and finally thirteen to sixteen the other way) but Joe thought it looked wrong. Then he found the rules and was able to check for sure. Martin had it spot on. “Of course Martin was right,” Joe seethed good naturedly.

As for the game, I went big on Niles and Pharoahs, which is where the blog title came from even if it was an old joke. Adam did well on civilizations as I recall and Mel, despite dipping down to 0 points mid-game, rallied at the end thanks to having four “Beatles” monuments among her wide array of buildings.

Adam 34 + highest sun tile

Andrew 34

Joe 32

Ian 28

Mel 20

Martin, Adam T, Katy and Sam played Nokosu Dice. I tried to catch a flavour of the game, and scribbled down a few phrases like “this is mad,” (Martin) “I’m sure I was going to go home early,” (Katy) and “we have to fuck Sam,” (Martin again). But I had to leave before the game ended. 

Thanks all for the games and the memories. See you next week.

Fast asheep

At eight o’clock I rolled into Joe’s to find the already assembled gamers (Joe, Martin,Ian, Laura, Gareth, Sam) finishing off a game of In Vino Morte, which I think I heard someone say that Laura won, but I was too busy sorting out my drinks, so who knows?

Before that they played Cross Clues and got 24 points. The one that got away was a clue from Gareth for “Painting” and “Water” which was “colour”. Unfortunately one of the other words was “Blue” and that was enough to put them off the scent.

Finally, I sat down to play a game. While Martin enticed Sam, Laura and Gareth to play a game of Profiteers, a war game only in the sense it is set during a war. The players are simply trying to make as much money as possible, without caring who is actually winning.

Sam 33

Martin 26

Laura 6

Gareth 3

Ian, Gareth,Joe and I played the far more cuddly Sheepy Time, in which our sheep run around the board, leaping over a fence while avoiding a nightmare and the first to catch forty winks wins. It was fun in a push your luck kind of way, trying to stay one step ahead of the nightmare while also making sure you hit the right bonuses.

I was in the lead for most of the game but then Ian leapt back into contention in the final round, doing laps at an unholy rate. Joe, though, one by going furthest past his pillow. My first round was dismal and I didn't get anywhere near enough winks.

Joe, two spaces past his pillow

Ian, on his pillow

Andrew, nowhere near his pillow

With uncanny timing, the two games ended pretty much at the same time. After the usual cognitive dissonance of choosing a game, Gareth, Joe, Ian and I chose Hardback, the letter building game with a Dominion style deck-building mechanic. Draw five cards, buy extra cards with ink (but you must use those letters) and make the best word you can. Letters score either cash or points. Cash gets you better cards and points wins you the game. Sixty of them, to be exact.

At one point, Joe raised a few eyebrows when he announced he was paying an ink to draw another card from his deck. He made this plain, he said, so it didn't look like cheating in case the K (which he had just shuffled back into the newly-recycled discard pile) should come out. He then drew the K. This made it look like clever sleight of hand or an awkwardly accurate premonition.

Ian had his own moment of awkwardness when we realised halfway through the game that he’d been paying an ink to draw a card from the communal draw deck, not from his own. That did explain why his deck was so large.

However, it didn’t seem to help as he came in joint last with me. I would have been further behind were it not for a stroke of luck with my last word “FLOP” which got me 15 prestige points. Any hopes that I might pip the others to 60 were immediately dashed by Gareth who (having played PIXELS twice during the game) reached 60 points with his next word.

Gareth 60

Joe 53

Ian 51

Andrew 51

While we played that, Laura, Sam and Martin regrouped for another go at Quirky Circuits and they cleared two more tracks before Laura had to go, mindful of the changeable weather outside.

Sam and Martin then played Rosetta (twice?) and after we’d finished Hardback, as I was leaving, Martin finally guessed the word: Sacrifice. Then I set off into the evening, confident that my waterproofs would withstand the light drizzle, only for it to turn into a downspout before I got to the end of the road. After I’d left, I’m told, they played a tough game of So Clover.

Thanks Joe for hosting and thanks others for guesting. See you next week.

 

We Are Detectives

 When I arrived at Sam’s at eight, I found that the gamers already present (Sam, Joe, Laura, Martin, Ian and Katy) had just finished a round of Swat. It was suggested that I could just be dealt in and work out the rules as I go, especially since Martin was still on zero points, but I declined and watched. I absolutely would not have been able to work out what was going on. A number of cards, bad and good, are dealt out face up and when a player decides they want them, they slap the table. Like Ra, Joe explained, only more stressful. Martin made a decent comeback, but no one could catch Mr Consistency Ian. Although Sam almost did.

Ian 60

Sam 58

Martin 40

Laura 39

Joe 32

Katy 29

Then Katy left and won’t be seen again for a while as she goes on a cycling trip which is part of her Land’s End to John O’Groats journey (not being done all at once, of course).

The six of us then played The Detective Club, a game in a tin box. This is like Dixit except that there’s a word that the pictures have to relate to that everyone except one person knows - we are given the word on a little pad of paper, but the imposter gets a pad with nothing written on it. We chose two pictures (from a hand of six cards) and the word is revealed. At this point we have to explain our thinking behind our choices and then we decide who the imposter is.

In the first round this was made tricky by Martin turning to the wrong page on his pad, seeing nothing written, he assumed he was the imposter. Only after he chose his first picture did he see the word “message” on the back of the pad. This caused confusion and allowed the real imposter, Joe, to get away scott free. I don’t remember who the other imposters were but I have a clear memory of Ian mumbling some non-sequitors about why his picture meant “blockage” and also of Laura picking a card seemingly solely because she liked the spaghetti War Of The Worlds type monster on it. We stopped after three rounds.

Joe 11

Ian 6

Sam 4

Andrew 3

Martin 3

Laura 0

Now we split into two. Laura, Sam and Martin played Quirky Circuits which is, I’m told, like The Mind crossed with Robo Rally. I didn’t keep a track of how things went but Martin told me they’d completed all of the tracks they attempted.

Joe, Ian and I played Nidavellir. Ian had played it before on Board Game arena, but this was his first go with a physical set. And it was very physical in that it required quite a lot of setting up and fairly constant upkeep. The idea is to bid on cards and so collect sets of dwarves to score points. There is a theme. I think you’re building an army or something.

It was fun, once it got going and most of the icons are pretty straight forward. There was one card with so many icons it looked like someone had punched the keyboard while typing in Wingdings, so we ignored it.

Joe 293

Ian 269

Andrew 234

After Quirky Circuits ended Laura went home and Martin and Sam banged out a quick two-player Cross Clues. They were lucky to have “doctor” which linked nicely to Foot, Eye and Pig. I didn’t get all the clues but was impressed by “Achilles” for “Foot” and “Arrow” and “Barbeque” for “Zoo” and “Cook”.

Sam and Martin 19 points

Then I stayed up extra late, keen to play my first game of So Clover. I’d seen it often enough that I knew what was going on, but I had to be careful not to externalise my frustration when they guessed my clues somehow missing that “Tower” and “Bridge” go together quite well. Similarly we must have been completely discombobulated trying to get answers for Sam's clue "grey" that we missed the easy tap-in of "Guardian" and "magazine".

 But we did okay. 22 points in the end.

And then I left at almost quarter to eleven! They were setting up another game of So Clover and then played Cross Clues and Rosetta.

Thanks all. See you next Tuesday.

Andrew's Ideal Ending

Saturday night was election night, with SHASN on the table. Your possible prime ministers were Andrew, Ian, Adam H, the long-absent Matt Walker, and myself, whose plans to refresh my mind of the rules were somewhat kiboshed by life getting in the way.

Luckily SHASN is not a complex beast. The board is the map with various states to be won by having the most voters there. Cards received in each turn dictate what resources you'll get in that moment, depending on how you answer them: each oft-contentious question allows you one of two binary answers, and the answer you choose gives you certain resources in return - cash, media manipulation, public trust, the somewhat nebulous clout - which can then be spent to influence (ie buy) voters. 

Each such resource is linked to an idealogue; one of the Capitalist, Supremo, Showstopper and Idealist. As the game progresses, you keep your cards in front of you: having a balanced spread across these political rationales is appealing, as having two cards of a matching idealogue gives you extra resources. Diversity is balance. But on the other hand, collecting cards of a kind is really where the juice is: three matching cards triggers a reasonably decent power that can influence non-majority voters on the board; and five a demonically nasty one that can cut down majorities. 

SHASN has you answer the question not knowing exactly which idealogue you're fitting in the moment: the capitalist is relatively easy to spot, the idealist even more so. The supremo and showstopper sound like Trump and Rumsfeld sharing a cab, with both in a crappy mood. 

Those little dudes on the map are voters, with colours representing our five candidates. 

It's a surprisingly straightforward game, even with the shit-stirring Conspiracy cards in the mix. In the early running it's about getting voters out. Later, it's... still about getting voters out. But manipulating them too, as the harsher aspects of electioneering come to the fore. Throughout, having the most voters in a region gives you a gerrymandering power, which is essentially manipulating boundaries to suit you (because SHASN's boundaries can't move, this is represented by moving voters instead). But when those bigger powers kick in, oof. It's a face-slapping, arse-kicking punch up in an east end pub. 

Ian and I, I feel today, began at a slight disadvantage with our three randomly-dealt cards at the start being different ideologies, whereas the others had two cards of a kind: instantly receiving more resources and closer to those three and five-card bonus actions. Ian was also last to play, which might help explain why he struggled throughout the game. It might also be something to do with the fact he kept stealing resources from people, so had something of a target on his back. The early running seemed to favour Adam, as he went from shrewdly pondering our demises to shrewdly activating our demises. In fact he came oh-so-close to winning at one stage (when all majorities are formed) but didn't quite have the gerrymandering stretches he needed. By that time, board was changing significantly from turn to turn, but when Andrew's turn arrived - he and Adam were both predominantly idealists, curiously - he had enough firepower in his armoury - along with a canny conspiracy card - to wrap election night up in his favour: something like:

Andrew 23

Matt 22

Adam Sam both 9

Ian 6

+++edited; see comments+++

I really enjoyed SHASN. There is something rote about how it plays, with each turn the usually-amusing questions, edged with risk on how they answer, followed by voter influencing and board manipulation. But countering this is the fact that this sideshow duels morph over time into the main event, as everyone has far more agency on the board than they started with. I wonder if Ian and I might have stood a chance if we teamed up in a coalition... maybe next time.

the final board

It's probably better with three or four players, tempo-wise, but the sense of being whacked over the head with a shitty stick was still intact, even if your turns rolled around marginally less frequently. 

Andrew bade us goodnight and went off to make his victory speeches somewhere, whilst the rest of us pondered what to play. Perhaps inspired by my description of Paper Dungeon as 'Avenue with bells on' Adam proposed we give it a crack. Although this is a half-hour game to SHASN's two hours, I think it took longer to explain, partly because I was drunk and Adam was tired. Essentially though you're leading a quartet of explorers around a dungeon, fighting bad guys. In eight rounds players roll dice and choose three to use: you can explore, make potions (to take hits for you and avoid minus points), craft artifacts (for stuff) or level up your dungeoneers. You want to level up because then they're better at fighting and can explore more, but although it's quite simple once you know it, first glance of the sheet does look a bit mad. 

Somehow Adam thought he used all the dice, rather than three, so he had to bail on the game with two rounds left when we realised he'd been over-subscribed. At least it made sense of how well he was doing though. When the scores were totalled up, Matt's super-aggressive explore and destroy tactic stood him in good stead:

Matt 70

Sam 50-something

Ian 40-something

Adam n/a

Adam's fatigue was catching up on him so he used the last energy reserves to ride home, whilst the three of us blasted through two games of Cross Clues. We didn't do hugely well, only scoring 14 on each attempt, but it was an interesting challenge to find matches for the likes of palm tree and soldier. And some other words. I don't remember them now. A couple of times we'd hit our stride but then grind to a halt again. Still, a nice way to round off the evening. Thanks all!

I think we're not in Canvas any more

I rolled into Sam's place a little before 8 just as the already-full kitchen of gamers were finishing up Cross Clues. Andy, Martin, Ian, Katy, Adam H and Laura had joined our host. Adding me and an en route Joe, we would number nine in total. 

As we packed away Cross Clues (the score was 17) Martin suggested Biss 20 as a reasonable filler until Joe arrived. Adam had never played but since this is a game where you literally explain the rules as you go along, that wasn't a problem.

The game involves repeatedly counting from one to twenty with numbers slowly being replaced by gestures. Two of those gestures were folding your arms and shaking your head and since Andy was usually doing those things anyway, he did quite well. The game was fun, but there was a genuine cheer of relief when Joe's arrival meant we could play something else.

Katy, Ian, Joe, Martin and Laura played 49. A very interesting looking game that everyone wanted to try but it only plays up to five. It's basically four-in-a-row but you bid on the square available for auction. Katy seemed to be enjoying it even before the lid was off the box. Then she bamboozled everyone by taking green as her colour, giving us the rare sight of watching Martin playing in yellow. Curiously, Katy insisted her counters weren't green at all, more blue. Or teal.

The game was pretty raucous. Everyone except Martin had chances to win, while Martin seemed to spend too many moves stopping other people from winning. Laura was first to reach match point but got locked into a bidding war with Martin until they eventually decided to see how much money Laura had and if Martin could beat it. He could. Finally Katy won by buying a square for 177. And to think the first square only cost 8. Mind you, at when I heard someone mention 177, I had assumed they meant decibels.

At the sophisticated end of the table we played Canvas. In this simple game, you buy half finished paintings and then layer them up in order to achieve certain criteria, such as one of each colour or two triangles. Just like real art appreciation. 

I thought I was doing well, while Adam professed that he wasn't sure what he was doing. A bad sign if ever there was one. The game was sweet (with tiny wooden easles) and had certain role playing opportunities as we revealed our works complete with pompous name. 

Adam 44

Andy 37

Andrew 34

Sam 25

The night was still young but by now we’d already demolished four big bags of crisps as well as a number of tiny cup cakes.

My glass of sake, tiny easel and mini cup cake all made me feel like a giant.

The four of us had a quick game of Spicy to tide us over until 49 ended. I won thanks to clearing my cards at the end of the game to pick up a 10 point bonus.

Andrew 20

Sam 18

Adam 11

Andy 10

Then we all reorganised. Martin, Andy, Joe and Sam played Die Crew. Not sure which version and I’m not sure how far they got. Great blogging.

Katy was in need of some relaxation, so Tsuro was brought out again. Can’t say it was too relaxing, watching Adam win twice.

Adam

Katy

Ian 

Laura

Andrew

Adam

Andrew & Ian

Katy

Laura

Then came a quick game of Avenue before I left. Sam had to be parachuted in from Die Crew for rules explaining purposes, but we were mostly okay after that. Apart from Ian who had cut himself off by the end of round three. I, meanwhile, came tantalizingly close to glory.

Adam 52

Andrew 44

Katy 41

Ian 23

And so I dashed off at this point, with Adam heading out too. The rest, I am told, played Colt Express which Sam won narrowly…

And then another game of Cross Clues, with a (new high?) score of 23 points.

Thanks all. See you next tuesday.