How Orc Board

 I arrived at Joe’s around 8 and watched as Joe, Sam, Martin, Ian and Katy played The Wandering Castle. It is not, as you might hope, a re imagining of the film Howl's Moving Castle, rather it is a cross between Verflixxt and Mord Im Arosa that involves being the first to put all three meeples into a castle tower. To complicate matters, this tower moves, and there are other towers that players can move in order to trap other players’ pieces and, hopefully, make their opponent’s forget where their meeples are. “Where am I? Christ!” wailed Martin, perilously close to an existential crisis or sudden conversion to Christianity.

It was entertaining to watch, even though I didn’t know the rules. Martin’s last meeple made a last dash for the castle, only to be covered by a tower. He was able to uncover himself, leap into the castle and trigger the end of the game. Katy, Joe and Ian were also able to get their third meeple into the tower but only Ian matched Martin in the tie-breaker.

Ian and Martin, 3 meeples,  1 potion.

Joe and Katy, 3 meeples, no potions

Sam 2 meeples

Next up, we went back to Solvenia in a rousing six-player game of Ethnos. We dealt out the races, minotaurs, wizards, merfolk and Orcs. This meant we each got our own little Orc Board to track our progress. "How orcboard," I said, hilariously, and the blog title was born.

Mid game, Sam questioned a rule about Centurions, asking if you could play them singly and chain them together. Martin checked and found that you could, but only if you were able to put down a marker each time. Martin then decided that was exactly what he was going to do, leaving Sam regretting that he'd ever asked.

In round two, Joe had ten cards and had to play. I was expecting maybe half of them would be left on the table for us to choose, but instead he was able to play nine of the ten. A superb move. It sent him up the scoreboard but he had a pedestrian round three and Martin was able to catch him.

Martin 72

Joe 65

Katy 62

Sam 56

Andrew 54

Ian 48

Next we pondered our next game, Texas Showdown or So Clover? We decided to do both, starting with Texas Showdown. Sam started round one in confident mood, saying he thought he could get a zero. He ended the round in joint last, having picked up three.

Round two was similarly bad for Sam as he discovered a new curse: he always loses when Joe leads, which he did whenever Martin was able to nominate the leader. Joe, meanwhile, had gone two rounds clear, with a three point lead on his nearest rival (Katy, Ian and Martin).

The game continued until round five. Sam arrested his decline, going clear on rounds four and five and he finished in third. But no one could reduce Joe's mid-game lead enough to be a challenge.

Joe 5

Martin 7

Sam 8

Katy 9

Ian 10

Andrew 11

Alas, So Clover was cancelled as Joe had to go out and look for his father who'd wandered off by himself. So we excused ourselves and said goodbyes, squeezing past four bicycles chained up outside Joe's front door.

Thanks all, see you all next week.

Dominant Maroon

On Saturday afternoon Ian and I wended our way down the M4 to Chris' house in Chippenham. The plan was to play Dominant Species: Marine during the day, and then some other stuff in the evening. So with a little ado and catching up, I began setting up the game and explaining it to Ian - who'd not played before - and Chris, who'd only played the significantly-different big sister Dominant Species. 

In DS: Marine, we are competing animal types way back at the dawn of multi-celled life, climbing from the primeval ooze to spread our species across the world, by mostly sea but also (high-scoring) land. There's about 12 actions to choose from initially, but each action you take narrows down your subsequent options, until you choose to retrieve all your pawns and start afresh. The actions are numerous, then, but broadly do three things: advance your own cause, screw with someone else's, or both. This is a GMT game, and although the theme isn't the expected warfare, it's a combinatorial experience. 

My fishes (blue) started well, but Chris' cephalopods (orange) 

are proliferating at a dangerous rate while Ian's reptiles look on

In the original Dominant Species, all pawns are placed and then activated in order. Marine foregoes that somewhat phase-heavy approach by simply activating them when-placed, and simplifying both the scoring system and the board interface: instead of constantly recalculating dominance across the board, players choose a single tile to score as and when they want/are able to. It's not a simple game but, apart from one or two pauses when pawn options dynamically change, it cracks along really quickly. We didn't play the short version, but still finished in under two hours.

I'd led for much of the game but in the finale - when every tile gets scored - both Ian's purples and Chris' oranges caught up, and in the latter case, overtook me for a debut win. 

Chris 107 

Ian/Sam 102 each

I enjoyed this. It's nasty, swingy and tactical, with all the actions making easy sense, with only the special pawns needing more than a glance at the explanations. 

Next up was So Clover. We started out as a three, scoring a bang average 12/18, and didn't improve with four when Jacquie joined us (15/24) initially, only to pull out a storming 24/24 on our third attempt as minds synchronised. 

Jacquie dropped out and Ashton stepped in for Push It, which I took a kind-of win in, leading when we abandoned the game in favour of a delicious tea, a dish entirely driven by Chris winning a cheap bottle of white wine in a pub quiz. Chris actually described it as 'bleach' but it seemed to go well with the chicken. 

After stuffing our faces I managed to win another game - Spicy. 

While we were playing Aiden arrived and watched the duplicity play out as we fibbed, half-fibbed and occasionally told the truth on the way to the frantic conclusion.

Sam 35

Ian 31

Chris 23

Then Ian and I cracked our bottles of wine open. Well - I did. Ian was struggling with the cork and as he wrenched it out, the bottle smacked down on the counter-top and smashed. As wine poured everywhere, nobody was quite sure what to do and Paul arrived on the scene to see the carnage, fortunately not turning around and leaving directly. I did what you're meant to do when accidents happen these days - I took a photo of the scene. 

I must take my hat off to Chris and Jacquie, who weren't even slightly fazed. I guess running a childminding business has it's upsides. Anyway after Chris and Ian went at the scene with plentiful kitchen towels, the five gamers kicked off the evening session with Raj. We played five rounds with an escalating winner's bonus in each one, but it felt like they were mostly taken by Aiden. 

Chris kept kind-of pace with him, but Paul was serially stiffed by unlucky ties and Ian and I harpooned each other's bids with metronomic frequency, almost always playing our 14s and 15s at identical times. With five players, there's a lot of ties, and Aiden seemed to be taking advantage. Until the final round, where Chris rode some luck, did some canny bidding, and took the whopping 15pt winner's bonus to snag victory from the jaws of second-place...

Chris 81

Aiden 78

Ian 37

Paul 27

Sam 19

A lot of laughter in Raj. Rather less in what followed - the lesser-spotted Istanbul - but it was pleasurable in it's own fashion, with all of us concocting semi-formed plans and then seeing them slowly come together. But in Aiden's case, it wasn't so slow - he rocketed past everyone to claim a win so fast I missed it, having gone for a wee. I think Paul Ian and I were all 'just about' to get another gem, but it would only have got us squabbling for scraps...

Aiden 5 gems

Chris 4

Paul 3 + most cash

Sam 3 

Ian 2

Then Ian went to the shop for replacement wine and we played Push It again. Although going clockwise is less tactically compelling than the official furthest-away rule, it does at least keep things moving at a humorously hectic rate. At one point Paul couldn't even see the puck, as it was lodged behind Ian's crisps! What larks. You can keep your class A drugs, city folk!

Ian returned so we wrapped things up with Chris the kind-of winner on this occasion. 

Chris 7

Sam and Paul 6 each

Aiden 4

If Ian and I hadn't seen Istanbul in a while it was even longer - or felt it - since we last encountered Port Royal, the card-flipping, luck-pushing, symbol-collecting game of first-to-twelve points. I remembered being terribly bad at it, but hadn't recalled how complex it was. I mean - it's not complex, but in my head it was simpler than this, with cards doing various things and flipping to become money and objectives and repelling and all sorts. I think I enjoyed it, but it was only near the end I understood what was going on. Chris took the laurels here...

Chris 12

Paul 10

Ian 8 + most cash

Aiden 8

Sam 7

Then we played 7 Wonders! It was remarkable how setting up the physical version takes the same length of time as playing the digital one, but 7 Wonders remains a Speedy Classic I think, and it was nice to be handling cards again rather than gazing bleary-eyed at pixels. Aiden took the win, mainly thanks to his large army. It was a curious, fairly low-scoring play, with everyone resource-rich and so cash-laden that the bank ran out of money...

Aiden 55

Ian and Sam 47 each

Paul 46

Chris 44

We had time for one more game and Ian suggested Texas Showdown - new to Chris and Aiden, but very easy to explain. Harder though to get one's head around the best moves, and death spirals were had by both Chris and Ian. Aiden and I had good rounds and bad ones, but Paul's canny play saw him picking up minimal tricks - a one, a two, a zero - and he claimed a comprehensive win as Chris and Ian fell over the finish line...

Paul 5

Aiden 8

Sam 9

Chris and Ian 13 each

We'd played a lot by now - it was approaching midnight - eaten our own bodyweights in crisps and Maltesers, been exceedingly rude to each other and probably drunk a fair bit too so we finished our marathon session of a smorgasboard of gaming delights there. Wonderful stuff - thanks to our hosts and everyone for making it fun. 

Fruit flies like a banana

The omens for games night weren't good, with rain crashing down outside and in the house (mine; Sam's) an infestation of fruit flies having migrated from the hot bin in the garden. I spent some time chasing them around in a murderous rage, but there were simply too many. A knock on the door and the Easton massif - Gareth, Ian, Martin - arrived in good time to have the little bastards swarm around their drinks. The other ill portent were the crisps - pork and apple Sensations - which tasted, maybe not that surprisingly, gross. Although Gareth charitably ruminated that it was more about expectations, renaming them slow-cooked pork belly in a sweet apple sauce. We were still flicking flies away when Joe and the final Eastonite, Adam H, arrived, upon which time we set up Formula Motor Racing. 

We were mostly familiar with it's charms this time, but Martin went through the rules for Adam, who'd not played before. Cards are played to shuffle the cars about, in the hope you'll be at or near the front when the cards run out. You're often moving cars other than your own, but at least you can draft with an overtaking car, or play some kind of punitive measure on someone else. I got my cars to the front early on, but neither finished the race. Adam, who at one point had both his cars right at the back, managed a win at the death:

Adam H 10
Martin 7
Ian 6
Gareth 3

I still find it a bit arbitrary-feeling, but agree with Martin that the three-races suggestion in the rules makes sense - it would add some drama and escalation and a sense of shape. 

We split into two threes, with Ian, Gareth and Martin setting up Babylonia and Joe, Adam and I playing Tin Goose. Even though I'd played recently I found my mind a blank as I got everything out of the box and tried to summon some kind of zen calm, which was maybe partially successful. In the game players are competing airlines, bidding for more fleets in order to increase their presence on the map - the catch being that everyone is hampered by the chaotic, badly-run and accident prone ways of their airlines and need to improve them as the rounds pass, decades fly by and your starting fleets of Ford Trimotors eventually give way to the airbuses of the skies. 

It's only seven rounds, but the opacity of the relative values of everything - with players collectively deciding worth - meant took us a while - so long that at the other end of the table finished Babylonia before I could even get a picture of it, and started playing Azul. Martin won Babylonia rather convincingly as the others narrowly contested second place:

Martin 162
Gareth 118
Ian 117

And followed that with another victory in a tumultuous game of Azul:

Martin 68
Ian 66
Gareth 58

They even had time for a game of Spicy whilst we wrapped up our competition!

Gareth 33

Martin 19

Ian 17

"It turns out I can bullshit" said Gareth, pleased with his revenge after being stiffed on the final round of Azul. By this time we were wrapping up too, and Adam's domination of the International airways was proving not as clinically deadly as we'd feared. In the final count-up he was briefly second, but after we'd repaid our bonds, I snuck past him. Meanwhile Joe, who'd focused his efforts on serving the domestic interests at home, was King of the Airways:

Joe $308k

Sam $270k

Adam H $258k

It was time for So Clover, 

With six of us there was a possible 36 points to be had, and we got off to a flying start with Ian and my words being deducted in short order. Where we ran into trouble was Joe's clue Achilles being harpooned by the random card containing Arrow. Then we became convinced that Adam's clue of scabbard related to the words Sword Carton. It would have been nice if it were true - but it wasn't. Not unreasonably it was Sword and Draw. Despite these humps in the interpretive road, though we still managed a very decent 32/36.

With an early start, Gareth and Adam headed for home whilst the rest of us settled on a finisher of High Score, Reiner Knizia's Decathlon-esque game of rolling dice and hoping for the best. Seven rounds challenge you to score in numerous ways, with varying dice-rolling rules (freeze at least one; roll thrice; roll four times but it has to be all the dice etc) applied to various objectives. The bizarre humour of probabilities was evident when Joe managed to break the scoretrack by scoring 60, and then Martin - needing 4's - rolled every 4 there was to be had. 

proof

But Ian's slow and steady stream of second-place finishes in the rounds was enough to give him the game when he broke the habit to win the final round and push himself past Martin:

Ian 13

Martin 11

Joe/Sam 9 each

And that was that! Thanks to Joe and Adam for your patience on a fairly epic Tin Goose whilst the others played three games. I do like it, but appreciate it's a little longer than standard Tuesday night fare. 

The Balance Of Trade

I arrived at Joe’s at the tail end of a game of Zero Down. It’s been a while since I’d seen it. So long, in fact, that I didn’t recognise it. I recognised everyone sitting around the table, though. Sam, Martin, Ian, Adam T, and Joe.

Martin 7

Ian 9

Joe 19

Adam 34

Sam 45

After this, Martin and Adam were keen on Impulse and I happily joined in, which Martin was relieved about since Impulse is not an easy game to teach. Adam sped off into an early lead, trading cards for big points. But it was too big a lead and he made himself a target. I happened to have a cruiser in striking distance and so, goaded by Martin and with Adam within easy reach of a win, I set off to vanquish him. I’m not a big fan of player elimination, but I didn’t have a huge amount of choice.

We went into battle and our initial card from our hand totalled up to the same amount. It was all o
n the draw of a card each from the deck. Adam drew a 1, I drew a 2. I won, and Adam rued his decision to hold back a card that would’ve tipped the war in his favour.

But then Martin went from 9 to 18 points in a single move, just two away from victory. I needed ten points, and I was certain of six. I had to rely on lucky draws from the deck for a tradeable card for those extra few points but, unlike Joe, I am not known for my lucky draws and I came up short.

Martin 20

Andrew 16

Adam out

Sheepy Time was coming to an end so we quickly sped through a game of Whale Riders: The Card Game.

Andrew 61

Martin 61

Adam 59

As for Sheepy Time, Ian won. Not bad for someone who, early on, noted that he was twenty points behind everyone else. A check of the rules told us that, officially, there are no second or third places.

Ian won

Sam and Joe lost

Now Adam made sort of going home noises, but was tempted to stay on for a game of So Clover. Adam impressed by writing “Dragula”, leading us to match “Camp” and “Myth”. Joe lowered the tone when he matched Shower with Golden. We were going okay until we slipped up on Ian’s clover, thinking Spartacus clued the word “alliance,” but it was just meant to be “old”

Score 34 out of 36

With Adam still making moves to go home, we tempted him with a rousing finale of Stinker. We all gave ourselves a rule-stretching 23 letter tiles and got cracking. Sam began with six ‘A’s in his pile of letters. Highlights were:

Real reason for world war two – Goebbels stole a razor (Martin)

Substitute for under pants - toasted gonads (Adam)

First thing to do on Jupiter – Radiate Smugnity (ian)

Title of a new Bond Film – Time to Strangle (Joe)

How to avoid the draft into the army – Run, dig a hole, scream (Sam)

My answer to "The road to Hell is paved with..."

By the end, our misspelling was very creative with Sam using a B on its back as an M and I had an A pointing right as a D.

Ian and Martin won with three cards each.

Adam and I left at this point while the other played High Score (but surely every game could be called High Score) using a collapsible dice arena.

Martin 13

Joe 12

Sam 11

Ian 6

And finally they played Cross Clues and got 19 out of 25.

Thanks all. See you next week.

Do I look bothied?

When I arrived at Sam’s, a little before 8, I found I’d already been dealt into Fuji Flush. Weirdly, this game of luck is the only game I have any real form in so I was glad to hear it was back on the table. But I was in no position to challenge Adam, who played one double-digit card after another. His victory was assured when I snuck a joint second by joining in with his final card: an 11. Meanwhile, Sam said he had nothing bigger than an 8 for the whole game. The scores were (approximately…)

Adam 0 cards left

Joe 1

Andrew 1

Martin 1 or 2

Sam 2

Then we split into two groups. Martin, Laura, Joe and Sam played Lost Continent at one end of the table and Katy, Adam and I played Isle of Skye. Although Isle of Skye was Katy’#s game, she admitted she couldn’t really remember the rules, so Adam read them as we set up  and tiptoed unsurely through the first round (we all scored three points) until we had a better idea of what we were doing.

Katy went big on sets (farms, lighthouses and bothies, which is where the blog title was born)  as well as fretting about not being able to complete a lake. My rectangular kingdom scored big on the three-vertical-tiles reward while Adam ended the game with lots of money, but in a fairly distant last place.

Katy 84

Andrew 78

Adam 62

Adam and I tried to take the shine off Katy’s win by pointing out that she kept taking tiles out of the bag first, even when she wasn’t starting player. But she wasn’t discouraged, spending more time bonding with Laura since she’d just also just won.

That game, Lost Continents, seemed to be somewhat AP-ish, with Laura insisting that it was the most she’d ever concentrated and Martin (I think) commenting that it was an awful lot of thought for very little return.

Laura 28

Martin 24

Sam 22

Joe 22

Then there was a slight reshuffle, with the two victors swapping groups: Katy joined Joe, Martin and Sam for a game of Nokosu Dice and Laura joined me and Adam, asking for a game with dice. Eventually we decided on Las Vegas, which has plenty of dice. So many, in fact, that none of us noticed I had an extra one until we’d finished and Adam was packing it away. This made my supreme win very suspect. I magnanimously offered to dock myself $20,000 but somehow they didn’t seem impressed by my magnanimosity.

Andrew $53,000

Adam $31,000

Laura $16,000

Then Laura left and Adam and I went head to head on good old Azul. We played the free side of the board, where you can put your tiles where you like, but they still have to obey the rule of one of each colour per column/row. Adam stymied himself a couple of times, but still had enough to beat me soundly.

Azul 62

Andrew 48

After that, Katy, Adam and I left. Joe, Martin and Sam were pondering another but for me it was a dash into the night. Thanks all. See you all soon.

On the Nokosu Dice half of the table, it appeared to be a roller coaster of emotions as Katy was heard to ask, delighted, “am I winning?” only to be in the slough of despond a few minutes later. It ended in high drama, as Joe was looking hopeful for the win if he got his predicted number of tricks. Alas, he had one trump left in his hand and it won him one trick too many. If he’d made his call, he’d have won the whole thing.

Martin 66

Katy 37

Sam 33

Joe 24