John Cougar Fremen Camp

 This Tuesday I texted ahead to say I wouldn't arrive until 8 and I got the rather ominous reply from Sam that they were setting up Dune Imperium and wouldn't be ready by then anyway.

This week, we were only four in number. Host Joe and Sam, Ian and myself. In the absence of Martin and Katy, we turned our back on “tapas games” with their unnecessary emphasis on fun and chose the sort of game that can ruin somebody's evening.

We set off across the dusty planet after a rules refresher. Each player starts with two meeples and a basic deck of cards. You can use a card to place a meeple and get the reward or not play them until the end of the round, revealing your leftover cards in order to buy or fight. Chain together cards of the same clan (such as the Fremen, who gave rise to today’s blog title) to get extra money/combat/etc.

That’s the basics. The depth comes from the options laid out in front of you. Do you want to make money or gain influence or take a seat on the High Council or even get down and dirty looking for spice on the planet’s surface?

Ian was an early leader, doing well on the battlefield. I was first to get my third meeple, so I felt like I was in with a chance but it seemed like everyone else kept using Influence Cards which kind of made up for it. And then they all got their third meeple too.

Then Ian won a huge battle - the first big combat of the game - but soon regretted it when he saw the reward for winning the following battle.”Why did I use all my troops?” he said, racked with regret as Sam won the next war and pushed himself into a lead that he never really looked like losing. He reached 8 points (only two away from triggering the end of the game) when the three of us were still on 5 and 4 points.

But Sam had a fallow round, and didn’t pick up any points while I nabbed two and Joe screwed over Ian twice, taking a point and a troop from him, and pushing himself up the score track and leaving Ian back in last.

In round 9, the reward for winning a war was two points. Sam went all in, and I did what I could, too. During the round I briefly squeezed ahead of Sam when I picked up a 9th point, but Sam’s victory in combat was never really in doubt.

Sam 10

Andrew 9

Joe 8

Ian 6

It was now about 10.50. I had to go, with no time or stamina left for So Clover which, I’m told, saw them screwed over by some unlucky decoy cards. They scored 12 out of 18.

Thanks all. It was an event. And a half.

Orbital Problems

A Saturday evening of games kicked off with Andrew and I watching the tail end of the FA Cup. Once upon a time the cup final would have felt like a seismic event to us, but in these days of country-financed football clubs and billionaire playthings, the sheen has worn off and rather than watch the post-match trophy-lifting and back-patting, we played Kingdomino. I forgot to take any photos, but Adam arrived as we hit the home straight and I took a reasonably convincing win. We set up Caldera Park and Ian arrived to join us, kicking off the night proper with a quartet of gamers, surrounded by washing. 

I don't actually remember who won Caldera Park. I think it was Andrew by a hair, as Ian fell foul of particularly bad weather and I of misplaced confidence. It was something like 

Andrew 183

Adam 182

Sam 135

Ian 120

There followed a flurry of game propositions where we finally alighted on Hansa Teutonica. And what an epic this was, as we serially irked each other via the medium of desk enhancements, like competitive IKEAing. 

Adam looked to be building a decent network as again Ian lagged. Andrew was stuck on two actions for long enough that I stopped worrying about him. A dreadful mistake, as misplaced confidence© once again bit me on the arse. Andrew's network plus his east-west connections sent him soaring to a convincing win. Ian staged a good recovery too, whilst Adam was probably over-targeted, his reputation preceding him:

Andrew 46

Sam 40

Ian 39

Adam 37

Great to play this again, I really think it merits more table-time on a Tuesday. But if we thought we had tamed Adam, oh boy did we have another think coming. After chips - which Adam charitably went to get - we set up Orbit: The International Space Race. This hasn't been seen in a while but the rules are hardly complex. What makes the game tricky is the constant planet movement and the forward-planning aspect that tacticians like Ian and dice-chucking fuckwits like me do not shine at. 

Perversely though, I got off to a good start. Whilst Adam complained that we were all doing his achievements, and thus depriving him of points, I pulled off all of mine and had some security and time to pick up missions. Weirdly, Adam was doing this too - despite having rockets that moved incredibly slowly, he seemed to spend a prodigious amount of turns picking up cards and making quietly and worryingly approving noises at them. Meantime my cards said things like Return from Neptune, Ride a Comet, or Make A Rocket From Twigs. Worse, Andrew and Ian started barreling up the track too, eating into my early lead, as Adam's murmurs of appreciation continued.

Suddenly Adam started scoring. While his rockets were still ponderous in the extreme, his planning department was pissing all over ours and in three turns he scored 21 points. I picked up another Mission card I couldn't do and then the game ended. Ian and Andrew had a couple of Missions each, I had about 6. Adam flipped over something in the region of 20, and most of them scored (when they don't score, they cost you points instead). 

Adam 62
Andrew 40
Sam 39
Ian 18

"I'm never playing this with you again!" I cried accusingly.
"That's what you said last time" said Adam. 

Andrew had to leave, and approaching 10pm, we'd been playing for five hours so the three of us wrapped up with So Clover. After a good start with Ian's clover (a six) things fell apart with mine and Adam's. I couldn't think of a clue for black/frame and ended up writing Van Gogh. One of Adam's clues was Trump, and Ian and I found numerous things that could have gone there, including capital/medusa. We were half-right. A paltry 12/18 in the end, and an underwhelming finale in points terms but, as always, a nice closer. 

Robot Bedtime

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and though the rain did its best, Ian arrived by bike to join Anja and Louie, Martin, and myself. While we waited for Steve - at work - and Adam - waiting out the rain - we cracked out a one-round game of Cabanga. 

There was a notable lack of Cabanga-ing. Everyone seemed to have a card that was adjacent, and when they didn't - see Anja's 16 below - nobody had the Cabangability. 

Ian won the round with three of us on 2 points and Louie on 3. But with the late arrivals now here, it was time to split into groups. Anticipating Louie's keenness, I'd brought Robot Quest Arena and he got that set up with Dad and Adam. Meantime Martin talked Ian, Anja and I through the quirky rules of Cascadero. Andrew has already covered this in the previous post, but it felt on first blush a bit like Reiner thinking How can I make Babylonia more thinky, and longer. The map is still dynamic and it's still about connections, but no longer predominantly focused on having a huge network - although it doesn't hurt. 

I'd helped them set up RQA but I didn't have time to do a brief overview as I was trying to hold everything about Cascedero in my head, a task I was to fail at. But Adam scanned the rules and they were up and running. Louie had a P2 W2 record at this, could he keep his 100% intact? As you can see, Steve had other ideas. 

We kicked off in Cascadero and despite Martin's clear explanation I had already rearranged a pivotal rule in my head, and I began what I thought was canny play only to subsequently notice everyone else was scoring points. For myself if nobody else: you don't score a point per envoy in a network that joins a town. But you do want to arrive later than the other players, with at least two envoys. Or one envoy with a seal. Where do you get a seal from? From Reiner's five available tracks up which you are pushing cubes for bonuses. 

Many of these bonuses are better for the first claimant, so each track has an element of racing to it. But Cascadero also has objectives - eg first to connect like-coloured towns, first to get all cubes to x spot or above on the track - and, lest we forget, the very Knizian bunfight taking place on the board itself, where there is racing-to, blocking, hoping-none-will-block and general chicanery. My head was hurting, but I was at least entertained by the play on Radio RQA transmitting from the other side of the table.

LOUIE

                I have a Tesla Coil, and you don't

STEVE

                You can sit on that coil and swivel

Pinter would be proud. I advised Louie to make a note of social services number and then wondered who I could call as Anja and I watched Ian and Martin sear off up the track, fifteen or so points ahead of us. Martin's blue cube had already reached the top of the track (should you not complete the track of your own colour by game-end, it's an auto-lose) whereas we were also lagging in the cube department. The board looked like a dog had eaten some Totterdown Lego and thrown up and Anja and I, united in our despair, agreed that discs would have been better than horsemen for 'legibility issues'. I insisted on lying my envoys flat, telling everyone that it made the board easier to read, but secretly feeling that they deserved no better, having disappointed me. 

In the Robo Arena, Adam was telling Louie "This is how it feels" in a tone of voice that suggested some kind of frozen dish was being served. In Cascadero, the end was approaching. Ian had few envoys left and Martin kept bemoaning his lack of seals. From somewhere, Steve had produced a cuddly seal and kept making it talk, adding a modicum of surreality to proceedings. But when things ended, they ended surprisingly. It was tense, so tense that when Martin mentioned closing the purple curtain nobody had the will to say anything juvenile. Anja and I had staged a mini-recovery of sorts, though we still lagged and Anja's cube hadn't reached the top of her orange track. I knew I needed to place just one envoy to get the yellow cities connection award (2 points) but I'd totally forgotten the 10 point bonus for connecting all coloured cities. I think Anja may have too; she got the reward but seemed remarkably underwhelmed by it, not even bothering to announce, or maybe even award, her big points swing after quietly placing an envoy:

SAM

(next in line)

                Is that it?

ANJA

(forlornly)

                That's it, yeah

Then I made my final connection and we both scored our points. It catapulted me past Martin and Ian to claim a very unexpected and, let's be honest, undeserved debut win:

Sam 43

Ian 41

Martin 39

Anja 34 (did not complete orange track)

And Robot Quest Arena finished at the same time! The final count-up took a while despite Louie's pressing bedtime, but if the reigning champ was concerned he had no need to be. It was another victory for the Man City of automaton wrestling:

Louie 33

Adam 31

Steve 28

A close thing. Louie was packed off to bed and we looked at the time and had the GNN classic of what-to-play next, before settling on Mille Fiori (Steve, Anja, Martin) and Via Nebula (me, Adam, Ian). Mille Fiori's opening was a classic: all three played into the same area, blocking starting player Martin in before he got going, triggering 45 minutes of almost constant swearing, at one point Steve yelling FUCK OFF loud enough to wake the kids. 

Via Nebula was equally spicy, if not quite as demonstrative. Apologies for hassling both my opponents on their first two turns, but I thought the game was going to be a lot longer (we finished before Mille Fiori did). Maybe my victory comes with an asterisk, but twice I utilised Ian and Adam's hard labour to complete contracts and build buildings. Once I even apologised for it. 

It felt like a speedy game. Having an extra contract in hand was helpful in giving me options, but the devil in the nebula is really the risk of loading up sites you share with someone else. Or sites that you're ready to build on before someone else swoops in. It has more than a smidgin of dastardliness, and as chief Dick I ended the game before the others could get their fourth building down:

Sam 27

Ian 18

Adam 16

While we were counting up they finished the other game too, with more chagrin from Steve and an exceedingly tight finish!

Martin 194

Anja 193

Steve 146

And that was that. No tapas night by any means and no So Clover to finish, but two significantly dickish main courses for everyone, with another Knizia-Wallace double bill! Thanks all. It was horrid. 

Bum Puppet

Today, the postman had pushed a whole load of mail through my letterbox for an entirely different house. Luckily, it was a house on Joe's street and so I set off to games with a little more intent than usual. So much so that I didn't notice Katy's other half, Rob, until I'd gone past and he'd said hello.

I arrived at Joe's where the host was already entertaining Adam T, Sam, Katy, Ian and Martin. Adam H got here soon after and we sorted out chairs and seating arrangements. I said that this was pointless since we'd surely swap places for games but it turned out we didn't need to. Half the table played the new Martin Wallace while the other half played a new Knizia. Wallace versus Knizia! What an occasion!

Sam, Adam T, Ian and Katy played Via Nebula, which seemed to be about clearing fog. But I didn't follow it much after Katy said “Let's play nice.”

And she did!

Katy 23

Ian 22

Adam 20

Sam 16

Sam said he liked it, despite “getting rinsed.”

Meanwhile, Martin, Joe, Adam T and I played Cascadero. When introducing it, Martin dismissively said it was some bullshit about kings but then we insisted that we needed to know the backstory and insisted he read it out. And he did. In character.

I can't remember it, though, except that we were ministers of industry, agriculture, textiles and money or something. The idea of the game is to put your envoys on the board so that they link up cities and push cubes up several bonus tracks to trigger extra moves/more points. Each minister has a particular bonus track that they must complete otherwise, in fine Knizia style, you are disqualified.

During this game, Joe pondered that whenever he saw a bonus track, he always wanted to bump up it. This was deliberately misheard fro comedy effect and gave us this week's blog title.

It was fine. I think we were far less shitty to each other than we could have been. Especially to Martin who got a juicy ten point bonus but Adam always seemed to be at his shoulder.

Although the end of the game was made notably more exciting by Joe's cat who decided to sit on Adam's lap and stare at the game as if it were easy prey just waiting for a pounce.

Martin 49

Adam T 44

Andrew 29

Joe 29 (but an incomplete bonus track)

It was good, although an odd ending. Options were sparse. Martin couldn't finish the game by reaching 50 points and we eventually ended when Adam ran out of meeples.

While we finished, the others played Little Tavern, with a little variant where they read out the flavour text on the card they drew and the others had to guess if they were goblin/witch/elf etc.

Ian 26

Sam 19

Katy 19

Adam H 19

Then, amazingly, Lords of Vegas was brought to the table! At 9.15! But it was chosen because it was Katy's last games night for a month, and they seeded the game over card a little earlier in the deck than normal, to shorten the game. 

Ian explained the rules to Adam T and I was a little surprised to see the dice-averse Adam H as one of the participants. “Do you usually win?” asked Adam T, seeing Katy’s excitement at playing. She insisted she didn’t (which, in fairness, is true) but next time I looked over, Katy had a very early three-tile casino on the Strip.

We played Spectral, a deduction game in which players secretly look at cards (in a 4x4 grid) and note the clues revealed in order to deduce where the most jewels may be. And to avoid the demons. It was okay. Sam seemed to struggle, although he said he felt confident heading into the closing stages, while I was confident of where to avoid but didn’t pick up enough gems to make an attempt on the lead.

Joe 48

Martin 38

Sam 27

Andrew 24

In Vegas, meanwhile, Adam paid $40m to sprawl into a new square and, in doing so, took over a seven-tile casino on the strip. Ian, meanwhile, was stuck on 3 points while Adam H had 12, Katy 16 and Adam T was on 20. His exclamations over disdain as his luck echoed around the room. Meanwhile, Adam H sprawled into a new plot and got himself a new seven-tile casino for “only” $40m.

After Spectral, we played Cabanga. Martin told me it was fun because you got to say “Cabanga” and I pointed out I could do that anyway. But it’s all about context, and saying “cabanga” meaning “fuck you” was more fun than just blurting it out like an idiot. 

Sam 4

Martin 4

Andrew 6

Joe 7

We only played two of the regulation three rounds because Lords of Vegas ended, with a possible lowest score for Ian.

Katy 44

Adam T 32

Adam H 26

Ian 6

The two Adams left and we ended on So Clover. With six of us, there was the chance of a legendary 36 out of 36. Joe actually exercised the rarely used rule of being able to reset your clover, after he admitted to just staring at “magnascope.” We began well, although we had a few close calls. Ian, in particular, had a mean decoy with “rifle” that fitted his clue of “killer” perfectly until we reconsidered that “white/colour” wasn’t a good fit for “wedding”.

With five out of five, it was all down to Joe, but alas it wasn’t to be. Despite his second chance at getting some workable words, we failed twice to get his clover right.

33 out of 36

No fame for us tonight. But lots of fun.  Thanks guys.

Psychic Failures

I was a little uneasy at arriving early at Joe’s this Tuesday, so I was glad when Ian cycled up at about the same time. And I needn’t have worried at all since Joe had already started the evening with a little Martini to keep him company. The bigger Martin(i) would be along soon, after Katy and Sam arrived, each with their own comments about the fine weather. Finally Adam H got here and, with no word from a potential Anja, we started gaming.

Since Katy wanted something gentle, we began with Take It Easy. Joe’s and Sam’s copies were used to allow all seven of us to compete, and Joe was caller. Today’s theme was Steely Dan songs, with Steely Dan on the stereo. For the atmos, you know. There was the usual agony and elation (mostly agony) and it ended with Adam winning a pretty close game.

Adam 209

Martin 190

Joe 184

Andrew 182

Katy 178

Sam 158

Ian 150

Then we split into two. Katy was still in the market for gentle games and was tempted to join Martin and Joe in a game of Renature. Because she likes animals.

Ian, Sam, Adam and I chose Ra over Hansa Teutonica (on the toss of a coin) and set out Joe’s luxurious version, complete with underwhelming round counter, which is about the size of a scrabble tile and really could have been omitted.

In round one, Ian was last player standing but lost out when the Ra track ended before he could sweep up everything available. Adam was in the same position in round two but he had four chances to pull Ra tiles, so he was fine. In round three, Adam was out first saying he thought he’d be last. I said he was crazy, thanks to this buildings, but turns out he was right. I had a good round two and pretty much had the same tiles in front of me at the end of the game, too.

Andrew 44

Sam 26

Ian 25

Adam 19

I went to the toilet and came back to find Misfit already out of its box. It was a typically crazy game. Adam began with a vertical column and it got worse from that. Ian had the first collapse, clearing the structure from the table entirely.

Sam got a text just as he was placing a piece and almost ruined his turn. Then Ian got the yips just as he was adding to an already impossible structure and then Adam had a tap-in to win the game. Sam, too, finished that round. Still not sure if that’s a tie.

Adam wins!

Renature also ended at this point, with Katy ruefully pondering if sitting "cuntside" of Martin was actually a benefit.

Joe 93

Martin 79

Katy 59

And with that, I was done. Still tired from my new job, I bailed early at only 9.30. Still had a great time though.

I’ll hand over to Sam to continue the blog…

*

We were still going strong when Andrew left and at Martin's insistence, played Cabanga. Luckily for all of us - especially Martin - Cabanga was good fun, a Nimmt-esque game of shedding cards as quickly as you can without getting 'Cabanga-ed' when others dump cards on you. I'd explain the rules but I'd forgotten I was meant to be finishing the blog (sorry Andrew/everyone) but it was fun and funny.

Ian won on the first round with zero points, followed by me, Joe, Adam and Katy. Martin was last with a whopping 22 - points are bad. Then Adam left and we played Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go To The Ghost Town. The rules are short and sweet but I forgot them anyway. Martin delivered a pizza and won!

I think we played Cabanga again - Joe won - before polishing off the night with the classic closer of So Clover, bringing in a reasonable but not amazing 16/24

Fun! Thanks all. And sorry for late reportage. 

Indian Winter

Last night three of us - Ian, Chris, and myself - faced off across the board of Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India 1290-1398. This is a GMT game but flies in the face of GMT's standard output in terms of accessibility and brevity: I taught it in 15 minutes and we finished in a shade over 2 hours. 

The game is a fight for power across the provinces that all begin the game under the control of the Delhi Sultanate, played by Ian. Chris (Vijayanagara, yellow) and I (Bahmani, blue) are the upstart empires sensing weakness and looking to gain control for ourselves. Ian begins the game cash rich and in command of every province, meaning his victory marker currently sits at 18 compared to mine and Chris' zero. We're at peace, meaning all the provinces are tributaries, happily - or begrudgingly - deferring to the Sultanate's power and numerous troops. But we're scheming. 

Ian doesn't just have the Vijayanagara and Bahmani to worry about though - from the north, Mongols periodically invade, making it as far as Delhi - Ian's capital - and generally getting in his shit. 

It works like this: each round a card is flipped denoting turn order and offering an event. One by one we decide whether to take the event (a special action, for one player only) do a command & decree (two distinct actions, again for just one player) or a limited command/pass (limited action/get some cash). The catch is that command & decree and about half the events make you ineligible for the next round, essentially sacrificing a turn for jam now. 

That's as complicated as it gets: the actions are largely get some dudes on the board, move them around, attack each other and - for Chris and I - rebel against the Sultanate's rule, wrestling a province from Ian's grasp. Doing so pushes our victory marker up the track, and drags his down. Other actions get you cash and cavalry, which are dead handy in combat. 

Chris and I also have an influence track to ponder: you can feasibly stay at zero influence for the whole game, but increasing it not only makes certain commands and decrees more powerful, it also affects the victory point marker for the Vijayanagara / Bahmani. Influence entices us away from the unspoken - or often spoken - agreement to attack Ian: if we manage to knock each other out of a province, our influence goes up and the other empire's decreases. 

Combat is simple too: attacker rolls four dice and defender two: each side does damage for rolls that match or are less-than units-present. So if you have six units, all your rolls will be hits! The aforementioned cavalry come into play here: used to 'charge' and decrease a die value by one, or 'screen' and remove an opponent's hit. 

Essentially it's a game of shenanigans: more reactive and tactical than beholden to long-term strategising. Power ebbs and flows and there's a palpable bit of leader-bashing, although the Sultanate cannot attack the Vijayanagara and Bahmani empires unless they have rebelled in that province, meaning they have to march past 'obedient' smirking Amirs and Rajas to reach their more brazen co-conspirators.

The other empires start off focused on the Sultanate, but late-game are just as likely to be attacking each other, using special decrees like Conspire and Compel to engineer treachery amongst the ranks of their opponents. Which is handy for Delhi as the game-end is triggered by the Mongols launching a huge invasion on the capital, meaning the Sultanate player has a kind of pub-carpark finale where they can gain as many as three points - a big swing - or lose up to three, depending on how many Mongols remaining in Delhi after the battle. Ian had prepared well and managed to defeat them all, giving him the maximum points haul. But the abrupt ending had favoured me and I finished a point ahead of him!

Sam 11
Ian 10
Chris 7

We all liked this. It has an epic feel but moves at a reasonable clip, and I think familiarity would bring the play-time down further. The asymmetry is noticeable but not at Root-levels of density, and you sit out far fewer rounds than standard COIN games in the 'eligible' stakes. What's more it finishes early enough to play Little Tavern (Chris won) and So Clover (twice) where Ian's clover appeared to be solvable with a single card:

Amazing. Even more amazingly, we cracked this one and scored 18 on our first attempt, before turning in a far less impressive 13 in our second. 

Synergies

Another rainy day at least had the promise of games at the end of it. I arrived at Joe's early and to kick off the evening we combined dishwasher duties with some quick fire questions from League of the Lexicon, discovering that the phrase rise and shine comes from a plea to the sun. We were maybe hoping for something more idiosyncratic, involving shoes, but reality yet again disappointed. Then things perked up again as Katy, Ian and Adam T all arrived. Joe started the evening in earnest by prompting a game of Mind Meld, which is basically Medium without the cards: two people volunteer random words and then after the 3-2-1 countdown, announce them: Katy and I began with book and shirt. Then the first pair of players to think of a connecting word put their hands up, and we repeat the process until a pair of players finally say the same word. 

Often we floundered around with synonym adjacent words, ending up with for example high-vis and traffic light. But it was fun. Then Adam H arrived and we began in even more earnest with Challengers Beach Cup. 

This is like Challengers, only more so. New to me but similar enough that Adam's rules refresher contained few surprises. We added some A cards to our starter sets and were off, with the early runners seeming to be Joe and the Adams. Katy and I found solace in our shared sequence of defeats - at least until she beat me. Ian muddled along mid-table whilst the Adams racked up what seemed like endless victories, as Joe came a cropper against me. Katy demanded a photo of these cards, I don't remember why now. I was busy crying into my gin. 

As the peloton fell away - and Martin arrived - the Adams faced off in the grand finale. "Are we supposed to be paying attention?" said Katy. I missed drama too, but I was in the loo and only discovered that 'Adam won' when I returned. I briefly wondered which Adam until the Hillmann variety said the whole thing was best forgotten.

Adam T - champion!

Adam H - runner-up

Ian and Joe - 23 fans

Katy - 22 fans

Sam - 9 fans

We split into two groups with Joe dropping his new trick-taker 9 Lives on the table, from Taiki Shinzawa, who brought us American Bookshop, Maskmen and Big Top. Martin Katy and Adam T jumped at the chance, leaving the three of us with choices. We looked in a mysterious box of Joe's that contained cards and a cloth bag before settling on Comet. 

In this game we're trying to rescue various animals by steering them to the safety of a cavern before the comet hits (which is the end of the game). It's driven by cards that can be played either as an animal, or discarded for movement - the potentially joyful caveat being you can skip over any opponent animals in your way - a kind of reverse El Dorado. Once an animal is rescued, it offers a special power. 

It's a reasonably interactive game in a kind of passive-aggressive way, as we hopped over each other and leached powers. And the primal beaver raised a juvenile snigger from the players of 9 Lives...

...which had attracted the attention of Spooky, who seemed to yearn Martin's lap but couldn't bring herself to attempt the leap between chairs. 

As for Comet, from straightforward beginnings it does get rather thinky at times, with the cards offering various options. Adam's love of optimisation meant that he found it somewhat inscrutable, even though he denied his yawning had anything to do with the game. The others ended 9 Lives with Adam yet again triumphant.

Adam T 9

Joe 7

Martin and Katy -1 each (although Katy insisted they scored zero)

Apart from some occasional profanity I'm afraid I missed the ins and outs of the latest trick-taker with a twist, but would like to try it soon. They began playing Scout...

... as we approached the endgame of Comet. 

When the Comet card arrives we can refill our hands but that's it, no further 'resting' to gain cards. Adam wrapped up what we felt might be a win as Ian and I realised our last animals were going to perish in a horrible fireball. But as it turned out, I'd done enough to defy Explainer's Curse:

Sam 40

Adam 38

Ian 23

A tired Ian said his farewells as the Scout game wrapped up halfway through, with Martin taking what they called 'half a win'. "But I only came for half the evening!" he protested. I suggested it was a quarter-win in that case. But whatever fraction you care to name, it ended with him in pole. 

Adam H suggested So Clover and there was no demurring - at least, not until we saw our words. In what was a first for me, I pointed out a rule that we'd missed: if we can't settle on where the cards should go, the player to the left of the 'spectator' (whose Clover it is) gets the deciding vote. Katy insisted we play it, and Martin insisted that we always agree in the end. "No we don't" said Katy. The rule was implemented - kind of. We kicked off with Katy's Clover and discovered all the cards matched all the clues, scoring 3. Then on my clover - apparently - none of the words matched any of the clues, although they did eventually score a perfect 6, and I subsequently explained that Belgium is on a planet. Martin's clue of Gegen fortunately made sense to Adam H and I - being football fans - and an argument broke out about what an 'evening machine' might be, with Joe and Martin volunteering TV and vibrator as examples that Katy rejected. "A vibrator is a machine!" someone insisted. Fortunately our score had already determined this scene would not go into the record of legends. 

After Joe pointed out that Stuart Hall is a 'famous molester' and we cracked Adam's cheesestring clue, it ended up a not-so-disastrous 29/36. Good work!

I was up for another crack but the time was well past 11 and we all had homes to go to, so swept ourselves back into the still-rainy night, until next time...