Colonel Berge

I was a little late to Joe's house but in time to see him bidding on sticks with Ian, Katy and Martin. This is Stick Collection, where players are trying to create a 'staircase' of sticks by collecting different lengths, with disparities of 5mm between them. You score ten points for each stair in your longest staircase, plus whatever cash you have left (to a maximum of 22) - or you can win instantly by getting four sticks of identical length. The considerable catch is that you have to judge the length by eye from your seat, while it sits in the middle of the table. 

It's more boisterous than this photo makes it look, with regular laughter and howls of complaint - largely from Martin - as people outbid each other only to discover the stick is not staircase-friendly.

Katy fretted that her good start had gone up in smoke, but she stayed out of a lot of biddings and it seemed to give her a strong enough end as well:

Katy 44
Ian 39
Joe and Martin 24 each

Mel had arrived towards the end, glasses steamed up from the chilly outside, but her sight had returned as we split into two groups with Martin signing up/press-ganging Mel and Katy into a game of Camden as Ian, Joe and I rejected it for various reasons: Ian didn't want to learn rules, Joe and I objected to the artwork. I know nothing of Camden other than it's by the designer of Lords of Vegas, there's some tile-placing and tangible dickishness. 

Similar vibes were being felt in Ireland, where Ian got off to a stormer as Joe seemingly dawdled behind, on zero for a while as his urban settlement tiles came out early. I say 'seemingly' because we suddenly realised he had seven castles out to mine and Ian's 2 apiece, and he was picking up speed...

Whilst at the other end of the table Martin picked up a win in Camden, with Mel runner-up.

Martin 55
Mel 45
Katy 42

They began playing Conic, a Knizian area-control with blind-bidding. 

After last week's epic everyone anticipated Rebirth would go on far longer, but we wrapped up shortly after Camden had finished. Somehow Joe had an extra tile, which he got to place at the end. But it wasn't quite enough to stop victorious Ian!

Ian 220
Joe 218
Sam 210

They'd only just started Conic (I think) so we broke out Misfits. And what a dastardly game it was, with Ian kicking things off with a doozy of a foundation...

Before it backfired, collapsing on him in such a way that even the bottom piece flipped over. Joe began things anew with the hexagon of relative safety...

Which grew and grew, but so precariously the top half of the structure wobbled whenever we put anything on it. But it didn't fall, and didn't fall, and still didn't fall... until it did. 

Joe simply had to place his last cube on top of the ruins to win - and he did. 

Joe wins!

Although it was slightly less rambunctious, Martin was claiming a similar victory in Conic at the same time:

Martin 12
Mel 9
Katy 4

It was only 9.30 but I was starting to fade and said I could do one more game. The group graciously defied convention to make that game So Clover, with its meta-game of who can draw the most lewd or revolting number on the back of their plastic leaf. Katy is normally Queen at this but I threw myself into contention with a poo in a bum that - along with Joe's musings about which direction it was travelling - made me feel so nauseous I had to change it to a frog. Then we actually played the game.

There was a lot of tension - especially from Katy...

...and some excellent clueing - although we came a cropper on Mel's clover missing an obvious choice - until we reached Joe's clover, which included two words I didn't even know. 'Col' I thought might be overhanging snow (actually cornice, I now remember: Martin identified it as a kind of mountain pass) or maybe Colonel, but I'd never heard of 'Nimh'. Fortunately Ian had, and identified it as a mouse. But 'Col' turned out to be Flea/Cake, which - bizarrely, but having no suitable alternates - we'd guessed!

"Explain yourself Joe!" Martin demanded, and Joe did. Although my notes say 'explanation unacceptable' I recall that because Colin the Caterpillar is a cake, then a contraction of this would be a smaller cake, and a smaller name: a flea cake. Or something. We got it, so maybe we knew more than we realised! Mysterious ways from the Berge. 

Katy and I both left at this point, but the remaining quartet went on to play Tower Up:

Which was another victory for Ian:

Ian 54
Joe 49
Mel 34

Martin 41

And that was apparently that!