A blue wizard and a purple giant walk into a bar

 Around 10 minutes late, I arrived at Sam’s kitchen with Adam T, Joe, Martin and Sam already playing Fellowship of the Ring. I settled down to watch the quartet struggle through a challenging set of criteria. They even needed two do-overs (or “Gandalf’s Magic”) to get as far as they did. But ultimately, the cruel forces of Mordor or whatever, foiled them.

As a five-piece we first turned to Ethnos. Adam got a rules refresher while the rest of us struggled with the game’s famously difficult-to-handle pieces. They fit together so snugly, but if you put any real pressure in your grip, they’ll slip apart and scatter themselves across the table.

As for the game, Martin spent round one playing very small bands that scored few points but got him a lot of presence on the board, especially two high scoring areas with points of 4, 8, 10. Sam made an early move for another area with points of 0, 0, 8.

Round two was very long, with the third dragon not appearing until the very last card in the deck. Round three, on the other hand, was over very fast. Too fast for Joe who had only played a single three-member band before the round ended. His disappointing third round meant that he barely moved on the score track, while Martin built on his already impressive lead. Joe was saved the ignominy of being lapped by only a single point.

Martin 105

Sam 91

Andrew 89

Adam 83

Joe 46

Next, we played Rebel Princess with Martin getting a rules explanation. We were all given our princess with their special powers. I was Cinderella with the, ultimately useless, ability to choose another player to lead if I win a trick.

And win them I did. Especially in round two were I completed a clean sweep of all tricks, picking up all fifteen points in the process. Except that points are bad and my chances of a win after a decent first round were in tatters.

After that bruising experience, I did okay. Sam evaded most pitfalls, arriving at the final round with just one point. But this round had a special power: points now counted as double, except for the player in last place. A final twist in the tale - Sam now collapsed to 14 points while second-place Joe went clear and took the win.

Joe 10

Sam 14

Martin 14

Adam 19

Andrew 26

I went home at this point, but the evening went on. The did two Bomb Busters missions (one success, one failure) and then after Joe and Adam left, Sam and Martin banged out a few two-players. They won one game each of Agent Avenue and then Martin beat Sam 2-1 at Schnipp & Weg.

Thanks all! See you next week!