This week’s games night seemed to start early for me this week, as I awoke on Tuesday morning from a dream in which me, Martin, Joe and Ian were in a badly stocked off licence trying to buy alcohol. Ian was tempted by the chocolate cider by Thatchers while Joe had to be content with a 2 litre bottle of white wine called Sembrini that had party balloons on the label.
And then, as I approached this week’s venue, I arrived at Sam's at the same time as Adam T and Joe. Katy opened the front door to greet us. At least, she greeted Adam. He got a hug on the doorstep that lasted long enough for the silence between Joe and I to get awkward.
Once Katy was finished ignoring us, we all went into Sam’s kitchen which now held eight gamers: me, Adam, Joe and Katy as well as Ian, Martin, Pete and, of course, Sam.
Since there were eight, there wasn’t a chance for an initial communal game so we immediately split into two groups. Martin, Katy, Adam and Joe played Divinare - a rare but familiar game here at GNN, while Ian, Sam and me introduced Pete to Quantum - a very familiar sight on our tables.
Divinare played out on the far end of the table, and I couldn’t follow it’s progress although I was aware of Martin’s increasing despair and his insistence that he used to be good at this game. Katy procrastinated at one point, saying “I’m just touching cards,” to which Adam supportively replied “we’ve all been there.”
Katy 16
Adam T 16
Joe 12
Martin 0
There's no tie breaker in Divinare but Katy graciously accepts the win “because I'm a witch.” Joe found it intriguing: “I've never played it before,” he said.
“But you said you just needed a rule refresher,” said Martin, aghast.
“Yeah…” Joe replied. And we'll probably never know what he meant by that.
As for Quantum, Pete got a rules explanation and, thanks to a fortuitous roll of dice, was able to place a cube in his first go.
Pete and Sam were the early leaders with two cubes each, while Ian went warlike, even managing to wipe out four ships in one turn (attacked three, put cube down for dominance, picked up card with two extra moves, attacked again) and I expanded my fleet to the maximum five cubes.
But late in the game, i am in a winning position. I have the Agile card, meaning that deploying isn't an action and so i actually have three turns in a row where I'm able to set myself up for a win. But each time, someone attacks me, and the chance is lost.
Ian is too spread across the map to get a cube down (“I'm very vulnerable,” he says. “We're here for you,” Katy reassures him) and Pete still has two cubes, so it's between me and Sam when suddenly he deploys, warps and puts down a cube to win the game.
Sam 0 cubes
Andrew 1
Ian 1
Pete 2
The Divinare group had started playing Maya while we were still midgame. The only thing I remember about that is all the comments about Joe's massive rack.
Martin 173
Joe 144
Adam 129
Katy 115
And now we were all free of our respective gaming commitments, we could reassemble ourselves as our whims dictated.
Ian, Pete, Joe and myself all whimmed ourselves into a game of Wandering Towers, while Katy, Sam, Adam and Martin played Fearless.
Shockingly I didn’t note the result of Fearless, but I did note that leading with a zero seemed to be a dick move - and observation based on Martin's “fuck orrrrf” to Sam after he kept leading with zeroes.
As for Wandering Towers, we rapidly forgot where our wizards were as we built an incredibly tall tower.
Mid game, we checked the contents of the Raven tower to see how well we were doing and Joe was upset to see only one of his wizards in there, since he was sure he'd done two. In the Ian, Ian was most nimble, getting his fourth wizard into the black tower while no one else could manage that on the same turn.
Ian 4 wizards
Andrew 3
Pete 2
Joe 2
And with that, Katy and I set off home. The remaining sextet played so clover. Sam texted the score: 34/36
And then they played again as a quartet, but Sam was stymied by a card that could've gone on all four sides of his clover.
19/24
And so it ended. Thanks all, another evening of dreams coming true especially since Ian told us that chocolate cider does actually exist.
