Mille Fury

With a multitude of people unable to make Tuesday games for various reasons, including being elsewhere in the country or watching the football, it was a relatively small attendance. With Anja and Steve volunteering to host, Martin and I (Ian) headed up the short distance up the Bristol-Bath Railway path - there was a moment where it looked like we might have a fifth attendee as Adam cycled past, but he was on his way to watch the aforementioned football. Still, 4 is a fine number for games.

When we arrived though, Anja was settling Lennon to bed, and Louis, having recently turned into an actual teenager, was too busy with email admin relating to his VR headset to play stuffy old boardgames, so we were temporarily a three. Martin, Steve and I played Jungo first – classic Jungo rules, not the Hachi Train variant. Fate smiled on me as I had some very lucky cards and after picking up some played cards was able to play 7 ones in a single turn. My luck meant I reached the winning condition of 2 fairly swiftly.

Ian – 2

Martin – 0

Steve – 0

We then played an edition of Timeline – I can’t recall the exact theme, but it just seemed to be “events”, but again fate smiled on me as one of my cards was “The Extinction of Dinosaurs” which seemed such an outlier compared to anything else it felt like cheating. Steve and I both got rid of our cards in the same round. We decided to guess at the remaining card “First Superhero” in a homebrew tiebreaker, whoever guessed the closest would win. I guessed 1936, only slightly earlier than the actual year of 1938.

Ian – no cards left

Steve – no cards left

Martin – 1 card left (I think)

Having settled Lennon Anja was finally free to play games. If it had been Christmas, Anja’s red-and-white arm cast (following a nasty fall down the stairs) would have been very festive, but alas we’re in May. After some brief gaming debate we settled on an old favourite, Mille Fiori.

It was a strange game in some ways, lasting maybe a tad longer than expected but full of twists, and the Townspeople areas relatively untouched for most of the game. Martin had an early lead, but after a slow start I was the first to reach 100 points. Martin scored big in one round and rocketed back ahead. Anja played a steady game throughout though and was able to pull into a comfortable lead when her early placements started allowed to start scoring bonuses. 

There was a lot of swearing with numerous utterances of “bollocks” and Steve, seemingly stuck languishing at the back, could only say “fuck you all” after finding the spaces he wanted to play in repeatedly blocked.

Anja’s consistent approach proved victorious, and Steve regained a lot of ground towards the end for a close finish.

Anja – 205

Martin – 188
Ian – 188
Steve – 178

Next up was Catan – On the Road. This card-based twist on Catan has seen a few plays recently, and it’s good fun. At one point during his trade Steve asked, “Does anyone have a sheep?”, and when Anja offered the said sheep Steve responded, contemplatively “So, you’re offering a sheep?” as if the offer wasn’t the exact request resource. It amused me, anyway.

It became very clear that Martin was going to win on his next turn, unless we could stop him. We tried, and Steve agonized over his final choice but couldn’t catch up to Martin, who ended the game as expected.

Martin – 7
Steve – 6
Ian – 5
Anja – 3

Steve retired at this point, leaving Anja, Martin and I to play a final game of Misfits. I do wonder if playing an arm in a cast would hinder Anja slightly, and a couple of tower collapses on her go seemed to suggest this could be case, but I also experienced a collapse leaving Martin to dispose of his pieces with relative ease. As usual, Misfits gave rise to wonderfully pleasant constructions best represented with pictures.

And with that Martin and I headed back to Greenbank, another lovely games night. Thanks all.