99% Perspiration

It was a hot and sweaty night. Although thunder distantly rumbled, the vice-like warmth didn't break, and five of us sat in the kitchen grateful for the occasional blessings of an oscillating fan. With the darkness came a slight relief - but not much. It was like an African evening in a sweltering, conspiratorial Graham Greene novel - only with less espionage and more German post. 

But I get ahead of myself. Joe was early and so with 20 minutes at our disposal, we disposed of them with a crack at Letterpress. I'd recently had a harrowing game against Adam, scoring only 8 points (-bad for round one, let alone the deciding round five finale) and the early showings weren't good as Joe won rounds one and two and picked up a couple of challenge cards: he had six letters to my two at this point. But I rallied somewhat, and though Joe's final word was more stylish - VARSITIES - I picked up a redemptive (narrow) win with SCRAGGING. 

As we compared hands, Pete and Adam arrived, followed shortly by Ian. I suggested we start the evening proper with a frippery, and everyone was amenable to 1AM Jailbreak. This is a Saashi card-shedder where we are allegedly trying to escape all our prisoners (our hand of cards) out of jail and into the tunnel (the table). Despite playing it as recently as last week I was hazy on a couple of rules - I blame the heat - but fortunately Pete and Joe were on hand to help me out.

 

Over the three rounds Joe proved to be best escape artist, as he loosed all his prisoners from chokey every time. His only competition was Adam, as the rest of us appeared incapable of using a spade. I'm blaming going to get the fan on this one. 

1 Joe 
2 Adam
3 Pete
4 Ian
5 Sam

We looked at the stack of 5-player games I'd brought in and wondered if it was too hot for Hansa Teutonica. Or if it would be too long. Or if we'd be done by 9pm (this last one was a gamer's joke, unfit for any other scenario). But there was a general swing towards it so we set up and clarified a couple of fuzzy edge-cases, remembering everything else apart from the fact if you get extra actions you get them straight away - you really had to be there, it was dramatic. 

Initially we mostly split by geography. Outside of the classic fighting over Gottingden Joe focused on the north and me the south, with the others running interference on both. I scored the first point, but if I had ideas that this meant I was in the running - and it didn't - I was swiftly caught and overtaken by Joe. Despite Ian's best efforts to get in his way, he managed to get a little scoring route together in the north-west and starting eking out points. 

Joe (red) takes the lead. Ian (fingers) is just about to move 

him further up the track as well

I was last to get myself up to three actions and paid the price, spending much of the mid-game feeling underpowered as Adam spent his four - and then five! - across the table from me. Although he scored precious little from the route-building he seemed to have timed things well, and spent the last act powering his way across the board. 

But it wasn't enough to catch Joe, who'd juggled the various challenges of HT with aplomb, building a big lead through his routes and developing the joint-largest network. Pete's plans to connect the east-west postal route fell apart - "I've gone wrong" he said, like an early AI postman - and Ian realised that he had no network at all. 

Joe 42
Adam 33
Sam 32
Pete 29
Ian 25

A stone-cold classic - great to play again and it definitely suits five. 

It did take a wee while though - it was past nine now - and it was still hot. We collectively determined we had one more game in us and it would be So Clover. We opened with three sixes - Ian, Pete and myself - but were foxed by Joe's clue of rummers. Joe suggested we could google it but we weren't sure that was in the rules. We were also too hot and lazy. And so we missed glasses/pirate, not knowing a rummer is a glass and being sidetracked by my fixation on the Rummer pub in town, which I thought might be green. Or possibly grey. Sorry Joe. We ended on a 4 with Adam's clover, thrown by the fact he'd written Hoodlum for hood. "I only realised when you said it" said Adam. What with the heat, it was that kind of night. 

25/30 - not terrible by any means. A very fun night - two years and a day since my last play of Hansa Teutonica! Let's not leave it that long again... Thanks all 

You are Dewan for me

 I arrived at Joe’s house to find Martin knocking at the door as I approached. Martin looked at me quizzically and asked “did I just walk past you?” I was dimly aware of someone having strode past me a minute or so ago so maybe he had.

We began the evening as a quintet, with three others expected along the way. I was introduced to Link City “the Martin Variant”.In this game, a player draws three (or four) city sectors into their hand and decides their location on an already existing city in such a way that we’re able to guess where they would go.

The Variant is in the fact that the person who knows the city sectors also choses where the coloured cones go as opposed to the official rule where someone else places the cones. It was fun trying to work out if Ian would put a 5-star hotel next to an Intelligence Headquarters or a Leisure Centre. The only issue with the Martin Variant is making sure you’ve properly hidden your choices before revealing the options, as Martin himself forgot to do.

Katy arrived during this game and even took part in a round, scoring only one point. I wonder if there’s a thing whereby new arrivals joining games always do badly. But actually, overall we did pretty well.

43 points

Adam H and Pete join us around this point and we split into two groups. Martin, Sam, Joe and myself play Dewan. Katy looked at her co-gamers and sighed “we’ll never agree on what to play”. She made an early bid for Lords of Vegas but instead Mlem was chosen. 

And what a game it was. Ian seemed hopelessly optimistic as he immediately loaded his Deep Space Double cat onto the ship, but he made it all the way there. In fact it was a very high scoring game, with the top half of the board heavily populated while the lower reaches were largely ignored. Ian got the Deep Space Twice token and towards the end of the game Pete noted that they’d been to deep space more often than they’d exploded. Amazing scenes.

Ian 47

Pete 42

Adam 37

Katy 33

As for Dewan, this was my first game but the rules are quite straightforward. Place settlements on the map and score according to criteria on your story tiles. As we played, bits of Joe’s table fell off and I asked if we were safe as we jammed them back on again.

Joe said “it’s quite stressful” (referring to the game, not his table which he didn't seem worried about) and it ended very close. Martin scored 22 points from his story tiles while I got points for separate groups of settlements. Only an unfair and totally arbitrary tie-breaker could separate us.

Martin 38 and more cards left in hand

Andrew 38

Joe 37

Sam 34

Next up for the four of us while we waited for Mlem to finish was Jungo. My second variant of the day: this was called Hachi Train, and the deck was made up of the cards from 1 to 8 and the “two value” cards to one side as a draw pile. When putting down a stronger hand, you have to pick up the cards you just beat. 

We didn’t finish the game, playing only two rounds, so we never found out the overall loser but, for the record, I lost round one and Sam lost the second.

Now everyone was together, I decided to take a bow and leave. Without me Ian, Adam, Joe and Sam played a tiny version of Azul which Ian won with an almost indecent margin of victory.

Ian 103

Adam 56

Joe 66

Sam 45

After this they failed five times at Yubibo.

Meanwhile Pete beat Martin and Katy at Mongoose before they played 1am Jailbreak.

Katy 8

Pete 5

Martin 4

Then they played So Clover twice. Some people must have left because Sam sent photos of five then four clovers.

Another special evening. Thanks all.

Bridge of Sighs

Anja and Steve's was the venue last night, as the rain returned to Bristol once more and I picked up Ian and Martin en route. We arrived to find Anja and Louie and also Ross, who I briefly thought was a newbie only to discover he was there to plumb, as our hosts had been without water for two days already. Fortunately, Ross was to prove successful at plumbing in short order - I was getting nervous about the possibility of bathroom trips being eliminated - though he chose not to join us for the evening's entertainment, but instead go home. By this time, we'd already failed twice at YUBIBO.

It's very much a game that requires a certain type of investment. As Pete pointed out, it's as much about endurance as dexterity, as keeping your hand in a certain position for x amount of time whilst various sticks lean on it isn't a Tuesday night staple. But it was fun. 

By now Steve and Lennon had returned from rugby and Anja set about household duties as Steve joined us for a crack at Link City. We began well with Ian as mayor, getting everything right. Then our successes were rather more mixed around the table, until final mayor Joe got 4 out of 4 to right some wrongs and transform our fortunes from workaday into a high score: 40 points and officially Wow City. 

Martin remained a little indifferent to the game, but I really like it. Although I also like his suggestion that the mayor choose the locations as well. Let's try that next time. 

We now split into groups with Joe leading Ian and Martin off to Sunrise Lane, and Pete talking Anja and I through the rules of 1am Jailbreak, the somewhat niche-themed card-shedder where we are funnelling escaped prisoners through a tunnel. 

Pete found Anja and I a slightly befuddled audience, as we both failed to understand what are fairly simple rules, I think because they are a little unexpected: there are no rounds, you simply keep playing on and on until all your prisoners (ie cards in your hand) have escaped. Also unexpected: Steve, who turned up as we were about to start, but then left again, unable to make it to freedom. 

You can play sets or runs, the only caveat being it must be the same amount of cards or one more or one less as whatever amount the previous player laid. And you can also make a run for it by adding a card to the previous player's cards in order to both hike up the possibility of a big set/run - and of course, ridding yourself of a card in the process. In what I like to think are my Eastwood-in-Alcatraz qualities, I proved best at breaking out of prison in the night. Points are bad:

Sam 0

Pete 6

Anja 17

Sunrise Lane was a slightly closer thing. In fact a much closer thing, for Martin and Ian at least, although Joe wasn't a million miles away.

Martin 101

Ian 100

Joe 88

We were still escaping the penitentiary at this point, so they began playing Martin's trick-taker that is also - I was later told - a melder of Rummikub-type proportions: Doctor Science. Ian said he struggled with it, but seemed to pick up speed as they went. Unable to synchronise groups, we finished 1am Jailbreak and debated what to play next. Steve had now joined us for the duration as well, so we wanted something good for four but not too long. When I suggested Old London Bridge, to my surprise about 2/3rds of the whole room spontaneously intoned "Old London Bridge" in a deep, singsong voice. I was both alarmed and intrigued, so we jettisoned all other ideas and Steve set it up. 

I think Andrew has previously explained the rules so I won't regurgitate them here, but I really enjoyed this. Thematically it's entirely nonsensical - everyone builds their own bridge and bids for buildings - but it's speedy and interactive and different strategic approaches are available. Anja began her bridge with a bucolic park, and focused early energies on the chapel track, which determines the very common tie-breakers. All of us - except Pete I think, who was less wasteful - pushed previously-built buildings into the Thames to replace them with others, and Steve was most effective on the pink track, the name of which now escapes me. 

Anja pulled a fast one on Steve in the final round, giving the post its title. But it was Pete - the only player to complete their bridge - who was to triumph, as his sprint up the chapel track, highest-bidding cards and collection of cash saw him dwarf our efforts. 

Pete 50

Sam 42

Steve 35

Anja 26

They finished a crazy Ra around now as well. When I looked over in the first round, there was a solitary Ra tile out on Joe's bespoke mat, and yet Martin had a collection of tiles in front of him that suggested the entire game was nearly over. Fifteen of them!

I also heard Joe bemoaning his filthy luck, as various Disaster tiles emerged, turning his potential haul into a bag of Egyptian dog turds before his very eyes. Ian grabbed a snap of this horrifying ordeal for posterity.

Joe's anguish not pictured

Neither he nor Ian could catch Martin after that spectacular first round. 

Martin 48

Ian 29

Joe 28

And that was it for the night - it was already 11pm somehow so the social commuters made their way back to their cars and home again. Thanks all, it was constructive.