We’ll always have Powys

GNN games weekends are the semi-regular binge of board games that allow us to experience things that simply wouldn't happen during a typical evening session. Such as a hungover Ian trying to sleep in a nook by a window while all around him is chaos, or Katy swearing loudly at noon or my attempt at playing a dense, convoluted eurogame while also making pizzas.

It all began on Friday. I got a lift there with Sam and Stanley. We off at four o'clock, and the journey was pretty straightforward, taking about an hour. No such luck for Joe and Katy who had left Bristol at one, but managed to get lost three times, meaning it took them three hours. "We were so lost, we found a games shop in Monmouth," explained Joe.

Either way, when we arrived at Crickhowell (in Powys), Joe Katy, Hannah, Adam and Arthur were already there. And, far from chucking our stuff into rooms and getting straight down to some serious gaming, we stood around and chatted, apparently oblivious to the neat stacks of games in the corner of the room.

The earliest sign of our competitive spirit was a brief spell on the table tennis table while Joe and Katy cooked. After a delicious meal, we finally started gaming with Bandu. Stanley impressed us with his withering look since Katy made no allowances for his young age, handing him some terrible pieces.

Adam
Joe
Sam
Stanley /Andrew
Katy

This was followed by Hannah beating Joe and Katy (77, 71, 68 respectively) at Isles of Skye, and Sam beating Stanley, me and Adam (130, 128, 112, 107) at Ethnos, with its irritating base-60 score track.

Ethnos

During these games, Steve and Jon arrived (Jon, without Power Grid! For shame) and kids were put to bed. There were a couple of games of Happy Salmon, an action game that involves drawing cards and then trying to find someone else around the table who has the same action, while everyone else is doing the same. It looks absurd, and the silent version doubly so, but it seemed popular throughout the weekend.

At first, we split into two groups of four, for Ticket To Ride and Clans Of Caledonia on offer. Then Jon made the switch across the table to TtR, leaving Clans as a three-player affair.

This was possibly a wise move, since even as a three-player (two of whom were novices) Clans of Caledonia lasted a long time. Long after Ticket to Ride ended, and they were deep into Tumblin’ Dice.

Ticket To Ride
Hannah 176
Jon 164
Joe 138
Katy 113
Steve 92

Tumblin’ Dice
Jon 138
Joe 112
Katy 102
Steve 39

Two remarkable an inexplicable defeats for Steve, who only escaped negative points in Tumblin’ Dice in the final round.

Clans of Caledonia was a struggle for me, and I probed the various options with all the timidity of a man pushing a button in a wall, convinced it would open a trapdoor under his feet. Adam, despite yawning through most of the rules explanation, had a much better idea about what was going on.

Adam 136
Sam 127
Andrew 89

By now it was late, and travel-weary and somewhat tipsy, we all got together for a game of Dead Man’s Chest, the game where explaining the rules is never quite enough. Steve and Jon were newbies, and they seemed as baffled as we once were. And sometimes still are.

As for the game, it had three Dead Man rolls (i.e., a one and two). One of which cost me a life on the very first roll of the game. Then the next two both hit Joe, one of which he opened by accident (“Oh. I looked.”). Sam finished in first, with both lives still intact.

Sam
Joe
Katy
Jon
Steve
Andrew

That was that for day one. On Saturday morning, people arose in the following order: Hannah, Stanley and Arthur at 7.30 (probably earlier), then me, Jon, Joe, Sam, Katy, Steve and then a big gap before Adam finally emerged at 9.45. The first game to be played, after all the various breakfasts, didn’t get going until 10.25, and it was Junk Art.

Steve 16
Adam 13
Joe 9
Katy 7

Meanwhile, Jon introduced me to Patchwork and won 15-2, but I was impressed by the game. Ian was collected from the station by Sam and they played a tight game of Heck Meck with Ian winning 13-12.

Next up was a true challenge: A Feast For Odin. Adam, Stanley, Ian and I all set off on this epic undertaking. Adam, though, had a trick up his sleeves: the rules. He’d watched a review or two and noticed that no one else builds up from the corner as we do, and he discovered that that rule only applied to calculating the income. Everything else was a free-for-all.

I had suggested playing a six-round game, but Adam quickly insisted on a seven-round one. I didn’t think anything about this at the time but looking back I remember that, although Adam had populated two islands, his main player board had almost no minus points covered during round six. Without that seventh round, things could’ve been very different. But we did have a seventh round, so things were all too familiar.

I went for animals, Stanley went pillaging and Ian started slow before suddenly filling his board with blue tiles.

Adam 111
Stanley 86
Ian 72
Andrew 65

In the kitchenette area, a game of Downforce was played, with the general consensus that the two-car strategy was a non-starter, with the eight-wheeled Jon and Steve trailing.

Sam 27
Joe 14
Steve 11
Jon 7

Steve was keen to get back on this horse, as it were, and another (five player) game of Downforce was set up. Again, Steve ended up with two cars, although I don’t think he had planned it that way. The race ended with both of his cars still on the track, racing each other for fifth place, until Steve ran out of cards and they both ended with a DNF.

Katy 24
Jon 20
Ian 18
Andrew 17
Steve 6

At this time, a game of Flipships was underway with Hannah, Joe, Stanley and Sam trying to keep the invading aliens at bay. My notes for this game read simply “Earth died.”

Meanwhile, Steve taught Katy and Jon the card game Tenbo. Possibly because he likes it or possibly because he wanted a game he knew he’d do well in.

Steve 21
Katy 15
Jon 13

Then, if last night’s Clans of Caledonia weren’t enough of a warning, I allowed myself to be recruited to another long game beginning with a hefty rules explanation: Yokohama. Even though I’d played it before and had some idea of what it entailed, I needed a rule refresher as much as the two beginners: Steve and Jon. Joe was the rules-explainer, but even he’d forgotten a great deal, and the rule book was never far from hand.

Yokohama

During Yokohama, Ian, Katy and Hannah comfortably played two medium sized games: Mad King Ludwig (Ian 95, Katy 89, Hannah 63) and Hit Z Road (Ian and Katy both survived – I don’t recall who won – but Hannah died early on).

Also Sam and Stanley played Near and Far. According to my notes, it was a draw.

As for me, I had to start making pizzas while still playing Yokohama. This made things difficult, not least because the layout of the kitchen meant a lot of walking back and forth, and I had to keep washing my hands before making my move.

My efforts at making pizza outlasted the game, and lead to a largely game-free period as people got their food one after the other. The scores for Yokohama were:

Jon 116
Steve 111
Joe 78
Andrew 60

The last of the food was being served (and thanks to Joe for knocking together some burritos to make up the shortfall in my pizzas) at nine o’clock and some restless gamers were after some gaming.

Hannah, Katy, Joe and I chose Lords of Vegas while the others set up a much-requested (by Stanley) game of Captain Sonar. Captain Adam, Steve and Jon were up against Captain Stanley, Sam and Ian. This game ended with a victory for Captain Stanley after Radio Operator Steve admitted he missed one of their movements and, from then on, didn’t know where the other submarine was.

In Lords of Vegas, it was a surprisingly swingy game. Katy started well, building lots of one-tile casinos of many colours, but then stalled as she couldn’t convert them to two-tile casinos quickly enough. So Joe took over, surging into a lead. But then he was undone by some reorganising from Katy and especially Hannah, who reduced his previously presidential presence in a five-tile casino to two miserable one-pip dice. I, meanwhile, faced early frustration in the lack of brown casinos paying out. My luck turned towards the end but too little, too late.

Hannah 40
Andrew 36
Joe 26
Katy 23

With Stanley off to bed, the other five played Tortuga. Ian won. “He was Dutch” says my not very helpful notes. “Everyone else lost. Weird conversation about nationalities” it continues.

Tortuga

People slowly peeled away to bed, leaving six players refusing to buckle under the weight of fatigue. Myself, Jon, Joe, Steve, Katy and Ian stayed up for more. And, just like last night’s Dead Man’s Chest, we chose to introduce Steve and Jon to a game that never seems to make sense, no matter how much you try to explain it. Namely, Bemused.

Ian pours himself a beer for Bemused

This game of adopting personas is more an event than a game. A chance to throw insults at people according to which muse they’ve been dealt. Painter, Thespian, Actor (who, invariably, is accused of never being able to play The Dane), Musician, etc. This time, though, I was the Dancer and I must’ve been pretty good since I was largely ignored. I made no secret of my animosity to my gemina, the musician (Jon), because no one else was going after him. And it worked. I finished the game sane and healthy, with my gemina safely “not sane” (i.e., dead, in this case. Actually killed by Katy, who finished him off while Jon was having a rule explained by to him by Joe. Harsh).

Andrew 8
Joe 6
Katy 5
Jon 3
Ian 3
Steve 2

Midnight had come and gone, but we all felt we had one more game in us. Katy asked for something she could play while lying on the sofa under a blanket. Joe suggested I Crossed The Border. This is a simple word game where one person thinks of a rule regarding things that people can take across a border. They then give an example of it, followed by everyone else trying to get stuff across the border. The rule-maker tells them if they’re successful or not. And we go round and round until one person is still clueless.

For example, Joe’s first rule was “Words with ‘oo’ in them” so “I crossed the border with a pair of boots” would be fine but “I crossed the border with a copy of Vogue magazine” would not.

Katy chose items that began with K, A, T or Y. Ian’s rule was that you had to have your hand against the side of your face when you crossed the border. Jon’s rule was don’t hesitate when you cross the border, which I totally failed to get.

My rule was that you had to say the item with a rising inflexion, like a question. Oddly, this meant Ian did very well at crossing the border, since he always framed his crossings as questions, whereas the others were more confident and made their crossings as statements. As such, Ian crossed back and forth, but never really knew why but the others didn’t. It wasn’t until Katy got it that it slowly dawned on the others what we were doing.

We ended at 1.10 on Sunday morning before we tore ourselves away from the buzz of competitive conversation and went to bed.

Sunday morning, and we slowly crawled from our rooms. The first game was played before 9 o’clock so, in that respect, we did better than Saturday. But the game in question was the lightest of games: The Pyramid’s Deadline, a new game I’d bought in Japan from Oink Games (Deep Sea Adventure, Fake Artist, Insider).

It involves building a pyramid-y shaped structure before the pharaoh dies (indicated by the last red square being chosen). The selection of building materials is determined by the roll of some dice, so obviously the speed at which the red squares deplete is random.

This might be why in game one, none of us (Hannah, Sam and me) completed our “pyramid”. Then in game two, Hannah was too cautious since both Sam I and completed our buildings after her, and I won. But, then again, in the third round Hannah won when neither Sam nor I finished.

By 9.15 everyone except Adam was up. Well, Ian was up, but seemed to be in constant danger of falling back down again as he struggled under a hangover.

At some point around now, I introduce Steve to The Pyramid’s Deadline, but I made no notes about the outcome.

Eventually, Katy took pity on Ian’s attempts at a nap on a window seat, and arranged for him to get some sleep in a proper bed (rather than the mattress in the utility room he’d had during the night).

Then we played Deep Sea Adventure. At least, Joe, Steve, Katy and I did. We began quickly and it wasn’t until it was Steve's turn that he asked for a rules explanation. It hadn’t occurred to us that he hadn’t played before!

Luckily DSA is the kind of game you can explain while you play, so it didn’t hold the game up too much. There was a remarkable lack of drownings, apart from Katy and I in round three.

Joe 42
Steve 35
Andrew 24
Katy 13

Sam, Stan and Jon played Near and Far, with Stan running out a clear winner, but that didn’t stop Sam from saying he’d enjoyed it more than the other night when he and Stan had tied for first.

Stanley 79
Sam 42
Jon 38

Next up was a game of Downforce. I ended up with three cars in my team, which was not my plan even if I had boasted beforehand that it was. If two cars is a curse, then surely three cars is a death wish! But, no! Thanks to some clever betting and keeping an early lead, I did okay. Not first, but pretty good.

My team in Downforce

Sam 13
Andrew 12
Ian 10
Stanley 8

While this was happening, another game of Yokohama was being played. Joe was keen to try it again while the rules were still fresh and he was confident that he could teach it better this time, too. Katy was drafted in to the game, along with last night’s conscripts Steve and Jon.

They kept saying it’d be quicker than last night, and maybe it was. But not by much. After Downforce had ended, Sam and I played Clans of Caledonia again. It was much quicker as a two player, and I did better, too.

Sam 126
Andrew 118

Hannah put together salad and cold meats and cheese for lunch. Still Yokohama kept going.

People started getting anxious about not having enough time for a walk. But Yokohama wouldn’t be rushed.

Finally it ended. Scoring was calculated, and it turned out to be the same person who won last time!

Jon 123
Joe 98
Steve 95
Katy 91

After that, it was time for the walk before being ferried back to Bristol by Sam. Five other gamers stayed on for one more evening, and I hope they’ll add their comments to the end of this post.

Meanwhile, thanks all. It was special!

A bird! In the sky!

Adam reports the final scores...

Capital lux
Joe 80
Adam 65
Hannah 39




Mysterium


We all won. But I won most and Katy won second most. Because we're overcompetetive. Joe was an excellent ghost.

Ticket to ride
Adam 178
Hannah 161
Katy 145
Joe 142
Jon 138


Apparently Katy isn't going to play with Hannah or I ever again.


Kingdomino
Jon 53
Adam 51
Katy 46
Joe 29




Team play
Adam & Joe 25
Katy & Jon 24

Good night folks!

The Unified Theory of Nothing

I sat down to write up our second visit to Alchemists, and found myself joined by two miniature co-authors. So here's a three-person report on our Sunday games session:

Sam: On Sunday Andrew joined Stanley and I for a bash at Alchemists. We (me and Stan) had already played a 6-round game of A Feast for Odin by the time he got here, so we were really in the zone.

You have to be in the zone to play Alchemists. Although there's a very strict logic at play here, working everything out isn't easy.  For someone like me, who goes blank at long division, trying to break down the very components of life itself is a challenge.

Stan: I won A Feast for Odin, by the way.

Sam: Yes. Anyway...

Stan: By quite a few points.

earlier

Sam: Yes. So with Alchemists - as I tried to write in the previous post - you're making and selling potions for gold to buy artefacts to get points, but that's kind of the day to day business. What you're really trying to do is work out what the (al)chemical components are to your ingredients. Do that, and you can publish theories about your work and improve your rep.

Stan: A Feast for Odin is much better. 

Sam: Alchemists is fascinating. I don't know if I think it's the 52nd best game in the world, or even the 52nd best game I've played, but it is definitely very different.

Stan: Yeah, but A Feast for Odin has a good tang to it and it's like a thousand times harder to do, so I'm much better at playing games than you are!

Sam: What Stan is trying to say is that I trounced them both at Alchemists. And what I think is fair to add is that we all went seriously wrong in our deductions. Both Stan and I spotted Andrew's first theory was incorrect, and we raced to debunk him. But Stan also tried to debunk my theories three times and failed - even though my theories were actually, it turned out, utterly wrong. I meanwhile managed to eliminate every single alchemical as a possible match for not one, but two ingredients. As an alchemist I was essentially moronic. I had no idea how to utilise the knowledge of neutral matches, and I still don't.

Joe: I wasn't even there, but I just like saying stuff. 

Sam: The best part of Alchemists is the final reveal, where you uncover the actual alchemical for each ingredient, and reveal everyone's theory. Of the eight, we had two right - an exceedingly poor return for supposed experts!  I pictured us all shuffling out of the conference with our heads bowed, trying to spin it that we had made great progress...

Joe: I hate alchemists!

Sam: Thank you, Joe.

Stan: All you have to understand that A Feast for Odin is a very technical and strategic game and should be given more importance to than a rubbish game like Alchemists.

Sam: Despite the late drama where I lost about 12 points, I still hung on to the lead. I should add in fairness to Stan that he forgot to exhibit potions in the final round. And in fairness to Andrew that he wasn't aware of the terribly punitive effects of having your theories debunked, as his were.  I had neglected to explain it, as in mine and Stanley's two-player we'd never dared cause that kind of consternation in the alchemic community.

Stan: You could also add that I won A Feast For Odin?

Sam: I think they got it.

A Feast for Adam

Thursday. Ian was absent, but in his stead stepped the recently-spotted Adam, who'd requested A Feast for Odin. I'd baulked initially, feeling a bit wiped out, but as Andrew and I perused the cupboard, we conceded that Adam doesn't get out much and it'd be nice to succumb to his request.

moose

We might as well have allowed him to punch us in our naive, stupid faces the moment he walked in the door.  Despite this only being Adam's third play of the game, it was clear from halfway through the game that we were fighting over a distant second place in his yellow dust. There's something about the Hillmann brain - possibly all those spreadsheets - that allows him to connect the various cogs in a far more productive way than either Andrew or I were able to manage. Early on, as my whaling ships brought home the blubber and I set about emigrating early and building a veritable flotilla of knarrs, I thought I might stay competitive. But Andrew and I were as competitive as one-legged men in a triathlon.

Adammmmm!!!

Adam said the secret was to go exploring at the right time - around round 5, I think - but to be fair, you still need the infrastructure to fill your island with stuff, which neither of us had. It was a brutal, nordic, whipping:

Adam 142
Sam 111
Andrew 92

We polished off the evening with a blast at Kingdomino. I was so impressed with this game I immediately purchased it, but found Stan - who loves Odin - and Joe - who loves Outfoxed - less than enamoured. Probably a bit too abstract for both of them, to be fair. But Adam and Andrew both seemed to enjoy it a lot - there's something neat about the way the tiles are decanted and claimed that gives it far more depth than it initially seems to have.

why did we let Adam have this tile???

Which meant, inevitably, that Adam won:

Adam 59
Andrew 44
Sam 43

Two lovely games though and a nice way to round off the Occasional Thursday Night Club.

More than one can bear

Sunday! It's not Saturday, but it's still the weekend, so Andrew, Adam and Chris arrived at my house for some frivolous gaming. At least, that was the idea. It started out frivolous enough with Stan and Joe performing some kind of magic trick/abstract performance piece involving cards, which - going and fringe to the door - I never fully understood the process of. Shortly they were off to bed, though, and I sprang Bärenpark on everyone.

This is another in the tessellating line of recent games, with everyone charged to build a park to house bears. It's closest ancestor is clearly Cottage Garden, but we agreed - or I agreed with Chris - that it's the better game. You're simply taking pieces and adding them to your construction site, but when you cover a symbol on the site - and more often than not, you do - you get to take more tiles to add on subsequent turns.

It's very easy to pick up, but deeper than it first appears. I'd had quite a bit of practice with the boys over the weekend, but I'd not come up against the creeping custard yet... Chris was the only person to actually finish his park, but clearly the bear-loving public didn't mind the fact Adam had left a load of scaffolding next to the koalas:

Adam 88 (wins on tie-breaker)
Sam 88
Chris 84
Andrew 68

We perused the cupboard for choices and several games were pulled out. But when A Feast For Odin was suggested, there was a murmuring of approval like guitar players hearing a particularly tricky chord change. We set it up, and set off on an adventure that would take us the rest of the night.

At 9.20pm, we were on round five of seven.But those last three rounds took us right up to 11pm, as agonising decision after agonising decision seemed to suggest fate was trying to put us off the game and frivolity didn't so much take a back seat as lock herself in the boot and refuse to come out. I think everyone re-took a turn, with Chris going the whole hog and re-doing everything twice.

I tried to keep things light by reminding everyone how much I'd enjoyed Bärenpark, and Chris agreed it was a manly game.

I was pretty sure Adam would win, and as it happens this probably would have been the case had he not made a bit of an error, deciding in the final round to go exploring to Bear Island. With only a single round to fill the exploration board, it transpired he'd bitten off more than he could chew - and spent much time and several tiles trying to turn the expense into a profit.

In the final reckoning the minus points from Bear Island reduced Adam's initial lead - from his enormous hoard of silver - to a little bit below my final score:

Sam 105
Adam 101
Chris 91
Andrew 79

A mixed evening of bear-related gaming for Adam then, but nice to try Feast with four, if only to see Andrew ply his vikings with gallons of milk before putting them to bed.

Counting Cows

This Saturday meeting was initially organised as a chance to really get to grips with Great Western Trail, a recent acquisition of Sam’s that promises 150 minutes of playing time, according to BGG. So it was no surprised to find GWT already set up, with Joe sitting beside it having already reserved his place, along with Sam. Matt was the third player, preferring cattle trading to the epic space adventure being organised on the other half of the table.

Apologies for the fuzziness.

Camera lens is damaged.

Chris, Ian and I chose Eclipse as our Saturday epic, going for an all alien battle against upgraded ancients. I ended up going for my usual Swarm of Wasps tactic, only because Interceptors were cheap, and resources were in short supply. Chris was cash-rich, but went through the whole game with very little in the way of building resources. He could hardly ever build more than one ship per round. Oh, but what ships they were, bristling with advanced tech and improved hulls. He also ignored aliens in his own sector, preferring instead to head towards the centre. Ian, too, had ships stuffed with hulls and +2 and –2 die-adjusting computers, but weaker weapons.

As is usual in Eclipse, the final round played out with everyone piling into the centre, currently controlled by Chris. I put my interceptors in first, not as a serious challenge, but simply to pin his ships down so he couldn’t invade. Then Ian decided to join in too.

After this, there was a lot of cagey attacking around the perifery. Ian invaded me, just so I couldn’t invade him. Chris explored a sector, hoping for a route to me, but found only ancients (which I then attacked and beat) and finally Chris attacked and defeated Ian’s home planet. Oh, the humiliation!

Chris 38
Andrew 28
Ian 26

Since Great Western Trail hadn’t finished, we quickly whipped off a game of Love Letter.

Chris 3
Ian 2
Andrew 1

Finally, Great Western Trail had ended, with the scores at:

Sam 116
Matt 97
Joe 73

Although Sam said he’d inadvertently cheated. He didn’t go into details (with a game like GWT, that might have taken a good few minutes) but we salute his honesty.

Then we went to the chip shop, except for Joe and Chris who stayed behind and played a card game that looked like Race For The Galaxy. I didn’t note the score, but I think that Chris won.

After food, while we waited for our last arrival, Katy, we played Fuji Flush.

Andrew/Chris 0 cards left
Matt/Joe/Ian/Sam 2

And when this was over, Katy was here and we split into two groups: the foursome of Chris, Ian, Joe and Katy went for the high tension of Ponzi Scheme. The remaining trio chose A Feast For Odin.

It was Matt’s first play of Odin, but the rules aren’t difficult, just remembering what some of the iconography means and how the options should go together for best results.

I decided to simply ignore most bonuses on my player mat, preferring instead to build over them. I regretted this when I saw Sam’s use of the bonuses on his player mat and the Faroe Islands net him an increasingly impressive haul each round.

I think this game was the first time that the grey tiles from the oval bit of the board (I forget its proper name) were extensively used, with Matt and Sam buying stuff there regularly, and even I nabbed a couple of things late on. Buildings, too, were built by Matt and I. Meanwhile, I don’t remember Sam playing a single occupation card. He didn’t need to.

Sam 109
Matt 62
Andrew 59

By the time we’d finished, Ponzi Scheme was long over, with Katy being the sole survivor as you might expect since she confidently predicted her imminent demise mid-game.

Katy 19
everyone else went bankrupt

They filled in the time while we finished our final round by playing Vegas

Chris 500
Joe 360
Katy 280
Ian 260

And, post-Odin, we trotted out No Thanks, with Matt’s clever choice of high cards meaning he only had one run of cards in front of him by the end, compared to Sam’s and my three or four. Maybe five, in my case.

Matt 31
Sam 39
Andrew 67

After this it was just past ten, but I seemed to be the only one winding down. I had to turn down Matt’s offer of a game I’d never played before in favour of Dead Man’s Chest, about which Katy observantly noted “the best bit about losing is that you get to play.” Honest Joe did well just by telling the truth, until he lied and got caught out.

1. Sam
2. Katy
3. Joe
4. Chris
5. Andrew
6. Matt
7. Ian

After that, there were a few rounds of Spyfall. Sam, as the spy, guessed the first location after only two questions. Then Joe was too honest, and his inability to keep a straight face swiftly got him collared as the spy. This was followed by another round where Joe was the spy, and he got so close to winning, with the old Polar Station/Space Station confusion.

After this, Joe tried to accuse Chris based on the fact that Chris was perusing the list of locations in a suspicious manner. No one agreed, though. Sam was the spy then, but he didn't guess the location.

Finally, we all accused Matt when he asked an odd question, but it wasn't him, it was Ian. Matt explained that he was also asking questions according to the role he was playing, not just answering. We'd never thought of playing it that way. Spyfall Extreme, anyone?

After this, Chris and I left – I was so keen to get to bed that I dashed out without my notes or a beer. How lackadaisical of me.

Once I'd gone, the remaining gamers launched into a little Cube Quest Tournament. Sam texted me the scores and notes.

Matt beat Sam when Sam flicked his own king off the board.
Ian beat Katy with a long shot.
Joe beat Matt with “Hari Kiri” method.
Katy beat Sam “early doors”.
Ian beat Joe in an epic

Thus ended the weekend. Thanks all. Good to get some epics undertaken. See you guys on Tuesday.

Woolly Thinking

With Andrew and Ian on their way to our semi-regular Thursday meet-ups; I texted Ian to ask what he fancied playing. He suggested A Feast for Odin or Covert. I began setting up the latter, but the background theme of the game - international hostility, nuclear proliferation - was actually making me feel nauseous. I packed it away until the point I am drunk enough to shrug off the existential angst, and set up the tetronimous Viking game instead.

I didn't take any photos of Feast last night, but this is Andrew's hand

This was Ian's first play, but he has of course experienced Rosenberg games before and knew what was coming. I talked him through the rules, and we were off!

Ian and Andrew both built boats early on. I was tempted to repeat the winning strategy of the last two games Andrew and I had been involved in, which meant a fleet of whaling boats. But there was more to explore so instead I tried getting animals early.

You have to hold your nerve when neighbouring vikings are sailing home from the sea with treasures and initially, all you have is a roll of wool. Slowly, my animals started generating more produce, but I felt slightly left behind in the early running, and never completely figured out this strategy.

Andrew and Ian regularly hunted, and occasionally pillaged. These involve die-rolling, which both of them felt the sharp end of, returning home with only a bow, or a snare. After initial success, Andrew swore to hum a Fountains of Wayne song whenever he rolled, but abandoned this promise with Trump-esque haste after a couple of low rolls.  I think I only rolled one die during the entire game. As the end neared and Andrew started building a shed, we realised he'd already filled up his home board! In a last-round scrabble for points, Ian and I emigrated, and I sheared some more sheep. It wasn't enough though: not only had Andrew filled his home board, he'd been accruing a hoard of silver that alone scored him 51 points!

Andrew 107
Sam 93
Ian 79

We packed away making approving noises, with Ian another convert to Feast.

It was relatively early, so we brought out an old favourite in Biblios. Andrew couldn't remember if the game played two, so Ian reminded him of the time he beat Andrew 18-0 and gained the as-yet-still-intact title of King Biblios.

sandwiches

His crown was never under threat from us, but I managed to regain the Mr Biblios title. The potential second-place decider of the final red die had a twist in the tail: none of us had a single red card! So  Andrew  Ian took second by virtue of the tie-breaker...

Sam 7
Ian 3
Andrew 3

There was talk of Push It to finish, but with Odin still fresh in our minds I thought Ian might enjoy Cottage Garden, which has a similar puzzley aspect to it without the plethora of choices. We bashed it out in just over half an hour - Ian took to it quickly, and despite his confession of drunkenness, only the bonuses for reaching the top of the score track first gave me the win:

Sam 61
Ian 58
Andrew 43

floral geometry

Another Thursday evening closed out in very pleasant manner!

Animal Night Rate

Andrew wended his way to my door on Sunday with A Feast for Odin set up and ready to go. We have both been intrigued by this game - me after a solo play-through that left me initially bemused, followed by several plays of experimentation - whereas Andrew won his first game convincingly. We were eager to play again, and sat down just after half seven to play the 'long' game of seven rounds.

Viking water-cooler

As previously posted, Odin sees you place workers (Agricola), while also juggling tile placement  (Patchwork). Andrew seemed intent on trying new things this time, and even explored - a first in any of the games I've played, as it give you more spaces to fill and hence the risk of more negative points.

Andrew in Iceland, again

I took a leaf out of Andrew's book in the previous game and went whaling, whilst also nodding to Steve's tactic of shearing sheep and turning wool into blue stuff. In fact both of us embarked on animal business that set something of a pattern for the evening... We both emigrated near the end of the game, too, but come the count-up Andrews experimentation counted against him somewhat (though he still improved on his previous score):

Sam 103
Andrew  77

And the time was only 9pm!!!

There was still time to bash out three short games, so we did. First I introduced Andrew to Hounded, which Stanley and I like a lot, but has yet to win over anyone else. The fox (Andrew's) task was to skip around the board, avoiding the attentions of the Master of Hounds and his dogs (all me). He can win by outlasting the hunters: either turning over the three time tiles, or 42 tiles in total. I can win by catching him. My previous experience told as Andrew found himself blockaded into a corner...

Sam (hunter) wins
Andrew (fox) dies

me, with my dogs

Sticking with the animal theme, we bashed out an old-timer from GNN in Hey That's My Fish, which Andrew took the win at:

Andrew 52
Sam 46

It was only 9.30 so, with a bit of taunting, I managed to get Andrew to stay for long enough to play one of our favourites - Take It Easy. Andrew called books he read as a boy, whereas I called footballers I have played with and interesting/uninteresting facts about them. Andrew kindly suggested I could open a bespoke bingo hall, as yet another nugget of near-forgotten info from the late nineties about people he never knew assailed his brain. It didn't put him off his game though:

Andrew 318
Sam 315

A fun evening came to a close. I'm eager to play Odin again too. It still grows on me...

Whales of Pleasure

Thursday, and as I sat down for my (Sam's) third play of A Feast for Odin, I wondered if I finally had enough of a grasp on the game to actually win it, having been beaten by Stanley, Adam, and even Dirk. Joining me at the table were Andrew, Chris, and Steve, who had made the trek from Easton. He knew we'd be playing Odin, so I'm not sure if he came because or in spite of.

I explained the rules as best I could. I'd sent out a handy overview during the day, and everyone had genned up a little too. Plus, we've all played Uwe games before. How hard could it be?

Not that hard at all. Admittedly it was nearly 3 hours long - including rules explanation - for the 'short' game, but the time seemed to sail by.

My strategy was to put all my metaphorical chips in aggression; going out raiding and pillaging as much as I could, abetted by three massive blocks of ore in my ship to clonk people over the head with. Chris also built a longship, but spent a lot of time hunting at home. Steve built a trading ship, and Andrew - perhaps inspired by his wasp strategy in Eclipse - built a flotilla of whaling boats and set about destocking the ocean.

Andrew was first to have a real impact on his income, getting up to 3 silver per round whilst Steve was still at zero. Then Steve branched into animal husbandry, and started picking up lots of wool. Chris was still hunting and setting snares, but occasionally went for a pillage when the mood took him. Andrew began picking up animals. I stayed true to my raid and pillage strategy, chucking in a few Occupation cards in the mix.

spices, booze, and a rug

In the mid-game I was looking strong, with the highest income and several bonuses popping up each round. But my strategy was much like raiding and pillaging in real life, I suppose: there's no long-term development. And my steady success was eclipsed on the last two rounds as the bell-curve of the others' plans reached maximum verticality. Suddenly Steve traded: flipping a gazillion green tiles to blue, and placed them all down. Chris emigrated his two boats, turning 13 points into 39 points. And Andrew - the only one to do so - filled out his board, giving him exactly no minus points. He'd also built a shed! All that blubber he'd harvested from the sea really paid dividends:

Andrew 64
Chris/Steve 47
Sam 44

We packed away the game now more in admiration than fear. It is mad, and it doesn't have the strong theme of Agricola/Caverna, because for all the logic of resources build boats, boats catch fish, it still has the Patchwork abstraction of arranging things on your board.

I can see that, like Caverna, this is perhaps not a game that will serve me well on the leaderboard. But every time I play I enjoy it a little more, and last night was no exception. There's something about the way Uwe stitches things together that - even with the thematic incongruity of tile-placement- scratches several itches for me.

Thanks gentlemen!