I love sky

This week’s GNN was a peculiar affair, with people promising their attendance at staggered stages throughout the evening.

And so it was that three of us began with Age of War, pleased in our choice because it can be abandoned halfway if any arrives without any real loss. This game of dice-rolling is as cruel as it is generous. Since the game involves rolling sets of archers/daimoes/swords/cavalry to collect sets of cards, we were all a little preoccupied with the card that was basically a set of one (and so couldn’t be stolen) but eventually, we saw sense and tried to get other, easier cards.

Sam 11
Ian 9
Andrew 5

Then Matt arrived!

With a returneee, Hollie, expected soon, we embarked on a short co-operative game to fill the time. We chose Outfoxed as a clever means of testing our sleuthing skills. Sam explained most of the rules, insisting that by the time the game got round to him, he’d know what was going on. This did not take into account Sam and I’s poor luck with the dice. All Matt got to see was Ian successfully getting a clue that the culprit didn’t have an umbrella.

After some more poor throws, we got a sort of groove on and picked up more clues and eliminated more suspects. But in the end, we had to chose someone we could see as our suspect. We chose Daisy, but it turned out to be Gertrude! That evil wench!

Then, with Hollie still absent, we chose 7 Wonders as a nice deep-but-short game. Usually there are only three of us playing so the game just falls out of the box with all the cards arranged for a three-player game. But today there were four, which mean a certain amount of confused card-shuffling as we searched for the four-player cards to include in the game.

Mostly, this went smoothly until the third round when, after two deals, the cards didn’tdeal out evenly. So we tried once more and it still didn’t. But then everyone announced how many guilds they had, and we had one too many, so Ian (who had eight cards) had to discard his guild. Harsh but fair, that’s us.

However, the game ran swiftly, so that Hollie (who arrived mid-game, in time to see our round 3 debacle) didn’t have to wait long.

Ian went for military and blue buildings in a big way. I went for my lovely 20-point Pyramids of Giza and a bit of everything else. Matt got most out of guilds and, like Sam, dabbled in sciences. Sam scored most for money. Ian won: War plus ostentatious public buildings equals win in any era of history.

Ian 60
Andrew 52
Matt 49
Sam 39

So now there were five of us, with the promise of a sixth (Joe) in the offing. So we played No Thanks, which we thought was about the right time for Joe to get from his house to Sam’s.

Before the game, I was mocked for my strategy of picking up low cards, but this time I avoided it to good result. Although I didn’t have much choice: there weren’t many low cards at all. Instead I played it slow and steady, with only two card piles in front of me by the end of the game and so I came away a winner.

Andrew 18
Matt 24
Ian 25
Hollie 28
Sam 40

After this, Joe arrived and we split into two groups of three. At one end of the table, Joe, Sam and Matt played Isle of Skye, and at the other end me, Ian and Hollie chose Raj.

It was an even game, with only a few of those hilarious occasions of two people cancelling each other out. Hollie won the final round by some distance, going from last to first as she did.

Hollie 51
Andrew 44
Ian 43

Isle of Skye was still unfinished, so we broke out Pickomino (making sure that Hollie was told it was by Reiner Knizia – a name she'll come to recognise if she becomes a regular). We all began well but then the early glut of worms dried up. At least, it did for me.

Hollie 11
Ian 9
Andrew 4

Finally, Isle of Skye ended. Joe said it was “neat”. I'm not sure what it's like, but I took notes of some dialogue from the game: “Ah, bollocks, really?” “Fuck you!” and “Oh God, that's so annoying.” Sounds like fun, certainly.

Joe 83
Matt 71
Sam 63

Then we were all together as a six. Hollie fought off sleep for a game of Dead Man's Chest. Matt was Chief Executioner here, as he had a hand in knocking out Sam, then Joe, then Hollie and finally me. But Ian was made of sterner stuff as he successfully challenged Matt's bid, giving him the win.

1. Ian
2. Matt
3. Andrew
4. Hollie
5. Joe
6. Sam

And with that, we were done. Another week of history fulfilled.

Quantums of Solace

On Thursday Andrew can usually be relied upon to make his way north for a game or three. But having played on Monday and Tuesday he was gamed out. Ian - spared Monday - was still tempted though, and - having played a couple of games of Age of War earlier with the boys (I won 9-8-7, then they thrashed me 17-8 playing as a team)- we assembled around a game of Quantum at half past eight.

 dangerous

The game began in exploratory fashion as Ian and I spread our cubes around the board, warily eying each other. Then like predatory bullfighters chucking dice around, we struck. A flurry of blows and the game ended with me beating Ian to the punch by a solitary cube - helped by Warlike, which meant if I destroyed one of Ian's ships I got an extra action... We'd enjoyed it so much - and finished so quickly - we played again, and this time it was to be something of an epic. Ian went on the offensive from the start, and pummelled me against the cosmic ropes until he'd established a 4-2 lead.

I came back into it courtesy of two things - I had a card that bumped my research up by two every turn, and having reached six research and placed a cube I picked up Warlike again and grabbed an Aggression card, allowing me to move my dominance up to six and place a second cube. It was beautiful, if somewhat fortunate.

Battle continued though with the tide of aggression swinging to and fro. And with us both down to one cube left I was again smiled upon by fate as with my dominance and research at four again, another Aggression card popped up. I increased my research to six, and grabbed the Aggression card to increase my dominance and finish the game (I appreciate if you've not played Quantum this is utter gibberish, sorry) (why haven't you played Quantum?!?) It was a slightly underwhelming end to an epic hour-long battle that's probably my favourite game of Quantum so far... basically whilst I had appalling luck with the dice rolls (almost constantly rolling sixes) the luck with the cards was the opposite. Great game.

tactical

We needed something lighter after that so bashed out a quick game of Hey That's My Fish, which Ian had never played before. It was a close finish:

Sam 47
Ian 43

Then we moved onto Take It Easy, supposedly to end the night. Ian's calling was Discworld novels - impressively sustained throughout - and I kept up the literary theme with Moomin characters. We both pulled great scores in round one and decent ones in round two, but my decent form in Take It Easy stayed intact:

Sam 389
Ian 248

We still had a little beer left though, so we ended with a game of Love Letter. I came back from 2-1 down to force a decider! But you know Ian - he's like the Darth Vader of the Love Letter world:

Ian - 3 cubes
Sam - 2 cubes

Mocked by horses

This week has been a week of games, games, games for Sam. And since the week isn’t over, tonight saw him hosting more games. As you’d expect for the third games night in four evenings, the turn-out was diminished somewhat. Just me and him, basically.

We began our evening with new arrival, Versailles. This game pits players against each other to build the best bits of a communal castle. The motive for all of this is to please the king, who dawdles aimlessly towards the castle as if he really didn’t want to visit at all.

The whole board is basically one big rondel, which you move your meeples around, activating actions (with the proviso that you cannot do the same action twice in a row) and collecting materials, buying sections of the castle and then placing those sections.

It’s a very dry game. No sense of theme at all, and the strategy seems to be pretty one-dimensional: get the bonus action that lets you take an action whenever someone else does. Job done. With no story and no engagement, there wasn’t much there to entertain me. Except the nice artwork.

Sam 110
Andrew 92

We managed to get the castle complete, though.

After this, I got choice of next game and I went for the least Versailles-like game I could think of: Age of War. This dice-rolling game is pretty much all luck, with a few decisions thrown in to make it look like you’re influencing it. While it’s funny watching Sam struggle to roll anything but some swords and a bow and arrow when all he needs is a horse, after a while I felt this game also started to outstay its welcome. We reduced the deck by one set. Maybe we should have removed two.

Andrew 18
Sam 16

Finally, we played Castles of Mad Ludwig. Sam insisted he was happy to play something else, having initially suggested it in jest, but I wanted to play a proper game where you can see what your opponent is up to and try to stop him with exploitative costs.

My far-too sensible mad castle

And it was fun. A far better castle building game than Versailles, with some bluffing and spoiling tactics thrown in for good measure. Sam was cash-poor for most of the game, and I tried to exploit that by keeping what I thought he wanted out of reach. Didn’t always work, and he got his hidden bonuses to work together well.

Sam 92
Andrew 82

And with that, we were done. It was still only ten o’clock, but it had been a long week, and I set off home through the thick drizzle outside.

Nefertiti say Nefertiti again

Another weekend games night at Sam’s. This time shifted forwards to Friday. At first, the was Sam, Joe and I around the table, along with Stanley (keen for another battle after his win at Lords of Waterdeep) and little Joe (in a team with Sam). This time the chosen game was The Art Of War, Knizia’s cunning game of luck. However, tonight was not Stanley’s night as time and time again he tried to take castles, only to end up one dice short when attacking.

Sam (and little Joe) 14
Andrew 9
Joe 8
Stanley 0

Then, with a disappointed Stanley retiring to bed (as gracious a loser as he was a winner last week) the three grown adults decided what game they should play next. We chose Nefertiti, the recent smash hit at GNN. I explained most of the rules to Joe while Sam was off doing other things, and when he came back it was simply a matter of tying up a few loose ends, answering some of Joe’s insightful questions, and we were off!

It was an interesting game. Sam felt it was more confrontational than before, and I noticed that the spread of money seemed to be quite uneven: either you were skint or rich and not much in between. Joe made a move that stretched our interpretation of the rule book. He asked if he could asks us to discard a card of a type that he didn’t have in his hand. We had previously assumed that a player needs to have one of a particular card in his own hand to make other players discard theirs, but the rule book didn’t explicitly say this, and the discussion on BGG seemed to agree with Joe: no need for the player of the discard action to have the card that he wants players to discard.

This move was perhaps enough to get him the win, while my unused royal seals just got me past Sam into second in a very close game.

Joe 151
Andrew 143
Sam 141

After this, we considered the next game. Railways of the World: Mexico was suggested, sicne it was still early, but with a phone call expected from one of Joe’s daughters around ten o’clock, we went for the shorter delights of Alhambra.

I like to think that we played it in the spirit it was meant to be played: in tense silence with an occasional Al Pacino impersonation whenever we felt another player was encroaching on our territory. In the end, it was Sam’s walls what won it. Joe’s walls kept him hemmed in for most of round two as he swapped tiles from his reserve.

Sam 143
Andrew 128
Joe 124

We felt there was still time for one game, so Las Vegas was brought out, along with a cheese board with crackers with Stilton  and a block of Cheddar heavier than a leather-bound Bible, along with an Indian pickle (or chutney, not sure which it was and I forget the name) which was very nice indeed. And Sam reaped the karmic rewards of his generosity with the scores ending as:

Sam 550
Andrew 470
Joe 310

Oh, how I regret that last minute double six that knocked me out of a first place and handed a cash reward to Sam in round two. But that’s Las Vegas for you. Cruel, but there’s no arguing with fate. Ah, board games: Every evening with them brings a new moral lesson.

And cheese.

On the form table, Sam closes in on Martin, Joe makes an appearance and not much else happens.

						Points
Martin	2	2	1	1	1	7
Sam	1	1	3	1	2	8
Andrew	2	2	2	2	3	11
Joe	3	3	1	3	5	15
Matt	1	3	2	5	5	16
Adam	3	1	3	5	5	17
Ian	4	2	5	4	4	19
Katie	1	3	5	5	5	19
Stanley	4	1	5	5	5	20
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

Finally, we also have an Alhambra division, which sees Sam and Paul as the two Goliaths of this game straddling our great nation from Bristol to Croydon.

Male Patton Boldness

The last Tuesday of the season, and alongside host Joe, Martin, Sam, Matt, Ian and myself, we also found Steve in our midst, keen to get rid of his two red fives before the season’s end.

We spilt into two. Martin, Joe and Sam when for the new Race To The Rhine, a sort of war game where three players race up the track, beating back the Nazi hordes and first one across the Rhine is the winner. If you get to the Rhine at all, in which case other means of finding the winner are used, but more of that later.

The rest of us went for something a little lighter. Africana, the joyous romp across any number of indigenous cultures, looking for treasures and “assistants.” I explained the rules to Steve and we were off! Although we often forgot which colour we were (I'm never blue, and Steve was appalled at being yellow).

I flatter myself that I though I was doing quite well, with my extra joker in my hand, but I hadn’t spent enough in the books, and both Steve and Matt easily overtook me on artifacts and stuff. Ian found himself frustrated that, in his last turn, he couldn’t do anything except buy a new expedition just for the one point it would give him.

Steve 42
Matt 38
Andrew 29
Ian 23

(Just a quick diversion, there’s a small matter of the Africana division, with yours truly doing rather well.)

Meanwhile, The Race to the Rhine was still in full swing, so we had time for another game. Since Steve was now on the cusp of a perfect five, we tried to avoid anything that needed strategy and chose Knizia’s elegant but dice-heavy Age Of War. We hoped that the luck aspect would level the playing field somewhat and also, when it looked like he might win, I have to admit the three of us did our best to stop him. Finally, Matt was able to pick up the final card which gave him the win.

Matt 11
Andrew 10
Steve 8
Ian 4

And by now Race To The Rhine had finished. By all accounts, it was something of a anti-climax, starting well but then tailing off. No one reached the Rhine, and since all three of them killed an equal number of Nazis and had the same number of medals, the tie-breaker was turn order. In other words, the final places were decided according to how they were sat around the table.

Martin 4 dead Nazis, 5 medals
Joe 4 dead Nazis, 5 medals
Sam 4 dead Nazis, 5 medals

After this, Steve went home, his two-game quota filled. The remaining six of us went for 6nimmt, since it’s a nice short game. We didn’t realise quite how short it would be, with Ian crashing past the 66-point barrier faster than a cartoon cat stepping on a roller-skate and whizzing into a larder full of pots and pans. After a bad first round, he then found himself in a spiral of doom, picking up cards almost every time he played. Joe stayed aloof from all of this to clock up his second win on 6nimmt!

Joe 9
Sam 14
Martin 20
Matt 26
Andrew 30
Ian 80

And so the season draws to a close. It’s been the driest finish to a July to September season since 1910, according to the news. But for all that, we still haven’t had a games night outside. Meanwhile, the winners are...

Steve takes the Form Table. Only one game away from a perfect five: he still ended the season with the rest of us wondering how he became such a winning machine.

						Points
Steve	3	1	1	1	1	7
Adam	3	2	2	1	1	9
Sam	2	3	1	2	2	10
Martin	3	1	2	1	5	12
Matt	4	1	2	3	2	12
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Joe	1	2	6	1	3	13
Hannah	2	2	3	4	5	16
Andrew	5	2	3	3	3	16
Ian	6	4	4	2	1	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Anja	3	3	5	5	5	21
Katie	3	3	5	5	5	21
Jim	4	5	5	5	5	24

Then on the Division, it’s close at the top. Sam takes first place in Points by less than two points: it was basically all down to that last game of 6nimmt. I win on the medal table, though. And there’s that man again: Steve takes Points Ratio by a handsome margin. Well done that man. Well done all of us!

Good Weather, Bad Beat

The extended Morrison clan headed to Devon this weekend, to the scout hut. Quite possibly not ever a real scout-hut, this nonetheless very scouty hut-type building perches overlooking the Channel, and on a fine day it feels like one of the nicer places in England to be. There's a short walk to a tiny beach and an even shorter one to a proper Devon pub. Way back in the pre-GNN days myself, Joe, Chris, Andrew and Paul congregated there for a gaming weekend - I'll see if I can't get the hut again for whoever can make it at some point, as it's such a great location.

The reason for the get-together was my dad, Mo (Mervyn Oakman Robinson, to give you the full nomenclature) was over from America. And in-between some cliff-top walks we of course squeezed in some games!

On Friday I introduced Mo and my brother Marty to Timeline. I'd borrowed Joe's set, and as well as having more cards, the card size made the game more accessible to three optically-challenged men. My own cards are tiny, maybe purely to meet the remit of games-that-don't-need-a-box-as-big-as-that. Marty especially liked it, and I think we all won a game apiece. Then after a breather I introduced them to Age of War, which was fun but not as big a success.

Saturday morning dawned about two hours earlier than was strictly necessary, so while the others slept, Little Joe and I took a stroll down to the beach. Upon our return we played Age of War with Marty's youngest, Betty. Nobody won as the appearance of bacon sandwiches meant all the cavalrymen went AWOL to the breakfast table, requesting ketchup.

Sally and Florrie discuss Martin Wallace's penchant for industrial age gaming

Our first walk of the weekend was to Shaldon, 3 miles as the crow flies along the Devonshire coast path. Possibly more like 5 miles as the Morrisons stagger, though, and only some heroic singing by me about men going to mow meadows and baked bean tins not making it into heaven got the boys up the last big hill.

mushroom

After a perambulation around Shaldon and a stay on the Ness Beach (accessed via a Smugglers Tunnel!) we returned to the hut, and as the children played loud and frankly appalling music loudly in the hut, the adults sprawled in the grass outside. After another game of Timeline (I forget who won) I set up Fauna, and Marty and Mo were intrigued enough to play. Sarah was intrigued enough to come and watch and then team up with Marty. This was new to everyone including me, but as those who have played know it's extremely simple, and lots of fun. The only criticism we had of it was scoring adjacent regions on the map, especially for animals in lots of areas, took quite a bit of time and felt at odds with the light game-play. But overall it was a hit, and it did get played again on Sunday morning with me and the kids.

Meantime Saturday day had turned into Saturday night, and the main event was Poker.

I used to have a half-decent pedigree at this game, way back when we played regularly I often finished runner-up and once or twice even won. But the last two or three years whenever I've played I've always been first out, and this event was no different, as I chased a couple of hands and folded what would have been my best hand of the night pre-flop.

Mo followed me out a while later, then Sarah too, leaving Marty and Sally facing off to claim the £50 at stake. Sally claims to not being completely sure what she is doing, but perhaps this seam of randomness helps her game. She was certainly not cowed by Marty's famous 'poker stare' that he picked up in Vegas. The final hand, though, was a doozy.

Marty, needing to build up his chips and keep the pressure on Sally, went all in with about £9. Sally met him and the cards were flipped:

Marty A, 10
Sally K, 7

The flop came and Sally picked up a King!

K, 9, 9

Sally's kings and nines now beat Marty's nines with ace kicker. But the turn came and ka-boom: it was an ace. Marty now back in front with aces and nines. "The only thing that can save you is a king" said Mo. And sure enough, almost as if Paul Jefferies' ears twitched in Croydon, the third king came up on the river. It was brilliant for Sally, brutal for Marty, and the only thing that could follow that was two games of The Resistance.

Perhaps underlining why I'm so bad at poker, I decided from the outset that Marty was a spy in game one, and he wasn't. Sally, who spent the game telling everyone I was clearly a spy, was. The spies won - but only in part because Mart had misunderstood the final goal of the game, and thought it was about categorically identifying who the spies were by the time the fifth mission was completed, rather then preventing them from sabotaging three missions. Which to be fair, he did. Mo was the second spy.

In the second game Marty and I were the spies. After a successful first mission we weren't involved with, we found ourselves both on mission two. We both hoped the other would Fail it, and both returned Success cards. Now the Resistance were only one mission from winning! Again we were both chosen to go, and this time I actually said aloud "I'm putting my fail card in the discards" - ostensibly to assert my resistance membership, but covertly as a signal to Marty, who twigged and sabotaged the mission. It's not exactly Derren Brown, but I was pleased with it.

All we had to do now was Fail the deciding mission. Fortunately I was chosen to go and the spies won again! There was just enough time left to drive to Castle Drogo and go on a three hour walk before heading back home...

Crosstown Traffic

Thursday offered a dilemma for me. Sam was in and offering to host games on the same night as a Roll For The Soul gathering. Which should I do? Luckily, Sam’s evening began at 8.30, so I was able to do both!

My mini-marathon (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) began at Roll For The Soul, with Martin and Andy. I decided I’d be willing to give Impulse another go, since I had come to the conclusion that it was not a resource-management game as I’d initially thought: it was a war game, with a bit of resource management tacked on the side.

And so I began by building up my fleet. And, almost as if to confound my expectations, the usually warlike Martin stayed tucked away in a corner, shuffling back and forth between his trade cards for points.

The game was played out to a background of two squeaky voiced clowns who had set up a little show at the other end of the cafe. It was a little distracting and annoying, but at least we were as far away from them as was possible.

Andy and I both did our best to knock Martin out of the sky, but when Martin was out of reach, we turned against each other, and so he was able to work away, like a little space-age Switzerland, getting rich while everyone else laid waste to a generation of soldiers.

Something like that, anyway. Martin ended in first, but for once, he didn't fight his way to the top. I came last, but enjoyed it more this time. If you approach Impulse in the right way, it's a pretty good game. The scores were something like...

Martin 20
Andy 14
Andrew 13

Then I said my goodbyes and I had to hotfoot it across town to Sam's for more gaming. There I found him and Ian jut finishing off a “ding-dong” game of Age of War. For our main game, we chose Macao. New to Ian, this is a classic which has found itself in our bad books ever since a four-player game stretched out into a two and a half hour epic.

But now it was back. We explained the rules to Ian pretty quickly (if you don't include the many occasions where we said “oh, and one more rule...” during the game) and we were off! Ian found his feet very first and midway through the game he looked like the one to beat, with Sam way back in last. But Sam is never to be discounted, and with an epic final move which involved activating then using the diplomat so he could buy 20 points, while having enough cubes to zip around the board, filling up spaces, he ended in a comfortable first.

Sam 110
Ian 82
Andrew 67

I was ready to call it a day, but Sam insisted I'd enjoy a quick game of Age of War. And I did. As you'd expect from a Knizia, the game's mechanics are simple and cunning: very much an example of Good Dice. And I do feel at home with Japanese-themed games. Plus, after two last places, my luck was bound to change sooner or later.

Andrew 20
Sam 9
Ian 6

						Points
Joe	1	2	1	4	2	10
Sam	2	1	2	3	2	10
Andrew	1	3	2	2	3	11
Ian	3	2	3	1	2	11
Martin	3	1	3	3	1	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Adam	4	3	4	1	1	13
Hannah	3	4	5	2	2	16
Matt	2	3	5	3	4	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Steve	1	5	5	5	5	21

And, since I've got all the spreadsheets on my computer, it's time I did something with them. I'll start posting up divisions for our most-played games as and when we play them again. This is the division for Macao.

Red Means Stop

Three of us made it to Easton to join Adam and Hannah. Andrew and Matt dropped out late, Ian was away, but I (Sam) was a late addition and, having been collected by Joe, arrived at the re-stocked guinea pig hotel to find Adam and Martin in combat over a game of Hive, which to my mind doesn't get played enough (though to be fair it is a two-player).

I had just finished explaining the rules to Age of War when they finished (I didn't pick up who won) and joined us, making it the first 5-player of the evening.

It's a simple Knizia game; rethemed from an earlier title based on Risk (which was called Risk Express). Several cards are laid in the centre of the table - these are castles, and in order to capture them you roll a set of seven dice. If you can fill one of the "battle lines" in a chosen castle, you do so. If you can't, you have to sacrifice a die before rolling again. Fill all the battle lines, and you claim the castle for your own.

As well as claiming castles from the centre you can also grab them off the other players (although this is harder) and - as the castles come in certain colours, representing tribes - if you gain all the castles of a certain colour, you can flip the cards over, giving you a twofold benefit: firstly they can't be stolen from you, and secondly you gain a points bonus.

Grrr

We all liked it I think, even Hannah, who fate shat on from a great height as she continuously fell short of the necessary dice icons needed (there's cavalry, bowmen and so on) and having finally captured a castle, had it nicked from under her nose. In the end it was a close run thing between myself, Adam, Joe and Martin. To win I'd have to steal a card from someone, but also hope nobody would steal a castle from me and the last castle in the central pool would still be available on my next turn. Coupled with the fact there were concerns over how long the game might last, I decided to grab the final castle to claim second place:

Adam 9
Sam 8 (2nd on most castles)
Martin 8 (3rd on most castles)
Joe 8
Hannah 0

After a debate over whether to play Railways of the World or not, we finally settled on Ra, the game that even my electronic devices have no auto-correct for.

Martin, unaware of the Ra-ing he was about to receive

This game needs no introduction, and we began like a bunch of old folks settling into a comfy chair. Although Adam and Hannah had to share a chair, as they played as a team. I bailed early on the first round, picking up a decent bunch of monument tiles and covering the bases elsewhere. It was a tactic I tried to continue throughout, despite picking up crappy bidding tiles, and it just might've worked if it hadn't been for that pesky Martin picking up a shitload of Pharaohs in round two.

Martin's Pharaohs stretched on into the night

That loss of 5 points was enough for monument king Joe to sail past me:

Joe 43
Sam 38
Martin 35
Adam and Hannah 34

easy

There was little debate over the next game. Joe pooh-poohed playing Port Royal, as he has played it so much recently, and I pooh-poohed it too as I think it's kind of pooh-poohy. Instead we played Red, the game of completely confusing rule-changing. Like Age of War, I believe we all liked it. Unlike Age of War, sitting at the end of the table where me and Hannah were made it very hard to tell the difference between indigo and purple. "Just like real life" as Hannah philosophically noted.
"The colour's written on the cards!" Martin pointed out, in-between thrashing us all (except Joe, who in the early running looked like the likely winner).

Martin 37
Joe 25
Sam 0
Adam and Hannah 0

By now we were all, as we collectively confessed, 'pooped' - but as Martin and I had cups of tea to finish, we broke out the classic No Thanks. Joe and I both took calculated risks in putting together runs, and they both paid off. Martin ran out of coins. Hannah, perhaps sensing leaderboard implosion, let Adam go this one alone:

Joe 18
Sam 24
Martin 64
Adam 67

Arthur is there in spirit for the family portrait

A very enjoyable evening that couldn't even be spoiled by me knocking my cheap Spanish wine over. Fortunately I'd just enough left to spray the table and chair, but leave the carpet and guinea pigs completely unsullied. Now that's a games night.

						Points
Ian	3	1	2	2	1	9
Joe	1	2	1	4	2	10
Andrew	2	2	3	1	2	10
Martin	3	1	3	3	1	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Sam	2	3	2	2	3	12
Adam	4	3	4	1	1	13
Hannah	3	4	5	2	2	16
Matt	2	3	5	3	4	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Steve	1	5	5	5	5	21