Season’s End

This Tuesday was a grim looking one, with grey skies and vague suggestions of rain. But that wouldn’t stop seven gamers of dreaming of capping their season with a glorious run of form on its final day: Sam (the host), Joe, Katy, Ian, Martin, Andy and me.

I arrived bang on time, but found the fun was already underway, with Ian and Sam going head to head in NMBR9.

Sam 68
Ian 45

Katy was there too and before long, the rest of the gang had arrived. We split into two groups. At one end of the table, Sam, Martin, Joe and I began with NMBR9. This was mine and Martin's first go and, having watched baffled as other people played, I was keen to learn the secrets of this game.

The rules are very simple: just build up layers without overhanging or covering gaps. The shapes of the numbers, though, must've taken ages to get right during playtesting since they often seem to hint at a winning position without it ever really coming to fruition. This explains Martin's comment "It's already annoying.'

Sam mused on the role of the four: a low value, an awkward shape, but such a nice colour. I thought I'd done badly but I was quite pleased to have beaten Martin, whose maths skills are so strong he was able to tell us what he'd scored just by glancing at his tiles.

Sam 99
Joe 79
Andrew 50
Martin 46

"Right," said Martin in a tone of voice usually used before spitting on both palms, grabbing an axe and chopping down a tree, "we have to play again."

So we did. Sam had daddy duty to attend to upstairs, but we had no trouble remembering the few rules. Martin did slightly better this time.

Martin 103
Joe 84
Andrew 77

On the other half of the table, Andy, Katy and Ian began with For Sale. I was too engrossed in my game to pay it too much mind, but I did notice that Katy picked up both zeroes and lost a low bidding round with a decent highest card.

Andy 84
Ian 82
Katy 67

Then they dug out Port Royal which I think was Ian's suggestion. If so, it ruins my recent theory that the player most keen on a game does worst.

Ian 12
Katy 10
Andy 9

Then they whipped off a quick Beasty Bar. The scores, according to Katy's notes, were:

Andy 4 - 32
Katy 4 - 33
Ian 0

Katy left a note of explanation: "[Ian] went to the pub, night club too noisy!"

While this was happening, the four of us were knee deep in Montage, the crossword game from1973. It was Joe and me against Martin and Sam. Just like last time, I was very quick to get Martin's clues. For example, "every colour has one," I correctly guessed as "Vowel" because in the game, each of the five coloured tiles has a vowel. Both Sam and Joe complained that was far too meta.

In the end, though, Joe and I had enough of a connection to take the win. The general consensus was that it was a fun game, but very stressful.

Andrew & Joe 4
Sam & Martin 1

Then the trio broke out Flamme Rouge. The course (chosen at random) was completely flat: no hills at all. And while Katy and Andy set up, Ian took one of the little plastic cyclists, placed it on the neck of a beer bottle, stared at it, and then put it back on the table. Oh, the mysteries of Ian's internal workings.

Katy had an interesting strategy: one rider sped off ahead (using all three 9 cards in the first three turns) while the other lagged far behind in last. Andy was the only one to cross the finishing line, leaving the other two to rejoice in their shared defeat.

1st Andy
=2nd Katy
=2nd Ian

While this was going on, the quartet were playing Barenpark, the game that’s apparently impossible to play without saying it’s better than Cottage Garden.

Martin 89
Sam 82
Andrew 79
Joe 65

Finally we’d all finished together. Katy and I swapped seats and the gaming madness continued. The four of them launched into Cobras while Ian, Andy and I chose Hit Z Road.

I know little about Cobras, except for a dunken note of “stale peanuts” next to the results on my scrap of paper. However, Joe kindly gave Katy and I a lift home afterwards and he explained how satisfying the game was, especially since he always seemed to have the card that Martin didn’t want him to have.

Joe 109
Martin 92
Katy 57
Sam 46

Hit Z Road offered up the usual crazy and impossible escapes that your typical zombie movies have, complete with the ending of one guy still alive with no hope of escape as the credits roll. Ian rolled five targets to wipe out five zombies in one go, then Andy rolled four targets agaist five and later I rolled four against four.

Most impressively, though, was Andy’s last stand as his final survivor with his final die rolled one target after another and picked off six zombies. But then another six turned up and he died immediately.

I won merely by being last man standing.

Andrew: alive!
Andy & Ian: both dead!

Then we were all together for a game of Fuji Flush. I was too lazy to take note of the dick points but if memory serves, they were pretty rubbish, with 3s knocking out 2s and the like. Only Martin impressed, removing five 2s with an eleven, even though he could have joined in with a 2 of his own. Classic Martin.

Ian 0
Martin 1
Andrew 1
Andy 1
Sam 1
Joe 3
Katy 4

And that was that! We all sped off, eager to be back home far too late for a weekday evening. As for the Division, despite Katy’s poor showing, no one else was able to put together a challenge to unseat her from the top. Adam’s points ratio is invincible.

And I think I’ll rest the Division for the summer months, since attendance gets a bit sparse and it becomes, dare I say it, a bit silly?

But that’s for the future! Next week, to be exact.

See you then!

The Lure of Arseholery

Tonight's gathering was at my house (Sam's). With Andrew a late withdrawal, citing medical reasons, we were a mere seven - Katy, Martin, Ian, Andy, Matt, Joe, and myself.

With Joe coming a little later the six of us played Pairs. At that point I hadn't seen the text from Andrew and we dealt him in, making decisions on his behalf. It was interesting to note how often we said "Andrew would stick now" whilst others twisted. It got him second place - or would have, had he turned up. As it was Ian's attempt to shoot the moon came undone:

close, but no onion

1st Katy 24
2nd Sam 18
2nd Martin 18
3rd Ian 6
4th Andy 0
4th Matt 0

Joe had arrived in time for the finale and we discussed options. Joe had brought several dice games, and Lords of Vegas was appendaged by Joe's bespoke dice arena, built to fit exactly on Sunset Las Vegas Boulevard!

What happens in Vegas

Despite impressed gasps (and the inevitable gamer critique) Lords didn't actually get played though.

Katy was keen on Castles of Mad King Ludwig and reasonably forceful about it. She managed to reel in Ian and Matt. Then she reeled in Andy too, and Ian defected to the game Joe, Martin and I were setting up: Quantum. We went for a reasonably big board with 6 cubes to place, and ejected the '10' tile at the start to make way for The Void, a Quantum expansion that bumps up your research.

Hands

I got off to a good start, but this backfired in a reasonably regular way as I was then targeted for the next half hour or so. Martin, and then Joe, both went for an aggressive route. Joe because winning battles boosted his dominance by two, Martin simply because he is Martin and cannot resist "the lure of arseholery" (his words) which, if nothing else, might get this post a couple of extra hits. With my peaceful extra move and ability to move my ships an extra space, I kept devising sneaky ways to get a cube down, only for some bastard to blow me up. It was rather frustrating.

In fact we all - bar Ian, who was doing as badly as I was - got a bit frustrated at the amount of time Quantum was taking to finish. It had become a war of attrition, and whilst we blasted each other like ancient boxers unable to land the killer blow, Castles finished:

Andy 93
Matt 89 (2nd on tie-breaker!)
Katy 89

And they began playing Beasty Bar. "It's good" said Martin, who was increasingly less enamoured of Quantum. Both he and Joe had been a die-roll from finishing it, only to be scuppered by Ian, who was fighting a dogged rearguard thanks to his ability to destroy attackers and boost his dominance in doing so. I was still unable to make my killer move, but had at least got my penultimate cube down thanks to an aggressive turn, having finally rolled a bunch of low ship numbers. Not long after that, relieved sighs and frustrated groans were heard all around as I pulled off an unlikely win. With a 2, 1, and 1 around a 9 planet, I needed to reconfigure my final ship into a 5. I rolled a 4, turned it into a 5 with a free action, moved it with my free peaceful move action and placed my last cube. An epic 2-hour Quantum (that's the same as 3-player Eclipse!) finally came to and end:

Sam - all cubes down
Martin/Joe - 1 cube remaining
Ian - 2 cubes remaining

Beasty Bar finished around the same time:

Andy 5
Katy 4
Matt 3

Debate broke out about what to play, with Spyfall and Codenames both falling foul of some pronounced indifference. Instead Katy, emboldened by her success with Ludwig perhaps, insisted we all play Between Two Cities. We acquiesced, and embarked on a 20-minute city-building spree: each player chooses tiles to share between the cities of the player to their left, and the player to their right.

Between seven cities

It's an interesting idea but felt a bit like coloured maths to me: at no point did I look around and see what anyone else was doing, and if I had it probably wouldn't have helped anyway.

Mine and Joe's shared city

Joe won, but I'm still none the wiser as to what exactly the appeal is:

Joe 56 (wins on tie-breaker)
Sam 56
Martin 53
Ian 52 (4th on tie-breaker)
Katy 52
Matt 51 (6th on tie-breaker)
Andy 51

Martin was even less impressed than me, saying "I'd rather have had a chat". There is no worse insult for a game than that. I would be interested to try it with three though; that might feel a little more tactical. But also more head-scratchy too.

We then had a quick game of Continuous Pairs which Andy lost:

Andy: lost

Then I managed to cajole Sally into joining us so we had the eight players we needed for individual-team Push It. This is basically boule on a table-top. Officially it plays up to 4, but 8 is divisible by four so we were near as dammit. I paired up with Matt, Sally with Katy, Martin with Ian and Joe with Andy. Martin and Ian sailed off into an early lead (they were sitting closest to the jack, mind!) and despite our best efforts, and a burst of randomness with everyone flicking at the same time for four rounds, they held on:

Martin & Ian 11
Matt & Sam 6
Joe & Andy 6
Sally & Katy 4

Closest to the jack (beige) wins

Not sure how that's Leaderboard, but lots of fun all the same. Nice to get Sally involved, even if in a tragic case of life imitating art I had to pay her to come.

THAT'S HOW MUCH I VALUE HAVING FUN.

House rules rule!

The first Tuesday of a new season, and nine of us converged at Sam’s house for an evening of white hot battle (with drinks and nibbles and a newly fixed light overhead). Attendees were Sam, Joe, Matt, Martin, Ian, Katy, Ben, Andy and myself. Since the front room was in use, we were limited to the kitchen and, even with Sam’s kitchen table at full stretch, it would be snug fit.

We began with a nice friendly game of Continuous Pairs: the version were there’s only one loser. Which was me.

We split into three groups of three. Martin and I were unable to find a third for Impulse, so instead Ben, Matt and Andy took up the middle of the table with Beasty Bar. Martin, Katy and Ian perched at the end nearest the wall, playing Vikings. Finally, Joe, Sam and myself occupied the other end with Manila.

With so many games happening at once, it was hard to keep track of anything. The middle group quickly sped off two games of Beasty Bar:

Ben 6
Andy 3 (and 23)
Matt 3 (and 25)

Followed by

Ben 4
Matt 3
Andy 1 (“a charitable one,” as he described it)

And after that they began a game of Port Royal. At this point, Martin looked up from his board and surveyed the table covered by three games with seas and boats and said “It’s all gone very nautical in here.” A nice thematic moment to the evening.

The next game to end was Vikings:

Martin 74
Katy 43
Ian 38

They began a game of Biblios to fill the time until other games had ended.

In Manila, we placed our bets on the three boats pulling into harbour and our share of the cargo/landing fees. We needed a rule refresher and found the similarity in names of two roles: the pirate and the pilot, rather confusing. But we got going eventually. Joe went big on nutmeg, Sam on blue silk while I was impressed enough by lucky ginseng that I tried a late attempt at buying some.

During the first few rounds Sam or Joe had always put ginseng in the third lane at zero. But it managed to come in once when I was the only one on board and then I landed on it as a pirate, so it seemed especially charmed for me.

Not charmed enough to overcome Sam’s and Joe’s more sensible spread-betting, though.

Joe 112
Sam 97
Andrew 87

By now Port Royal was over and Ben had clocked up another win while Andy blamed Explainer’s Curse.


Ben 13
Matt 8
Andy 7

Since Biblios was still ongoing, the six of us decided on a quick dash through Dragon Run. Even though it’s a five-player game, we thought it could accommodate one more, surely. At first we stuck to previous definitions of Treasure Card mean card with actual treasure on them, but a reading of the rule book indicated that a Treasure Card was any card from the Treasure Deck. Another rule to be challenged was that “You may take another turn” allowed a player to stop without having to hide in the shadows or cry like a girl.

I think the discussion about took up most of the game. It ended with another win for Joe:

Joe 16
Andrew 14
Sam 12
Ben 8
Matt 7
Andy 6

I suppose Andy could blame Explainer’s Curse again, since he was the one explaining the real rules to us while we played.

During Dragon Run, Biblios ended with all five dice on three. Katy just won on the dice-colour tie-breaker (and, technically speaking, the money tie-breaker).

Katy 6 (plus blue die)
Martin 6
Ian 3

And they also managed to squeeze in a game of Port Royal

Katy 12 (plus 9)
Ian 12 (plus 2)
Martin 7

Before we all joined together for a rousing game of 6nimmt. Agony was shared around evenly this time, in this high scoring round. Ben (already in last with 62) had to go before the final round, so Dirk took his final go for him. And for a while it looked like Dirk might do quite well. Only for a while, that is. Martin sealed the win with two clear rounds in a row.

Martin 30
Katy 39
Ian 49
Matt 64
Andy 65
Joe 66
Sam 68
Andrew 69
Ben 94

And that was that. Off back home to bed to dream of Joe’s “largest D20 in the world” (approx).

As for the Division, a bit weird (as early divisions usually are) with Ben's lead on Points Ratio entirely due to the fact that only three players have played enough games to have a points ratio. His lead on the Medal Table is more deserved, and Martin leads on Points.

Full Steam Ahead

Adam and Hannah hosted, and six more gamer’s attended this week soiree: Martin, Katy, Andy, Matt, Ian and myself. While Adam and Hannah dealt with putting baby Arthur to bed, we discussed what to play and it was a surprisingly easy process. We knew that Adam wanted to play Railways of the World (we knew because Katy told us. Not because he always wants to play Railways of the World) and me, Ian and Matt were happy with that choice.

Meanwhile, Martin had brought the UK expansion for Ticket to Ride. Katy needed only a little persuading before they chose that as their game of the evening. And so with two train-based games in two rooms, we began.

We played a slightly different rule to normal: this time the bonuses for long links were shuffled into the pack and were only valid if they were dealt out, instead of the more normal rule of them being available all the time.

Railways started with one of Adam’s clever mind tricks. The railroad operations cards were dealt out at the start of the game. Adam mentioned the service bounty to Toledo for four bonus points, and then explained in detail the others. Such that, by the time we’d begun, the three of us had forgotten about the service bounty, allowing Adam to pick it up even though he was last to go.

Ian, Matt and Adam tussle on the East Coast

That was the end of Adam’s luck, as he and Ian then went head to head in the area around New York. I began in Louisville and was helped by (a) Ian misjudging how many moves he needed to get the four-colour-cube bonus, forgetting the rules, wasting a go and allowing me to swoop in, (b) Matt not noticing he could complete the three-link bonus before me if he used one of Adam’s tracks, allowing me to swoop in again and (c) two more service bounties to cities I was already connected to. Oh, and (d) I was the only player to complete his baron.

Ian and Adam crossed paths again as Ian blocked off Adam’s potential 10-point New York to Chicago route, and it was a frustrating game for the creeping custard who only had a three-link engine until quite late in the game. Ian went from miles in last, right up to joint second for one brief moment, before ending in third, which was commendable considering how badly he’d messed up his game near the start. Matt attached himself to my network, abandoning the East Coast, and hoovered up all the red cubes he could find.

Andrew 71
Adam 62
Ian 49
Matt 46

Stat-fans may be interested to know that this is the third game of RotW in a row that Ian’s scored 49 points.

While we played we could barely fail to notice the cries of joy and hilarity coming from the next room. Ticket to Ride UK, with it’s new rules, was clearly going down well with the previously hesitant Katy. Part of her enjoyment must have been due to her aptitude, even though she almost lost it at the end when Hannah built the 40-point link to New York. Not sure what Martin and Andy were doing while this clash of the Titans was going on.

Katy 123
Hannah 122
Martin 65
Andy 29

When this was over, we were still up to our elbows in rolling stock, so they began a game of Beasty Bar. As we played Railways of the World, we could hear Martin explaining the rules and it sounded like he was practising for when he has to read to his child at bedtime. He explained that “All animals have specials powers” in quietly soothing tones, and then went on to describe what each animal does (“Giraffes can hop”). I assume he made appropriate mime actions, too.

The scores were:

Katy 6
Andy 5
Hannah 3
Martin 2

They even had time to start a game of Twilight before RotW was over. But after my epic win, I was a bit frazzled and set off home. But the games continued without me.

Twilight ended:

Hannah and Katy 194
Andy and Martin 167

Meanwhile the rest of the RotW crew played No Thanks!

Adam 35
Ian 38
Matt 39

Katy remains toppermost on the division, apart from that pesky points ratio which has now been nabbed by Adam.

Floody Hell!

A new season began with erstwhile Bracknell regular Chris making his first appearance as a regular in the Bristol branch of GNN. He was joined by Sam (the host), Matt, Ian, Katy, Joe, Martin, Andy, and myself.

At first there were five of us, so we indulged in a little non-leaderboard Pairs until everyone turned up. It was during this game that Sam got a score of 37 in one round, which got us thinking about what our record score for this game was. Sam also came joint first with Joe, Chris was second, I was third and Matt fourth.

Then, once most of us had arrived (with Katy still twenty minutes away), we decided to play a proper game of Pairs. In theory, a card-counter would have an advantage in this game, but in practise it’s fairly common to go out to impossible-to-predict low cards. Those blueberries are deadly.

Andrew 24
Matt 23
Andy 17
Joe 16
Chris 15
Ian 12
Sam 11
Martin 0

Since we’d been talking about record scores, it’s interesting to note that in the final round Joe’s cards added up to 38 points.

Then we split up into groups of five and four having ignored Joe’s repeated offer of a two-player game of Tides of Time. The four group (Joe, Martin, Chris and Andy) played Njet, a card game that looked very complicated. Meanwhile, the five group (Katy, Ian, Sam, Matt and me) played Mystery At The Abbey, the new flavour of the month at GNN Towers.

With five players, trying to keep things a secret proved tricky. Sam would often leave the table completely to contemplate his findings elsewhere.

Since everyone began with less information than they do in a three-player game, I thought it would be longer but just as Sam told the Njet players that they’d be another half hour, Katy sped to the Capitulum to accuse Brother Malachi, and she was right! We hadn’t even reached the end of the second round.

Katy 4
Sam 2
Matt 2
Ian 0
Andrew 0

You know, Brother Malachi was the killer last time, too.

Njet had finished by now

Andy 23
Joe 19
Martin 13
Chris 9

And they’d begun on another card game called Beast Bar and that ended

Martin 4
Chris 3 (wins tie-breaker)
Andy 3
Joe 3

While we five played an epic game of Bandu. Sam, Ian and Katy just kept building and building until they ran out of blocks and had to use the ruins of Matt and my fallen towers. It was a tense affair, with the whole room gripped by the unfolding drama. In the end, the collapse of Sam’s set off Ian’s downfall and Katy won.

1. Katy
2. Ian
3. Sam
4. Matt
5. Andrew

And it was still early. We split into groups again. Sam finally gave in and played Joe at Tides of Times, with Joe winning by 86 to 58. Katy, Matt, Martin and Ian gave Beasty Bar another outing.

Katy 4
Matt 4
Martin 4
Ian 2

But the real excitement was kept for the far end of the table, where Chris, Andy and I played Ra. Andy twice got into a position of having the chance to pull out tiles from the bag with two bidding tiles left. And did he take out any disasters or a sudden run of Ra tiles? Nope. It was a consummate victory, with Chris not even bothering to watch the final stages, his attention caught by a non-leaderboard game of Go Stop at the other end of the table (which Martin won).

Andy 87
Chris 19
Andrew 17

After Pairs, Bandu and now Ra, it was an evening of astonishing performances. Well done, everyone.

Katy sits atop the fledgling division.