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.

Thrice Upon A Time In America

The last Tuesday of the season and what a festive end to the season it was. Well, not really. Katy wore a red tracksuit top that had white fleece trimmings which she said made it Christmassy. At least she made the effort.

The rest of us (“us” meaning: Adam and Hannah (hosts), Ian, Ben, Andy, Katy, Joe, Martin, myself and then, later on, a friend of Adam/Hannah/Katy’s: yet another Andy aka AW) were dressed for games. We began with an eight (or nine)-player game of Panic On Wall Street. In this game, investors buy shares in four different products from the managers. The aim is to be the investor or manager with the most money. Effectively, it’s two games in one.

We played a couple of rounds before deciding that another three rounds might be a little too long, especially now AW had arrived and Arthur had been put to bed. Hannah had meant to join us in the game, but was called away by her son’s distant cries. To reward her efforts, I decided to keep her score as the amount of money she had when she’d started.

So, the final reckoning after three rounds was:

Investors

Adam $180,000
Andrew $160,000
Joe $160,000
Hannah $120,000
Martin BUST!

Yes, poor old Martin was cleaned out when he went big on reds, only to see them crash from highest to their lowest possible value thanks to a –7 roll on the red die. It was a galling defeat, as he had carefully calculated the odds and any other roll would have got him a win or second.

And as for the managers:

Andy $395,000
Ian $300,000
Ben $285,000
Katy $285,000

Ben went for a huge portfolio to try and bring in as much as possible. Ian, perhaps by choice or perhaps by Ben buying everything, had a very small portfolio. The eventual victory, Andy, had a medium sized range of shares but which, crucially, included those tempting reds.

Next we split into two groups. Joe mentioned casually that he’d brought Lords of Vegas with him, and Martin and Ian instantly volunteered themselves before volunteering Ben to make up the quartet. They set off for the front room to make their fortunes on Sunset Strip.

As for the rest of us, there was some idle talk about splitting into two groups of three but Andy had brought Colt Express with him so we decided to stay together for the third US-themed game of the evening.

This time Katy was Belle, whose beauty was so great it could stop a bullet. Or at least, divert it towards someone else. I was Ghost, the mysterious enigmatic bandit who always starts in a tunnel. Or something.

The game’s notable event was the Marshall’s sudden rampage along the train. During a tunnel round (when all cards are played face down) four people chose to move the Marshall, and so he stormed his way along the train, shooting anyone he saw, sending them scuttling up to the roof. Where there wasn’t any loot. Oh, how we laughed.

Katy played a perfect game, nabbing the suitcase and then an armful of gems while the rest of us shot and punched each other in the middle of the train. This game did not favour people whose name begins with ‘A’. Poor old Adam was today’s target of choice in most gunfights.

Katy $3,010
Hannah $2,550
Andy $1,550
Andrew $1,550
AW $1,200
Adam $800

Lords of Vegas was still nowhere near finishing, and Andy had another six-player game which caught our eye: Between Two Cities. This is a game where you built two cities: one with each of your neighbours. You get a number of tiles and, like 7 Wonders, you pass them on after each turn. Then there are the cunning double tiles before returning to drawing single tiles again.

At the end of three rounds, you should be sitting next to two 4x4 cities, complete with parks, factories, offices, houses, shops and pubs/hotels/venues. Each one has it’s own way of scoring points. The trick is: the lowest scoring city you’re next to is your score, with the other city acting as a tie-breaker.

It was all very civil, as we collaborated to make our little creations. Hannah and I built a green capital, with two three-tile parks (12 points each) while Adam and Katy created Smog City, stuffed full of factories (4 points per factory if you have the most).

It was almost too nice, and I wasn’t really paying attention to the other cities. Like Takenoko, it lulls you into a false sense of tranquillity before the end of the game looms and you have to make some decisions fast. Of course, the best decision is to sit between Andy and Katy, so well done to Adam!

Adam 56 (61)
Katy 56 (60)
Andy 54 (61)
Andrew 54 (60)
Hannah 53 (54)
AW 53 (54)

As we packed that game away, Lords of Vegas was coming to an end. All I’d heard from it was the occasional groan of disbelief and Martin’s loud assertion that “This is bullshit!” at one point. I watched the final round as Ian spent big to reorganise two casinos (one went to Joe, though) before the Strip finally paid out again. It was to prove a winning move as he leapfrogged Martin and Joe. Meanwhile, it was tight for second.

Ian 44
Martin 40 (plus $47m)
Joe 40 (plus $45m)
Ben 18

It must have been tough for Ben playing against such seasoned professionals, but he said he enjoyed it on the journey home.

Finally, there was time for a quick two-round game of 6nimmt – Adam’s zombie version. I know some poo-poo this design, but I think 6nimmt’s relentless onslaught of a mindless enemy and a desperate sense that you can’t possibly escape quite fits the zombie motif.

At the start of the second round, we decided that Adam's dealing was too slow, so AW helped deal from the other half of the deck! Two dealers for one game. It was madness, I tell you! My phone didn't know what to focus on.

AW 9
Adam 12
Katy 13
Joe 15
Martin 17
Ben 26
Andrew 26
Ian 33
Hannah 42
Andy 65

And with that we were away. Four of us packed into my tiny car. As we went down Devon Road (the somewhat seedy back street made up of garage doors and graffiti) Katy missed a call from Hannah. Thinking we must have forgotten something she asked me to stop so I did, engine running and lights on, while she called back.

This must’ve been disconcerting for the lone cyclist who was coming the other way. Especially when Katy discovered that Joe had left his glasses behind, and I pulled away again just as the cyclist had gone past us. Whatever must he have thought?

But to more pressing matters: the Division. Alas, there were no last minute twists of fate: Katy and Adam take the plaudits as we thought they probably would. But how remarkable to see a dead heat (in points) between two of the newcomers. Well done Tim and AW.

See you in the New Year for the next exciting instalment etc etc...