Dad on Arrival

This Tuesday we congregated at Sam’s. Apart from myself and the host, there were Ian, Andy, Joe and – making his first full appearance since becoming a father – Martin.

At the very beginning, Andy was still to arrive and Joe was too busy eating his roast chicken supper from a Tupperware container so the four of us were cajoled into the first game of the evening by an eager Martin.

It was Librium, a balancing game (which is why we had to play it before Andy got here) and it was apparently an impulse buy when Martin was in Cardiff earlier. It involves balancing interlocking credit cards on a tripod (“A tripod!” exclaimed Martin in awe). Winner is the last person who hasn’t caused a minor collapse.

1. Ian
2. Sam
3. Martin
4. Andrew

After this, with Andy present and Joe with both hands free, we played Diamonsters. It’s a very simple trick-taking game with two ways to win a round (and collect a jewel): Win cards that have a total of five or more diamonds on them, or win three of the same monster. We played until someone had two jewels.

The cards only number from 1 to 5, and since draws cancel out, there were plenty of occasions were people’s plans interfered with each other. It all seemed a bit random to me, but Ian appeared to have a better idea about what to do.

Ian 2 jewels
Sam 1 jewel
Andy, Joe, Martin, Andrew no jewels at all

As we were getting ready to play Diamonsters, Sam was occupied elsewhere when Sally came back. She popped in to say hello, saw Diamonsters and asked Joe if it was his new game. Joe was stumped for a reply. He didn’t know if Diamonsters was a surreptitious new purchase and if he said “No,” he might have landed Sam in hot water. But if it wasn’t and he said “Yes” then he would have been lying. And that’s not nice. In the end, he explained his hesitation and Sally laughed, impressed that Joe would consider taking a hit for the team.

Finally, before we split into two groups for the night’s main features, we all played Birds of a Feather. It’s become a favourite for a quick yet agonising game. And, for some reason, I keep forgetting to photograph it.

It was Sam’s and Martin’s first game, so Joe dealt out a dummy round to demonstrate. In this random example, Joe seemed to have played a terrible move, and Joe swiftly pointed that out in case anyone thought that he thought that playing the same card twice was a sensible thing to do.

Once we got going, the newbies seem to take to it fairly quickly. Andy, though, complained about his hand right at the start and his prediction was spot on.

Ian 35 (three locations completed!)
Martin 30
Sam 30
Andrew 29
Joe 26
Andy 20

Now we split into two groups and two new games were set up. At the far end, Sam, Ian and Martin played Origin. Nearer me (obviously) the rest of us played Cyclades.

Cyclades was a proper old-fashioned eurogame, and as Joe explained the rules it occurred to me that this was the most rule-heavy game I’d learnt in a while. The main mechanic of the game is the bidding. In a three-player game, we can bid on three gods. If someone bids higher then you have to change your bid to another god. I’ve seen this game mechanic before (can’t remember where) and it does rely on someone else really wanting to bid on a God that you don’t want so if you get bumped off your first bid, you will be bumped off your second bid and allowed to go back to your first. The bidding ends when each god has a bid on it.

Then these bids are paid, the actions carried out on the map and that’s more or less it. Apart from the mythological creatures who you can buy and use their powers to aid you.

It’s quite confrontational. Andy quickly replaced one of Joe’s ships with one of his own thanks to the mythical Sirens. And then thanks to Chimera, was able to use a card from the discard pile which, at that time, only contained Sirens, so Andy used Chimera, and then Sirens and replaced one of my ships with one of his.

But Joe had the final say, using Pegasus to transport an army across the map to attack my island with a metropolis on it. He won the battle and therefore got a second metropolis, ensuring the win. We ended the game there and then but we should have continued to the end of the round to see if Joe could hold on to that second metropolis.

I wasn’t bothered, though. I liked it, but it seemed to lack a certain something. Andy said that the bidding didn’t really work and perhaps it would’ve made more sense to be able to bid further up the track you’re already on instead of having to move to a different god. A quick look on the Geek confirmed that it was considered best with 4-5 players.

1. Joe, two metropolises
2. Andy, lots of armies
3. Andrew, not much left on the board

On the other half of the table, they had long finished Origin:

Martin 75
Ian 64
Sam 42

... and started a game of Ra. In this game, Martin was given free reign on the bidding track at the end with two bidding tiles in hand. Despite lots of monuments in play, Sam and Ian couldn’t close the gap.

Martin 62
Sam 39
Ian 29

After this, we dashed off two games of For Sale. Joe picked up the 1 card for free, insisting it was a solid card since you know what you’re going to get.

Martin 55
Sam 47
Andy 45
Ian 45
Andrew 35
Joe 35

And then, in the second game Martin fell foul of some big bids in the second half of the game as he played high cards and got poor returns.

Andy 54
Sam 46
Andrew 44
Ian 43
Joe 42
Martin 38

Martin slightly ruefully said he shouldn’t have played that last game, since otherwise it was a sterling performance with no sign of the drop in form that effected Sam and Adam after their babies. He, Ian and Andy all set off together.

But me, Sam and Joe stayed for one last game: Kodama. This is a simple card game where you build a tree, getting points for chaining together certain features (stars, caterpillars, mushrooms, etc) and also for fulfilling certain criteria for bonus points.

It was a pleasant and calming way to end the evening. I sped into a late win with my last round bonus card getting me thirty points.

Andrew 135
Sam 120
Joe 113

And with that, the evening was finally done and the GNN whiskey bought by Katy on my birthday was also finally finished off. Thanks, Katy!

On the Division, Ian rises to the top in points while Ben and Katy hold on to points ratio and the medal table respectively.

Sir Arthur Coal and Oil

This Tuesday, despite my best efforts at dawdling and checking my phone, I arrived early at Joe’s. His family were still in the kitchen eating, so I was escorted to the lounge. A rare treat, with its soft furnishings and lovely view. Katy arrived soon after and she went straight to the window to pick out Bristol landmarks.

Before long, more of us had arrived and Joe decided there were enough of us to take over the kitchen.

The first game was Birds of a Feather, and there were seven of us: Joe, myself, Ben, Matt, Andy, Ian and Katy. Sam was making a last minute dash to the off-licence while we played.

It was a nice warm-up to the evening. Katy complained that she didn’t know what to do, but rejected any suggestion that she should go Dirk. I sailed to a comfortable win, having completed two sets of bird-spotting.

Andrew 28
Ben 21
Matt 20
Joe 20
Katy 19
Andy 19
Ian 18

Then Sam returned and we split into two groups. The evening began as an all Japanese affair, with one half of the table hosting Takashi Ishida’s Magical Athlete, and the other half featuring the Japan-based Tokaido, by 7 Wonders designer Antoine Bauza. And if that weren’t Japanese enough for you, I was on the Sake this evening.

Tokaido features the players travelling from Kyoto to Tokyo, stopping off at inns along the way, and also visiting temples, painting panoramas, buying souvenirs. These all give you points, and at the end of the game, there are bonuses for those how did the most of a particular activity.

The four pieces plod along the road, with the furthest back always the next player to go. This means that simply shooting off into a big lead is pointless, as you simply won’t move again until you’re overtaken.

Katy, Ben, Joe and Andy played Magical Athlete. Ben asked to play this solely based on the picture on the box. He must’ve been disappointed by the under-designed dirt brown track that the races would take place on.

Ian, Sam, Matt and myself went for Tokaido and, apart from Matt getting confused over what colour he’d chosen, it was quite a serene occasion. I was so serene that I let myself fall back into a distant last. Sam went big on souvenirs and the eternally skint artist, Ian, picked up lots of bonus points for panoramas.

Sam 80
Matt 72
Ian 67
Andrew 64

Luckily, Magical Athlete ended at the same time as Tokaido.

Ben 11
Joe 9
Andy 8
Katy 4

So with the eight of us together again, we were able to reshuffle the groups. We split into two groups of four again. This time Katy, Ian, Sam and Matt chose Riff Raff while Joe, me, Andy and Ben played Isle of Trains.

Isle of Trains is a card game not dissimilar to Impulse in that the cards serve a number of functions: as parts of the train, as money to buy new parts and – if you rotate them – they become goods (timber, coal or oil) that you can load onto trains. And here’s the trick: loading goods onto other players’ trains gets you a bonus (more cards, an extra action etc). Once your train has enough, you can make a delivery, either to the discard pile (and then pick up more cards) or by picking up a card in the centre for points.

It’s all quite simple once you got going. Joe never upgraded his engine above the basic level, whereas I did, and I had a caboose to boost the pulling power. Ben upgraded to a level three engine pretty early on. Andy had trouble getting the cards he wanted, at one point having a hand containing only three level one engine cards.

Ben 49
Joe 46
Andy 45
Andrew 40

By the time we’d ended, Riff Raff had long since finished....

Katy 0
Matt 3
Ian 7
Sam 9

... and they’d begun on Africana. Obviously, this evening was going to be an epic. I was too distracted to really appreciate what went on in Africana, but I did notice a couple of moments where players got confused about which colour they were.

To entertain ourselves, we four had a game of For Sale using Joe’s newly bought copy from Italy. The cards were nice and big, and the illustrations clearer. But it’s the same old For Sale that we know and love.

Andrew 77
Andy 59
Ben 58
Joe 51

During this game, Ben found a packet of Skittles in his jacket pocket! Oh, how I wish I lead a life where things like that might happen to me. We all shared in a late-night sugar rush. They were all very welcome except that Katy said she didn't like the orange or purple ones. Insanity.

Then we discovered that Ben had missed his bus, so we played once more while Africana reached its closing stages.

Andrew 60
Ben 59
Joe 58
Andy 47

When Africana finished, it was another win for Katy.

Katy 47
Sam 46
Ian 33
Matt 32

And with the time creeping past 11.30, we were away. What a night! Thanks to Joe for hosting, and to his patient family for letting us turf them out of their kitchen.

The Division makes its first appearance of the season, and after two weeks Katy has the lead in Points and the medal table, while Ben leads on Points Ratio.

What A Great Sense of Yuma

Tonight was the last evening of the season. Some weeks back, Martin had boldly set a target for the chasing pack to reach before April while he went of to do Dad stuff. The evening began with Martin only a 4.57 point lead over Ian and barely two points further back was Katy. A delicate situation. Martin needed us to play only a couple of games and for Ian and Katy to do badly both times to stand a chance.

The top four at the start of the evening

There were six of us: Joe (host), Ian, Katy, Ben, Matt and myself. We began with Birds Of A Feather, the simple yet charming game of birdspotting.

Joe explained the rules to newcomer Matt using, whenever possible, the actual names of the birds instead of just referring to the icons. A nice touch, but the educational aspect still eludes me. After four games, I still can’t remember a single bird’s name.

Ian 28
Joe 25
Ben 23
Andrew 23
Matt 22
Katy 21

And with that victory, Ian closed in on Martin still further.

Meanwhile, we played Birds Of A Feather again, reminding Katy that this was a new game and not the second round of the same game as before.

Andrew 31
Joe 27
Katy 27
Matt 26
Ian 23
Ben 14

At this point we decided to stay as a group of six for the rest of the evening. After a little discussion, we chose Last Spike as the evening’s not-too-heavy main course.

This game of placing track and buying stock in different cities (which only pay out when it is successfully connected to another city) is simplicity itself, if a little bit luck dependent. Ben started badly, needing to pay double for a piece of non-adjoining track. He then invested heavily in the city of Yuma (hence the blog title) which luckily paid out for him in the later stages of the game.

No one needed to sell any shares due to lack of money, although it was close at times. And Katy and Joe both got three free shares for being the first to build from a particular city. Matt, meanwhile, built up a stack of cash hidden behind a bowl of pretzels.

I was lucky enough to put down the final tile, getting me a $20K bonus, otherwise I’d have been left in joint last place.

Joe 71
Andrew 65
Matt 63
Ben 56
Katy 54
Ian 45

Another poor performance from Ian and Katy, but Martin’s title bid is over. I, on the other hand, may just force a late surprise.

Next game to the table was A Fake Artist In New York. I explained the rules and I began as Quiz Master. My topic (“xylophone”) was deemed too specific by Katy and she argued about its suitability throughout round one. Interestingly, Matt joined in with the debate. I say interesting, because he was the fake artist. Clearly, he was trying to look like someone who knew what the topic was. It worked, since he wasn’t chosen as the fake artist.

Joe turned out to be an excellent fake artist once he’d quelled his desire to draw something recognisable. Halfway through the round where he was the fake artist, he said “Surely, this should be...” and then turned the drawing up the other way. An audacious bluff, and a great success.

In the final round, Katy chose “Joe” as the topic and Joe as the fake artist. A bit of a giveaway, really. But we did end up with a nice piece of minimalist portraiture.

Ben 6
Andrew 6
Matt 5
Joe 4
Katy 2
Ian 1

More faltering stumbles from Ian and Katy, and I’m up into second!

As the night progressed, so we introduced Ben to the joys of Incan Gold. I say “joys”, but his inaugural game was notable for the speed with which enemies threw themselves in our path. Temple three may have claimed a record for brevity: zombie lady, rockfall, spider, zombie lady. Joe managed to make his way through a temple far enough to get plenty of treasure and one example of each type of danger. But he just had to push it one card too far.

Katy 13
Ben 12
Matt 11
Ian 6
Andrew 5
Joe 5

Did this result signal a change in Katy’s fortunes? Although we didn’t know it at the time (I wasn’t updating the division as we played), she had claimed top spot.

If she’d known this she may not have eagerly agreed to another game of Incan Gold.

This was a more entertaining game of Incan Gold. The temples didn’t fall down upon us the moment we entered. I had one of those games where you know whichever decision you make, it’ll be the wrong one. I leave: the temple is large and profitable. I stay: it’s hello zombie ladies.

A nice temple (me, absent)

Joe 35
Katy 30
Matt 28
Ben 16
Ian 15
Andrew 10

And so, the evening was done. The season was done. Well done to Martin for winning points ratio (the proper mark of a champion) and the medal table but also congrats to Katy for taking top spot at the last minute.

One for diamonds, two for gold

This week was a special date in the GNN calendar. it was a Katy's birthday. However, due to a nasty cold, it was not the happiest of birthdays. Perhaps, we hoped, some good company and better games would improve matters.

There were seven of us at Adam's: Adam, Ben, Andy, Ian, Katy, and myself with Joe expected along shortly. We tried to think of a nice group game we could all enjoy together, but without Martin or Sam or Joe, we were short of options. No Pairs, no Celestia, no Push It, barely anything. Only 6nimmt was available, and so we played that.

Since we were expecting Joe to arrive soon, we dealt in Dirk as a dummy hand that Joe could take over once he arrived. As you might expect from a random series of cards, Dirk veered from uncanny escapes to hopeless doom. But then again, so did the rest of us.

Midway through the second round, Martin arrived, all aglow with the joys of new fatherhood. He was only supposed to say hello, but with an unclaimed stack of cards on the table, he couldn't resist the invitation and took over Dirk's role for the rest of the game.

Andrew 21
Katy 36
Andy 36
Adam 42
Ian 47
Dirk 53
Ben 80

After this, Martin set off home and Joe arrived. He'd brought Birds of a Feather with him (the game, not a DVD box set of the sitcom) and since it played seven, he explained the rules and we all had a couple of games.

The game is very simple. From your hand of cards (with birds on), everyone plays one card into to centre. You, as a birdspotter, can see any birds that are in the same environment as the card you played. This means, you can tick off those birds on your scorepad. Then all these cards move into the centre, but stay face up, giving you the opportunity to spot birds that you missed with your next card (assuming you have the right environment in your hand).

It was fun and surprisingly thinky.

Andy 26
Joe 23
Katy 22
Andrew 22
Adam 22
Ben 20
Ian 15

In the next game we played an extra rule: the raptor rule. This means that when a raptor (a bird of prey) is played, all the birds from the previous round from the same environment are scared off (turned face down) and can't be spotted.

Andrew 29
Joe 25
Andy 24
Katy 23
Ian 19
Adam 16
Ben 12

A nice, relaxing game. Joe said that he wished he had some recordings of birdsong as a background. I have a feeling it's also meant to be educational, but I didn't look at the cards enough.

Then we split into two groups. Andy, Adam and Ian went the hard route, battling each other with tactics and pasties in that old favourite: Tinners' Trail.

We remaining four struck out into lighter territory with another new game from Joe: Karuba. He described it as a cross between Incan Gold and Take It Easy, and that's exactly what it was. Four meeples are placed along two sides of each players' playing area and four temple (of matching colours) are placed along the opposing two sides. Everyone starts with an identical set-up.

Then one player picks their tiles randomly, while the other players choose the same one from their supply and then play it on their area. The tiles have paths, and the idea is to get your meeples to their matching temples, picking up any gold (two points) and diamonds (one point) on the way.

We played twice and in game one, I did well. I put down to crossroad tiles in the middle of the board and they were very useful in ferrying my meeples to where they needed to be.

Andrew 23
Joe 20
Katy 19
Ben 14

So, in the second game, I tried the same tactic again, except the crossroad tiles didn't come out. In fact, hardly any junctions at all came out, and before long I was stuck, not wanting to put down tiles nor was I able to move my men.

Halfway through the second game, Katy's cold started a coughing fit and she had to retire for a few minutes. When she came back, we insisted that she rest her throat, so it was an uncommonly mute Katy who chose the tiles and held them up for us to see. This inconvenience didn't stop her from winning, just one point ahead of Ben.

Katy 22
Ben 21
Joe 17
Andrew 8

In the other room, Cornwall was still being plundered for its natural resources, so we played Castle Crush. It was new to Ben and I, but the rules are pretty straightforward: built a castle to protect your king and general from the cudgel of doom that topples from a circular platform onto your opponent's structure.

That's the theory, anyway. The two newbies began with contrasting fortunes. My first castle proved unexpectedly strong (I'm still not sure why). But on Ben's turn he tried to attack Katy's castle, only for the cudgel to bounce off harmlessly and it ended up hitting the side of his own castle and the king and general both popped out the other side.

But after that, Ben had better luck (or was it skill) and he quickly made up lost ground. Joe seemed think he was being picked on. Perhaps he was. Either way, his strong final round castle (withstanding two hits with barely a tremor) was not strong enough and Ben dealt the decisive blow.

Ben 75
Andrew 59
Katy 59
Joe 33

Tinners' Trail had ended by now, too. Adam had done enough to overturn Ian's high scoring first and third rounds.

Adam 137
Ian 125
Andy 108