Helmet by moonlight

 This week’s games night was heralded in the sky by a full moon veiled behind gossamer thin clouds, giving my walk to Sam’s the air of an 18th century oil painting. Ignoring all the traffic, of course.

At Sam’s it turned out we were five in number: Sam, Joe, Adam, Katy and myself. When I arrived, they were in the middle of Destination X, and Adam was hiding somewhere among 6 locations. We had cards in our hand, allowing us to ask certain questions while Adam looked up the answers in a book.

Of the 6 locations, Sweden was very much the odd one out, with the rest being islands or archipelagos in the Southern hemisphere. 

We soon outed Adam from his hideaway in Mauritania. Katy wanted to try another round but the overall consensus was to love on to something that was a bit more like a game.

We chose Vegas Strip. A recent arrival to these shores, it's similar to Las Vegas in that players are trying to control casinos but instead of the vagaries of dice, you can chose what value you place on your turn.

You also have a colleague who is aware that you have deemed two casinos “rigged” or “secure”. In a rigged casino, only the highest valued player wins the $15m bonus, whereas in a secure, everyone except the winner gets the money equal to the value they had in that casino. The way that the two team mates share knowledge is by an exchange of cards, being told “this is rigged,” and “this is secure. “

Since there were five of us, one of the three teams was made up of a single player. I round one, this was Katy who couldn't get a grip on the game and, with no team mate to work with, felt quite frustrated. She ended round one with 6 points while the rest of us were in the mid-20s.

In round two, I was the solo player and, initially I also felt out of my depth, just putting down figures at a whim. But soon I thought I saw some patterns and by the end I had won one casino and done well in a couple of others.

Round three, I was one of the players given two casinos and had to decide which was rigged and which was secure. I was actually given the same two casinos that I’d had in the previous round so I just gave them the opposite role as before and gave the two cards to Sam saying “this is rigged” and “this is secure.”

Except I hadn’t swapped them. I didn’t realise until the end, when the round was scored, that we’d been playing with different priorities. It didn’t benefit either of us, so no harm done, but I was disappointed I’d messed up, especially since I’d spent most of round three thinking that Sam was the best bluffer in the world.

Adam 76

Andrew 67

Sam 63

Joe 51

Katy 43

Next Katy was in the mood for So Clover, but Sam thought it too early. Instead we played Fun Facts where we have to answer questions like “How well dressed are you, on a scale of 0-100.” Our answers were meant to be secret but Katy complained that she could see mine quite easily. I told her not to look and she likened that to someone putting their cock on the table and then saying “guys, stop looking at my penis!”

Katy and Adam had two rounds in which they chose 43 and 44 for their answers, one of which being how much you’d pay for a really high-class meal in a restaurant. We got 5 out of 5 in one round which was “How much do you enjoy abstract art”

Final score 29 “nice score, you’re hitting your stride.”

Hitting our stride.

After 15 years, we’re hitting our stride. Because, as Sam pointed out to me later, Friday marks this blog’s fifteenth birthday. That’s insane. That means I was in my thirties when we started, and that can’t be right. But anyway, here we are. Well done everyone.

After I left, they had a game of So Clover which contained the word “helmet” three times! Crazy days. 

Oh, and Sam and Joe had kicked off the evening with a two-player game of Can’t Stop. Just as well they played before Katy got there, since it’s almost prompted a seizure before, due to her literal inability to stop.

Another lovely evening. Thanks all.

Lucky Luxor

 

With the country facing two different routes of either ending the lockdown or going into a second wave of the virus (possibly both at the same time), our potential host Sam erred on the side of caution and so GNN moved back online for another week. I'll be honest, having sampled the joys of real life games, it felt like a real step backwards. But even so, three of us pitched up on Discord for an evening's entertainment.

Me, Ian and Andy arrived and waited for Sam until a text told us he couldn't make it. We fired up Lucky Numbers as a starter. It's a simple blend of draw tile, use or discard tile, until your four by four grid is full. I got lucky with a decent spread of opening numbers, unlike Ian who began with 10, 11, 13 among his tiles.

Andrew 16

Andy 15

Ian 11

After that we played Luxor, which has been seen a couple of times in GNN in cardboard format and was now available in a pixelated version. I got a quick run through of the rules, but it’s pretty straightforward once you understand the card drafting method of only picking from either side of your hand, and replenishing in the middle.

It was fun and enjoyable. It was my first go (and Ian’s too, I think) so we both played pretty similar games, picking up jewelry as we went like we were playing Incan Gold. Andy sent one adventurer off ahead on his own into the central room and then later on he got his second man into the centre to end the game before Ian or I could do it instead.

Andy 63

Andrew 44

Ian 43

Then I had to head off and Ian and Andy finished off with Can’t Stop.

Ian 4

Andy 1

Thanks for the evening. Who knows what kind of world we’ll be in next week?

Beyond Salvaging

 This week GNN saw a mere four members online (Katy, Martin, Ian and I). But while we were mere in numbers we were far from mere in enthusiasm. Notwithstanding being a bit tired and me being late.
When I'd arrived they'd already played Eggs Of Ostrich with Katy winning (K 19, I 12, M 9).

Next was the online debut of Senators, the auction-heavy card game of Roman political intrigue. Katy got a rules refresher which I needed as well. The game worked pretty well on playingcards.io and Katy was impressed enough with how professional it was, and she asked “Is it difficult to do this?” “Martin answered “Not really,” and then Katy clarified “Is it difficult for a normal person to do this.”

The one awkward part was how to blind bid whenever there was a war: everyone bids, highest gets a senator but everyone pays. Martin suggested a compromise: we all flipped over our coins in our player area and then, on a signal, dragged them onto the playing area. If you wanted to bid zero, you would just say so. It seemed to work well, especially for me when my opponents said they weren’t bidding while I dragged my two coins onto the board. What a cheap Senator!

Andrew 10
Ian 8
Martin 8
Katy 7

Next up was Salvage - a brand new game, not even on Board Game Geek. It’s a trick taker in which you have to avoid winning tricks with flaming boats in them. Doing so means you lose points. However, you have a chance to collect oil barrels to offset the damage. (There’s a story behind all this, I think, but it's pretty tenuous) But anyway, there are 15 oil barrels in total and the players are expected to share them nicely without the 15th barrel being taken. If that happens, then everyone loses points according to how many oil barrels they took. Greed is bad, you see.

Anyway, I had trouble getting my head around it, although I did enjoy Katy losing to Martin, Ian and I playing 1, 2 and 3 red cards (all on fire) and she had the 4. This happened three times. How we laughed. Especially me, since I had nothing else to laugh about.

Martin 14
Katy 13
Ian 11
Andrew -1

Next up was another playingcard game - Krass Kareirt. This game of playing increasingly high hands without actually rearranging your cards. It works well on the internet.

Martin 2

Katy 2

Andrew 1

Ian 0

At this point Ian retired to bed and we three pondered our next move. We went back to BGA because otherwise we're just wasting our money. We chose Can't Stop (which appears to have some kind of desert island theme to it) which I usually do well at since I'm usually able to stop. According to the end of game statistics, I went bust only once. Martin, on the other hand, had only one successful roll in the first half of the game.

Andrew 3

Katy 2
Martin 1

And that was that. Off to dream our dreams of success and derring-do. 

Can't Stop/Can Stop

I (Sam) was late to GNN last night, and had the unique experience of listening to the end of a game of Can't Stop where the only available numbers left were 2,3,4 and 5. Ian, Katy, Martin and Adam H were all going repeatedly bust and the swear-meter was up at eleven. Eventually Katy won - not sure what the other positions were.

Katy - can stop!

8pm was nearly upon us and duly Adam T, Anja and Steve appeared. Joe remained, for now, mysteriously absent. We embarked on a game of Codenames with Ian clueing for Steve, Anja and Adam T. I was spymaster for Martin, Katy, and the enigmatic Adam H. Both teams began with a solid 2 correct guesses each, then we (Blue) pulled slightly into the lead when Ian's clue of Mount Rushmore led to an incorrect guess of Washington.

Both Ian and I were slightly bamboozled by the amount of water-related words on the grid with me trying to clue sink/pirate/stream and Ian well. Fortunately we ticked off horn and swing thanks to jazz - it's not often I say thanks to jazz - and then Ian's clue of shaft gave us a single word to finish the game off:

Martin/Katy/Adam H/Sam - Masters of Cold War

Around this point Joe materialised, but barely had time to say hello before he was led off for a game of Tichu with Ian, Katy and Martin. No idea what happened there - the rest of us, after another bout of elusiveness from Adam H, went off to play Taluva. This hasn't been seen on a GNN Tuesday night since the olden days, before so many things that happened, that I needed a refresher that amounted to a first-teach.

Fortunately Adam T, Steve and Anja had all played recently, and the only person who'd never played before was Adam H, who - inevitably? - won anyway. I'm blaming distractions of two roaming children, and the moon out the window.

I have to apologise because I struggled to get what any kind of strategy was and halfway through the game began to fall asleep, to the point where I asked if it was feasible to bail, and put enough social pressure on Steve as a result that he rushed his final few turns. Who knows what might have been had I kept my mouth shut? Sorry Steve. I remembered Taluva as a fairly dainty game but I now suspect I only ever played it 2-player with Joe. Five was a different beast.

Adam H - wins
Everyone else - loses, thanks to Sam

At this point I fell into bed and therefore missed whatever drama was about to unfold... I hope the comments will tell a better story than mine, which was Sally waking me at 3am because I was snoring so loudly.

Just One Virgin

Six eager players sat around Joe's kitchen table this week. The host was joined by myself, Adam H, Ian, Martin and Katy with Adam T expected later. There was no Sam but he was still a part of tonight as we discussed the mystery of his three year old email that had suddenly dropped into all our inboxes. It was so old that it went to people who'd long since left the mailing list and a couple contacted Joe asking if it should have gone to him instead.

But talk about where this email had been for three years was put to one side and we played L.A.M.A. to fill the time until Adam T arrived. I went clear in the first two rounds but Joe, despite an apparent inability at remembering which number followed which ("I forgot there were sixes,") went clear in round three and got rid of a ten point token.

Joe 5
Andrew 9
Martin 15
Ian 25
Katy 28
Adam 45

When Adam T arrived we split into two. Joe, Martin, Adam T and Katy played Babylonia - the table-hogging area control game from Knizia. That meant Ian, Adam H and me adjourned to the card table for slightly smaller scale fun.

We started with Can't Stop, discovering that if you can stop, the game passes by pretty serenely. Ian and I were sensible while Adam pushed his luck and failed regularly. Even though he went for sevens. Out of the four rounds we played, he succeeded only once. I, on the other hand, got lucky and closed out the 2 and 12 columns quickly before wrapping up the 8 column for a swift victory.

Andrew 3
Ian 1
Adam H 0

Then we chose Hab and Gut, which just about fitted on the table. Ian manipulated Yellows to good effect in round one but then joined me on a doomed speculation that Brown would improve dramatically in round two. It didn't.

Adam was the wisest investor but, in the final count, we discovered he didn't have to be since Ian and I both donated exactly the same amount to charity ensuring that we were both disqualified as joint least generous.

Adam H 720
Andrew 695 but OUT
Ian 520 but OUT

Midway through this game Babylonia ended…

Martin 133
Adam T 127
Joe 120
Katy 106

And they embarked on a few missions of Die Crew. I was a bit miffed that I was going to miss this game again but Martin assured me that there'd be plenty of time to catch up.

They began where they left off, on mission 9 and continued until mission 14 . Martin would read the scenario and criteria before each mission. They pondered over their co operative trick taking (notwithstanding Katy's outburst of "I won" after one successful mission) and indulged in the kind of dialogue that more science fiction should have.

"I've done it again," said Adam, sighing.

"What do you mean 'Done it again'?" asked Martin.

"You'll see," replied Adam.

Now imagine that in a block-buster CG-laden sci-fi film and you can see the appeal of the game.

Anyway, after Hab and Gut, we on the card table played Take It Easy. Categories were: Things I taped off the TV onto VHS (me), Terry Pratchett books (Ian, revisiting an old favourite) and computer games I've played (Adam). Whoever called the categories scored worse for that round, interestingly enough.

Adam 439
Ian 385
Andrew 358

This was followed by a discussion prompted by my disbelief that Sim City ever came out on the ZX Spectrum.

Then Die Crew finished and we were all together again. We needed a rousing party game to finish off. I was keen on Stinker but Cybil the dog had pissed on the floor and it was difficult to reach the game without standing on damp yellowing tissues. So Just One was chosen instead.

We were amazed and delighted to discover that it was a brand new copy brought by Joe to entertain so visitors for the forthcoming weekend. Katy revelled in the feel of a virgin pack of cards and she marvelled at the new dry wipe pens.

"Looking forward to using my rubber. Look how firm it is!" she exclaimed happily.

"It doesn't stay firm for long," said Joe, dolefully.

But double entendres aside, we whipped through the first four rounds when Joe mentioned that they've never achieved a clean sweep. Katy was not impressed because he'd mentioned this right before her turn, putting the pressure on.

But she succeeded and the correct answers kept coming (although no one managed to guess a duplicated word) until it came back to Katy at which point Joe reminded her what was at stake, causing more despair as all hopes came to rest on her shoulders.

But she rose to the occasion, got it right and all that was left was for Adam T to correctly guess the last word "pool" which he did. And by the way, kudos to whoever (Ian, I think) wrote "swimming" because this most obvious of clues wasn't duplicated. A perfect run of Just One was completed.

With history made, Ian, Katy and the two Adams left. Martin, Joe and I took on the mighty challenge of The Mind Extreme. The rules are the same except there are two suits, red and white, of 1-50 and the white cards should go up in value while the red cards should go down. And sometimes one of the piles is placed face down.

We played twice and both times got finished off by round six, a devilish level that requires both piles to be placed face down. Evil. The second time we perhaps should have used more shurikens but instead lost both our remaining lives to mere single--digit mistakes. Very cruel.

But fun. Thanks all for a lovely evening. See you next Tuesday.

The Adam Family

A balmy Bristol evening in late May, and what better way to spend it than cloistered around the Table Of Joe, doors thrown open wide, saying things like "you can activate as many energy nodes as you like, but you can only take your own bonus". So that's what we did: as well as the host, there was Martin, Katy, myself (Sam) and the two Adams.

How to distinguish them - in their absence - was the dominant early part of the conversation, but this was later succeeded by how to stop them, as both embarked on a winning spree that made up almost the entire evening.

However - before we even got to that point, Martin introduced Joe, Ian, Katy, Adam T and myself to Reiner Knizia's Spiel des Jahres-nominated L.A.M.A. Apparently it stands for (in German) something like 'avoid minus points', and with good reason. Like Fuji Flush, you're trying to get rid of your cards, by playing them in ascending order (-you can also play a matching value in LAMA) and if you can't go, you can pick up a card. But unlike Fuji Flush, you can also choose to stop playing when you still have cards in your hand (accepting their number value as minus points) while the other players keep going. In fact, even one player can keep going, if they have cards that don't jump anything on the number line. The numbers go from 1-6 and then the LAMA card links the 6 back to the 1 - but being left with a LAMA card in your hand is bad, as it scores a lot of points:

Adam T 1
Katy/Joe 2
Sam 5
Ian/Martin 8

After one round, Adam H had arrived and so we split into two groups. While Joe, Martin and Adam T set up Res Arcana, the rest of us introduced Adam to Sol: Last Days of a Star. I made sure to mention that motherships move before I explained anything else, and Ian mentioned it again right at the end of the explanation. Despite that though, we all kept forgetting to move our mothership. Even worse was that I forgot that activating stations triggers card draws, but I'm pinning this on having to say things like transmit towers convert energy into momentum within earshot of Joe's family.

Adam picked things up with no issue and we cleared up the activation gaffe pretty quickly. It was a game of elusive patterns as we circled the sun like a quartet of wary boxers, each hoping to... well, here the analogy breaks down. I sped into an early lead but with Ian and Adam hot on my tail. Katy languished on the momentum track ("Again!") and we sped through the instability deck like boxers intent on solar collapse.

On the other side of the table, meanwhile, a more combative battle was playing out, with Martin complaining that Joe was 'sapping his death'. Joe grinned happily. Whatever they were doing to each other, Adam invoked some kind of Darwinian strategy and emerged a convincing victor.

Adam wins.

And they enjoyed it so much, they played again. This time:

Martin wins.

They even snuck in a quick game of Good Little Tricks, and Adam T reclaimed the current-winner status, whilst previous incumbent Martin sank to a sweary third:

Adam T 0
Joe 9
Martin 18

Unfortunately I took no photos of any of these incredible events - we were in a combustive game - endgame, by now - of Sol. Adam (H) had surged ahead of me on the scoretrack, and I needed one more turn to activate my transmit tower for a piddling three points - enough to reclaim the lead. With only four cards left in the deck, however, Katy triggered three of them: and one was the last solar flare, instantly ending the game!

Adam 19
Sam 18
Ian/Katy 12

Whew. What drama! After the death of a star we needed something less portentuous. The groups cross-pollinated with Ian, Martin and Joe going for Ra, while the rest of us perused Joe's game collection. Adam T suggested Castles of Burgundy, but at 9.20 already we felt it might be a little late to start that one. Katy proposed Can't Stop and the murmurs of approval had enough weight to carry.

While we hurled dice on our side of the table - occasionally going bust - Joe was weaving some kind of magic in Ra. By the end of the second epoch he had a collection of buildings so colossal Martin and Ian must have felt like throwing in the towel. And despite his collection of low bidding tiles, he only added more in the third epoch, ending a high-scoring game like some kind of Egyptian contractor with a connection in the council office.

Joe 71
Martin 48
Ian 42

Meanwhile we'd squeezed in two games: belying his reputation as a zero-sum Euro-gamer, Adam H won Can't Stop with time and dice to spare. Katy and Adam found they couldn't stop. I stopped too often, except for when I shouldn't have.

Adam H 3
Katy 2
Adam T 1
Sam 0

We also played a quick game of Winston, the sausage-dog building competition featuring a wooden bone and wooden poo. To be frank, I think that description is as good as Winston gets, despite my phone's insistence on naming the game Einstein.

Adam H 20 (+6 for the bone!)
Adam T 16
Sam 15 (-6 for the poo!)
Katy 0

With the hour fairly late, Adam T and Ian now made their excuses and hit the road. The five remainers decided to return to LAMA, which - now we knew the rules - came into its own a little more. Joe and Adam found themselves locked into a stand-off as they both warily picked up cards, hoping the other wasn't about to quit and leave them with a bunch of non-ascending numbers.

The tension was palpable, and very Knizia-ry. And Adam H's winning run finally came to and end as Joe got rid of all his cards, allowing him to return a ten-point chit to the supply!

Joe 7
Katy 15
Sam 25
Martin 27
Adam H 51

I now made my way home as well, with the final four still keen to play another game. I'm not sure what it was, but no doubt they'll let us know in the comments...

"Jedi" seems to be the hardest word

As England basked in a unusually warm winter, seven happy gamers congregated at Joe's house for the regular dose of cardboard-based entertainment. We were Joe, Andy, Adam, Sam, Martin, Ian and me.

We began as one big group with Just One, the word game where duplicate clues must be avoided. And we did pretty well at first in that regard, although some of our clues were a little obscure. Adam's clue for "Passion" was "Iniesta" while my clue for "Lamp" was "aldiss". With hindsight I suppose "tower" and "shipwreck" make a great definition for "lighthouse" but it took me a while. And it didn't even occur to me that Jedi would be a word at all, so I failed that particular word despite the obvious clues.

As the game went on, duplicates started appearing and well done to Andy for guessing "Mars" from the two remaining clues, "Attacks" and "Snickers".

We were "awesome" according to the scoring system.

Next we split into two and I faced the surprising situation that both games I suggested were chosen. Me, Adam and Andy went for Can't Stop, the dice game of pushing your luck (then again, aren't they all?) while the other four played Zendo, the game of questioning the Buddhist nature of things.

Zendo doesn't have a winner (expect maybe Martin this time, with Sam pretty sure he was last) and I know little about what happened but I think they had fun.

Can't Stop, meanwhile, was proving to be a very cagey game as they three of us proved time and time again that we could stop, actually. This cautious play lasted until the closing stages when Andy went on a rolling spree of mostly sevens and nines and then Adam, forced into relying on his unreliable luck with dice, had to really go for it to steal the eight column from Andy and take the win.

Adam 3
Andy 1
Andrew 1

During these two games we pretty much demolished three bags of crisps in about three minutes, including Martin's snack that looked like Wotsits but tasted different, causing a brief moment of confusion the first time you tried one.

We were pretty much completely out of sync so at some point we started playing Kingdomino and they played Byzanz. This was new to me and, if the brief snatches of conversation I heard are anything to go by, it revolves around trading in your merchants and "getting shit for one."

Ian 25 (plus 5)
Martin 25 (plus 3)
Joe 24
Sam 22

Kingdomino was fun, although I was often last to choose, meaning I didn't have to think too much. Just as well since my 7.5% cider had gone straight to my head.

Andy 37
Andrew 34
Adam 23

We then shot through a game of No Thanks, complete with the ubiquitous complaints about who shuffled these cards. It was yours truly and while I understand that the human mind is predisposed to find patterns that aren't there, I have to admit that there were more runs of numbers being revealed than was normal. I even shuffled the cards before putting them back so that the next game wouldn't have that problem.

Adam's single run of cards meant he strolled to a dominant win.

Adam 16
Andy 52
Andrew 90

The other half of the table played an Avenue-ish game called Railway Links. In this game dice are rolled and the players have to draw what they see on the dice.

Joe was quietly optimistic mid-game, based solely on the fact he wasn't cursing as much as the others were. Alas, the scores show his tranquillity did him no favours.

Sam 50
Martin 48
Ian 39
Joe 37

While this played out, we sped through a game of Qwixx which saw Adam's newfound love affair with dice continuing.

Adam 95
Andrew 60
Andy 44

And finally we were all together again. Ian took the opportunity to bow out and head home but the remainers had a rousing game of For Sale. I made no notes and, frankly, I remember little. I was drunk enough that, while I was writing down the scores, I asked what Ian got and had to be reminded that he'd already left. Cider followed by Soju. A potent combination.

Joe 53
Martin 47
Andy 46
Sam 40
Adam 40
Andrew 35

Thanks all. That's my last games night until late March as I'm off to Japan again. I'm genuinely sad to miss Katy's homecoming, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the blog posts.

Knizia's Candy Coated Bloodbath

The last two weeks have seen no less than three gaming weekends (two on the same weekend), so I (Joe) wasn't expecting much gaming action this Tuesday. But in the event, four of us convened to keep the flame alive, as I was joined by Martin, then Andy M, and an hour later Ian.

At first it was just Martin and me - and we busted out a couple of games of Circle the Wagons. This is a current lunchtime favourite, and it usually plays out with Martin beating me - but last night bucked that trend, with me winning both games. I didn't take photos, but the second game was a proper pasting, I'm sure Martin won't mind me saying, due to my unerring accuracy with a six-shooter and many lined up beer bottles.

I had little time to bask in the glory of victory, as Andy arrived just as we finished up. We had 20 minutes to kill before Ian was due, and we quickly decided upon another firm favourite, The Mind.
It seemed it was going to be quite a toughie, as we lost a life in round one - but we soon hit our stride. We appeared to be playing a new variation called 'Sexy Mind', where you could augment your card placement with suggestive noises (often in the manner of Stephen Toast).

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it worked, as we rolled through the levels with relative swagger. Ian arrived somewhere around level 7, and got to witness a stonking level 10 - no hiccups and only  one star played.

Heading into level 10 in good shape

We battled on into the Dark Mind, or 'Dark, Sexy Mind' - like black velvet, Andy suggested. The fabric, and the drink. And the song by Alannah Miles? Had we considered that, and put it on in the background, it might have helped. As it was, we had a good couple of rounds but dropped our last life on level 3. Still, a pretty impressive performance. Ian was impressed.

Andy said he probably had one more game in him - and Martin was torn between Blue Lagoon, his new precious, and his even newer precious, a partnership trick-taker that could only be played with four. As Andy was only the second of four cans of Red Stripe we thought he might be cajoled into both, so we started with Blue Lagoon. 

Blue Lagoon, Andy (sans 'camera fingers') and Red Stripe.

My, what a beastly shit-fight! I've heard this billed as a great new gateway/family game, but it's really only fit for families who enjoy clawing each others eyes out. We all thought a sea of blood theme would be more fitting. 

During the first half, having mis-understood a scoring criteria (ahem), I found it a bit too much to handle. But I got my bearings after the first scoring round, and began to see some strategies. It seemed you could ignore the opportunities that weren't immediately threatened by an individual opponent - but as those built up, they risked being swamped by a combination of the other players. I enjoyed this room for emergent play and table-talk, as I co-erced Ian and Andrew into helping distract Martin (clearly on track for the win) so I could carry out my plans. The double-scoring nature of the game helps with this - whoever's in the lead after the first half is, it seems to me, fair game for a bit of coordinated bashing in the second half.

Despite my mid-game epiphany, I wasn't able to finish higher than third - but it was a fun if extremely scratchy (to use Andy's apposite phrase) game. I'd like to play again.

A charming-looking knife fight.

Martin 171

Andy M 152

Joe 150

Ian 117

Andy then surprised us all by sticking to his guns and leaving - paying his way out of the door by offering me his last Red Stripe. If it had been an either/or situation I feel sure I'd have picked the company over the booze, but I sensed steely resolve, so I gratefully drank his beer, and we remaining three tackled another new Knizia reboot - Amun Re the card game.

For the second time in one evening I forgot to take any pictures, but it wasn't much to look at. Still, it was a feisty little auction game, reportedly quite similar to it's big brother Amun Re. There were some shades of Ra in there, for sure, and a little hint of High Society in the restricted bidding cards. A little dry, perhaps, but undeniably blessed with the good Doctor's golden touch - I enjoyed it and would like to play again, despite coming a decisive last.

Martin 22

Ian 18

Joe 13

During the game, Martin suggested we'd need to play something riotous to finish, and as we packed it away, he added 'with dice-rolling' to the recipe. This trail of requirements lead us to the door of Can't Stop, which hasn't been played for too darn long.

Shiny, brittle plastic! But fun nevertheless...

It actually wasn't entirely riotous, as we found ourselves mostly quite able to stop. We all began cautiously - Ian most of all after he went bust on his first or second go. Martin and I were first to top out columns, and Ian struggled to catch up. Martin neglected to notice that I was poised to get my third column if I could manage to roll boxcars - if he'd realised it was probably his last chance he would have pushed his luck; but as it was I made my roll and won.

Joe 3

Martin 2

Ian 1

It wasn't quite the Can't Stop riot we were hoping for - still fun though. Perhaps the bruising beastliness of Blue Lagoon was too fresh in our minds; or perhaps it was the quite unpleasant brittle plastic of the board and bits. Whatever, it's still a deserving classic, and was nice to revisit.

With that we called proceedings to a close, and I waved Martin and Ian off into the night.

It was all lovely; even when it wasn't.

Can't Stop Shan't Stop

This week's GNN meet happened at Joe's cosy home. The six of us gathered around Joe's green felt table were Joe, Sam, Ian, Katy, Andy and me. Vague plans were suggested that we all play together, but instead we split into two groups.

Joe, Katy and I chose the Japanese themed card game Honshu. Meanwhile Sam, Andy and Ian broke open Ulm, described by Sam as a typical Euro game of gaining prestige in medieval Europe. It even came with it's own cathedral.

Honshu was substantially less ambitious fare. It's a trick taking, set collecting, city building game. Despite the three-pronged attack on our gaming senses it's quite a simple game. Each card has a number and a piece of the city on it. There are twelve rounds and in each round, every player plays a card face up. The highest card wins and that player may take whichever card they liked the look of and add that to their city with the proviso that it must overlap (or underlap) with another card.

There is a hint of other games in there. A bit of Between Two Cities. A smidgen of Isle Of Skye. But overall was quite a gentle laid back game, apart from the last minute panic from Katy when she realized she wasn't doing very well. This panic, as it turned out, should have been scheduled earlier:

Joe 61
Andrew 55
Katy 49

It was nothing to do with Japan, though.

On the other half of the table, Ulm was proving to be a bit of a steep hill to climb. In the early stages, I saw Ian shaking his head while laughing to himself and at one point it almost seemed like the game might be abandoned. Sam asked that it be given ten more minutes and apparently in that time it showed enough of its charms to convince people to last until the end.

Watching them play, I must admit it was one of those moments when I had a glimpse of what we must look like to non-gamers. The board was baffling, with a grid of 3x3 counters that shuffled around seemingly at random. There were boats and shields and icons and that cathedral which seemed to make Ian particularly angry, as he considered it to be, frankly, unnecessary and unhelpful.

But we had finished Honshu and we're pondering another game. Someone mentioned Botswana, but I didn't fancy it. It did, however, remind me of 10 Days In Africa so I asked Joe to dig it out. It was new to Katy, so she listened to the rules explanation with the same expression you might have if you were listening to a salesman you suspect is trying to steal your money. She had become increasingly concerned with her lack of form, and she didn't think this was the game to put things right.

And so it was. It's a game that doesn't encourage a great deal of banter so Joe and I tried to pep up our descriptions of winning journeys by building a narrative round them in the vocal style of Cary Grant. "I woke up in Morocco with no idea how I got there. All I knew is, I had to be in Somalia in ten days."

We played twice, with the second game happening at Katy's request, once she understood the rules.

Andrew 10
Joe 9
Katy 7

And then...

Joe 10
Katy 6 (wins on fewer transport tie breaker)
Andrew 6

Finally, Ulm finished with the scores at

Andy 53
Ian 45
Sam 37

Since we were all together again, there was a little talk of a six player. But instead we reorganized into new groups of three. I was lucky enough to have another of my suggestions brought to the table, and Sam, Joe and I played Can't Stop. Andy, Ian and Katy got busy with Port Royal.

Can't Stop was a cautious affair, with all of us keen to get counters on the board rather than push our luck. But as I took a 2-1-1 lead, with one row just one space away from completion. When it came to Joe's turn, he decided he had to go for it and, amazingly, he did. He finished two more rows to snatch the win.

Joe 3
Andrew 2
Sam 1

Since Port Royal was still ongoing, we brought out Land Unter. This trick taking game where it's usually better to not take a trick, had Sam baffled. We played through a single round while Port Royal ended.

Ian 12
Katy 11
Andy 5

At this point Ian and Andy left and we ended our fledgling game of Land Unter and began afresh with Katy on board. Katy won this game, which cheered her up considerably (or was it the ginger wine) now that her run of bad form was over and that there was one game that she could rely on to get her a win when she needed one.

Katy 10
Andrew 8
Sam 7
Joe 3

After this, we set off home. The division, with only two meetings left until the end of the season, looks like this.