These late scores just in…

 I may have been only a few minutes late but even before I reached Joe's, I had a text informing me of the first result of the evening. 

Rainbow

Sam 32

Martin 32

Joe 38

Ian 44

I'm guessing, based solely on Martin's position on the list, that low scores are good. 

I arrived in time to derail a game of For Sale, and the seven of us split into two groups. 

Katy was gaslit into believing she'd enjoyed Bomb Busters the last time she'd played it. And so she, Joe, Sam and Martin set up to bust some bombs. 

Meanwhile, I joined Ian and Adam H in a game of Monkey Palace. It's a nice puzzle game in which you build an increasingly Escher-esque construct of arches and pillars all, apparently, just for one monkey. 

It's quite lovely and thinky with a bit of an engine building aspect in that the cards you pick up as a reward for simian architecture give slightly different supplies of building supplies for as long as they're visible on your player mat.

As we totted up the scores, we were surprised at how close it had been… until i asked about 3 bonus cards next to Adam's drink. 

Adam 36… no, wait, 48

Ian 42

Andrew 36

As for the busting of bombs, I played them scant attention until the mission failed. Joe guessed one of Sam's numbers and got it wrong. “Why did I think it was safe?” he asked himself. A terrible moment of self reflection for any bomb disposalist. 

And now Steve arrived. Monkey Palace was still in full swing, so they became a quintet. They played Reif für die Insel (Ripe for the Island).

This is all about bananas. Ripe, brown bananas in particular. They scored points, I think, while yellow and green ones got you nothing. The only other thing I know about this game is that two parrots are bad. This happened towards the end of the game and prompted all manner of anguish. 

In an echo of the scoring for Monkey Palace, this game also had a late addendum when Martin texted me saying he'd forgotten a rule and could I add 5 points to his tally. Didn’t change the standings in this case, though.

Martin 71 (not 66)

Katy 65

Steve 60

Sam 54

Joe 43

During this, we had finished Monkey Palace and started on Cities, a new worker placement city building game. Ian went big on water, I made a big park and put almost nothing in it while Adam pursued point scoring bonuses. Turns out that was the winning strategy. Go figure. 

Adam 78

Ian 65

Andrew 63

Before we finished Cities, the other half of the table played a quick game of Mlem. This has long been an achilles heel for Sam but he agrees. At first, his luck apparently remained stubbornly bad as he and Steve blew up.

But later he amazed everyone, maye even himself, by getting two cats into deep space. In fact, deep space became pretty full with each player reaching this final frontier.

Joe 42

Martin 35

Sa 32

Steve 31

Katy 30

Next, we all reshuffled. Martin, Joe, Katy and me played the game that Ludo always wanted to be: Agent Avenue. Sam, Ian, Steve and Adam set off on the epic journey that is Fellowship of the Ring. Sam read out the extensive flavour text to give a little context to the co-op trick taker. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t follow that game at all. I was too involved in an epic game (as epic as you can be in 20 minutes) of Agent Avenue. The gameplay is simple - one team plays two cards, one up and one down - but the knots we tied ourselves into trying to guess our opponents details was anything but. 

For most of the game, though, Joe and I were sitting pretty just a few steps behind our rivals. The game ended in dramatic style. We were one space behind Martin and Katy’s spy and we chose their face up card. When the face down card was revealed it actually sent their spy backwards to defeat. We were shocked that Katy had played a card that would inevitably have lead to a loss. But when she showed the rest of her hand they all would have done the same. It was a fait accompli. Typical espionage - you never find out until it’s too late.

Joe and Andrew - win

Martin and Katy - don’t

Then I pull on my coat and set out into the world. Someone else must have left too, since when I receive messages about the final games of the evening, there was glad news of a 36 out of 36 in So Clover.

Finally, Joe, Sam and Martin played Sunrise Lane with Martin winning and Joe in second.

Thanks for the evening everyone. See you next week.

Hopes go up in flammes

Tonight was an unusual event in that the six attendees were the six most frequent players, and no one else. Where once we had the Core Four, now we have what I considered calling the Solid Six, until I realised it sounded like something from a medical chart detailing different types of faeces.

We were Sam (host), Joe, Martin, Katy, Ian and me. And, initially, Stanley and Joe. I arrived late, and a game of Fuji Flush was in full flow. Stanley was already on his last card, but couldn't push through, picking up three fours in a row. Katy was busy instructing everyone to stop Martin since, with her cards, she was pretty helpless to do it herself.

Ian 0 cards left
Martin 1
Joe 1
Stanley 1
Sam & Joe 2
Katy 3

After this, we split into two. Joe, Katy and Ian played Cities. Sam, Martin and mep layed Flamme Rouge. We went for a random set up, with Sam using his skills honed over years of improvised train track building with his sons, to swiftly put together a stage fit for the Tour de France. Once we'd flattened down a couple of mountains, that is.

I tried to be sensible, but even so I ended up with a lot of exhaustion cards. Mid game it looked like exhaustion cards were the key to finishing the game, since Sam found both his riders with slim pickings in their decks of cards. He had visions of them just stopping mid race, as if they were working to the clock.

As we rounded the final bend, Martin was in first, Sam right on his shoulder and me not out of contention but needing luck with the cards. I got no luck, and neither did Martin. He saw his rider overtaken by Sam, who also managed to edge over the finish line, to end the game and claim the win. An astonishing win, and one that Martin would mention ruefully throughout the evening.

1st Sam
2nd Martin
3rd Andrew


Then we tried Game Of Thrones: Hand Of The King, a simple but deep game of card collecting by moving around a 7 by 7 grid. It was okay, but I wasn't hugely impressed and keen to move on to something else, so when I saw the chance to end the game, I took it, even if it meant I placed last.

Sam 3
Martin 2 + tie breaker
Andrew 2

Cities had ended...

Joe 63
Katy 60
Ian 59

And in an attempt to synchronise with us, they were playing a game of For Sale. There were some mutterings that it wasn't great with three, and also some mutterings from Katy about how badly she was doing. For once, she was right.

Ian 82 + cash
Joe 82
Katy 80

There was then another reshuffle, and Sam, Ian and Joe chose Gold West, while I had to face the two headed dragon that is Katy and Martin. While we thought about our choice, we tried to identify a game once described by Katy that she'd like to try. Something about a market place in the middle. Was it Portobello Market? Was it that game with the walls that I played once and now can't remember? By sheer chance, Pueblo was mentioned, and Katy recognised it as the game she was talking about! So we got it out with the promise of Biblios afterwards.

Katy got a rules explanation and we all got some kind of understanding of the rules regarding placement, until Martin checked BBG and found out we might be wrong.

Martin started well, tucking himself neatly into books and crannies. I, too, was happy with my start, but then I built upwards and then spent the rest of the game trying to hide it. Katy didn't seem happy as she picked up early points when she made rookie errors. But Katy's skill can never be underestimated, and Martin and me (especially me) were hit heavy in the final scoring round.

Katy 37
Martin 45
Anderw 57

Then we played Biblios. Plenty of pessimism and foretelling of doom in the first round from everyone. Bishop cards were especially useless this game. After five had been played, we found ourselves with the dice the same way up as at the beginning.

In the final reckoning, though, Katy won.

Katy 6
Martin 5
Andrew 3

After this we played Eggs Of Ostrich, agreeing to sum our totals over three rounds into one game. I needed a rules explanation midway through the first round, but otherwise we were fine.

Martin 31
Andrew 22
Katy 18


Gold West had finished.

Joe 123
Sam 100
Ian 95



And we were all together again. Since three of us had copies of Push It, we played a game with three teams of two players with three pucks each. Madness. And a possible six points to win in a single round, which is noteworthy in a game where the target is seven.

Martin & Sam got off to a flier with three points in the first round. After this, they only had to stay one step ahead of the rest of us to secure a comfortable win.

Sam & Martin 7
Katy & Ian 3
Joe & Andrew 2

After that, the evening ended with us having squeezed 5 hours and 25 minutes gaming (according to the figures on BGG) into 3 hours of normal time. And we do this every week! No wonder we look so old.

The Division, meanwhile, looks like this...

It’s a shame about Reille

Saturday night games at Joe’s is a rare treat. However, it very nearly didn’t happen. Jessie J’s cancellation meant that Joe would not be home alone that evening, but then fate intervened and Joe could host. However, by then, potential attendees had made other plans and I was the only one lucky enough to have nothing to do on a Saturday evening.

Since it was a nice warm evening, we decided that today would be our only chance to play outside. We began with W1815, a game that recreates the Battle of Waterloo in fifteen minutes. Technology, eh?

This is a war game based mostly on the roll of a dice, although there are limited ways to offset losses if you’re British. It’s very historical, with the names of various generals (including Reille, as immortalized in the blog post above) and certain real events portrayed in the game, like Ney's Cavalry Charge. When this is triggered, a red mist descends upon one of your generals and the only move you can make is for him to keep charging until he dies or rolls a 1 or a 2. At this point, he calms down so you can do other things.

We played it twice, taking turns to be the French/British. And both times the British won! However, Joe’s victory was more overwhelming than mine and he was the overall winner 39-32 or something.

After this, we played Cities. A kind of mini-Carcassone, where meeples score for their areas and surroundings. These areas are built up using a Take It Easy style one person draws tiles at random and the other takes the same tile from their stack.

It was quick and easy and very easy to pick up. I enjoyed it for the short time it lasted, but I didn't win. I didn't keep a note of the scores. Somehow, playing games under the gaze of the moon meant that winning or losing didn't seem important.

Next up was Aton. This was my first game, but the rules were easy enough to understand. I couldn't withstand the onslaught from Joe's experience mind, though. We played twice: the first time was closer, and the second time was something of a rout.

By now it was 9.30, and it was cold enough for us to decide to go indoors. Now we had a larger table and still a couple of hours, we went for something a bit more meaty: Sekigahara, the unification of Japan. Joe assured me that the rules were simple enough, though as ten o'clock ticked past, I started to get a bit nervous. They're simple enough once you get going, but there are lots of exceptions.

Basically, you have armies of various clans, but when it comes to battle, you cannot use them unless you play a card with the same symbol on it. Additionally, your opponent may play a loyalty card – nothing to do with supermarkets, but a test to see if that army really is loyal to your cause. When this happens you have to play another card with that symbol on it, or watch it defect to the other side.

As the evening threatened to turn into morning, we kept playing, fighting and jostling for position across Japan. There was a period of hysteria on my part when Joe kept knocking over his stacks of generals. I imagined the game redesigned by MB Games as a knockabout dexterity game. “You've knocked over my samurai!” was Joe's suggestion for a tag line.

As midnight rolled around, I hauled my largest army out of the safety of Osaka and into Kyoto, where Joe's largest army was waiting. It was a grand battle, with two generals defecting to the other side, one going each way. They probably exchanged pleasantries as they passed each other by.

Joe, as the war lord Tokugawa, won that battle, and I admitted defeat just after midnight. Technically I still had armies on the board, but time – the biggest enemy of all – had the final say.

So, four games and four wins to Joe. Plus two historical games with factually accurate endings.