Wien about it

I arrived bang on time this week and experienced the pre game chat that I'm usually absent for. 

Present were Ian, Joe (hosting), Martin, Gareth and Adam T followed by Sam. We were expecting Laura and tentatively began setting up a couple of games before we learnt she couldn't make it. 

This meant that Joe, Ian and Adam put away their potential four player game of La Corsa and instead had a three player game of Conspiracy, the game of espionage and bluffing. Under the sea. And it comes in a tin box which still doesn't fit well with us at GNN.

On my half of the table, Martin, Gareth, Sam and I played Free Ride. This game feels like someone wanted to play Ticket To Ride but wanted to get rid of the random card choices or building the longest track and concentrate solely on completing journeys.

It was nice. Very simple. Build track that allows you to get your train to a starting city, pick up the route cards and then try and get to the destination. Certainly basic enough for me to get my head round, apart from a bit of brain fog midway through. We’d all started at the edge and then slowly moved into the centre. As a consequence no one’s track was “nationalised” until near the end of round two. 

In the end, Gareth and I tied on points and then on the tie-breaker too. Gareth wondered if his incomplete railway counted against him, but apparently not.

Andrew 121

Gareth 121

Sam 115

Martin 95

Conspiracy ended 

Adam T 54

Joe 49

Ian 48

And with that, sad to say, I had to leave. Pity that my early arrival was matched by my early departure, but life won’t go away. I’ll hand over to Sam to finish off the evening…

*        *       *

Without Andrew's immense power of recall, casting my mind back to Tuesday now - on Friday - is like stumbling around in a fog of victory points. When I texted him the scores of our final games, I'd already forgotten that we'd played Ra. That was the same night we played them.

But play Ra we did - or Joe, Ian and I did - whilst Martin Adam and Gareth turned their minds to Mille Fiori. I'm not sure what occurred there other than Gareth winning: 

Gareth 217

Adam 199

Martin 165

Meanwhile in ancient Egypt Ian was taking short-term pummellings but building a hefty collection of monuments. Joe's last-out tactics worked well for him in the first epoch, but in the final one Ra decided enough was enough, and his bag-scraping resulted in nothing more than a red face, and his chance of snatching the wind was blown away in a sirocco. Ian beat me on some kind of stupid tie-breaker.

Ian 53

Sam 53

Joe 247

Then we negated the leaving noises emanating from Gareth and Adam by breaking out So Clover and tempting them to stay. 

We got off to an okay start, but my clue of Fairground for Wheel / Mirage foxed everyone because I was too distracted/drunk to remember that I'd written Safari for Lion / Attraction. They not-unreasonably assumed Fairground and Attraction went together whilst I tried to keep a poker face, and the disdain when I removed the card hung in the air unvoiced (except for Martin, who voiced it). However despite one or two other shaky moments we recovered to score a more than decent 30/36. I can't remember who wrote it but I particularly like Mr Blobby for Jelly / Father.

Gareth and Adam then did leave, and we were now a four. Joe's mooted LACORSA now made it to the table, and we faced off over a wooden track that, like Martin's Formula Motor Racing game, is solely there to establish positions relative to each other.

It's pretty simple - in each round the car at the back begins by challenging the one immediately in front of it. A challenge consists of both players choosing a card from their hand and revealing at the same time: if the car behind wins, they move up (and can challenge again if there's another car immediately in front of them). If the car in front wins, or it's a tie, positions remain as they are and it's now this player's turn to challenge the next car. You can do up to two challenges per turn - as long as you win the first one.

The cards are numbered 1-12 plus a Redline that can be played in combination with a number to boost it's value by two. The crappy-valued 1-3 cards can be played as extends: move into an empty space ahead of you. It's quite luck-driven in terms of what cards you get (my hand above contains more 4's and 5's than ideal) but as a beer-and-pretzels game it's pretty fun. And like Formula Motor Racing, it's probably at it's best experienced over a number of races...

Martin came home winner with Ian in second. Joe upheld Explainer's Curse by trailing in behind me. And that was that!

Flower Power

I logged on at 8 , just in time to interrupt the early stages of a game of Skull so they (Sam, Joe, Ian Martin and Adam H) simply abandoned the game and began anew with me on board.

There's a general consensus that bluffing games like this lose something when translated onto the internet. The opportunity to read people is gone and, since that's pretty much what this game is about, it's a kind of hollow experience.

Not that it wasn't fun. Adam never bid, so everyone assumed he always played a skull. Although, I seem to remember Ian ruining many attempts at guesses with a cheeky skull of his own. It took us twenty minutes for someone (Sam) to score a point and then ten minutes more for Martin to draw level.

In the end, Adam won after all.

Then we played Raj. Joe was in full dark mode, with only a faint grey light illuminating half his face. It seemed to help as he won a game where luck was mean to Sam who picked up negative points despite going high. Fun, but over too fast.

Joe 18

Ian 17

Andrew 6

Martin 3

Sam -4

Then we played For Sale, while Adam vanished for a while. It began with a lot of the most attractive cards coming out early. Martin made some comment about being prepared for "when the shit comes out", to which Joe remarked that you don't want your trousers down when the shit comes out. Slightly counterintuitive advice, there.

After a game where Ian seemed to be in pole position, Joe took his second victory in a row. His response was an airy, disinterested "oh, did I win?" Sam, at least, was comforted that he had the most accurate prediction of his final standing.

Joe 59

Ian 57

Andrew 54

Martin 44

Sam 35

Then came 6nimmt. Constantly frustrating but with always the hope that someone else will be less lucky than you. In Andy's absence, someone mentioned that professional variant, just to keep the tradition alive. I was first to dip into negative points, but then saw Sam whizz past me in a last round death spiral. In terms of actually playing well, it was Martin versus Joe, with Martin leading by four points in the last round, but Joe just couldn't close that gap, even with a hand as even distributed as this...

Martin 37

Joe 35

Adam 29

Ian -4

Andrew -10

Sam -18

I had to dash off, as culinary duties called and it looks like Sam and Joe left too. The remaining three played Conspiracy. It literally could not have been closer.

Martin 57

Joe 57

Ian 47

Thanks all, see you next week.

From six nimmt to nein danke

After last week's hiatus, six of us returned for another week of virtually having fun. Initially Sam, Martin, Ian and Andy were present for an opening game of Skull. I had arrived too but needed to dash off and buy tin foil so couldn't participate.

Andy 2
Ian 1
Martin 1
Sam 1

Joe arrived and I sorted myself out, kitchen-wise. Then we played Railroad Ink, new on the geek, and it's a neat implementation of the roll and write original. I found it quite relaxing, although Andy couldn't see where a potential score for a particular move would be displayed. "I guess you just have to work it out yourself," replied Martin. How very old school.

Andrew 49

Martin 47
Andy 43
Sam 38
Ian 37
Joe 37

Then we played For Sale. Sam went aggressive right from the start, saying he wouldn’t do his usual timid strategy and finish in fourth. I said I was fine with fourth, and picked up the first free card I could. In a sense, we both got exactly what we wanted.

Joe 59
Martin 49
Ian 48
Andrew 45
Sam 41
Andy 28

Next up was 6nimmt. Now, I didn’t make many notes but I think at this point Joe sung a bass line and invited people to guess. Only Sam tried before Joe admitted it was the middle eight from “Boys of summer” by Don Henley.

6nimmt was as 6nimmt does. I was cruising in first until I hit a death spiral. “It was pretty close in the middle of the pack,” observed Martin from the safe distance of a convincing win.

Martin 40
Andy 25
Sam 24
Andrew 23
Ian 23
Joe -4

Sam bowed out and the five of us knocked out a quick game of No Thanks, which Martin won thanks to the final card which wasn't 29 like I wanted and it certainly wasn't 18 and 19 as Joe needed.

Martin 23
Andrew 27
Ian 32
Joe 42
Andy 44

Then Ian  left and as a foursome we played Conspiracy. This has a similar card drafting mechanism to Abyss, but is simpler. Put your cards in a pyramid shape, and score points for collecting things, putting things next to other similar things and getting locations. I had very little idea about what was going on.

Joe 54

Andy 53
Martin 48
Andrew 44

And with that, we were done for another evening. Thanks and see you next Tuesday.