Wyrm Sweet Wyrm

 A new venue always feels special, like GNN is slowly extending it’s influence across this great nation. And so, at 7.30, four of us (Katy, Sam, Joe and me) squeezed into Sam’s car and drove away to the far reaches of Bristol. It almost felt like a Novocon. Steve and Anja were the hosts, in their converted ex-care home. Anja welcomed us while Steve was upstairs on bedtime duty. Due to the delicate nature of trying to get a child to sleep, we weren’t given a tour of the whole house but what we did see was pretty impressive.

Then Martin, Adam H and Ian arrived and we began to play. Sam had brought Sticky Cthulu, thinking that Louie might enjoy it, but he wasn’t here tonight so instead eight grown adults found themselves whipping the table with sticky plastic tentacles, trying to pick up illustrated bits of cardboard chosen by the roll of two dice, with the illustrations having a vague HP Lovecraft theme. It was frantic and a bit insane. Only one of my photos did it justice.

“This is monstrous,” said Martin. “Literally,” replied Anja. Finally, Ian was awarded his third coin of the game and he was declared winner. Steve arrived and despite the look of intrigued excitement on his face, we couldn’t be persuaded to play again. As the game was being put away, mentioned that the tentacles needed to be cleaned after every game which seems like very high maintenance for a board game.

We were a nine now and Steve chatted about the supposed haunted qualities of their new home. The automatic lights on the hallways keep turning on, apparently, which initially was a bit spooky but now Steve finds it quite useful.

We split into three groups of three. Katy, Adam and Ian played World Wonders. Joe, Martin and Sam squeezed onto one half of the table and played Dawn of Ulos while Steve, Anja and I took up the rest of the table with Wyrmspan.

The room hummed with rules being explained. Joe noticed that the orc meeple in Dawn of Ulos had boobs. I was disappointed that a booklet in Wyrmspan was called “Dragon Facts” since, strictly speaking, those two words shouldn’t go together at all.

Soon after Wyrmspan began, I heard Adam say “My first wonder!” so we were clearly the last to start. Wyrmspan initially looks like Wingspan with a new look, but it is different enough to be considered a new game. So I’m told, anyway, because I couldn’t remember anything about Wingspan. We explored caverns, and enticed dragons with names of varying silliness into our sanctuary. It was all quite sedate without any real interference in other people’s plans.

Meanwhile World Wonders ended with Katy ruing her habit of building wonders whenever possible.

Adam 41 (broke the scoretrack)

Ian 32

Katy 30

And Dawn of Ulos ended after an odd episode where Sam had to take cards from Martin’s hand and Joe advised Martin “why don’t you just pretend they’re shuffled.”

Martin 154

Joe 121

Sam 90

The other six players reshuffled into two groups. Katy sat at the end of the table not fully aware that she was volunteering herself into a game of Faraway (the me of building up a high-scoring tableau of cards backwards) against Joe and Martin.

Martin 85

Katy 64

Joe 53

And Sam, Adam and Ian set up camp on the small table where they played Misfits. Sam’s audacious early use of the drunken elephant couldn’t seal a win, as Adam took first place.

Then they played Little Tavern.

Ian 28

Sam 26

Adam 17

By now, it was late and the only thing left to do was wait for the last round of Wyrmspan to play out and then listen to the scores being totted up, with help from Martin as Steve called out sums that were too difficult for him to deal with at this hour.

Waiting for the scores for Wyrmspan to come in

Steve 94

Anja 93

Andrew 73

And with that, we were off! A new venue was christened and everyone was excited by it, especially at the thought of a game of Hugo in the damp basement of a genuine* haunted house. Thanks all. See you next week!

* approx

Does God Play Hab & Gut

Adam, Hannah and Arthur were our hosts last night as we belatedly marked Katy's birthday with cake (brought by Katy) and kicked off the evening with an injection of comestible caterpillar while Arthur loaded the table with potential games we could play. As an eight however - along with the hosts and Katy, there were Martin, Ian, Joe and myself - we settled on Codenames Pictures. I was clue-giver for the Hillmann-Morrison team and Joe clued for everyone else.

We got off to a good start with the team successfully reconciling my clues for mischief before Joe's team hit back, opening with a salvo of success and following it with such wild and wacky clues as 'Linux' (Martin remembered there was a Penguin, Katy spotted a penguin in the cards) and we stumbled on my clue of breakfast as I hadn't spotted a melting clock was actually dribbling out of a saucepan. These are the kind of sentences you don't write about original Codenames!

Joe/Ian/Katy/Martin: clues cracked!
Arthur/Adam/Hannah/Sam: clues crocked

In theory it was now Arthur's bedtime, so we separated into two groups for the evening's main dishes. Ian Adam and Katy ruminated on a Mad King Ludwig rematch before settling on World Wonders after Katy saw the bits. Martin took Joe and I into the other room and talked us through Dawn of Ulos, which he'd been sent to review. 

The game wears its influences on its sleeve, apparently, being a mash-up of Acquire in it's shareholding and takeovers and Tigris & Euphrates in how said takeovers are resolved: here, rather than investing in buildings we are backing various factions on the map. Each turn you must play a tile that will strengthen an existing faction or perhaps introduce (or re-introduce) a new one, which are triggered by available spaces their (plastic mini) leaders can sit on. Then you may either buy up to three cards in any faction, or sell one card for its sale value, in which case you also trigger its faction-specific ability. 

As tiles are added the factions grow in strength: each one gains 1 strength for the terrain types it likes to control (2 types per faction). But as they grow in strength they also become more expensive to buy, and tempting to sell. The catch being if you sell, you are sacrificing valuable cards for their sale value, whereas at the end of the game they'll be worth their higher strength value. 

So  there are already some chewy decisions, but that's before we get to the combat/takeover, where the Tigris comparison takes over: when any of these faction-controlled terrains join up, play is suspended until the battle to control all of the connected terrain is resolved. This is a comparison of current strength, plus any matching faction cards any or all players want to contribute to boost the strength of either (or both) sides. Another catch: you must sell at least half of any cards you put towards battle, and don't get to trigger the ability. 

Whew. While we were all at degrees of bamboozlement, the vibe in the kitchen was slightly less furrowed, as various wonders were built around the pleasing mini-conurbations. 

Back on Ulos, I had concerns over Martin's Ratfolk - not actually his, but I knew he had a lot of Ratfolk cards - and I invested a fair bit of time destabilising them by pillaging - placing cubes on the terrain they like to reduce their strength. 

Then I triggered a battle where, thanks to my surfeit of Goblins, I won. Martin rued his decision to not commit more of the furry little shits to the cause, but it was too late: the Ratfolk were off the board and needed re-establishing. Joe, meanwhile, fretted over the Sheki being either absent or seemingly under-powered, but his late-game push to embolden them - and a face-off with the Orcs that I foolishly supported myself - pushed the Sheki into a more rewarding spot, and Joe into a convincing debut win:

Joe 100
Martin 89
Sam 88

(Last night I was actually second, but a rules clarification this morning pushed me into third!). 

We were all intrigued, if not fully in love. If the idea of Gods being shareholders is a stretch, the fantasy theme kind of suits what's happening on the board. The rules aren't onerous, but the ramifications of each action are, which means not only calculations of current worth and future potential but, ideally, having an idea of what cards your opponents hold. It's kinda bananas, like Hab & Gut's shares crossed with Ethnos' area control crossed with something a bit more combative. 

Or, as others have said, Acquire with T&E. I just haven't played Acquire. 

In the kitchen they had finished as well, with Adam taking the win!

Both games had taken a surprisingly long time, with the hour now past ten. We regrouped together and played co-operative Hitster, the Timeline-style game of placing musical hits in chronological order. This was mostly notable for the weird song about sailors at the docks and all of us being appalled that Beyonce's Crazy in Love is now 21 years old. TWENTY ONE YEARS! That's older than the blog, which feels like it started when Simon & Garfunkel were in the pop charts. Here you can see our bewilderment. 

With the game not having an 'official' co-op iteration, we agreed to play until we failed ten times, and did reasonably well, almost running out of table. Joe's Steely Dan-era knowledge helped us in the 60's and 70's and Ian's ear for production values often clarified things later. I only turned thirty in 2000 but anything after 1990 seemed a mystery to me, and my guesses were usually wayward. Overall though, a more than decent stab and a fun way to end the evening!

So thank you to our hosts, many happy returns to Katy and kudos to Ulos for giving us an unusual experience. As we left, Martin remarked that someone born when Crazy in Love came out would now be graduating University, and it completely ruined the mood. Until next week!