Novocon Fun!

Only days after a large chunk of GNNers had spent a weekend away playing games, it was the turn of the four aging war horses of GNN to stagger out of their stables and stare, confused and short-sighted, across the green fields of this great nation.

Luckily, it was raining, which meant it was perfect gaming weather with no temptation to try “going for a walk” to distract us.

Sam and I arrived first, at about two thirty and I was impressed by how much like home it felt. Especially because the tablecloth was the same kind as the one in Sam’s kitchen. Sam got the fire going, made coffee and cheese on a bagel. I offered him a pickled egg for his efforts. He couldn’t finish it and would later insist that it gave him a headache. Then we spent about twenty minutes popping and sorting the various pieces for A Feast For Odin. It already looks like a beast of a game.

Then Paul and Chris arrived, and once they’d sorted themselves (and we noticed we had three copies of Love Letter and two of Istanbul) out we sat down for our first game at exactly 3.48pm! Then we had our first drink at exactly 3.58pm!

The game that accompanied our first tipple was Cosmic Run. It was Paul’s first, but it’s not the most complex game, so after a few rules clarifications, he was away.

With four players, there’s more time between turns for planets to be hit, and more emphasis on getting cards and crystals: two things I didn’t do very well. I didn’t land on any planets, either.

Paul 69
Sam 66
Chris 58
Andrew 52

After this, we were all hungry enough for Sam to start on an early supper while the other three of us tried Paul’s own creation: The Seven Bridges Of Königsburg. This is a game of demand and supply, where deliveries happen on the five islands of Königsburg according to the roll of the dice and the wishes of the player. On certain rolls (double six and double one) you have to move, and you can never cross the same bridge twice. There were a few rule tweaks to be made, and there’s something in it. It just needs a bit of pepping up.

We finished it while we ate Sam’s Chorizo and Prawn stew with rice, and it ended:

Chris 34
Andrew 26
Paul 23

Now it was the evening proper, we felt like something heavy. A challenge. We went for Nations. Not the simplified dice version, but the full epic game, taking in the entire sweep of human history. Not necessarily in the right order, though: I had built my first factory as Paul was finishing off Machu Picchu.

There are a lot of rules and icons to get your head around, and at first I didn’t enjoy it at all. But over time it started to click and by the end I was using my resources pretty efficiently. It was too late, and my mostly pacifist philosophy was proven to be the least successful social model to follow. Meanwhile, military-minded Sam did far better, starting several wars that cost Chris and I several victory points each.

Checking the rules

Sam 39
Chris 37
Paul 28
Andrew 26

It also gave us our first schoolboy-sniggering joke of the weekend when Paul placed a meeple on a card, innocently saying “I’m going to stick him in the aqueduct.”

After this epic, we went to the complete opposite of the scale, with a rousing game of Push-It. Chris sped into an early lead thanks to two two-pointers, and the rest of us couldn’t catch him, although it was close at times.

Chris 13
Paul 10
Andrew 9
Sam 8

There was still time on the clock, so we finished on an old familiar, El Grande. It took no time at all to set up and get started (if you don’t include the hiatus for cheese and crackers) and with only a couple of rules references (due to vague wording on the cards) we glided through the game effortlessly.

It was close after round one, but in round two Chris opened up a lead and, just like Push It, he couldn’t be caught. Sam and I tied for second.

Chris 104
Sam 89
Andrew 89
Paul 80

With that we were ready for bed. I shacked up in the games room, with only the dim glow of fading coal to keep me company. And the lights from the fridge, TV, clock etc.

On Saturday morning, I got up at 6.30 and pottered about a bit. Sam soon joined me at 7ish and we went for a walk in the crisp clear country air.

On returning, we sat down for a quick two-round game of Take It Easy. Sam’s subject for calling in round one was “Trees” and he even did it in alphabetical order. I chose “comics and magazines I read as a kid”. Sam had a nightmare second round (116) allowing me to steal the win.

Andrew 276
Sam 259

After this Paul and Chris emerged and while they busied themselves with coffee, showers and talking, I entertained myself with a swift solo game of Tiny Epic Galaxies. I won, defeating The Rogue Galaxy 13-12. Ha!

By now it was ten o’clock and time for the first four-player of the day: Heck Meck! Chris introduced it by reminding that his wife usually beats him thanks to some amazing good luck. However, I think Chris’s own bad luck might contribute too.

Sam 8
Paul 3
Andrew 1
Chris 0

It was quite a long game, with people preferring to steal off each other when they could rather than risk another roll and a better score. It was almost strategic.

This was followed by a journey to the nearest town for some supplies, and then back for the quick crossword (completed) and a brief sighting of a drowsy wasp in the kitchen. And I took a closer look at the strange carving in the garden, which was both phallic and vaginal at the same time.

The next game was Magnum Sal, suggested by Sam since it was a game that had sat unplayed in his cupboard for about two years. This game is set in the salt production industry of fourteenth century Poland, so I can’t imagine why it’s not grabbed our attention before.

It’s a worker placement game, as you seek to make chains in the mines to carry out salt mining. I found it quite combative, as new opened sections of mine would get quickly invaded by the next player, and if you had a bucket, it was possible to move water in your section to a neighbouring section. Chris’s early surge into a lead mid-game faded away as his orders for the king were taken by other players, and Sam surged from distant last into a close second with a profitable final round.

Paul 84
Sam 81
Andrew 69
Chris 33

We tried to work out the meaning of the icons on this card from Magnum Sal. We came up with "Touch the bottom of a cube. Touch the top of a cube. Stop touching the cube!"

This was followed by food: a wide range of cheeses and meats with bread. With a couple of tomatoes, as today’s vague gesture to healthy eating.

Then we went for a walk in the nearby nature reserve. In the fading country sun, it all looked so lovely that every few seconds seemed like an opportunity to take a photo. Chris and Sam saw a deer, but Paul was more transfixed by the trains that sped by occasionally.

Back home, there was a quick game of Perudo for money, and Sam won four whole pounds!

After this, I chose Eclipse as the next game. The epic game of space explosions is a favourite of mine, and perfect for a Saturday evening, before supper, about the same time that Dr Who is on. A bit longer than Dr Who, though.

Paul got a rules refresher, and played with great gusto, helped with a 11-power hypergrid source that he won in a battle. I went for my swarm of wasps strategy which I don’t think has ever won, but is lots of fun to play. Chris and Sam were both aliens, and Sam went heavily for research. He completed two tech tracks which we hadn’t quite understood the full implications of. One minute he was a plucky underdog, having a go at the Ancients in his sector, then Chris attacked him and within a couple of upgrades Sam’s ships had transformed into death machines of fear, bristling with guns and hulls.

In the final round, Sam also pushed into my area, since I was distracted by my attempt at attacking Paul’s ships in Chris’s central hex. Another impressive endgame from Sam handed him another win.

Sam 35
Chris 29
Andrew 22
Paul 20

Andrew and I (Sam) also did the Igloo Pop challenge

This was followed by a nice little parlour game that Sam introduced us to, in which someone chooses a book, reads the publicity bumf on the back to everyone, and then the other players secretly write what they think the opening sentence might be. Then these are all read out, along with the real sentence and people have to spot which one is the genuine article. Points are given for correct guesses or if someone guesses your sentence.

It was lots of fun, especially on one occasion when the real opening sentence was considerably worse than anything we came up with.

Sam 4
Chris 2
Andrew 2
Paul 2

After this little non-tabletop distraction, we got back into geek mode with Roll For The Galaxy. I haven’t played it before, but I remember being daunted by it when I shared a table with it a GNN evening.

It took a while to get around the rules which aren’t exactly intuitive, but I entertained myself by giving myself a difficult tile to develop right at the start, to see if I could do it before the game ended. I just about made it. And it game me lots of points, too, giving the impression that I was more involved than I actually was.

Chris 30 + dice tie-breaker
Sam 30
Paul 24 + dice tie-breaker
Andrew 24

Finally, Paul tempted us to stay up for one more game of Push-It. In the early stages it was pretty close at 4-3-3-3, and I remarked it showed that we were either evenly matched, or the whole thing was just random.

But then Chris pulled ahead and Paul sent the puck off the table while I proceeded to score no more points at all. It ended

Chris 11
Sam 8
Andrew 3
Paul 1

And so to bed…

Sunday morning, and I was up first again. Slightly cloudier outside, and colder but still nice outside. People slowly stirred and so our first game (sans Paul) was No Thanks! at about nine o’clock. We were all hoping for the final card to fit onto our runs of cards. It was the nineteen, which nobody wanted. So it just collected more and more coins until it was worth picking up.

Sam 43
Andrew 44
Chris 47

When we were all four together, we dug out Cosmic Run again. This time, only a little rule refresher was needed at the start. This time I went for planets, with a little side-dish of cards. It all ended with all of us rushing along the five-of-a-kind planet which was the only one left, finally getting to the end before it exploded. If that’s a good thing.

Andrew 61
Sam 54
Chris 52
Paul 44

After this, people did the shower thing and the rest of us played short games. Paul, Chris, and I played Love Letter, first to two. Chris’s one point came at the end of a remarkable round where I knew he was the Princess for three turns but couldn’t get him out.

Andrew 2
Paul 1
Chris 1

Then there were a couple of games of Cube Quest.

Paul 2
Andrew 0

And

Sam 2
Paul 1

Finally, with everyone clean(er) we set up the “long version” of Lords Of Waterdeep, ie the one with all the extensions. Paul stunned us all with an epic piece of AP on his penultimate move, as the rest of us were able to go to the toilet, get a drink, etc before he made his move.

In the end, his final moves were pretty good, but he said he thought he could’ve got another twenty points if only things were different.

Chris slightly over-prepares for a quest

I went skull-heavy, while Paul and Sam were the most noble of us. Or, at least, the best at getting rid of their skulls once they’d got them. But Chris showed why they almost call him “Mr Waterdeep”:

Chris 167
Paul 166
Andrew 147
Sam 141

Then we went for a walk in the rain, complete with rainbow.

Once we’d returned, Sam taught Paul how to play Scythe while Chris introduced me to Cartography. After a shaky start, my knowledge of Go held me in good stead and I won the second game handsomely.

Meanwhile, on the big table, Scythe was up and ready to go. Paul was yellow, Chris was white, I was black and Sam was red. While I got an early lead, Sam came charging up, getting to four stars and then ending the game with his next go by attacking Paul. Truly, it is the way of all things, that a student must one day defeat their teacher. But Paul didn’t win. Sam did, and then used Paul’s oil to upgrade for his sixth star.

Sam attacks his own protege

Although I had more territory and stars than Chris, his exemplary housekeeping meant he had plenty of money in the bank, which added to his paltry end of game bonuses ruined my hopes of a runner-up place.

Sam 77
Chris 42
Andrew 38
Paul 19

There was room for one more before Paul had to go and get his train. It was 7 Wonders, and I remarked it must make him nostalgic, playing this while keeping half an eye on the clock. Chris’s military might and high scores across the board meant the winner was never in doubt.

Chris 62
Paul 54
Sam 46
Andrew 38

And with that, Paul was off into the night, heading back to Clapham Junction.

After we ate Chris’s meal (made for four, but the three of us finished it off) we leapt back into gaming with Terraforming Mars. Chris said he liked it, but it was a bit long for what it was. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, it had always flied by for me, but tonight I understood. We began at eight and finished at half ten. Two and a half hours for three players is a lot.

The game itself was notable for people pushing up the temperature really fast while not putting down any city tiles. Chris had loads of titanium, but seemed unable to get titanium-feulled cards from the deck. Oh, how we laughed. By the end, it was a very populated Mars, with nine cities, an active volcano, lots of greenery and a commercial centre. You know, somewhere for the bank holiday shopping.

My sudden leap up the score chart with victory points on cards (24 pts) wasn’t enough to get out of last, but at least saved my blushes.

Sam 90
Chris 83
Andrew 71

We followed this up with a trio of small games. I won at Love Letter:

Andrew 3
Chris 2
Sam 2

And then Chris won his first ever game of For Sale:

Chris 72
Sam 65
Andrew 62

And finally my luck deserted me on Heck Meck as I went for three rounds without rolling a single worm. Sam was a clear leader midway through the game, but luck can go down as well as up, and Chris managed to overturn some of his recent poor form in the game.

Sam 6
Chris 6
Andrew 3

Finally, it was time for bed. Except for Chris, who sat down with a cup of coffee. Crazy.

Monday morning was a leisurely mostly Sam-less affair, as he had a lie in. Chris and I read rule books, with me taking on A Feast For Odin as my morning read.

After a while Chris and I decided to have a little game of Agricola: All Creatures Great and Small. It’d been a while for both of us, but Chris pig farming prowess made him look set for the win. In fact, that’s how we first counted it up. It wasn’t until afterwards when I was grumbling (good naturedly, I hope) about Smith’s way with a pig that he reconsidered that he might not have had fifteen after all.

We checked the photographic evidence, and he decided that he can’t have. This gave me a win, after a recount:

Andrew 45
Chris 44

Finally Sam woke up at 9.55, meaning his hopes of setting off at 10.00 were pretty much over. For our last game we chose Raj, the fun game of bluffing and accidental telepathy. It ended:

Sam 65
Chris 52
Andrew 27

All that was left was to tidy up and fail to find the recycling bins and we were away! Thanks all for a lovely long weekend.

Of mice and meeples

With the election campaign well underway, but no sign of any party wooing the influential, affluent (if they stopped buying board games) gamer vote. Undeterred by our anonymity, nine of us met at Steve and Anja's house for the first evening of a new season. Apart from our two hosts, we were: Sam, Martin, reigning champion Katy, Andy, Adam, Ian and myself.

We split into two groups. Sam, Martin, Andy and Ian went for pastures new, with one of Sam's recent acquisitions, The Golden City.

The other five game (minus Anja, who was putting Baby Lu to bed) went through the usual motions of debating a game. Steve suggested 7 Wonders, and pulled it from the games cupboard, only to see a peculiar substance smeared across one corner of the box. Further investigations revealed the truth: they had mice in there! Plenty of tiny droppings were perhaps meant as a damning comment on our hobby. Steve got the vacuum and did a brief stint of housework. He then left the vacuum cleaner out, clearly with intentions to finish the job later.

So, with 7 Wonders no longer an option since no one wanted to touch it, we went for an old familiar: El Grande. It was new to Katy but, frankly, El Grande doesn't need a great deal of explanation, and once I'd removed the expansion pack bits from the main game, we were ready to go.

I got off to a flier, using a “Score the region(s) with the least meeples” card, and then putting one meeple in three regions and scoring them to leap into an eighteen point lead. A killer move! And one that convinced everyone to gang up on me. Then Adam took his go, and the next thing we knew, his phone went and he had to go back to look after his poorly baby.

So we were down to four players. This turned out to be a blessing, as El Grande grew into an epic. At one point Steve took so long over his turn that I had to do something: he was leaning over the board, cube between his fingers, holding it pensively above a region while he thought. I swiftly slapped the back of his hand so he dropped the cube onto the board and that was his go!

Meanwhile, on the other table, they'd sped through The Golden City (relatively speaking). During the game we had heard plenty of swearing from Martin, so we foolishly thought he was doing badly.

Martin 62
Andy 54 wins on a tiebreaker
Sam 54
Ian 51

Since we were nowhere near finishing, they started another new game Tower of Babel. I did have a look at the board mid-game, but didn't understand any of it. I did approve of the comedy placing of one of the game pieces before they began.

They ended before we did. The scores were:

Andy 86
Martin 80
Sam 73
Ian 57

And as they ended, so we too, entered the final lap. After my initial burst, Steve and Katy were playing catch up and a few times they got pretty close. But, like a man in an Audi teasing a hitch-hiker, I managed to pull away just in time. Anja said she was just glad she wasn't lapped.

Andrew 136
Steve 116
Katy 114
Anja 78

Finally, here's the division which I wasn't going to post (because it's so early in the season) but I like d the way the two groups of gamers intertwined.

Return of the King

It was back to drawing games out of our mini league tub for this week's entertainment. Only we cheated a bit because we all had a desire to play something substantial, and on a board.

Ticket to Ride and El Grande was nudged to the front and as two titles that hadn't been unboxed in many a Bracknell moon. TTR is not my favourite game as I feel it's a bit too light weight for it's length but James and especially Paul, regard it with much fondness.

Everybody plumped for a regular style of play whereby you do a little bit of card hoarding, then get a little bit worried someones going to go in your place, then stick down some routes and then hoard a few more cards. Only Paul's strategy varied from mine and James. His experience playing my iPad app had taught him that lots of short routes interlinking creates more possibilities when picking up extra route cards. At the end his routes were many and completed which meant that my longest route didn't affect him. Or James for that matter as I had forgotten to finish one of my routes.

Paul - 146
James - 124
Chris - 118

On to El Grande the old lady of Euro games. It was only James that needed a few prompters so ingrained that it is in Paul and my memories but we were up and running pretty quickly. Paul's general advice of "get men distributed on the board early" was heeded by all bar himself, and as James and I stretched our leads after the second scoring round he never recovered. In the final third it became nip and tuck between James and myself as he steadily ate into my lead and eventually passed it. All of the tricks were being adopted, moving each others men into useless places, usurping each others home territories, and out guessing everyones placements with the wheels. All the while Paul played catch up whilst admirably not becoming kingmaker in the process. My penultimate move where I moved 5 of James's men into one low scoring territory seemed to be enough to nudge me ahead as he wasted his final move repositioning them.

Chris - 154
James - 146
Paul - 109

Six go even madder in Gloucestershire

A games weekend with children is neither a sprint nor a marathon. They’re an odyssey, an epic, a wide-eyed roller-coaster of emotions. Luckily, the kids were mostly distracted by a Nintendo DS or an iPad, leaving us adults to emote in relative peace.

Bad traffic and poor weather slowed down the journey to the venue for both cars: me Sam and Stanley coming from the West, and Chris, Paul and Ashton heading from the East. When we finally arrived (within a few minutes of each other) welcomed by the farmer’s wife and her dogs (one of which almost ran under Sam’s car as he was parking) we settled in to the cottage, pausing to look at the paganesque wicker sculptures of hares at the foot of a nearby tree. I hope that the rabbit's head we later found wasn't a sacrifice to some pagan icon.

Back in the house, Stanley and Ashton were very amused by the twin staircases that ran up either side of a supporting beam, and they soon decided which staircase belonged to who. Us grown-ups were sorting out more important stuff like filling the fridge with beers and sorting out the snacks.

Our first game was Timeline. You’d think that something so educational would be perfect for kids, but actually they were in the next room, watching TV. Chris won that, and then he won Tsuro of the Seas, which we played without dragons. We did try a three-player game of TotS with dragons and, after only two rounds, Paul won when an unlucky dice roll killed Chris and me at the same time.

(I won't put scores or anything like that on the blog post, but if you want details about the scores then you can download the spreadsheet from here.)

The first main game of the weekend was Quantum. I sped into an early lead, and so most of the third game was spent with the other three attacking me. Luckily I managed to get my final cube down just as Sam was threatening to sneak the win from me.

After this we played a series of shortish games. Sam won a Raj tournament, then I won Take It Easy and then No Thanks for possibly the first time ever! My run of good form was not to last, since we played it again and Paul won with only 5 points. I came last and order was restored to the universe.

The next day dawned bright and early, but Sam possibly dawned even earlier, as his energetic child was up and about before six. The rest of us we up and about by half past seven, and after various breakfasts, Stanley, Ashton, Chris and Sam played Astronauts, a card game about travelling the solar system and getting back again safely. Stanley won. Then Timeline was given another outing, with Sam finishing in first this time.

Then we decided to go for a walk, taking a closer look at some sculptures in a nearby field.

The cottage was near a pretty busy road into the nearest village, but a friendly passing horse-rider told us about a path into the village where there was a playground. We set off, buying supplies at a Post Office, and then found the playground. There we spent a happy half hour trying to throw a ball into the top of hollow spherical thing that would then sent the ball randomly out of one of four holes. At least, it would have if we’d managed to throw it in. In the 30 minutes we tried, I think we managed it four times.

Once we got back, we had lunch of meats, cheeses and a salad. Then Sam, Paul and I played Alhambra while Chris, Stanley and Ashton played Cube Quest. Sam went into a nearby town with the two boys to get some more supplies and give the rest of us some serious game time.

Acknowledging his sacrifice, we decided to play a game that he wouldn’t have chosen himself: Agricola. Although, with all the cards and boards, I doubt there would have been room on the table for a fourth player. Chris won, despite not having any animals at all on his farm, mostly due to me taking them and eating them as soon as possible. But he scored big on family, stone rooms and bonuses.

Following this, after Sam’s return, we went for an old favourite: El Grande. One of the earliest games we bought, and it prompted many memories of our earliest games weekend when barely a handful of games was enough to keep us going. El Grande was won in handsome style by Paul.

By now, the weather had stopped vascillating between rain and sun, and had settled on sunny for long enough for us to go outside for a while. First, the boys played on the trampoline, and then the six of us played Smite, the game of throwing sticks at other sticks.

Team Smith (Chris, Ashton and me) quickly took an early lead and it was a while until Team Morrison (Sam, Stanley, Paul) scored a point at all. They game took quite a long time until Chris finally threw the winning throw, and Chris later admitted he may have placed the oche a little too far away. Still it was fun.

After this, there were bangers and mash and Chris put Stanley and Ashton to bed with a story. Meanwhile, Sam and I taught Paul Love Letter. He proved to be a good student, since he won comfortably, 3 –1 –0.

Now it was the evening, it was time for something more serious. We went for Railways of the World. It’s a great game, epic in scale – both in terms of theme and the size of the map. Sam got an early lead, which he held onto since the end. Chris’ railway that hugged the southern coasts of the Great Lakes looked nice, but never run at a profit.

Then, for a complete change of atmos, we chose Dixit. This charming game of story-matching was the perfect way to wind down after the stresses of building railways. Chris won. And Chris was winner again in Incan Gold. Interestingly, in both of those games, Paul and I tied for second place.

Our last game of the late evening, which by now was turning into early morning, was Take It Easy. We battled through sleepy eyes, and our bingo calls became increasingly surreal as the game wore on. Chris won a close game, meaning he ended the evening with a hat trick of wins to lessen the hurt from Railways of the World.

The next morning, Sam said he couldn’t remember much about the last game of Take It Easy. That’s how we roll at GNN. Hard and fast!

There were no large scale games on Sunday. There was another game of Astronauts and then Chris beat me and Sam at Timeline. Paul, Sam and I sat down to try a new game, Fleet. Paul tutted at the olde-worlde style design paired with the pictures of modern fishing boats. We also tutted at the rules, and although we ploughed on until the end, we were never sure we were playing it right. We decided to research on the internet was necessary.

Then, another new game was brought to the table: Smash Up. Chris had bought this by accident when looking for King Of Tokyo. It didn’t inspire much optimism at first glance, with rules for each card and then rules for each area of the game. I had to stop to make pizza halfway through, and Sam admitted he wasn’t enjoying it, so the game was ended with Paul and Chris looking in best shape for the win. Paul’s robot zombie army seemed particularly powerful.

While I was cooking pizzas, we played Tsuro with Ashton as a fifth player. I forgot to write the results down to this game. Probably too excited from winning. And after food, the final game to hit the table was Raj. My run of poor form on this game continued, but Sam won, overcoming a 19 point deficit in the final round.

And so the weekend was over. We packed up and said our goodbyes. The roads home were much kinder, and we were back in Bristol almost before we knew it.

The Division shows how close it all was. I'm first in points, but I did play more games than anyone else. Chris won the medal table and Sam won points ratio, but both were winners by fine margins. Congrats everyone!

More shared glory

I decided to give poor old James a break from reading rules to new games this week and declared that we would select from my improving back catalogue of titles. I piled up the most likely picks at the end of the table and revelled in the delicate selection process. To my surprise El Grande was plucked from the mini wall and I couldn't have been happier.

All three of us adopted differing tactics from the start. I spread my men very thinly over the whole board in an attempt to gain influence whereas James hoarded his chaps in court and opted to see how the land lay and Paul banished his voters to the castillo in order to perform his favourite "Shock troops" move. With the usual jiggery pokery taking place over home territories the scores remained close. Paul then pulled a high risk "Jefferies" move where he redistributed all of his cabelleros from one region all over the board. It was something like 8 pieces and neither James or I came out very well from it. When it came to the last scoring round Paul and James had cleverly exhausted their cabelleros whereas I still had a stack unable to be used having played a fairly miserly game of bringing in just what I needed. The upshot of this was James' home region Basque Country being the most congested I've ever seen with at least 20 guys in there. Thankfully the king was on it at the end to prevent anymore being stuffed in.

Paul's air dropping tactic came up trumps this time granting him his first win ages.

Paul - 147
Chris - 141
James - 135

Then on to Medici after Alhambra was craftily discounted by me.

My really boring tactic of winning the boat count saw me coming in first after some tense bidding rounds and out right luck.

Chris - 158
Paul - 153
James - 105

In the next round of Medici James and Paul made sure I paid a lot more heavily for my tiles and my boat tactic went up in smoke. Again some fortuitous final draws from the bag made this an exciting and unpredictable game. James' usurping in me in indigo in his final cargo haul was enough to reel me in and gain an impressive win.

James - 131
Chris - 120
Paul - 117

So we all won a game which was nice.

The Resistance is Futile!

Tonight was the first "big" game night since my return from Japan, so I brought some Japanese Green Tea Kit Kats by means of celebration with me. Kit Kits are very popular in Japan because the Japanese pronounciation sounds very similar to "kitto katsu" which means "surely win" and they're often handed out at exam times, etc. I should've kept this in mind and made sure I ate them all before I arrived at Steve and Anja's. Instead, I shared them around. And I think Anja took two, which may have been the decisive factor.

The secret of success.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We (me, Steve, Anja, Sam , Adam and Joe) began with a rare contribution to the communal games cupboard from myself in the shape of Tsuro Of The Sea (or Tots, as Joe calls it). This new version of the classic lacks the purity of the original and the dice rolling slows things down, but having several menacing dragons marching around the board is quite exciting and I think we all did well for lasting as long as we did. In the end, it was Adam who sent Anja down a path straight to a dragon, and took first place.

Dancing with dragons

1. Adam
2. Anja
3. Sam
4= Steve
4=Andrew
5. Joe

After this, we split into two groups of three. Sam and Steve were tempted by the gleaming newness of Mission: Red Planet, and Joe was happy to talk them through the rules. Adam, Anja and I went old school. Perhaps inspired by Chris' recent rediscovery, we went for El Grande.

I'll leave it for the others to fill in the gaps regarding their mission to Mars. But it seems like Joe managed to avoid Instructor's Curse this time.

Joe 51
Steve 43
Sam 40

Meanwhile, back in the olden days, El Grande was set up and our rusty memories of the rules were given a squirt of WD40 and put back into motion. And what a great game it is. All about bluffing and challenging and not annoying Anja early so she picks on you, using your bloody and bruised body as a stepping stone to greater heights. That's the mistake I made, and I paid for it in spades. At least that's how it felt.

But, in fairness, her tactic was the winning one as she sprang into first place in the final round, despite being in stoney last for the first half of the game. She admitted she wasn't sure how she managed to squeeze into first, and Adam seemed equally bemused, but the scoretrack doesn't lie.

Anja 150
Adam 149
Andrew 125

I'll be honest, I was very relieved that my happy memories of El Grande weren't the result of naive ignorance, and that it is a great game that still stands up today.

After this, the six of us joined together again for The Resistance. In this game, we secretly are assigned roles of resistance members or spies. We are then given five missions to complete. Spies can chose to ruin the mission, by slipping a Fail card into the deck of mission cards. The idea is to sniff out the spies quickly, allowing you to complete three missions before it's too late.

However, our innate suspicious natures came into play. I giggled, Adam was too quiet, Joe protested too much, and Anja didn't give herself a mission. All of these brought us into suspicion. In fact the only one who obviously wasn't a spy was Sam, whose air of bafflement and confusion was akin to James Stewart at his best. Steve was the only doubt.

I had him labelled as a spy, but no one listened to me, and thus it was that he was able to sabotage the third mission to take the victory with his partner-in-crime, Anja.

1= Steve
1= Anja
3= Andrew
3= Sam
3= Joe
3= Adam.

It's a game that's a lot of fun, and it's hard not to have a big smile on your face, spy or no-spy, while you're playing it. And it felt good to have a games night with more than three people there. Thanks everyone! Same time next week! Or earlier, if someone's wife is out for the evening?

On the form table, Steve leaps upwards and congratulations to Anja who takes first place for the first time. Meanwhile, Sam impresses everyone with a perfect score of sorts: all threes.

						Points
Anja	1	1	2	5	1	10
Adam	3	2	1	2	3	11
Steve	1	2	4	3	3	13
Joe	3	1	5	3	1	13
Andrew	3	3	4	1	2	13
Sam	3	3	3	3	3	15

Gentlemen, the King!

Since we Bracknell fellows combined evenings and became a trio, I have been itching to break out one of my favourites El Grande. Back in the fledgling days of eurogames this was the daddy of them all. I was hoping that in the 5 odd years since I last played it could still stand up against todays flashier offerings.

not that exciting

Because, one of the first things that strikes you when you get all the components out is how dull it all looks. When James went through the rules on Sunday evening he said it was touch and go whether he would make it to the end of them. I reassured him that gameplay was a lot more fascinating and onwards we went. I took up an early lead with my central but highly prized territory of New Castille and strong bidding for some of the choicest cards. James adopted a cautious opening and concentrated on filling his court with caballeros and Paul reignited his passionate love of the Castillo. With my early dominance being slowly eroded, a turning point occurred when Paul intrigued his way into my home territory. Spending the next turn repairing the damage I didn't notice a rather plum card for James sitting there, "score the 5 regions". He was in first place in all of them and raced up the track only for the next round to present the same card, which he plucked out again as Paul decided on a better move for him.

A late rally from me could do nothing to prevent a debut win for James who played a canny game and took advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. All three of us felt that the game had stood the test of time and for me it's always been the game with the most replayabliity that I've owned. Not as heavy as Agricola and not as light as, say, Ticket to Ride it has a balance which is mirrored by it's in game mechanics. You might be able to tell I like it….

James - 138

Chris - 134

Paul - 122

There remained enough time for James and myself to have our posteriors returned to us by Paul in Alhambra. By developing possibly the most expansive collection of buildings I've witnessed he romped home to a 70 point win and maybe the largest 3 player score.

Paul - 184

James - 114

Chris - 111