Two Clover by Half

All the gamers for the evening arrived on my (Joe's) doorstep within seconds, meaning a single trip to the front door for me - what luxury. Katy, then Ian, then Martin and Jo filed in; but as we were discussing that to play while waiting for Adam H and Sam, Katy realised she'd left a vital piece of her tens machine at home, so borrowed Ian's bike to scoot home.

 We remaining four amused ourselves with Cherry on Top, a curious shedding game with plasticky renditions of fruit (and coconuts) on different coloured cards.  I didn't take any photos.

Martin won

Katy arrived back as we were finishing (I did have to return to the front door for that, sigh), and we pondered the next delight. Adam H phoned to let us know he could no longer make it, and with Sam due in a while, we tried my new deluxe edition of The Gang.  Although this now plays up to 10 (that would be a scream (agony or delight, your choice)) it is solidly achievable with five. And we prevailed, winning the first two hands, losing the second two and pulling it out of the bag on the final fifth. Fun! 

The Gang - now with tasty gold bars!

We raced through a couple of hands of FTW! The strategy escaped me (again).

Martin 94

Jo 81

Katy 71

Ian 52

Joe 34

Towards the end of the game, Sam texted to say he would no longer be joining us, so we were set at five for the rest of the evening. We contemplated Medici, but someone mentioned MLEM, and I lobbied for it, as I felt I needed something where I could be let down by the dice rather than my analytical prowess. 

It was as fun as I'd hoped - my early investment in trips to deep space were thwarted by one ship after another blowing up with me on board, and I thought my chances of competing were over. But I snuck in a five point bonus for three cats on a low planet, and on the final trip, after all others had bailed, I finally made it to deep space (or was Ian with me? It's so dark up there it's hard to tell). It wasn't quite enough to beat Katy, but I was satisfied with second place.

Katy 36

Joe 30

Jo 24

Martin & Ian 21

Jo had brought a couple of card games - Daytime Minutes, a trick-taker about mobile phone usage with 1990s styling, and The Dealer, which had, to my eye, much more interesting artwork, sort of skater-art crossed with garbage pail kids, all on a dusty black background - really unusual and appealing. 

We went with the latter. The Dealer doles out a card to each other player from a big deck consisting of 0,1,2 and 3. But Hanabi-style, the card you hold is visible to everyone but you. You then have to decide whether to stick or twist - you're aiming to bank a score of 3-5 - any other score will bust. 

The Dealer gets points by making players bust. Everyone has a special power (the Dealer being one), and these rotate after each hand. It's a game which encourages meanness and lying to the other players - this could feel particularly tough as you're potentially being lied to by everyone else, which is an aspect we didn't really lean into enough, I suspect. The special powers mitigate this a bit, as some of them encourage the forming of temporary alliances, though these too can be two-faced. Katy proved to be the most adept, mostly through her last turn as the dealer, managing to bust the hell out of the rest of the table.

Katy 25

Ian 20

Jo 17

Joe 13

Martin 8

We turned our attention to So Clover. Our first game was reasonably good, but we felt we had more to give, so went for a second round. As almost never happens, I finished my clues first, and everyone else followed in short order. We then proceeded to decode each clover in what felt like record time - scoring a perfect 30 points. Martin breathed a sigh of satisfaction, like someone who'd just eaten a perfectly cooked and presented banquet of words.

Round one - 27 pts

Round two - the full 30!

And with that, four gamers stepped out into the night, to wend their ways home. A fun evening, sorry to those who couldn't make it. See you all soon!

Green on Green on Green

 A majorly late, and majorly minimal, account of last Tuesday's, sliding in under the wire just before tonight's games.

We were four; Katy, Ian, Martin and me (Joe), at mine. We took advantage of that fact to play some card games, starting with a Friedemann Friese gem called FTW; Fuck The What? according to Katy. That does sound like a feasible name for a party game, to be fair.

I didn't capture the gameplay, in all it's rainbow-coloured glory, but here's the box - green on green. 

Katy was wearing green too, and Martin noted the general green-ness of everything. In any case we were all green at FTW, and whilst the gameplay is simple, along the lines of Abluxxen or Fuji Flush (sort of but not really) any obvious winning strategy eluded us. It reminded me slightly of 6Nimmt. We all liked it, would like to try again.

Katy 153

Ian 136

Joe 113

Martin 84

Next up Null unt Nichtig, a much older German (no shit) card game which Martin was briefly in possession of, having collected it from someone to deliver to someone else. A simple trick taker with five suits, the twist being that you don't have to follow suit; highest card wins, and you'll bank your won cards by suit, scoring the top card of each at the end of the game. Along the lines of Sticheln, it's a game of crapping on your opponents from a great height, to gails of laughter and howls of despair, as you ensure their high scoring cards get covered by zeros (two in each suit). 

It was completely beastly, and I did terribly. I'd play it again, but it's currently winging its way to its new owner. Feel like it might be playable with a Sticheln deck - does that have two zeros? 

Martin 110

Katy 96

Ian 80

Joe 73

(I think I've got the scores the right way round - I wrote them all down but not in order, and without the game titles).

It was only a little after nine, but Katy was keen to a) play So Clover and b) go home and get some rest, so we bust it out and played three rounds. I think we only achieved a perfect 24 on the last round - in any case that's the only one I took a photo of.  More green! I seem to remember Ian getting royally portobello-ed but I can't remember the details now. If only I'd taken more photos.

After this Katy left, and we three played three rounds of 2Win. I tried a strategy of starting high, which failed miserably in the first game, as I failed miserably to draw any nines. I tried again starting a bit lower in the second game, and succeeded admirably. In the third game I lost again - in the end we won a game apiece. Harmony was restored, and we bade one another good morrow. A fun night, thanks all.