Chocolate cider

 This week’s games night seemed to start early for me this week, as I awoke on Tuesday morning from a dream in which me, Martin, Joe and Ian were in a badly stocked off licence trying to buy alcohol. Ian was tempted by the chocolate cider by Thatchers while Joe had to be content with a 2 litre bottle of white wine called Sembrini that had party balloons on the label.

And then, as I approached this week’s venue, I arrived at Sam's at the same time as Adam T and Joe. Katy opened the front door to greet us. At least, she greeted Adam. He got a hug on the doorstep that lasted long enough for the silence between Joe and I to get awkward.

Once Katy was finished ignoring us, we all went into Sam’s kitchen which now held eight gamers: me, Adam, Joe and Katy as well as Ian, Martin, Pete and, of course, Sam.

Since there were eight, there wasn’t a chance for an initial communal game so we immediately split into two groups. Martin, Katy, Adam and Joe played Divinare - a rare but familiar game here at GNN, while Ian, Sam and me introduced Pete to Quantum - a very familiar sight on our tables.

Divinare played out on the far end of the table, and I couldn’t follow it’s progress although I was aware of Martin’s increasing despair and his insistence that he used to be good at this game. Katy procrastinated at one point, saying “I’m just touching cards,” to which Adam supportively replied “we’ve all been there.”

Katy 16

Adam T 16

Joe 12

Martin 0

There's no tie breaker in Divinare but Katy graciously accepts the win “because I'm a witch.” Joe found it intriguing: “I've never played it before,” he said. 

“But you said you just needed a rule refresher,” said Martin, aghast.

“Yeah…” Joe replied. And we'll probably never know what he meant by that.

As for Quantum, Pete got a rules explanation and, thanks to a fortuitous roll of dice, was able to place a cube in his first go.

Pete and Sam were the early leaders with two cubes each, while Ian went warlike, even managing to wipe out four ships in one turn (attacked three, put cube down for dominance, picked up card with two extra moves, attacked again) and I expanded my fleet to the maximum five cubes.

But late in the game, i am in a winning position. I have the Agile card, meaning that deploying isn't an action and so i actually have three turns in a row where I'm able to set myself up for a win. But each time, someone attacks me, and the chance is lost. 

Ian is too spread across the map to get a cube down (“I'm very vulnerable,” he says. “We're here for you,” Katy reassures him) and Pete still has two cubes, so it's between me and Sam when suddenly he deploys, warps and puts down a cube to win the game.

Sam 0 cubes

Andrew 1

Ian 1

Pete 2

The Divinare group had started playing Maya while we were still midgame. The only thing I remember about that is all the comments about Joe's massive rack.

Martin 173

Joe 144

Adam 129

Katy 115

And now we were all free of our respective gaming commitments, we could reassemble ourselves as our whims dictated.

Ian, Pete, Joe and myself all whimmed ourselves into a game of Wandering Towers, while Katy, Sam, Adam and Martin played Fearless. 

Shockingly I didn’t note the result of Fearless, but I did note that leading with a zero seemed to be a dick move - and observation based on Martin's “fuck orrrrf” to Sam after he kept leading with zeroes.

As for Wandering Towers, we rapidly forgot where our wizards were as we built an incredibly tall tower. 

Mid game, we checked the contents of the Raven tower to see how well we were doing and Joe was upset to see only one of his wizards in there, since he was sure he'd done two. In the Ian, Ian was most nimble, getting his fourth wizard into the black tower while no one else could manage that on the same turn.

Ian 4 wizards 

Andrew 3

Pete 2

Joe 2

And with that, Katy and I set off home. The remaining sextet played so clover. Sam texted the score: 34/36

And then they played again as a quartet, but Sam was stymied by a card that could've gone on all four sides of his clover.

19/24

And so it ended. Thanks all, another evening of dreams coming true especially since Ian told us that chocolate cider does actually exist.

Frightful Fingers

 We were a motley crew of five last night, with a few regulars otherwise engaged in family birthdays and visits to the Peak District, etc. 

Jo, Adam H, Martin and Ian joined me (Joe) at mine, and after a modicum of pleasantries we launched into Furchtlos, or Fearless, Friedemann Friese's latest card game.

It's a TWAST (trick-taker with a spooky theme - we're all ghosts), in which you don't want to stray too far into the forest in either direction (positive or negative points). Except that even if you end up in the mansion in the middle (by taking no tricks), you score 15 points. And points are bad. So I guess the ghosts really want to hang out just outside the house. I think that's all the rules...

You play a round per player, and we were playing at the full 5p. It felt, to me, a little long for a game where you have seemingly not much agency, but admittedly I did nearly twice as badly as everyone else, and noted a couple of times where I played a card and immediately realised what a bad idea it was. Interesting, and I'd happily play again but 3 or 4 player might be the sweet spot.

Jo 33

Ad 33

Martin 36

Ian 42

Joe 66

We'd begun Fearless thinking we were waiting for Andrew to join us, but he texted to say he wasn't going to make it, so we decided to stick with 5 player options. Jo produced a VHS case containing Wendybuxxx - the very nearly finished version of their newest game design, and offered to talk us through the rules. In the game we were all influencers competing in a reality TV show, and using our necro-currency to influence our popularity (apologies to Jo if I've just made all that up). The rules aren't complicated, but I'm not sure I could explain them here, and the game completely flummoxed me (I think I was still sitting in the mansion with a sheet over my head). By the end we'd all found it intriguing, and Jo assured us that it makes more sense the second time you play; I'd be up for a return visit.

I didn't make a note of the scores, but I think Martin won, and I disappeared backwards off the score track after a disastrous third round.

We moved on to Yubibo, the palette-cleansing, RSI inducing game of sticks and balls. We did slightly better than on past attempts, but still failed with half the balls still to wedge. At the moment things fell apart, Martin was complaining that his hand was rising up to the ceiling without his input - it does feel there's a sort of Ouija board aspect to the group dynamics.

We cast about for more 5 player fun, and decided on Prey Another Day. Martin's had this for ages, but I seem to recall it hasn't got much traction on Tuesday nights. I p[icked up a copy just before Christmas and have enjoyed it with family and friends quite a bit. Here I continued my losing streak, getting eaten in both the opening rounds. My luck took an upturn after that, but not enough to outscore Jo or Martin (one of whom won, I now can't quite remember).

With the hour gone 10pm, our thoughts turned to So Clover, and we managed a score of 25 out of 30. Notable were Jo's clue of Thatcher for Genius Roofer (we briefly considered Mark as a possibility), and Ian's Fingers for Glove Noodle - we got a bit sidetracked wondering whether Mummy Fingers were a thing there. 

After that Adam bid us adieu, and we four played again - not really faring much better. I can't remember much about the second round and didn't take a pic, but I struggled with a clue for Cheese/Swing, settling on Party. Unfortunately, the gang felt Cheese Field was more partyish under the circumstances (circumstances which were fair enough, me having not noticed how well Leaf went with Salad). I'm not sure So Clover really benefits from this sort of narrative re-telling, so I'll stop now.

A fine evening, and my last for a week or two - happy gaming!