Swapping Secret Santa for Secret Hitler

Big T was first to arrive at my house for Christmas games yesterday, as we kicked off a few hours earlier than usual at 1pm. Joe was hot on his heels so after a brief catch-up and coffee, we reasoned that it would be silly not to start playing games, so we did. Joe brandished Take Time at us and we jumped in.

This is a fun little Mind-esque game of playing numbered cards around a clock face, with the not-insignificant caveat that each segment, going clockwise, must be of the same or higher value than the one previous. Add in a couple of extra wrinkles and that's pretty much it: but with no communication allowed after you've seen your cards, success proved occasionally elusive. Did we succeed on that final round? I don't actually remember now, but either way, Katy arrived and we shifted gears into sentient vegetable heroism with Potato Man. 

There was just time for a one-round game (won by me) before, as if summoned into being by Adam - compare above and below images - Pete turned up. 

We played another single-round game (won by Big T) and then Adam H and Laura arrived, so we split into teams and broke out Phantom Ink. Joe and I were the clues, with Joe's team at a slight numerical disadvantage (Joe, Pete, Big T) as I clued to Laura, Katy and Adam H. 

Our first word was Pancake, and despite my spelling confusion, our team's question of Who would dislike it was very helpful as I started <mis>spelling CELI(AC). When asked for a nickname I clued CRE(PE) and from there it was a straightforward victory. We went again with the Adams now clueing for the same teams, and midway through the game Chris arrived to bolster the numbers, joining with the short-staffed Pete/Joe/Big T gang. Unfortunately we lost our most coherent decoder shortly after, as Laura had to go off and escape from a room in Cabot Circus, and Katy and I spent most of our time looking at each other in confusion as Adam regarded us with a mix of long-suffering sympathy and crestfallen disappointment. We did figure out Snow, but our shot in the dark simply negated any opposition doubts and they guessed, correctly, the answer was Snowball. 

We realised with a large afternoon stretching before us we could now play some big ol' chunkers. Big T proffered The Barracks Emperors and Joe Chris and Katy leapt in to join him. I played the Christmas sympathy card to get River of Gold on the table and Andy Mosse arrived to find himself dealt in to it, charitably sitting down to an immediate rules-teach. 

In River of Gold, we're sailing up and down (well, repeatedly down, thanks to Rokugan's curious looping geography) the river and establishing trade routes. Despite the madness of the board, River of Gold has a certain simplicity to it: there are only three actions to choose from: move your boat, build a building or deliver to a customer. The goal is to move yourself up the six influence tracks to the east of the river, and the main difficulty we found with the game is remembering to roll the die at the end of your turn instead of the beginning. 

Andy took the laurels here, with Pete second and then myself and Adam lagging a short way behind. 

At the other end of the table, the Barracks were echoing to the sound of a lot of profanity, with Katy summoning her insult of choice for Chris as he did something or other she objected to. There seemed to be a lot of objecting, in fact - the game is a trick-taker of sorts but with a board where cards are laid and prizes - using the word loosely - to be surrounded and claimed. This chicanery continued as River of Gold finished and we began playing Poison. 

This was also new to Andy, but he took to it with his standard zen vibes and nearly followed his River of Gold triumph with a second win, but I just pipped him. 

Sam 13

Andy 14

Adam H 22

Pete 34

Around now the Barracks Emperors concluded as well, and Katy celebrated her debut victory by going off for chips, abetted by Joe and Adam. When they returned, Andrew was with them as well, like the fourth wise man, proffering a festive bottle of ketchup. We paused for dinner. 

After that, Joe suggested Secret Hitler and we split into liberals and fascists. Katy wanted to know if, should she be dealt into the fascists team, she could sabotage it. Joe admitted there was no rule against it, but it could get confusing. And in fairness the game was confusing enough with Joe and I not spotting that each other were fascists and me being convinced Chris was, even though he hadn't opened his eyes. I knew Katy wasn't because she seemed to be enjoying herself.  

I'm still not 100% clear on how the game works, but I did grasp that we all take turns being the president, and the president nominates a chancellor, and then there's a vote and then the president gets some cards and passes two to the chancellor to choose one of, and after this either a liberal or fascist law gets passed. There's enough fog over proceedings that nobody can be totally sure who is who, and Andy found himself shot dead simply for having the temerity to chat in chambers. Then Katy shot Big T who was Hitler and so the liberals won - perhaps for the best in these popularist times, and certainly for Katy's disposition. 

Laura was returning imminently so we split into three groups, with the Fellowship trick-taker, Babylonia and Mille Fiori spread across the table. But now I will hand the reins to our default note-taker and blogger, Andrew.

*

I was walking towards Sam’s house when I was caught up by Joe, Katy and Adam T. I was astonished as the coincidence of all of us arriving at the same time but this was soon explained when I saw the bags full of portions of fish and chips. I had got here just as people were breaking for food.

I had just eaten, so I watched while the gaming table vanished beneath unwrapped papers and various deep fried comestibles. The chat revolved around games, trying to think which games would work with non gamers. Joe told us about a game where you’re given a word and have to guess if it’s a Tolkein character or an antidepressant.

After the food was finished and the table cleared, Secret Hitler was brought to the table. As Sam has already said, it’s a social deduction game, it was capable of allowing all of us to play. In this game, the liberals have to detect the fascists - as determined by drawing an envelope with your secret identity within. And if that weren't enough, one lucky (?) player gets to be Hitler.

I'll be honest, I didn’t really get it. I was a fascist and, as such, I knew that my partners were Joe and Sam but it later transpired that Sam didn't know about Joe, since they were sitting next to each other and couldn’t see each others’ secret signal at the start of the game . Additionally,  Chris kept passing fascist policies. Maybe he was also a fascist and I hadn't noticed, I thought, or maybe he's passing fascist policies because they give the player a little special action. But then Chris, using a special action, assassinated the liberal Andy M, so then I was quite convinced he was a fascist and I’d missed it. Sam voted against himself as President. “I changed my mind,” he explained. I was bemused.

In the end, Katy was the one who identified Adam T as Hitler and killed him, and the game ended with the liberals victorious. It was quite sedate, apparently. Previous (non GNN) games have been quite rambunctious, we were told. Maybe it was the chips, but it was all very low key. I had no idea what was going on at all.

Next, several people adjourned to the front room to choose a game, and Pete came back with a £10 note in his hand, making us all wonder what was going on in there. We hear from Laura that she’s on her way and so we devise a system in which we set up three games and she can join any of them once she arrives.

The choices in this devillishly complex method was Fellowship of the Ring (Adam T, Chris and myself), Babylonia (Sam, Adam H and Pete) and Mille Fiori (Hoe, Katy and Andy M). Although once Laura had arrived, both Fellowship and Babylonia had begun so she joined Mille Fiori. She seemed happy enough.

In Fellowship, the three of us took on Chapter 16 - a tricky hand for a trio containing two relative newbies. But we persevered at Adam’s behest (he wanted to complete all 18 Chapters before the end of the year) and, after three attempts we nailed it! I was quietly smug and keen to try Chapter 17, but Adam checked the game and discovered the next bit was Chapter 16a and looked like quite a long endeavour.

Since Babylonia had finished at the same time as us we decided to leave 16a to another day.

Sam 163

Adam H 156

Pete 127

I remember remarking that Sam’s position on the board didn’t look like a winning one - a couple of small disparate areas, until Pete pointed out all the cities Sam had taken with his strategy.

Mille Fiori was still in full flow, and I heard Joe take a turn that went on for so long that he apologised halfway through.

The six of us played Fuji Flush and I was quietly confident, since this game is - for some reason - my strongest game. Back when we had a Division charting our results, I had a win rate of 50% which is odd for a luck-based game that usually plays five or more. I didn’t say anything, in case I made a target for my back. Plenty of dick points on display and poor old Pete seemed to have a hand made up entirely of 2s and 3s. And I won again, adding my final card - a 7 - to an already existing chain of 7s.

Next up, the six of us bided our time with 6nimmt. Adam T was hesitant to play, but didn’t have the energy or inclination to veto it. And a good thing too, as he ended up a comfortable winner.

Adam T 12

Pete 23

Adam H 24

Sam 32

Andrew 39

Chris 41

And talking of comfortable winners, here are the results from Mille Fiori.

Joe 239

Katy 217

Andy M 167

Laura 154

Joe, Andy M and Adam T left at this point and the six of us played Ito, using the chevrons from Fun Facts as a handy way of keeping track of everyone’s numbers. The categories were vague enough for some details to be clarified. Is a “popular villain” one who is generally beloved by the public, or just very well known? Good job we did check, because we got that one 100% right.

Another curio that this game threw up was when Sam’s reply to “Things that give you goosebumps” was “thinking about goosebumps”. This is about as close to breaking the fourth wall that real life can get but then Sam explained that when he started to think about what might give him goosebumps, that itself gave him goosebumps. Perfectly valid, I suppose.

Things that give you goosbumps - the lower reaches of the scale

After that, I had enough in me for one last game. We split into two groups. I played Katy and Adam at Biblios, and it went pretty much as you might expect. Halfway through I got that sinking feeling that I wasn’t very strong in anything, but it was far too late to do anything about it. And I was right. Amazingly, though, no one finished the game with any orange cards at all, meaning that die was discarded, unscored.

Katy 5 (plus brown die)

Adam 5

Andrew 0

The other end of the table played Soda Jerk which I'm afraid I was completely oblivious to.

Whiskey and soda jerk, anyone?

With that, I was done. Many thanks to everyone for another exciting year. I’ll hand back to Sam for the final part of the blogging.

*

After Andrew left we were down to a quartet - or at least I thought we were. We set up for Misfits and and then saw Pete was quietly watching us, as though not wanting to interrupt. He'd decided to get a later train home and so we redistributed the pieces and set about it. I criticised Katy for going gong-ho saboteur on her very first turn, but the structure survived, long enough to grow big enough that when it collapsed on Pete and later Laura, they were handed enough wooden pieces to start a small fire. 

Chris then drove Pete off to the station and we were left as a trio. And what better way to end the evening than three cracks at So Clover. We kicked off with a 13/18, did about the same in the second game and then finished off with a triumphant 18 in the finale, by which point Katy was sure we had played four times but Laura and I demurred. 

Now a whisky or two to the good, there was even some post-game chat comparing dysfunctional families and putting the world to theoretical rights. Midnight was not tremendously far away by this point, and after a full shift of gaming, it was time to say goodnight. Thanks all for coming, it was epic!

Chieftain o' the Pudding Race

Games was back at Joe's house this week, with a fresh tablecloth ready for the hot breath of avid gamers, intent on fun. I confess I was super-tired before the fun could commence, but having missed last week I forced myself to attend - for a bit, anyway. 

When I descended the stairs, Martin and Adam T were already at the table, and Ian just removing his coat. With only Adam H now in the offing, we discussed what we could play, Someone mentioned we could just wait instead, but Joe pointed out that if we did that, Adam wouldn't arrive. And sure enough one round of Sushi Go was all it took to make him materialise, like Marley's meeple-loving ghost, out of the cool night air. 

Martin was already happily reminiscing about how shit the game is at this point, but Adam H was happy to be dealt in with seven random cards to score. There were quite a few jokes about how it was basically 7 Wonders without all the icons, but I don't remember them now. I dodged the competitive rolls of rice and concentrated on Nigiri, and an excess of puddings. It seemed to work. 

Sam 41
Joe 35
Adam T 33

Ian 31
Martin 27
Adam H 23

I was pleasantly surprised by my victory, but I have to concur that the game is pretty bland. "I could name a thousand better games for non-gamers!" Martin harrumphed. Then he thought for a moment and changed the number to a hundred, before anyone could challenge him. 

We split into two threes, with Joe, Ian and Adam H capering off around the globe in Expeditions and Martin, Adam T and I capering with marginally less frivolity towards Mordor in the Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking game.

What happened in Expeditions I am unsure, as I was busy being confounded by the sneaky chapter 14 in LotR: tFotR, where we make our way through Moria, confront the Balrog and curse Boromir's feeble heart once more (discarding the Mithril shirt to make up for his shortcomings). It was a 'Long' chapter, meaning there are multiple characters that need completing, across multiple rounds, and officially the ruling is that any mis-step means you restart the entire round. But the game also does allow you to just restart from where you had got to previously, and that's what we did. The rounds are interesting, but not for the first time I felt that the long chapters feel attritional and the 'doing characters twice' option detracts from an-already flimsy sense of narrative. But at least we completed it - sort of. Our initial triumph did involve leaving Pippin behind. "I don't give a shit about him" Martin confessed. Adam and I were more of a mind to bring him along though, so we played one last round, failed, and then announced we'd won anyway. Almost as though Gandalf has his own Truth Social feed. 

Expeditions finished now too: 

Adam H 22
Ian 20
Joe 15

With apologies I missed any late drama, as I was now wrapped up in the shenanigans of Martin's latest addition, Pumafiosi, a mini-Reiner with quite nice production and a lot of dickishness. The rhythm of it is sort-of trick-taking, but instead of the winner it's the second-strongest card that gets added to a hierarchy of points cards in the middle of the table. During around, these can get bumped down the ladder (minus points for being bumped) and you've some one-use special abilities to take advantage of. 

After ten tricks are played the rungs on the ladder score, and Adam T gets lots of points. My catastrophic middle round and Martin's feeble third round meant there was only ever one winner. 

Adam T 45
Martin 31
Sam 30

They'd now finished Expeditions and were playing Ra. 

And I was feeling the pace of all this fun and threatened to leave, so Martin coaxed a game of Jungo out of me. Adam took to this very quickly as well, winning the first round in no time before Martin took the second. Then Adam added the third and hit the two-rounds-wins victory objective! I do like Jungo. Any game where you get to say the word 'invoke' can't be all bad. 

Martin and Adam began setting up Agent Avenue as I headed for home, which is where Joe takes over the story...

Joe here, thanks Sam. Ra weaved its relentless way towards the end of the ancient Egyptian era, and it was, as it always is, gloriously tense. Ian was on course for the win, but a generous final epoch plus winning sun tiles gave me the late running. "I'm rubbish at Ra", sighed Adam H, in a similar intonation with which he'd announced "I love this game" after beating us at Expeditions earlier. 

Joe 60

Ian 44

Adam 27

By now Sam had gone, and both Adams made noises about leaving. In the end only AH did;  AT stayed, coaxed by the promise of So Clover. Martin threw a cardboard spanner into the works, brandishing Llama Llama, but as he began the rules, Adam wrinkled his nose and said "Shall we just play So Clover?" And so we did. 

We acquitted ourselves decently, with a score of 22/24, only undone by Ian's perfectly reasonable paring of coil with wind, which we all read to rhyme with binned, not bind. Doh! 

I was pleased with my clue of magazine to go with ammo and life. And with that, the bell tolled, and the lights faded on another Tuesday night. Earlier than is perhaps usual, but with a full Sunday of gaming in the offing, in the form of Decacon, we all needed to get some rest.

 

Fishing for Experts

Although we had unfortunate late drop-outs (Pete and Andrew) there was still a solid six last night at the table. Long-time absentee Adam T was back, and he, Ian and I kicked off the evening whilst we awaited the others with a game of sumo-wrestling shoving match Slambo. I didn't snap pictures but here's my hand v Martin at the weekend.

It's super-simple. All we're doing is playing cards to a shared discard where we keep track of the current, cumulative value, as blue cards (positive) force it up and red cards (negative) down. If anyone is forced to take the value over ten or below zero, they have lost the bout and everyone else gets to crow 'Slambo!' at them. Shame is enforced - in the form of a card - and as soon as someone loses three bouts they lose the game - whomever has least shame at this point wins. We didn't get to three, as other sumo wrestlers were arriving around us, but Adam was least shamed when we packed it back into its tiny box again. 

Adam - top sumo
Sam - average sumo
Ian - abashed

Now Katy and Adam H were here I took the liberty of setting up Whirly Derby. Martin's infamous greens (win most races) had been replaced by a new set from the publisher, and Katy dismissed insider advice on the outsider-ranked black marbles, saying she would navigate the problem with skill. Joe arrived to find himself already marbled, so to speak, as we began racing in earnest. 

Katy's confidence seemed to evaporate fast as the blacks stayed true to the bookie's predictions early on, and Ian - playing green - got off to a solid start. Despite the new green marbles being clearly larger than the old set, class is permanent and they seemed keen to dominate. 

Not entirely though - Adam T's reds pulled off the result of the game with this finish...

...causing him to - temporarily - change his feelings about Whirly Derby not being a 'proper' game. However, it wasn't enough to catch Ian, and again there was talk about perhaps adding a bidding phase for the marbles: green still seem strong, and blacks trailed in nearly last:

Ian Green 45
Adam T Red 43
Sam Blue 21
Joe Orange 20
Katy Black 14
Adam H White 10

We split into trios for the evening's main courses, with Joe, Adam H and I keen to try out Martin Wallace's condensed Railways of the World game, Steam Power, and the others perusing the alcove of joy before deciding on Mille Fiori. 

Steam Power shares a lot of genetics with Railways. There's no turn-order auction or special cards, but you're building track to deliver cubes from factories - this time to fulfil contract cards. There's only four resources and, as with Railways, you can share connected networks. Unlike Railways, once you've started building track, you can only extend from there and not jump around the map - Germany, in our case.

Adam - yellow - and Joe - red - began contesting the mid-west whilst I struck a more independent note in the south. I forgot to take any photos again (apart from the one above) but overall the vibe is recognisably Railwaysy whilst being faster: as soon as anyone completes X amount of contracts (11 with three players) endgame is triggered, so there's a balance between building an empire and exploiting it for all you can. As players can take cubes from opponents factories there's a tangible, and not always totally inadvertent, dickishness to things. We enjoyed it, although Joe and I probably knew what would happen score-wise going in:

Adam H 64
Sam 60
Joe 48

Mille Fiori wrapped up at exactly the same time, having exhibited the same levels of shenanigans and muttering throughout. All three players had taken turns leading, but it was Ian - green! - who emerged triumphant in what, for Mille Fiori, was a tight finish. 

Ian 210

Katy 202
Adam T 190

We shuffled seats. Adam T suggested getting back in the Fellowship trick-taking saddle, and Ian and I joined him. The others went to bathe in the alcove's golden glow and returned with a selection of boxes before ultimately deciding on Fishing, which all of them had played before. I'm not as good as Andrew at keeping track of what's happening on the other side of the table, but I did snap Katy looking very excited by the prospect of fish. 

In the Fellowship, we took on Chapter 13, where we set out from somewhere or other hoping to reach Moria (I think) and mechanically, this meant a 'long' chapter where multiple hands are played until all 7 (or 8, if you include the optional Bill the Pony) characters have made it through.

We got off to a solid start, with a clear opening round as Frodo, Merry and one of the Elves made it through the gauntlet. But Boromir - morally compromised - and Aragorn - picky with numbers - both harpooned the second round. 

Then we rallied somewhat, used the Mithril shirt to protect Frodo, and finished our jaunt to Middle-Earth with a solid victory. There was a brief debate about continuing into Moria, but it was another long chapter so we elected to move on to the different speed of Gadget Builder. 

This is an UNO-inspired card-shedder where you can play like UNO - play matching colour-or-number cards to a shared discard pile - but you can also spend cards to build gadgets which give you special powers. The gadgets are helpful, but you can only use one per turn and you can't go out if any of them are unused. First to three rounds wins, and we were poised at a 1-0-0 score when the others finished Fishing, with Katy the victor in an incredibly tight finish, as all anglers brough their hard-won North Sea experience to bear:

Katy 94

Adam 93

Joe 90

We were going to pack Gadget Builder in, but all three of them were exhausted by their time at sea and bade us goodbye, not even taking up the offer of So Clover! Incredible scenes. More credible scenes followed, as we continued Gadget Builder with all of us utilising gadgets and winning rounds, leaving us poised again, this time on 2-2-2 with a next-round winner. Ian and I conferred this morning that we'd both forgotten who won, but knew it wasn't ourselves. So it must have been Adam!

Adam - 3

Ian and Sam 2 each, plus bonus senior moment

And that was that!

Lucky (thirty) sevens

I walked into Joe’s place on a relatively mild day between peaks of British summer and found myself walking into a game of Cross Clues with Joe, Sam, Katy, Adam T, Ian and Adam H. Before long it became clear that everyone were on very different frequencies when it came to giving clues. One misunderstanding followed another. “Club” for “weird/foot” was missed and my one contribution was also hopelessly wide of the mark as I thought “Solstice” would go with “mean/night” since mean can also mean “average.” Katy tried to dissuade us that the Solstice wasn’t the average night but too late. 

We didn’t even count up the score, that’s how badly we did.

 

With Martin on his way, we decided to give Cross Clues another go. This time we did better but still not amazing. Hats off to Adam T for his clue “diarrhoea” for “brown/lightning.” Classy. His clue “bite” for “angry/horse” sparked off a discussion about what angry horses are best known for: biting or kicking. But that’s all horse feathers. We did well enough to count up the score this time. 

22 out of 25

With Martin still en route, we broke out Flip 7 and took out the freeze cards. In fact, it was quite dick-move-free. Whenever someone got a “Flip Three” card, they almost always used it on themselves. And, in fact, it almost always worked. Especially if you were Ian who seemed to be blessed with a surfeit of bonus point cards.

Katy only scored in four rounds but on three of them, she clocked up 37 points. She also found herself concerned when Adam H shuffled the deck of cards just as she was about to draw another card. Convinced that the deck was now stacked against her, she asked the dealer (Adam T) to cut the deck before handing her a card. He did so. She went bust all the same.

Adam H managed to flip seven cards in one round and he’d run Ian a close second throughout until the last round. Ian decided to stick first and Adam just pushed his luck long enough for him to squeak a close win.

Adam H 209

Ian 203

Katy 144

Joe 128

Adam T 105

Andrew 95

Sam 0

By now Martin was here and we split into two groups at two separate tables. Sam, Martin, Adam T and Ian set off for the Shires in The Fellowship Of The Ring. I think I heard mention of starting on Chapter 10. Impressive but I've no idea how far through the game that is.

Katy, Adam H, Joe and myself indulged in the luxury of Ra - Pharaoh edition, with its chunky tiles and metal money. Katy got a brief overview of the rules, just to refresh her memory and then we began. 

Round one saw a lot of disasters and floods pulled from the bag. Adam and Katy were the last two players and they let tiles fill up and clear themselves out twice, due to the grim nature of what was on offer. 

Round two ended in a similar fashion,  with Katy the last active player insisting that it was more fun to play with yourself. 

By round three,  the Nile had pretty much dried up and I was regretting buying quite so many pharaohs. Also, I had very few buildings unlike Adam who had so many that Joe had to explain about stacking the same buildings on top of each other, you know, like they did in Ancient Egypt. 

At the end, Katy was delighted by her score and I was pleasantly surprised by mine. Joe said he usually did better than his and Adam admitted that he didn't really like Ra.

Katy 43

Andrew 41

Joe 33

Adam H 32

And so, I gathered up my belongings and set off at a sensibly early hour, leaving the rest of the evening in safe gaming hands.

Over to you, Sam.

*             *             *

In Tolkien-world things started out well, as I recall - not that I recall that much now. But I believe we cleared chapter 10 and Adam T read out the narrative intro for the next chapter. I don't remember that either, but it was either 11 or 12 where we ran into trouble, as it's a 'long' one: meaning there are multiple characters to complete and two of them were rather tricky: Boromir needed to win the last trick but couldn't be trusted with the ring, and someone else needed something crazy like a card of each rank. We - or Adam - pulled the latter off, but went wrong somewhere else and needed the Vest of Mithril or something to save us. But then we went wrong again anyway. Fellowships are work.

After Andrew left Martin tempted Adam T and and Katy into a game of Greed. I don't know what the mechanics are, but the name does a pretty good job on the theme.

...whilst Ian, Adam H and I showed Joe the ropes - ho ho - to Monkey Palace. For a reason that I missed, the rules weren't in the box and so we did a little hazarding around the finer points. The basic ones are easy: build a monkey palace, build your engine, get bananas. The result on the table was as impressive as ever.

Not sure if our slightly fudged rules favoured me, but I picked up a win as debutant Joe found himself up against three experienced simians. 

Sam 42

Adam 38

Ian 36

Joe 29

I don't know what happened in Greed, other than Martin was greediest:

Martin 160

Adam and Katy 155 each

Katy and the Adams now left for home, leaving just four of us to clover out the evening, which we attempted twice. Our first effort was a very solid 22/24, with only my clover muddying the waters.

We went again, which as everyone knows is always a terrible mistake. And so it proved here, with a shabby 18/24 thanks to a couple of dodgy red herrings and maybe some heat/game fatigue creeping in. Did like (Joe's?) essential for friend/oil though.