Mossy Top and Bottom

With Andrew one of the changing-season lurgy drop-outs (get well, everyone), blogging duties fell to me (Sam). I was also hosting. Adam arrived early again, and was treated to the sight of Stan and I eating our tea (and Stan making fun of my cooking skills, naturally). Ten minutes later the others began to arrive: Martin, Gareth, and Ian at first, which was enough of us for a quick blast at Strike. Despite Gareth - when forced to roll all his dice - taking five 2's straight back out again, Martin won and continues to convince that there's more to the game than blind/bad luck. 

As we finished, long-term absentee Andy Mosse arrived, and then Mel joined us too. We split into two groups, with Martin and Gareth teaching Andy The Crew and the rest of us setting up Flamme Rouge. 

From the start Mel led the peloton, alternating occasionally with my Rouller and both of us collecting exhaustion cards as Ian and Adam bided their time. It was an unusual course we'd chosen, as there were no uphills at all until a tiny slope right at the end. Halfway around the track Ian made a break for it and Adam went with him as Mel and I languished. Two-thirds of the way through it was a very obvious two-horse race as we were left far behind, playing out a fairly insignificant sub-plot to the main event. 

It was a dramatic finish as Adam realised his '9' card wouldn't take him over the line because of the last hill. Because of gravity, Ian pedalled frantically home to claim a 1-2 finish, with Adam third and fourth. Mel was fifth and eighth and myself sixth and seventh. Around this time, they finished The Crew as well:

And we swapped chairs as Adam set up Luzon Rails. for himself, Gareth, Mel and Ian. I gave them a brief and panicked precis of the rules before returning to Martin and Ian for a crack at Dandelions, a slightly chaotic dice-moving/placing/majority-claiming game. I profess to have no idea how, but I won:

Sam 62

Martin 51

Ian 41

And whilst Luzon Rails continued, we moved swiftly on to Sea Salt & Paper, a fast-moving set collection game. Like Dandelions, there's a lot of luck, but also a sliver of table-reading and deduction. Cards score points in various ways, including pairs that trigger extra turns/card draws/card thefts. Pairs are played to the table for the reward, but you can keep them hidden instead if you like. When you have 7 points (or more) you can halt the round, either by saying Stop (everyone scores) or Last Chance, in which case everyone else gets one more turn in which to try and beat your score. The latter is more rewarding (and more punishing for opponents) but carries more risk...

Not knowing what you're doing doesn't hurt either. I survived a dramatic last-round comeback by Ian to take the win (first to 35 points)

Sam 35

Ian 31

Martin 13

Luzon Rails were still under construction so we blasted through four games of Strike, winning one apiece before Ian took the decider (2-1-1) assisted by some preposterous rolling, including getting all but two of his dice back when forced to roll 15 of them. 

Ian left, and Martin and I blasted through a ding-dong battle of Schnipp & Weg which was so dramatic I didn't even take a picture, despite winning. Then Luzon rails finished!

early bids

Andy's worries that he'd overbid for shares at the start proved unfounded, as prices escalated and they ended up looking comparative bargains. Other than that, I'm not sure what happened, except to say he'd picked a debut win as Adam suffered (semi) explainer's curse:

Andy M: 57

Gareth 51

Mel 42

Adam 31

And with the hour approaching 10.30, Mel and Gareth left to make their way back to Easton. The remaining four of us played Polterfass, the game of beer pouring, serving, and greedily grabbing. My table-reading skills were abysmal and after a decent first round (16 points!) I was still on the same score several rounds later, as Martin surged ahead, Adam caught him up, and Andy and I floundered around in the dregs on the floor of the tavern. Andy quit on zero beer as the innkeeper caught us all out, and had Martin wailing "Why? Why???" as Adam surged past him for the win.

"I just thought it'd be funny" Andy said. 

And it was. 

Adam 77

Martin 51

Sam 26

Andy 11

That was that! Thanks all, see you next week....

All's well that Gravwell

 It was almost like old times as I arrived at Sam’s at an almost-on-time 7.40. It was already full, and we had two more to arrive so we (Sam, Joe, Ian, Adam T, Gareth, Martin and me) played Cross Clues. Across the top we had Disgust which caused some interesting clues, such as “jizz” for Digust/Helmet. We ended with 22 out of 25, with all three mistakes linked to the word “Monkey” for some reason.

Adam H arrived with chips and Laura was expected at “around 8” so we split into two groups. The quartet (Joe, Martin, Gareth, Adam T) played Mille Fiori, a game so generous with its scoring that “points salad” seems inadequate (despite Martin clearly saying “broccoli for two points”) and is better described as a “point smorgasbord”. Despite the myriad of scoring opportunities, it ended very close. Joe maintained his 100% record in the game.

We played Gravwell, a game in which you don’t go backwards or forwards, you go towards or away from the nearest mass. Laura texted that she’d be there at 8.15 so we began without her: initially choosing her cards at random before Sam started playing for her. As such when she arrived she was already in the lead. The game was frustrating, but some of that could be down to lack of familiarity. For example, blue cards are useful at first but if all the ships are behind you, you need red cards to push yourselves away from them.

 

I found myself becalmed in a section of space as evidenced by two photos taken half an hour apart in which I clearly have barely moved. Adam H had similar problems, dawdling aimlessly at the far side of the board before he suddenly leapt into action, moving past all of us until he was so close to the finish that when Laura played her card (repel all objects three spaces) it pushed him onto the final square.

Adam

Laura

Ian

Andrew

Sam

 

Then we split into three groups of three. Martin, Gareth and Laura played Keltis at one end of the table. Ian, Adam H and I set up Flamme Rouge at the other end and Joe, Sam and Adam T squeezed a game of Ninety-nine into the gap in the middle.

It was lovely to play Flamme Rouge again, although we needed a rule refresher. It wasn't long before we were enjoying the thrill of the chase. Adam broke away first, causing Ian and I to send our sprinters after him.

It was very close at the end. Adam was approaching the final corner with Ian and I right on his tail. It all depended on who had the better cards in their hand.

I did. Although we all crossed the line, I went furthest. Adam claimed a victory of sorts, because he got two riders across the line. For the sake of completeness, these were the standings…

1 Andrew

2 Ian

3 Adam H 

4 Adam H

5 Ian

6 Andrew

As for Keltis, Martin won with Laura and Gareth both tying for second/last about twenty points behind.

Ninety nine ended with Adam T securing the win, despite him declaring at the start that he was terrible at the game. Sam finished one card away from completing his bid, but ninety-nine is a cruel game and he finished a distant last.

Then Laura, Adam T and Gareth left and the remaining six of us finished on So Clover. Let’s just say that the pressure to all be perfect was off fairly quickly after Sam’s success (Travolta=Grease+Fool) Martin was undone by a number of possible combinations and we failed to choose the right one at all. Joe also came a cropper as we failed to note that Couch links to Observer in that someone on a couch is probably observing something.

After that, I set off. My clover had already been dealt out but I was determined not to give in to temptation. So Sam did mine for me. And, just like when he was playing for Laura at the start of the evening, he did pretty well, getting a perfect score on mine.

Thanks all, see you next Tuesday.

Rouge in the Cheeks

Last week the boys, Sally and I went to Katie and Mark's for a few days away from the big city. After the travails of hiring a car (power cuts at the car rental place, extra charges for not having a credit card, the bank suspecting fraud and declining payment) and then the travails of the M5 (five hours to reach south Devon!) we finally arrived, remembering that we'd not done our lateral flow tests before leaving. This is how all holidays start now...

Monday

Safely in the clear, we spent a while catching up before heading out with dog Nellie for a walk while the weather was reasonable. Nellie isn't pictured here, probably because she was running around or pulling plants out of the ground elsewhere. She's bonkers. 

In the evening the first of the games arrived. These were Love Letter (winners: Peppa and Stan) In Vino Morte (Peppa) before everyone else went to bed (bar Stan) and Mark, Peppa and I broke out the first of our attempts at Flamme Rouge. We plumped for a Tour, where finishing places carry over and scores are cumulative. On the first race, Peppa led from the front, picking up numerous exhaustion cards. She then blocked both Mark and I from overtaking, and afterwards I realised that we were definitely playing something slightly wrong, and we should have been able to overtake. Nonetheless, the scores stood, and Peppa was off to a flyer. 

Tuesday

Early in the morning - well, 10am - I led the boys and Lula off to Kingsbridge for a poke around the games shop, which has now moved from a tucked-away corner to a slightly smaller space, but on the high street itself. After ten minutes perusing the shelves we emerged with Dragomino and Decrypto (me; my Decrypto pad was exhausted and both stands broken) and High Risk (Lula). Sporting some other holiday goods (free books, nectarines, aubergine pickle) we returned to the house and Lula, Mark and I broke out High Risk. 

This is a super-simple luck-pusher of getting your guys to the top of the mountain first. Dice or rolled for movement; do you settle for what you have or roll your duds again and risk going bust? When you move, all movement is assigned to a single climber, and while the bivouac spaces can be shared, the smaller mountain spaces can't, so an arriving climber will shove the current occupant off ('like an asshole' - Mark) to the next available spot below. If you go bust, your highest climber falls in similar fashion - although climbers at the summit won't go anywhere, preventing the game from lasting forever. It's fun enough; not as elegant as K2, but not as long as Pickonimo. 

Then everyone refused to play Dragomino with me, so I played it twice myself. This is the little sibling of Kingdomino: there's no area scoring or multiplication and no claiming of next round's tiles. Instead you simply take one tile from the array and add it to your kingdom - I think the theme is exploring an island - and if any land types match, you 'find' a dragon egg there; taking a face-down egg from the supply and flipping it over. If it's a dragon, that's a point. If it's an empty egg, that's not, but you do take the Mother Dragon token which means you'll choose first in the next round (it's also worth a point at the end of the game).

I enjoyed this so much that at various points in the day I managed to get Stan, Peppa and Sally to all play with me (though I rarely won). The entire game takes ten minutes but despite the simplicity, it certainly doesn't play itself, with Peppa in particular on the lookout for taking tiles others might like. We also tried a small variant where the tiles with watering holes on allow you to take two eggs and choose between them instead of the standard one. 

In the afternoon we trundled down to the beach. Lula was the sole heroine in terms of actually getting in the sea, hurtling off the breakwater while the tide was high enough. The rest of us took turns digging an enormous hole and then inventing a game called Holeball where the hole was the goal and if you scored you went in it as keeper. Surprisingly good fun. I had slept really badly though so at one point I laid down under a towel and closed my eyes. And Joe and I walked out on the breakwater.

We buried Stan's legs in the hole before we left. 

In the evening there was more Dragomino and the little-seen Tomatomato, where you say all the syllables of 'tomato' (plus one rogue potato) in fast but random order. If you make a mistake, all the other players get to pick up a tile, and the winner is the player whose tiles can spell 'tomato' the most. 

My tactic was leaning in like an old man and moving my head along the line of tiles as though peering shortsightedly at a bus timetable, reading as I went. Old man wins!

There was three games of Spicy between Peppa and I, then as tired children and adults tottered off to bed, it was time for Flamme Rouge again. With a huge amount of flat before any hills, Mark and Peppa shot off early and I struggled to catch them. 

I was so far back I was picking up as many exhaustion cards as the leaders, and although I managed to catch them (my rouleur finished second) in the overall positions my team was a distant third as things stood. Noticing that the riders seem to have enormous butt cracks ("that's a seam" Mark pointed out) was scant consolation.

Wednesday

There was a trip planned to Adrenalin Quarry for the early evening, for much cavorting on massive inflatables atop freezing water, so I had to go and get myself a wetsuit. This was a bit like the car hire adventure all over again, as my card was declined and I didn't have the back-up with me, so had to call Sally and get her to transfer money on my laptop back at the house. Factor in the negligible Devon 3G signal and me holding my arms in the air halfway up a hill and you have a decent portrait of the level of chaos I have, day by day, being a scatterbrained halfwit of the highest order. Fortunately, we got there in the end, and I came away with a rather expensive new all-in-one outfit. 

Back at the house Peppa was up, and up for games. We cracked through another two Spicys (one win apiece) before Mark joined us for the next leg of our Flamme Rouge tour. My riders lurked near the back again for most of the race, but ended things a little less lamely this time - true, my sprinter limped in last, but my rouleur sped through the peloton for a win!

Then in a stunning turn of events Joe wanted to play Dragomino, and he beat me 7-4. After a little while we also tried out Pugs in Mugs, which is a fairly standard Exploding-Cats style thing, only a little gentler. Collect three matching coloured card to claim a pug in a mug, and claim all coloured pugs to win. It's okay. Not my kind of thing, even if there's a pug wearing a bra. 

Then we hurtled off to Adrenaline Quarry, where I had 45 minutes of hilarious fun, but felt my age for the last 40 of them. That was it for the games, except for a couple of rambunctious whirls around In Vino Morte as we waited for chips in Plymouth. Owing to Mark's planning and blessed providence, we were also well placed for the final of the UK fireworks championship as it exploded above the sea, not far from where we sat.

Then it was time to go home. Firstly Katie and Mark's home, and this was an adventure in itself with wrong turns, cantankerous GPS systems and eventually, everyone bar myself (-driving) asleep. And the next day, home home, with no final games to play, but a stop off at Hound Tor on the journey back.

Many fond memories, Katie's olive bread, Mark's margaritas, and some great games!

Party to Something

GNN started 2020 in celebratory mode, with an open-door policy at mine and Sally's house, and as well as the usual massively-unhealthy snacks there was also the marginally-safer ones of crostini and tapenade, courtesy of Sally. There was also mackerel pate, a variety of cheeses, cloudy lemonade, and a bowl of salad that - as Martin noted nine hours later, slowly turned into a bowl of wilted leaves.

still lurking this morning

But before that could happen, Adam T and Celena were first to arrive, promptly joined by Martin, Sarah and Effie. After summing up the options, Effie left the adults to it and went to chill with Stan and Joe. Arthur joined her when he rocked up with Hannah (who came by bus), and then shortly after that Adam H arrived on two wheels. Then Joe walked in too.

But for a long time - literally, hours! - people talked. It almost reached the point where the blog would need to be renamed, but fortunately Andy Mosse arrived with his boy Finn, and brought Team 3 with him. After it sat glowing radioactively for long enough on the table, the collective curiosity of myself, Martin, the Adams and Joe couldn't be resisted any more and with Andy's help we cracked out a quick couple of plays.

The game takes the concept of see/hear/speak no evil and parcels out those communicative restrictions on three team-mates, one of whom must describe the structure they have to build (from tetris-type blocks) whilst not speaking. The second must communicate the message verbally to the third, who can't see anything. It can be played co-operatively or competitively, and our second game was the latter, with Andy, Joe and Adam H beating Martin, Adam T and myself. Maybe it was the combination of hosting, or too much cloudy lemonade, but I found it very stressful.

Later - I think it was later - Ian arrived, and as the daylight began to fail, so did Steve and Anja with Louie and Lennon. Whilst the older kids disappeared to the loft to watch Pixels, the younger crew stayed in the front room with more suitable viewing, as we were all charmed by Lennon distributing snacks, often directly into our mouths. By this point there were two rooms full of potential gamers. In the front room, Sally and I joined Adam, Hannah, Steve, Anja for what turned out to be a triumphant crack at Just One - not only scoring the maximum 13 but 2 bonus points as well. which is even more impressive considering the game probably took about an hour all told.

Meanwhile in the kitchen there was an epic game of Facecards playing out. It took even longer than Just One, so God knows what took place. Everyone seemed very happy with it though.

As the day faded away, so did the 'non-gamers' with various children and relieved parents making their way home so the regular GNNers could go full-nerd. Sally had nowhere to go, but seemed happy to stay. To be frank the order of events gets extremely hazy here, I think due to all the cheese I was eating, but I think this was when a huge game of 7 Wonders got played.

Andy Mosse had only played 7 Wonders Duel, but was otherwise new to things, and initially had Joe beside him as his trusty assistant. But then I stole Joe away to play two games of Blitzkrieg! which we won one apiece and celebrated in our joint mutual destruction. I think Martin won 7 Wonders, after which Adam and Celena departed... in the front room, Sally taught Steve and Anja Yokai. I'm not sure how they got on, but after the first game Sally was ashen-faced in the kitchen, muttering something about rules.

Somewhere around here Res Arcana got played.

I think it was while Adam, Katy - freshly arrived - Ian and I played Flamme Rouge. As we were setting it up, Chris walked in the door - passing Steve and Anja en famille on the way out - and happily sat down to join us. A while ago Flamme Rouge was a regular at the GNN tables, and it was nice to play it again even if the card system initially seems slightly counter-intuitive. I've personally found that the backs of all cards are the same colour a little bewildering, even if it's necessary to hide those exhaustion cards...

While we were pedalling through the Alps, a boisterous Medium was played out at the other end of the table, with much roaring of disbelief and approbation. I've no idea which team won, but they wrapped things up the same time as Adam H sailed over the line in Flamme Rouge.

I'm now exceedingly hazy on things but I think it was towards the end of these games that Andrew and Anna arrived to find a scene of game-related debauchery in full swing. Stan and Joe were so screened out they were taken for a walk by Sally, Andy and Finn departed, and a game of PUSH was initiated by Joe that Anna was shanghai-ed into, whilst at the other end of the table something else occurred. I'm not sure what. It may have just been wild consumption of cheese. EDIT: looking at photos I see we played Tiny Towns. This was after Adam and I tried to play Ecos: First Continent, only to have Martin rule it out by repeatedly barking "no!" even though he wasn't playing.

I think I blanked it out because of my awful building-site finale - Adam won this, followed by Chris and Ian.

However around mid-evening seat-changing occurred with Just One back on the table in the kitchen while Ian, Adam and Chris suffered the indignity of finding out a crucial rule I'd missed in Word Domination: the game of allegedly taking over the world but actually just spelling things.

It's a neat little system of claiming cards by using the letters on them, the catch being you need to claim them in subsequent turns, and may be bumped off in the meantime by other players. I'd not realised the board actually grows during play, however, and we hurriedly implemented the rule when I found it in round 5. Despite Chris' vocabulary and my alleged (by Adam) always-winning at word games, it was Adam's shrewd strategic brain and claimed another win.

In Just One, meanwhile, four people clued gatherer, leaving poor Katy to try and guess Hunter from Joe's clue Orion. There was a substantial bout of cheating here, none of which sadly helped.

Sally couldn't be persuaded to stay up for another game, and so we were reduced to eight - Joe, Martin, Katy, Adam, Anna, Andrew, Ian and myself - for what would turn out to be the last game of an epic session - Pairs. Although I was barely drinking, my cheese and sugar intake had reached gargantuan proportions and I don't know what happened here at all, although I do recall Martin serially going bust on his first card flip and Katy doing well. I think she won - I went to the toilet, and when I returned, it was all over.

And so was the night!

Although our incongruous - for GNN - start of prolonged chat was rather sweetly mirrored at the end, as we sat around the table almost like normal people before we realised the time was 11pm and Ian and I were starting to yawn.

I'm pretty sure I've missed out some games as well as plenty of high points. A big bundle of fun and lovely to have so many of us under one roof at the same time! Thanks to everyone for coming and look forward to seeing some/all of you very soon... Tuesday?

Games in their natural habitat

It was a dark and stormy night.

So began Snoopy's famous fictional novel and, by chance, so began this year's GNN games weekend for myself, Sam, Stanley and Ian. We left Bristol in a faint drizzle and the further we got from our homes, the angrier the skies became until it was a relentless, pounding rain when we arrived at the cabin.

We found Adam, Joe, Anja and Jon playing Azul. They paused long enough to welcome us in and show us our rooms: Ian and I shared a room swiftly dubbed The Infirmary due to the medical equipment in the corner.

But back at the game, Adam was ruling the roost. In one round, he'd made a choice so that both Joe and Anja had to pick up tiles that scored negative points and when they tried to retaliate by overloading the middle with far too many of a colour he wanted, he simply picked something else and let Jon end up with seven yellow tiles and nowhere to put them. Jon scored -5 for that round.

Adam 101
Anja 63
Joe 61
Jon 51

There had already been a game before this, Endeavour, which had ended something like...

Jon 72
Joe 66
Adam 65
Anja 59

But now it we were all together, with just one late arrival expected from Swindon. Once we'd settled in we started new games on the long and accommodating dining table(s) we started gaming, while Joe made supper.

Sam, Jon, Steve and Anja went for Luxor, a set-collecting game whose mechanic is that, in your hand of five cards, you can only use the ones at either side with new cards being added into the middle. It ended...

Sam 74
Steve 71
Joe 68
Anja 62

Maybe Anja was put off by her attempts to use the quaint, money-eating payphone in the room.

Ian, Adam and I went for an old favourite, Tinners' Trail. With no rules refreshing to hold us down, we were mining the tin out of Cornwall with no problems (apart from forgetting the bit at the end of  round one when you buy points. You know, the whole point of the game). Ian went for a round of no mining in round two while he built up his infrastructure and I did the same in round three because I'd run out of options. Adam scored consistently through the game and squeaked a win.

Adam 134
Ian 131
Andrew 96

Around this point, Steve arrived from the inky black storm outside, looking a little bedraggled.

With food still a little way off, there was a reshuffling of groups. Ian, Adam, Anja and I started a game of Deep Sea Adventure, complete with the rare sight of Ian doing a rules explanation.

The excitement of this game was supplemented by the occasional token flying in from the neighbouring game of Flipships. Stanley, Jon, Steve and Sam had joined forces to save the world. And, thanks mostly to Stanley, they succeeded.

We had little idea of this impending alien invasion and preferred to dive for treasure. Adam was always first to pick up treasure, much to everyone's annoyance as he used more than his fair share of oxygen. In round three I ignored treasure on the way down, hoping to get something nice on the way back, but succeeded in only landing on empty spaces.

Ian 27
Adam 24
Anja 13
Andrew 4

Next up was the lovely food made by Joe. Everyone won. Stanley got changed out of his school stuff, only to find that the only pair of trousers he'd brought with him were his mum's.

At this point, we decided on a big group game: Word Slam.

What manner of thought processes lead Ian to instantly guess "Undertaker" when presented with the clue "job"? Well, whatever it was, he was right.

The last, hardest, clue was "lactose intolerant" and it was up to Jon and me to communicate it. We briefly considered choosing another, but then thought about the glory if we succeeded. Eventually, we did, but not until our team mates had guessed almost every other nutritionally-linked condition. Jon's team was successful in that round, but we'd won the game overall.

My clues for Lactose Intolerant

Sam, Steve, Joe, Ian, Andrew 4
Stanley, Sam, Adam, Jon, Anja 3

Then we split into two groups. Anja, Jon, Joe and Ian began a late night game of Lords Of Vegas. Adam, Steve and I played a short game of NMBR9 while we waited for Sam to get Stanley into bed.

It was Steve's first game and Adam's first in a while. For the first few moves, they seemed to be in perfect sync, but this example of the hive-mind couldn't beat my clean efficiency. No explainer's curse here!

Andrew 86
Adam 58
Steve 55

Then Sam joined us for a second attempt, and he snuck a win, despite being initially disappointed with his low score.

Sam 72
Andrew 71
Adam 64
Steve 59

Next, perhaps jealous of our neighbours' extravagant wheeler-dealing, we got out Vegas to add to the already copious amounts of dice on the table.

I like Vegas, it has just enough control to make you feel like you're making intelligent choices at the start but by the end of a round, you're blowing on dice and wishing for numbers like a hopeless gambler. I even tried to convince people that higher numbers are harder to roll - that's why they're worth more.

Sam 550,000
Steve 360,000
Adam 340,000
Andrew 210,000

Adam went to bed and Sam, Steve and I defied sleep deprivation for a final game of The Mind.
We packed up a set off to bed with Lords Of Vegas still on the table. It had been an odd game, with the Strip paying out twice before anyone had built on it. But eventually it settled down to the familiar pattern of take overs and cruel fate. Anja remodelled her two-tile casino with double sixes to take over Joe's five-tile casino leaving Joe with the unenviable task of winning a $26m re-organisation.

He succeeded and managed to hang on to the seven-tile casino for the rest of the game, but it wasn't as good as Ian's chain of smaller casinos along the strip that helped him to victory.

Joe seemed pretty happy when the last Strip card came out...

Ian 36
Anja 32
Jon 32
Joe 29


With the time now at midnight, the first day of the weekend came to an end.

The next morning, Stanley and I were up at seven, followed by Sam, Ian and Joe. Apparently, Joe, Adam and Jon were all up at four due to their hot room. Joe tried to persuade them to play a game, but they wouldn't bite.

I played Sam at Patchwork and neither of us did brilliantly.

Sam 6
Andrew -6

Then Jon introduced Joe to Tao Long, a game of two dragons chasing each others' tails. It seemed to be progressing well until Jon knocked his cup of coffee across it. It was a shocking sight to see Tao Long's rather nice board and pieces swimming in milky coffee. I couldn't even bring myself to photograph it but, in the spirit of those clickbait adverts promising heartbreaking photos taken just before tragedy struck, here's a picture of the game with the offending cup in a precarious position.

Tao Long was abandoned while the pieces were left out to dry. Instead they played a game of Circle The Wagons.

Jon 30
Joe 26

Meanwhile, we'd been playing Timeline: General Interest, with its range of noteworthy events. On the cards, that is. Not during the game. Still, a fun diversion.

Sam 0 cards left
Andrew 2 cards left
Stanley 3 cards left
Ian 3 cards left

Then there was some thunder and lightning to enliven proceedings while Joe beat me at Circle The Wagons, 30-25. I really liked it, and it became the go-to game for a quick two player fix during the weekend.

Adam awoke and some people went to and then returned from nearby shops with a Guardian crossword and some beer for Ian, who had already ploughed through his collection last night. Then Adam beat Joe at Circle The Wagons, 28-26.

Now there were enough fully-awake gamers to begin the first big game of the day. It was Martin Wallace’s Auztralia, a game that cleverly mixes a Steam/Railways Of The World mechanism with a zombie apocalypse scenario. The four of us: Sam, Ian, Joe and me, had arrived in Australia to start a new life after mass destruction across the world, only to find that the same creatures live here too.

Thanks to picking up some cards whose special abilities worked together well, I quickly decided on my strategy of just spamming any enemies with my Airship. “You have your gold, I’ve got my bloodlust,” I declared, ignoring a life of mining in favour of war.

Ian made us all laugh by attacking a kangaroo, and then Joe made us momentarily feel bad about our hobby when he said “You can open the curtains now the sun has gone in.”

In the closing stages it was Sam who awoke Cthulu (“What a foolish move,” he remarked) and then watched it trample over his farms, probably costing him the win. Instead it went for the far more peaceful Joe.

Joe 32
Sam 31
Andrew31
Ian 29
Cthulu 18

While this was all going on, Adam played Stanley at Patchwork. I don’t remember the scores exactly (33-17?) but do remember feeling a little bit put out at how well they’d done compared to me and Sam earlier.

Another thing that happened around about now was a game of Flamme Rogue with Anja, Steve, Adam and Jon. My notes inform me that Jon was delayed because he had his finger stuck in a colander, but I don’t remember this myself. I’m sure it’s true, though.

That race ended…

Adam
Anja
Steve
Jon

And they immediately set up to play again, this time swapping in Stanley for Anja and adding a few different types of track, such as cobblestones. And Steve sang in French. I remember looking at the final corner and think Jon had it all sewn up, but it wasn’t to be.

Stanley
Steve
Jon
Adam

In Australia, our travails had ended so Sam began to make lunch. So Anja joined me, Joe and Ian for a game of Kribbeln featuring Das Exclusive, the dice arena so exclusive you can’t even find it on the internet.

During this game we sorely missed Martin and his mathematical mind. On a round where a player mustn’t roll two of a colour, Joe rolled four dice of four colours and two dice of one colour (ie, pink, yellow, black, blue, green, green). We were stumped as to what to roll next to maximise his chances of a win. Rolling the last green seemed obvious, but was only a one in six chance.

The dice amazed us, as dice often do, with Anja getting a last minute successful 4th Kribbeln with the last roll of her dice scoring 33 (five sixes and a three). It would’ve been a miracle, except it only got her into third.

Ian 21
Andrew 20
Anja 18
Joe 17

Then we had lunch and spent some time concentrating on the crossword.

Back on the games, I taught Rajas of the Ganges to Anja and Steve, while Adam played Sam at Akropiri. Meanwhile, at the hardcore end of the table, Ian, Joe and Jon revisited that old classic Lost Valley.

Akropiri ended Adam 30 Sam 33. I wrote it in that order but I didn’t note down whether or not points were good or bad, so I’m not sure who won. They followed this with some Cube Quest: Adam beat Sam, Adam beat Stanley, then Sam beat Stanley.

Lost Valley began slowly as they all learnt or re-learnt the rules. But after a while, they were knocking back the whiskey and waving to each other across rivers with their rat-fur gloves as if they were born in 1880s America.

Jon 36
Joe 33
Ian 22

In Rajas of the Ganges, once I’d gone through the rules governing the myriad ways to score, it all seemed to be running smoothly. Steve did his best Derren Brown tricks on us by repeatedly saying he was “spending” money, while pushing his token up the money track. Very clever.

Anja
Andrew
Steve

Towards the end, they both felt they had some idea of how to win, and were keen to play again and convinced Adam to give it a go. That game ended:

Steve
Adam
Anja

And Stanley, Jon, Ian and I played Clank! In this game, Jon went for money, I got cards that allowed me to draw new cards, Ian went deepest and Stanley hung around the market. I played fast and loose with my hit points, and got out just before a dragon attack that would’ve killed me. Although I wasn’t anywhere near first, I did enjoy my close run with fate.

Stanley 101
Ian 90
Andrew 82
Jon 65

While this was all happening, Joe beat Sam at Crokinole, 2 games to love (I just think Crokinole is a game where you say “love”, not “nil” or “zero”) and then they played Circle The Wagons:

Joe 34
Sam 32

At this point, Steve and Anja were still making food, so the rest of us teamed up to play Decrypto. This tense and nervous affair was disrupted mid-game by a lengthy pause while people searched for a tin-opener and Sam made gin & tonics. In the end, Jon opened the tin with a massive knife.

By round five, both teams were a mis-step away from failure. I went for long clues and took advantage of me quietly pointing out to team-mate Joe that a song on the radio prominently included one of our key words. Thus I was able to use “The song we just heard” as a clue and the other team were bamboozled! The song in question was “The Revolution will not be televised,” by Gil Scott-Heron and “Revolution” was the key word.

Other key events were Stanley getting all his clues through correctly, including one (“Axis”) which had us baffled. It referred to “satellite”. Meanwhile, on our team Ian’s clue of “Join” seemed initially to refer to “wedding” but then Joe cottoned onto the idea it could mean “Join the revolution” and that Ian was being very clever in giving out a clue to distract the opposition. Except, he wasn’t being clever. We still won, though.

Joe, Andrew, Ian, a tap on the wire
Stanley, Sam, Jon, Adam, birds on a wire

After some delicious food, it was the turn of the big boys to hit the table. With Stanley off in bed, two dirty great leviathans came out to play: Root and Railways Of The World: Europe. Sam patiently talked three newbies (Jon, Anja, Steve) through the dense asymmetric rules of Root while Adam, Joe, Ian and I wrestled with the familiar challenge of RotW.

In our game, I went bond-heavy early on in order to build a little points-machine in Spain and Portugal. This propelled me from last into first by the mid-game and, as usual, my closing strategy was mostly concerned with ending the game as quickly as possible. Ian fell back into a distant last place before coming back into contention and then drifting back again at the end. Adam got his Paris-Instanbul link, despite our efforts to stop him.

Adam 67
Andrew 65
Joe 52
Ian 44

Soon after RotW:E ended, Root was coming to an end. Once again, just like Flamme Rogue, Jon saw a lead right at the end suddenly disappear as Anja managed to hit 30 points and instantly win the game.

Anja 30
Jon 28
Sam 26
Steve 21

Now it was 11.45, so we chatted, tidied up a bit and generally decided to play Midnight Party at midnight to see if it would, as Joe claimed, summon Hugo. Actually, we were five minutes late to start the game, but never mind. Sam was most ghost-phobic, leaping into rooms at the slightest sign of ectoplasm. Joe sniffs the little plastic ghost and tells us that Hugo is very smelly inside.

Sam -9
Adam -10
Jon -16
Andrew -18
Ian -19
Steve -22
Anja -31
Joe -34

Then, just to round off the evening, we played the Walking Dead-themed 6nimmt. Anja and Steve bowed out at this point, leaving the remaining six to defend the log cabin against the undead.

Ian 18
Adam 27
Sam 28
Joe 43
Andrew 45
Jon 63

We didn’t hit the game-ending 66-point mark, but at 1.05am we decided that the fun had gone on a little too long and we all retired to bed.

Sunday morning, I was up at six and watched as Stanley, Ian, Steve and Joe emerged in that order over the next two hours. Steve complained that he’d cut his finger while flushing the toilet. I played Joe at a couple of games of Circle The Wagons, with Joe winning both 45-29 and 42-38.

Jon corralled some players into a game of Mystic Vale. Stanley and Steve were willing volunteers, and Ian was roped in because he was already sitting there. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said as a new game was laid out before him. The scores were…

Stanley 35
Ian 33
Steve 24
Jon 15

… I think.

I lose to Adam at Circle The Wagons, 45-32 and then he, me and Anja try Azul. We used Adam’s variant of changing the direction of order of play (from clockwise to anti-clockwise) but it made little difference. I lead from early on, hogging the first-player token for the entire game.

Andrew85
Adam 57
Anja 52

Then we went for a walk! After days of wind and rain, we had some sun and our resident nature expert, Jon, took us out to somewhere that was hosting some wild beavers! But, being nocturnal animals, he warned us the chances of us seeing them were effectively nil. But it was nice to get out of the house, even if Adam needed some persuading to leave the football behind. Jon gave us a little talk about the beavers and pointed out signs of their activity. Sam, Stanley and Adam went back first while the rest of us took a detour into an abandoned and overgrown walled garden. It was nice. Very green.

A man alone with his thoughts... Oh, no, wait. That's Adam.

Something about beavers.

Outside

But once we were back at the cabin, the games recommenced. Ian, Stanley, Joe and others (not sure who) played Zendo, but just for fun! No scores or anything!

Sam and I introduced Anja and Steve to Calimala and watched them take us to the cleaners.

Anja 37
Steve 36
Sam 29
Andrew 21

Then Jon kindly served us all some soup and we finished off the last of Anja & Steve’s toffee pudding for afters. For me, there was perhaps time for one last game. I did have the option of one more evening, since I had no work the next day but I found my energy reserves at a low so I took the lift back with Sam this afternoon.

The final game for me was Skull King, a game notable for Sam winning a trick he didn’t want with a Blue 1 card against four escapes. Well done him.

Jon 280
Ian 250
Stanley 240
Sam 190
Andrew 160

And with that, I was done. There was a game of manoeuvre going on between Joe and Adam while we packed up and left, but I’ll leave Joe to pick up the rest of the narrative. Over to you, Joe...

Manoeuvre starts with the French Defence opening...

No sooner had the dust of everyone else leaving settled than Jon, Adam and my thoughts turned to what games we would play. Actually before that, Adam and I finished playing Manoeuvre while Jon watched and tried to evaluate whether he'd enjoy it.

We were both down to four units each, and with cards dwindling for both of us, I decided to wait no more and went in for the kill. Adam, for the second time that game, played a withdraw card, and I was forced into a claustrophobic position, flanked on three sides. Adam moved in to close the square, and attacked, scoring enough to decide whether to make me take a hit or retreat. Of course he chose the latter, and since I couldn't retreat I was undone.

I didn't take any photos of the last evening, but here are a few from the previous days

Manoeuvre is always a pleasure, and nice that it ended decisively, rather than dragging on til nightfall. We three then discussed the gaming parameters for the evening - we felt a slot before supper and another after would allow us to tackle a couple of bigger games. We all assembled some candidates on the table, which is when we discovered that Sam had left Auztralia behind (we later found a few more).
Adam and Jon were willing to try Welcome to Centerville as the slightly lighter pre-dinner game - which I was pleased about. However, as with other sessions, it slightly outstayed its welcome and felt too luck-based for the commitment involved.

I don't remember the scores but I won by a big margin, which is a bit unseemly when teaching the game, and is the first time I've won at the game I think. I appreciated both of them giving it a go, and promised to go with whatever game they two decided on for the post-dinner amusement. To my relief (Power Grid was mentioned), they decided that since Auztralia had received such positive vibes when played on Saturday, they'd both like to try it. I was only too happy to have another go, and so while Adam turned his attention to creating a lovely lasagne, I re-read the rules and Jon and I set it up.

The board set-up is quite elaborate, so as to seed the hexes with a random but controlled distribution of resources and sleeping old ones. Once we'd done it, however, it didn't look very even - most of the resources were at one end of the map, with a wall of old ones blocking access to most of the other port spaces.

In any case, Jon and I turned our attention to a game of Bananagrams, and then another with Adam, and then we had lasagne. Followed by mince pies and clotted cream. We then begin our quest to the dark red continent of Oz. But Jon still felt the board looked lop-sided, so we ran the set-up again. Hmmm, it was better but not much better. Adam put on the soundtrack to 28 Days Later. I told him to turn it off. We placed our ports and began.

Our first forays were odd - we began to tool up and head in to the interior to bag some tentacled points, but every Old One we flipped turned out to be a kangaroo. I was hoping we'd meet a roo, since it was an amusing moment when the first one appeared in the previous game. But after the fifth in succession in this game, the joke had worn thin.

Jon, as starting player, placed his port last, and felt he'd missed out on the easy pickings of resources. I felt he'd find the lack of competition for farming made up for that; but there was another problem. Although the Old Ones don't wake up until halfway through the game, I hadn't fully explained what happens when they do, because I'd forgotten. They begin waking up from the lowest numbered hexes - which were all next to Jon's farms.

Just as we let that revelation sink in, the Old Ones began waking up and rampaging through Jon's sheep and corn. I tried to atone by sending an armoured car to help, but it got destroyed. A ravenous Mi-go was heading straight for his port. I checked the rules - if your port is destroyed the game ends immediately. Oh dear. Jon fended off the attack by the skin of his teeth, but more monsters had awoken and were heading his way.

He came up with a great defence, taking a personality card which meant that when an Old One landed on your port it suffered an immediate two damage. All he had to do was soften them up as they approached, and they'd explode on arrival. It worked, and was quite satisfying.

Meanwhile Adam was finding his encounters with the Old One's went rather better (although they laid waste to almost all our combined farms eventually). Much to Jon's chagrin, Adam's firepower hit home with far more frequency, and he was raking in the VPs.

At the end, we were all a little non-plussed. It hadn't been the fun frolic I'd experienced on Saturday - our hopes of settling the newly discovered continent and living lives of happy farming and squid-bashing were in tatters. But that felt fairly thematic, at least. In the final reckoning, Adam raced away with the win at 40 points, with me on 19 and Jon on 14. He was faintly appalled. Then Adam added up the Old One's score, and they beat both Jon and I, with 30 points. We packed away in near silence.

In the fresh light of today, I still enjoyed it, and would like to play again - but we all agreed it would have been great to finish Novocon with a real banger. What that might have been I don't know - probably something we all knew and loved, ideally.

On Monday morning, we ruminated over the chronology of previous Novo, Octo and Septo-cons. It would be great to see a definitive timeline, perhaps when I have a mo I'll try to collate one. In the meantime it was a hugely enjoyable festival of great food, plentiful snacks, drink and games, and great company to boot. Thanks to all who participated, and let's ensure it all happens again, 12 months from now.