The Jewel in the Piles

On Thursday Ian and I (Sam) got together to bash out a few games; the main event being Quantum. We set up the board with the Void tacked on to one side and set at it.

The narrative in Quantum is pretty well established; race to place as many cubes as you can before the fighting starts. We were neck and neck for a while and then came to a kind of Mexican stand-off: Ian was Dangerous, which meant he could choose to blow both himself and his attacker up when attacked. He also had the ability to construct Quantum cubes from non-orbital positions, so I had a fight on my hands. But having got my dominance up to five with only one cube to place, I found Ian's dangerousness to the fore: I kept attacking as he kept threatening to place a cube; he kept blowing us both up. Something had to give: Ian took a calculated risk on a fight and it worked out in my favour:

Sam: all cubes down
Ian: one cube left

After that we bashed our way through Ra (Ian surged into a healthy lead but his luck gave out in the third age, giving me a 28-26 win) Biblios (I'm Mr Biblios) Love Letter (Ian always wins Love Letter) and Iglu Pop. I can't remember who won that one now.

THEN: Friday Andrew arrived and while Chris made his way down the M4 we played a couple of games of Push It; which is basically tabletop boule: you flick rather than throw. Andrew proved master at it:

Andrew 11
Sam 10

then

Andrew 11
Sam 4

With Chris now safely ensconced at the table we set up a recent addition to the cupboard: Queen's Necklace. The theme of the game is that you're jewellers crafting trinkets for the court. The mechanics are intriguing: each turn you have ten money to spend on a tableau of cards (emeralds, rubies, diamonds and amber) and as cards are passed over they become cheaper. Three times in the game the Merchant pops up and there's a sale (or scoring round). Players choose which gems to sell to the court, but: you only sell a gem successfully if you have a majority in it, and values can vary wildly due to both the fashions of the court and the rarity of the gems themselves.

Worthless rubies!

Mixed in with the gems are some character cards too; these are bought in the same manner and do a variety of things, like make stuff cheaper, give selling bonuses or steal cards from each other et cetera. I liked the game as a whole, but my phobia of text on cards meant I felt there was maybe too many of these. Unless you play the game really frequently it leads to constant rule-referencing.

Overall though much fun, and a complete pasting for myself and Andrew from Chris:

Chris 19
Andrew 13
Sam 9

We moved swiftly on to a three-player Push-It. More fun than a two-player and notable this time for Andrew getting both his discs closest to the jack and picking up a valuable two points. It couldn't have ended tighter:

Andrew 11
Chris 10
Sam 10

So far I was serially last, but that was about to change with a brutal game of Hamsterolle, played - I can't remember how this started - in the style of mafiosi at a poker night. I do love the idea of gangsters game of choice being a wooden hamster wheel with bits in.

Sam - all out
Chris - 3 pieces left
Andrew - 3 pieces left

We followed quick game of Sheriff of Nottingham; the game of bluff, double-bluff and triple-bluff. Everyone takes turns being the sheriff, and the others try and sneak contraband past him - or give the impression they are, when they actually aren't. If he opens your pouch and you're telling the truth, he pays the penalty. If you were fibbing, you do.

Thanks to my mostly-honest play and circumspect sheriffing, I pipped Andrew to the post. Chris had loads of apples, but it wasn't enough:

Sam 154
Andrew 147
Chris 101

With all of us now merry with weekend joie de vivre, we forsook Celestia in favour of Bandu, the game of No Thanks with added Jenga. As ever, the seemingly-a-filler turned into a tense game of screw-you, as we passed each other geometrically-damning pieces and flied in the face of cantilevering. Chris seemed to be in a strong position, but just as Martin was hit by subsidence on Tuesday, everything suddenly gave way as Chris tried to add a piece on top. I managed to outlast Andrew to nab the win.

My city in the sky

Andrew's lair in the suburbs

Finally with midnight not so far away, we played Biblios! I was handed a strategy by fate when I picked up blues and browns early, and attempted to add reds but decided against this when Chris changed from picking them up to passing in the auction phase. Handily, I knew the very last card of the game would be a church card, and I had enough gold to nab it for my two dice:

Sam 7 (Mr Biblios)
Andrew 5 (wins on tie-breaker)
Chris 5

And with that a very jolly Friday came to a close. Cheers guys! Maybe see some of you on January 2nd at my place for Saturday gaming?

*

By the way today is Stanley's birthday. Chris gave us the best possible present by cleaning up Finn's sick while we were opening gifts upstairs. Thanks mate.

The Nile Blues

Friday night games at Sam’s. After the recent mass attendances at GNN meetings, it was a more bijou affair with myself, Ben, Martin and Chris joining the host for games, drinks and nibbles.

Chris was expected later, so we began as a foursome. G.Nome was suggested by Martin. This simple but clever game of bidding consists of two teams of two players bidding for three cards by playing a card 1-9. Add the totals to see which team wins. The highest scoring player in the highest scoring team gets to chose one of those three cards for themselves.

Then – and this is the twist – the lowest scoring player of the lowest team gets to chose the next card, which is shared between the two players on that team (but, one assumes, will probably favour the player who chose it).

Finally, the third card goes to the lower scoring player on the highest scoring team. However, players who tie get nothing at all.

There is opportunity for subterfuge to undermine your partner, since the teams only exist for bidding purposes. Everyone scores separately. Sam and Martin played against Ben and I. Our tactic was to just agree on playing odd or even, so we could never tie. Sam and Martin did less communicating and found themselves locked for a period in perfect synchronicity, meaning they picked up fewer cards. Martin began to rue his decision to sit to the left of Sam.

The most annoying thing is that near the end Ben and I realised we had a ready-made code for numbers thanks to working together – the folders at work are colour coded according to the last digit in the serial number. We could have used that. It was too late to make much of a difference. Luckily, it wasn’t needed.

Ben 26
Andrew 16
Sam 11
Martin 9

Then came Hamsterolle, the silly game of Bandu in a circle. But I say well done to us for filling almost half of the circle, even though Martin continued to curse his choice of seat as Sam set up one impossible position after another for him.

Practically the box art for an MB Games version

Sam 0
Andrew 1
Ben 3
Martin 5

Still no sign of Chris, so we introduced Ben to Love Letter. He started well, wining the first round, but then I pulled into a 2-1-1-1 lead. Once Martin had won a round he started each subsequent round promising to win the next two rounds to finish off the game quickly.

Sam 3
Ben 2
Andrew 2
Martin 1

We played a game of Pairs just to fill in time while we waited for Chris (game stopped at Ben 12, Martin 9, Andrew 2, Sam 0) but despite its short length, it's worth mentioning for the four-card tie breaker at the start of a round when Ben and Martin kept being dealt the same cards. Once they were finally separated, they stuck and waited for Sam and I with our lone cards to try and catch up.

Then Chris arrived and now we were ready for a real game.

We chose Ra. Ben got a run down of the rules, but nothing could have prepared him (or us) for the first two rounds. Ra must have been unhappy with us, since he visited often and made our lives a misery while the auction track offered up slim pickings. My score of 6 in round two was the best of that round. Shocking.

My total score after two rounds, and I was doing well

At one point, Martin won a bid on a sixteen bidding counter and a pharaoh tile. Pleased, he said “Not bad, eh? Sixteen and a pharaoh.” To which I replied, “That’s Tutankhamen, isn’t it?” Oh how we laughed at my historical joke.

Not as funny as seeing Chris getting increasingly frustrated as one auction after another went to other players. When his 12 bidding tile finally became the highest around the table, you could almost hear the relief in his voice.

Things picked up in round three, giving us a slightly more respectable set of scorelines. Sam made the best of being last on the auction track. Not enough to lift him too far up the standings, though.

Martin 34
Andrew 27
Chris 23
Sam 22
Ben 12

Next up was Perudo, a game that hasn’t been seen for some years. The “calza” rule (where you can make an exact guess and get a dice back) was dropped to make for a quicker game. And we all went out in exciting ways. Ben went out bidding on ones, but everyone else had been lying about having any. I went out, lying about having a four, but no one else did either so my bluff was called. Chris went out having to call Martin’s bluff even though Chris himself had a die that helped Martin. Finally Martin went out trying to bluff with his last die and got called.

1. Sam
2. Martin
3. Chris
4. Andrew
5. Ben

After this was 6nimmt. The first round was notable for two things: Chris got no points at all for the first time, and Martin gave Ben some advice which later ended in Martin picking up loads of cards. These shenanigans set the tone for the match with Martin unable to repair the early damage and Chris picked up his first win at 6nimmt.

Chris 26
Andrew34
Sam 42
Martin 47
Ben 71

Then came Pairs. A close game, if you’re fighting for second. Sam, however, was firmly in front and just two points from victory in the last round. He just waited for one of us to go bust (Martin) and then he stuck and picked up enough points for the win.

Sam 21
Chris 15
Andrew 15
Martin 14
Ben 13

The most exciting part was right at the end when they tried to see if it would’ve been possible for me to get all ten cards and beat Sam that way. I got eight before I drew a pair. So close.

With that, I was beat. Me and Ben left them playing Biblios.