Something borrowed

After a few weeks away, Adam T arrived at my house (Sam's) early enough last night for a catch-up and a best-of-three face off over Toy Battle. I won the first, but he took the next two as Katy ducked out of the rain in time to witness the finale, and remarked that if she hadn't played it already, she'd like to.

Ian and Martin followed, and we had a one-round blast of Jam (or JamSumo) whilst we waited for Joe. This was notable for the serial yipping of Martin and I and the slightly less tentative blasting habits of Ian. Joe came in time to see Katy take the laurels, with Adam T's jam all full of unwanted pips.

Katy 0

Martin 3

Ian 4

Sam 9

Adam T 18

Martin waved one of his new games, Bluffit, around saying it would be good for five (or just good, I can't remember now) and everyone was amenable. In this game, everyone has a hand of cards numbered 1-10 and we are bidding with them for one of a bunch of cards on the table, each taking one of the face-up cards for ourselves. 

The catch is that the bids are face-down, so it can be a bit of a gamble: and if you think you've got a higher bid than someone else, you can take the face-up card they took from them instead. This triggers a Love Letter style secret comparison of values (challenger wins ties) and whoever loses gets nothing that round. After ten rounds, all your previously-won cards are now both your score and your bidding hand:  there's an eleventh round where whatever you get with your last bid will become points. 

Both Adam and Martin forewent easy points in favour of stealing from someone - or trying to. Katy was in feisty mode and when Big T said he'd been up since six she pooh-poohed the concept of sympathy in favour of scathing indifference. I tried an extravagant last round bluff and failed. Martin was best Bluffiter.

Martin 61

Katy 55

Ian 43

Sam 42

Joe 41

Adam 36

As things concluded we got a phone call and a - related - late addition! Adam H could suddenly join us after all. Martin proffered another recent addition in boat-moving cube-flicking Cairo, and Katy and Ian joined him. We decided Adam H would probably rather join the non-flicking group and went to peruse the Alcove of Joy, settling on Istanbul. With impeccable timing, Adam H arrived just as I finished teaching the rules to Big T. Fortunately most of it was fresh in his memory, and it was more fun - I think - than the story these baffled expressions tell. 

Cairo has a lowly rating on our favourite website, but you wouldn't have guessed it from the shrieking and laughter. In comparison our fun was slightly more inscrutable, as we ducked and dived around the titular city and struck deals with the governor and smuggler. Big T pointed out that as all the smuggler is doing is trading the same goods with you as you get at the markets, you could argue he's just another trader, maybe trying to shake off an unmerited reputation. Meantime in the other ancient city, Martin had triumphed by replicating Katy's score in Bluffit. Katy had got Ian's Bluffit score and, perhaps wanting to be different, Ian scored half of Adam's:

Martin 55

Katy 43

Ian 18

They broke out Biblios. I missed most of this action but I did hear some shit-eating going on, and it wasn't making Katy grin.

Ian at one point seemed on the verge of fury, but he clearly recovered from whatever had enraged him - sitting with Katy and Martin, it could have been anything - to snag a tied second place. Katy was now Ms Doctor Biblios:

Katy 5

Martin and Ian 4

Was there a tie-breaker? I'm not sure. They began playing Farm Hand, and the air continued to be thick with insults and the uproarious guffawing of Martin, who loves a trick-taker anyway, so if you add manure he's only going to like it more.

As Istanbul got tense, with Adam and I poised on 4 gems and Joe and Big T on three. Adam couldn't remember if he'd bought a bit of jewellery or not. Joe - who was very tired - and I thought he had, and Adam admitted he'd been drinking before he came here. Who to trust? The exhausted guy, the drunk guy, or the one who remembers everything incorrectly, if at all? Speaking of which I don't actually recall what we decided now. I went to the Black Market, had an extremely spawny roll and ended the game:

Sam 5 gems

Adam H 4 gems

Adam T 3 gems, lots of cash

Joe 3 gems, not much cash at all

Farm Hand ended around the same time, with Martin back on top:

Martin 11

Katy 8

Ian 0

Big T was mumbling about leaving so we tempted him to stay with chocolate - which he turned down - and Wriggle Roulette. It was Katy's turn to be angry now, about not being offered chocolate. Sorry Katy. 

This was as stupidly fun as previous plays, with people accidentally busting themselves - too many eels/snakes - or cashing out when there were still eels to be had. Adam H ended the game with 26 eels, but Martin and I stayed in and pushed our luck. I banked at 27, with Martin back on 22. One by one, he kept drawing eels, despite being as I pointed out "the least deserving person in the room". 

Martin 28

Sam 27

Adam H 26

Ian 17

Adam T 11

Katy and Joe 7 each

We now did lose Adam T, and with Other Adam also ruminating on his bedtime quickly set up So Clover. This was a near-triumph, with Adam H's clover semi-portobelloed when the word alcohol appeared on the red herring card. With one of his clues as 'drink' we plumped for it (it was mouth instead). 

Adam and Joe now went home but, fortified by whisky, the remaining trio played Martin's third new game of the night: Jungo. This is a Scout-esque card-shedder where first to empty their hand wins a round, and winning two rounds win you the game. 

As with Scout, you can't rearrange your hand at all and can play escalating sets - although only matching numbers, no runs. If you can't or don't want to play, you can draw from the deck and either discard or slot it anywhere into your hand. If you do play, you can either discard the set (or single) you just beat, or add that to your hand. There's a fair bit of luck in what good stuff/crap you begin with, but enough manipulation involved that it's not devoid of decisions. 

I won the first game in two rounds, and then Ian took the second in the same manner if I recall correctly. We downed the last of our whiskies and called it a night. A nice mix of old and new games, one borrowed (JamSumo) and all the players supplying the blue.

And all that jazz

 Late as usual, I rocked up at Sam's place at 7.45. Most of tonight's attendees were perusing thr games collection while I got my coat off. Martin asked me if I liked the sound of a tile laying game about Jazz. An easy sell. I replied in the affirmative and booked my place on today's big thinky game, Bebop.

There were eight of us tonight. Sam, Martin, Katy, Pete, Ian, Andy M and myself. Katy expressed concern that she may have to reign in her usual aggressive style in the face of two relative newcomers but when she found out she was playing a game against three old familiars, she was happy that she could be a dick again.

I was joined by Martin, Pete and former semi regular Andy M, who I hadn't seen in years but in finest Games Night tradition, we just nodded and said hello. 

The other game,  chosen by Sam, Katy and Ian with Adam H in mind, who was on his way. He phoned once he was at the door, apparently unable to be heard by us in the kitchen. Once at the table, he got a rules explanation from Sam while Pete guided us through Bebop.

Any idea that this may be about Jazz was quickly quashed - it’s about a Jazz Festival and the idea of the game is to put our “fans” (the dice) next to the stage hosting their favourite instrument (drums, piano or trumper). First you put your seat down and on top of that, you put a die. The idea is to chain colours together in such a way that you have the majority of one instrument on your seats.

The game had a pretty simple mechanic, either place a seat or a fan and five of the seats had special abilities. But the strategy seemed to elude us. “What do I want?” cried Martin midway through the game. Even Pete, who’d only played once before - against himself - couldn’t offer any pointers.

Meanwhile, in Instanbul, Sam worked early on his wagon while Ian got the first jewel. There had been talk at the start of the game about Katy breaking the game last time she played.  I remember hearing about this but tonight she stayed firmly in the middle of the pack. Right up until the end. 

Ian 5

Adam 4 plus cash

Katy 4

Sam 4

After Istanbul they set up a game of misfits. Our jazz fest was showing no sign of ending. 

Whatever plan Katy had once had about being a dick seemed to have dissipated by now as she began with a disc placed flat on the table. Sam, far less amicable, put a cylinder on top of the disk, lying on it's side. 

After that, it was your usual recreation of 1970s public sculpture with exhortation to us not to bang the table. Not much chance of that, as we had entered the thinky standing up period of the game. 

Adam won Misfits 

After this, they played Gold Fever. Adam seemed to play the first part of the game while studying the rule book. They played twice, with wins for Katy and Adam. At the end of the game, Sam seemed to find a number of stones in the lining of his bag. 

Finally our Jazz Festival came to a close. We had, by now, long since passed the playing time suggested on the box. We were heading towards the final scoring with still not any solid idea about how well our strategies do. 

Andy M 98

Martin 97

Pete 87

Ander 71

Andy said he was happy with his win since he liked jazz. I don’t know what to make of Bebop! It was quite long and I never really got a grip of any possible tactics. I was tired, it was approaching 10 by now and I decided to bail out early.

Without me, the evening tore through more games@  Tower Up, Wavelength and two offerings of So Clover.

Some beautiful clues in there. Vampire/Pigeon for Bat is perhaps my favourite. Also, Sam played Agent Avenue four times, losing to Martin 2-1 and then playing against Pete later on. What a night.

Chippencon!

Friday

With Paul J the quiet instigator of the idea, the old London branch of GNN coalesced this weekend at Chris's house in Chippenham: as well as the host, Paul J and myself there was Paul H for the duration, Stuart on Friday night and then Andrew on Saturday. 

But all this was ahead of us as I arrived at midday on Friday and after catching up with Jacquie and the kids, Chris and I shot off to collect Paul J from the station. Then after a second-wave newsbeat, we started gaming! We kicked things off with Babylonia, new to both Paul and Chris but a relatively easy teach. 

We played slightly too open, having the full board instead of the slightly condensed one for three, but that made it an easier learning game:

Sam 149

Chris 147

Paul 99

And now familiar with it, both were enthusiastic for another crack.

My long and arduous master-and-apprentice defeats at the hands of Martin stood me in good stead once more:

Sam 123

Paul 99

Chris 96

Lovely to find two more converts! We moved on to Sushi Go, the game of card-drafting Japanese foodstuffs. Owing to a misunderstanding over chopsticks, I ruled myself out of contention after round one, but it's not exactly a grind.

Paul 72

Chris 59

Sam 46

 Paul began a four-game winning run here, following his Sushi Go triumph with victories in Alhambra:

Kingdomino...

And Kingdom Builder.

Chris was appalled to finish third in every instance, voicing aloud his regret at the very idea of Chippencon. Things didn't improve immediately for him when Paul H arrived, as we kicked off with Tournament Raj and despite a huge last-round haul, he still finished last. Paul J and I slugged it out for first place, but he shrugged me off to claim a fifth victory in a row!

Paul J 60

Sam 51

Paul 45

Chris 33

With tea consumed - thank you Chris and Jacquie - and Stuart freshly arrived, we fancied something a bit feistier now, and so I talked them through the rules of Hansa Teutonica. 

Despite my encouragements to get sabotaging. everyone was very polite at the start and the first couple of rounds were slightly after-you-sir. But soon enough we were getting in each other's way and the cussing ramped up slightly. The initial sense of being hobbled by two actions fell away as we proliferated across the board and engines kicked into gear. 

After an hour of cross-postal interference, Stuart leapt from an innocuous fourth place into joint first with Chris, and I couldn't quite catch them. We checked the rules for a tie-breaker and Chris' fewer actions-per-turn won him the game!

Chris 38 wins tiebreaker 

Stuart 38

Sam 37

Paul H 29

Paul J 25

Now into the meat of the evening, we debated our five-player options. Paul J was understandably reluctant to learn another set of rules at this point, so we alighted on Istanbul, needing a mostly-fringe-area refreshment on rules. I forgot to take any photos at this point, but suffice to say Paul H was now warmed-up and moved through the gears to wrap up a relatively straightforward win, grabbing his fifth gem with the rest of us at least two turns away from doing likewise:

Paul H five gems!!!!

Sam  4 gems 31 cash 

Paul J 4 gems 6 cash

Stuart 4 gems 1 cash 

Chris 3 gems 13 cash 

The hour was getting late so with the request for something 'silly' I suggested Block Party.

Although this meant another set of rules, the fact they only take about 45 seconds to explain meant we were off and running quickly. And Chris made a banana. 

"I tried to bend it" he cried, but it mattered not: Stuart identified it. I guessed Paul H's spider and he saw the fire engine in my creation. We all ran the highs and lows of emotions - my milk bottle was alleged to be a snowman, a mountain, and an igloo - but ultimately the last game of the night saw Chris triumph:

Chris 11

Sam 10

Paul and Paul 8

Stuart 7

Saturday

I surfaced at around 8.15 to an extremely muggy day. We threw opens doors and windows to try and get some air into the house. Chester enjoyed having all these access points to the house. 

As well as the visiting articles to investigate. 

After breakfast, Jacquie liked the idea of trying out Block Party, so we did. Despite some creative performance anxiety, her debut creation was this beautiful pineapple:

However despite a frankly shambolic attempt at a door (in dubious colour choices of grey and pink) Chris triumphed again. I lost track of where Jacquie, Paul J and I finished.

Apart from that intense Block Party workout it was a fairly lazy morning. Paul H returned at 11am and while Chris prepped the chilli for later, he talked Paul J and I through the workings of Imhotep.

I think I played this about eight years ago, and I found it's piece-of-string machinations just as opaque this time, as players choose whether to add cubes to boats, or sail a full-enough boat to one of several possible destinations. It's fun, but I am really awful at judging anything being a good decision, and my focus on building a massive Burial Chamber didn't match up to the canny shenanigans of the Pauls, with Paul J claiming a debut victory!

Paul J 49

Paul H 41

Sam 39

Then with Chris back at the table, we returned to Babylonia. 

This was a corker, as leads between the Pauls and Chris ebbed and flowed whilst I languished back on a measly five points, hoping to draw enough farmers to use my ziggurat power. They didn't arrive and I had to focus my efforts building a central network that Chris spotted was going to haul me in some juicy points when they started paying out. I agreed, but I didn't think I'd close the now huge gap between Paul J (at this point) on something like 110 while I was back in the 30's somewhere. But as it turned out, it was damn close!

Chris 138

Sam 136

Paul J 130

Paul H 107

A baptism of fire for Paul H, then, but the next game - after our classic Lunch of Beige - was one he knew intimately: Eclipse! 

This was Chris's second-edition version, with some minor rules modifications (and one less round) and some faction asymmetry, but largely the same narrative: early rounds are developing tech and kitting out ships, building towards a massive bunfight at the end. Except here the bunfight never really materialised: Paul H and I established an alliance, and Chris and Paul J did the same.  Chris considered attacking Paul H, but decided against it because it looked like a death wish.

My dreams of peaceful expansion were undone by poor planning and ill fortune and I spent a few rounds only doing two actions and then passing early. The others expanded more successfully and built monstrously-violent death machines of the cosmos in a sort of cardboard cold war.

Then at the death Chris attacked the central hex and quickly reenforced his dominance there. He tried to take some hexes off me but didn't roll what he needed and we all eyed him warily. Oddly, his aggression went unrewarded in the sense of point-scoring, with Paul H's 'In Bed With the Ancients' faction grabbing victory:

Paul H 33

Paul J and Sam 32 each

Chris 30

Though it was certainly not a damp squib, I didn't enjoy Eclipse as much as I used to. It's a long haul to get to the more-exciting finale (caveat: my adjacency to that was more my fault than the games') and at times it feels a bit like a slightly protracted drum-roll. There's a lot to consider as well, and if it's a more elegant construction than Xia's everything-by-dice, it doesn't feel as stupidly fun. 

Speaking of dice, though, next up - after the very delicious chilli, and a quick sortie to the shops - was Las Vegas. It's not a game that supplies quite the epic narrative Eclipse does, but it was a nice pallet-cleanser:

Sam $510k

Paul J $470

Chris $380

Paul H $280

We knew Andrew was imminent, but just had enough time for another four-hander in the little-seen (by me at least) Timeline! I couldn't help but notice a seam of dark comedy in the images, with a number of characters looking vaguely psychotic.

Paul H won this. I discovered the refrigerator was invented much earlier than I'd anticipated, but now with crushing inevitability the exact year escapes me.

Paul H wins

Sam and Paul J 1 card

Chris 2 cards 

Andrew arrived just as we finished and after the briefest of catch-ups the discussion of what to play as a five began. Dominant Species? A bit long. Twilight Imperium? Very long. Istanbul? A bit short. We settled on Lords of Waterdeep. With no Martin or Ian present I elected to play green, so the colour/game combo made it feel a bit like 2010, as Prince used to sing.

Early on it was fairly even - I shot off on the scoretrack to 32 but had a bunch of skulls that made my actual score a current 14. Paul H pulled ahead and played some dastardly intrigue that balanced out revealing his Lord with the fact we couldn't target him all game. That was a bummer. Meanwhile I pulled ahead again, and Chris targeted me with one of those bastard mandatory quests that I'm definitely not still sore about. Andrew mostly chuckled at the names of the quests.

Incredible scenes at the end as Paul H pulled so far ahead it was almost embarrassing. My late game recovery wasn't enough to catch a resurgent Chris, and a briefly-dominant Paul J found Andrew had enough to sneak past him in the final count.

Paul H 166

Chris 148

Sam 144

Andrew 134

Paul J 131

After twelve hours of gaming I suddenly got hit by an ocular migraine, and had to play my final game (Incan Gold) with my eyes largely closed and Chris communicating events to me ("Zombie Lady!"). Paul J and Chris lacked our frugal conservatism and, falling behind, risked life and limb - and ultimately lost life and limbs - in wild attempts to recover.

In the end, however, it was Paul H who took yet another win!

PH 34

Andrew 32

Sam 26

Chris 20

PJ 0

And at this point, with my vision no better, I had to take myself to a dark room. It was a bit of a underwhelming way to end Chippencon and I was gutted to miss Chris and Andrew take on the Pauls in Decrypto! The Pauls won, though what the words and dramas were maybe we'll learn in the comments.

Thanks to Chris Jacquie and kids for putting up with us all, and everyone attending for making it fun.  

Dominant Maroon

On Saturday afternoon Ian and I wended our way down the M4 to Chris' house in Chippenham. The plan was to play Dominant Species: Marine during the day, and then some other stuff in the evening. So with a little ado and catching up, I began setting up the game and explaining it to Ian - who'd not played before - and Chris, who'd only played the significantly-different big sister Dominant Species. 

In DS: Marine, we are competing animal types way back at the dawn of multi-celled life, climbing from the primeval ooze to spread our species across the world, by mostly sea but also (high-scoring) land. There's about 12 actions to choose from initially, but each action you take narrows down your subsequent options, until you choose to retrieve all your pawns and start afresh. The actions are numerous, then, but broadly do three things: advance your own cause, screw with someone else's, or both. This is a GMT game, and although the theme isn't the expected warfare, it's a combinatorial experience. 

My fishes (blue) started well, but Chris' cephalopods (orange) 

are proliferating at a dangerous rate while Ian's reptiles look on

In the original Dominant Species, all pawns are placed and then activated in order. Marine foregoes that somewhat phase-heavy approach by simply activating them when-placed, and simplifying both the scoring system and the board interface: instead of constantly recalculating dominance across the board, players choose a single tile to score as and when they want/are able to. It's not a simple game but, apart from one or two pauses when pawn options dynamically change, it cracks along really quickly. We didn't play the short version, but still finished in under two hours.

I'd led for much of the game but in the finale - when every tile gets scored - both Ian's purples and Chris' oranges caught up, and in the latter case, overtook me for a debut win. 

Chris 107 

Ian/Sam 102 each

I enjoyed this. It's nasty, swingy and tactical, with all the actions making easy sense, with only the special pawns needing more than a glance at the explanations. 

Next up was So Clover. We started out as a three, scoring a bang average 12/18, and didn't improve with four when Jacquie joined us (15/24) initially, only to pull out a storming 24/24 on our third attempt as minds synchronised. 

Jacquie dropped out and Ashton stepped in for Push It, which I took a kind-of win in, leading when we abandoned the game in favour of a delicious tea, a dish entirely driven by Chris winning a cheap bottle of white wine in a pub quiz. Chris actually described it as 'bleach' but it seemed to go well with the chicken. 

After stuffing our faces I managed to win another game - Spicy. 

While we were playing Aiden arrived and watched the duplicity play out as we fibbed, half-fibbed and occasionally told the truth on the way to the frantic conclusion.

Sam 35

Ian 31

Chris 23

Then Ian and I cracked our bottles of wine open. Well - I did. Ian was struggling with the cork and as he wrenched it out, the bottle smacked down on the counter-top and smashed. As wine poured everywhere, nobody was quite sure what to do and Paul arrived on the scene to see the carnage, fortunately not turning around and leaving directly. I did what you're meant to do when accidents happen these days - I took a photo of the scene. 

I must take my hat off to Chris and Jacquie, who weren't even slightly fazed. I guess running a childminding business has it's upsides. Anyway after Chris and Ian went at the scene with plentiful kitchen towels, the five gamers kicked off the evening session with Raj. We played five rounds with an escalating winner's bonus in each one, but it felt like they were mostly taken by Aiden. 

Chris kept kind-of pace with him, but Paul was serially stiffed by unlucky ties and Ian and I harpooned each other's bids with metronomic frequency, almost always playing our 14s and 15s at identical times. With five players, there's a lot of ties, and Aiden seemed to be taking advantage. Until the final round, where Chris rode some luck, did some canny bidding, and took the whopping 15pt winner's bonus to snag victory from the jaws of second-place...

Chris 81

Aiden 78

Ian 37

Paul 27

Sam 19

A lot of laughter in Raj. Rather less in what followed - the lesser-spotted Istanbul - but it was pleasurable in it's own fashion, with all of us concocting semi-formed plans and then seeing them slowly come together. But in Aiden's case, it wasn't so slow - he rocketed past everyone to claim a win so fast I missed it, having gone for a wee. I think Paul Ian and I were all 'just about' to get another gem, but it would only have got us squabbling for scraps...

Aiden 5 gems

Chris 4

Paul 3 + most cash

Sam 3 

Ian 2

Then Ian went to the shop for replacement wine and we played Push It again. Although going clockwise is less tactically compelling than the official furthest-away rule, it does at least keep things moving at a humorously hectic rate. At one point Paul couldn't even see the puck, as it was lodged behind Ian's crisps! What larks. You can keep your class A drugs, city folk!

Ian returned so we wrapped things up with Chris the kind-of winner on this occasion. 

Chris 7

Sam and Paul 6 each

Aiden 4

If Ian and I hadn't seen Istanbul in a while it was even longer - or felt it - since we last encountered Port Royal, the card-flipping, luck-pushing, symbol-collecting game of first-to-twelve points. I remembered being terribly bad at it, but hadn't recalled how complex it was. I mean - it's not complex, but in my head it was simpler than this, with cards doing various things and flipping to become money and objectives and repelling and all sorts. I think I enjoyed it, but it was only near the end I understood what was going on. Chris took the laurels here...

Chris 12

Paul 10

Ian 8 + most cash

Aiden 8

Sam 7

Then we played 7 Wonders! It was remarkable how setting up the physical version takes the same length of time as playing the digital one, but 7 Wonders remains a Speedy Classic I think, and it was nice to be handling cards again rather than gazing bleary-eyed at pixels. Aiden took the win, mainly thanks to his large army. It was a curious, fairly low-scoring play, with everyone resource-rich and so cash-laden that the bank ran out of money...

Aiden 55

Ian and Sam 47 each

Paul 46

Chris 44

We had time for one more game and Ian suggested Texas Showdown - new to Chris and Aiden, but very easy to explain. Harder though to get one's head around the best moves, and death spirals were had by both Chris and Ian. Aiden and I had good rounds and bad ones, but Paul's canny play saw him picking up minimal tricks - a one, a two, a zero - and he claimed a comprehensive win as Chris and Ian fell over the finish line...

Paul 5

Aiden 8

Sam 9

Chris and Ian 13 each

We'd played a lot by now - it was approaching midnight - eaten our own bodyweights in crisps and Maltesers, been exceedingly rude to each other and probably drunk a fair bit too so we finished our marathon session of a smorgasboard of gaming delights there. Wonderful stuff - thanks to our hosts and everyone for making it fun.