The Adams and Jo(e)s Show

This week's games night began at the earlier time of 7pm. I arrived a little late but by no means the last. In Joe's kitchen, the host was joined by Adam H, Adam T, Ian and Katy with Jo to follow. 

We chatted about the endless possibilities facing us tonight and Katy made an early pitch for Lords Of Vegas. Joe's battered and much loved copy was brought to the table. Adam T, meanwhile, had Ahoy as an option. He described it as Root Lite, which is a tough sell in these parts. Jo, having only played it two-player, was keen and Adam H decided that an asymmetric pirate game was preferable to the whims of a handful of dice.

As we set up, I was surprised that everyone’s knowledge of the game had moved on since I last played. For a start, building up was allowed (despite it not being a five player game) and the offsetting rule (where you can choose to reduce your winnings/losses in gambling) is no longer a thing. Apparently that rule was introduced by the publishers and wasn’t part of the original vision.

So, we began playing and in her very first turn Katy was able to build a 2-tile casino. Except that she built two adjacent 1-tile casinos. Had LoV strategy changed that much?

Lady Luck spent the evening tweaking our expectations and messing with our minds. Joe needed money so he contemplated gambling, except he’d need a 1-1 or 6-6 to win enough money. Instead he decided to reorganise a 2-tile casino. He rolled 1-1. In fact, the casinos were relatively generous tonight, and Katy even cleaned me out completely when she rolled double six in my casino.

This game was all about the silver casinos. Or lack thereof, as they stubbornly refused to pay out apart from twice at the very start of the game. Otherwise, the pivotal moments came with the reorganisation of existing casinos. Towards the end, a deal between Joe and Ian gave Ian enough money to reorganise a 6-tile casino. As it happened, Joe had a single die involved and it ended up winning!

And so did he.

Joe 32

Ian 26

Andrew 23 (but we don’t do tie-breakers for third place, said Katy)

Katy 23 (no money left)

After this, Ahoy was still in full flow so we, not having had enough dice for one evening, got out Kribbeln. Surely Joe’s luck couldn’t hold out.

Well, it did. The game was full of amazing scrapes that don’t seem amazing unless you were there and by the end, Joe was so far ahead with an astonishing 30 points, eclipsing Katy's very respectable 28 points.

Joe 30

Katy 28

Ian 17

Andrew 17

But Joe did specifically ask that I mention that it was the highest score on Kribbeln to date. I also pointed out to Joe that, when writing, people put a bar through the number 7 to better distinguish it from the number 1. But he wrote his in such a way that made them look like 9s.

Ahoy ended by now. I felt sad that I’d missed most of the epic undertaking, but Vegas is pretty distracting.

Jo 34

Adam H 30

Adam T 24

And then Katy and I left while Joe went to get the So Clover.

Thanks guys. A beautiful evening.

The Stupidest Game of All Time

Our hosts were Anja and Steve last night - or at least, they were eventually. As Joe, Andy M, Martin and myself arrived we found Louie had taken on the duties himself, and was entertaining Ian in the lounge with some small assistance from Molly. Steve was in the other room, power-tooling his way through some fireplace renovations, and Anja was upstairs getting Lennon to bed. Under Louie's capable supervision however, we cracked on with the games. While Martin set up Hold Your Ground for everyone else, Joe and I played Kribbeln. 

Hold Your Ground was new to everyone except Martin, but the rules are pretty straightforward and before long they were all dicking each other over. Meantime I beat Joe in a narrow and fairly jammy finale to Kribbeln, recovering a 6-10 deficit going into the final round. As the others were still knee-deep in Hold Your Ground - we could hear Ian's laments - Joe and I set up Tiger and Dragon and Anja appeared just in time to join us. 

I really enjoyed revisiting this game, even though the best strategies escape me. Joe won twice: in the first game, it only took him a single round as he went out with the '1' tile as defence: that's ten points and an insta-win. Anja and I resolved to be more canny as we reset, but our best efforts were no match for Joe, who won again in two rounds. Maybe next time it'll take him three. 

Joe: Tiger!

Anja and Sam: Gazelles

We finished around the same time as Hold Your Ground, as Ian found himself jettisoned into the stratosphere. 

Louie followed him out, leaving just Andy and Martin, and Martin admitted fate favoured him in the face-off.

Martin: Held his ground

Others: Ground to pieces

We did some mild seat rejigging, as Louie retired to bed. I was up for Foundations of Metropolis but had my head turned by Bomb Busters, which was set up for myself, Andy, Joe and Martin. With Adam H a late cancellation, Steve, Anja and Ian plumped for Mille Fiori. 

Joe and Andy were new to Bomb Busters but we took a risk, skipping the training missions and diving in where we'd left off on previous plays with Katy and Laura. We started poorly when Andy took a slightly lassez-faire approach to existence and boomed us into atoms, and had to reset. However, this was a forgivable error for a cadet: it soon transpired the biggest risk in Bomb Busters is having me on the team: I kept costing us lives, and in the second mission completely forgot there were wires to cut of colours other than blue. 

Meantime the glassblowing was hotting up, as Steve cursed Ian's name for depriving him of points. "This is exactly what happened last time!" he cried plaintively. Little did he know there was worse to come - much worse. For a start, Anja wrapped up a fairly comfortable win:

Anja 166

Ian 155

Steve 127

Then, as we saw out our fourth mission in Bomb Busters - (a great game, but not a relaxing one) failing twice; succeeding twice - they collectively failed at flying Kites, which was so rapid I didn't even get a picture. We gathered together again as a seven to crank out a tournament of Champions, which was reason enough for Martin to mildly berate us again about PlathversusKermitgate, now fully established as a GNN meme. 

The first round had some bankers: Hagrid is far more likely to scratch his butt in public than Claudia Winkelman, and Bagpuss seemed more of a toenail biter than Hermione. In fact the most notable moment in these early stages was Andy confessing he read the latter's name to his children as Herm-y-own. Consternation set in in round two however, with the Titchmarsh-Paxman face-off: backing the wrong horse here set you back several furlongs. Steve was maybe distracted by his reminisces of meeting Mickey Dolenz, an anecdote he wanted to indulge further but found himself barraged with get-on-with-it Steve input from across the table. In a bit of competitive celeb-bathing, I recalled the Fonz slapping me on the back at the BAFTAs, although I had to admit he wasn't in character and it was only because I moved a chair out of his way.

Martin 30

Joe 24

Anja, Ian, Sam 22 each

Steve 19 

Ian now also retired, maybe saving a bit of energy for his birthday (today) and we were left as a crestfallen six as we realised nobody had a copy of So Clover. Instead, we played the self-proclaimed 'Greatest Card Game of All Time', Flip 7, which is basically Pairs with a few special cards thrown in. "What promoted this?" Steve asked of the claim.

"I think Christmas was coming" said Joe. 

But it wasn't for Steve, who took Ian's mantle of serial-buster-supreme (see: Novocon) and ran with it. I blew up in the first round and the early running was made by Anja. Steve exploded so often that his verbal contributions settled on various iterations of the post title, as he scorned the idea that the game was even competent. 

Martin caught Anja up, and found himself the target of several freezes. Then Anja caught Martin again with a spectacular turn: emboldened by a Second Chance card, she twisted her way to a huge haul of nearly a seventy or so points. But it wasn't enough to stop Martin, who took the plunge and got the card he needed to hit the 200 point winning mark!

Martin 201

Sam 165

Anja 161

Andy M 79

Joe 77

Steve 34

And that was that! Happy Birthday Ian. 🎂

Breaking the fours, breaking the fours

 I arrived at 8.10 having already missed two games of Spicy.

Joe 29

Adam H 27

Sam 10

Adam T 10

Sam 27

Joe 25

Adam H 20

Adam T 7

With my feet snugly under the table, we now numbered seven since Martin and Gareth had arrived. We split into two groups of three and four. Sam, Adam H and myself played Llama Land while Joe, Martin, Gareth and Adam T chose Mille Fiore which is a Reiner Knizia game, albeit one that's somewhat over produced with shiny plastic ships and diamond shaped tiles.

Llama Land resembled NMBR9 inasmuch as your tessellating pieces while slowly building upwards. Collect items to complete sets and score points, but this means putting a Llama on your land, making further upward building a bit tricky.

It was okay. It felt as if someone had once played NMBR9 and wished it had more potatoes. Adam took to it like a duck to water and won by miles. Sam was hit by explainer’s curse.

Adam 137

Andrew 92

Sam 88

While Mille Fiore continued, we three played out two rounds of Take It Easy. Sam’s category was animals and after it, I was in a slender lead. But then I was caller. I chose snacks (including “pouring hundreds and thousands into your mouth”) but my mojo had gone (breaking the line of fours was the least of my issues) and I didn’t even break three figures.

Adam 314

Sam 309

Andrew 274

On Mille Fiore, it all looked very complicated. People were berating Joe for insisting that he had no idea what was going on while building up a healthy lead. In between people asking “Is this Nick Lowe?” to the music, Martin likened it to being “stuck inside a pinball machine” and Adam T had a late surge to finish in a respectable rather than disastrous fourth.

Joe 183

Martin 163

Gareth 160

Adam T 145

During this time, Joe’s wife Charlotte interrupted us to offer fruit cake which was a keen to finish off soon. “Cake Rubble” she called it, as most was in moist chunks, but it was still very tasty and made a change from chipsticks.

Now we split up and reshuffled again. Well, Sam and Gareth swapped seats. Adam H, Gareth and I went for that game of skill and technique, Kribbeln. Sam, Martin, Joe and Adam T played Scout.

Adam played Kribbeln almost as annoyingly as he’d played Llama Land and Take It Easy. On his first Krib (goal: just roll a high score) he got 24. And then on the following Kribs (goal: score higher than the previous Krib) he rolled 25, 26 and 27. Gareth recovered from a slow start to finish comfortably in second.

Adam H 20

Gareth 15

Andrew 10

As for Scout, apart from Adam T’s opening move of playing four 9s, I didn’t follow it.

Martin 27

Joe 26

Sam 22

Adam T 16

And with that, Adam T and Gareth left. The remaining five got out good old So Clover. The first two words I got were “Toy” and “Outlet” and I blurted out how easy it was. I found other words harder, but I’m relieved that I hadn’t jinxed myself and my clover was correctly solved. So was everyone else’s except Sam’s who was unlucky enough to have Shell and Painting among the possible answers for his clue of “Oil”.

There was a brief interval as Charlotte made another intervention, this tiem to tell us about the remarkably pretty full moon currently visible. We went up to Joe’s living room, cautiously avoiding hitting the coffee table with our shins since the light was out, and admired it’s bronze hue.

Back in So Clover, I must tip my hat to Martin who had to distinguish between “trophy” and “award”. To do so, he chose “Wife” as his clue for “trophy” especially since it also went with the other word next to “trophy”: “screw”.

With that, we were done. Off into the sultry night, under a fat orange moon that was so pretty that even a total stranger in the street told me I needed to see it. Thanks all. Next week, eh?

The six o'clock special

Six o'clock in Joe's studio. That's when the evening began, although when I arrived at 6.20, Joe was out getting pizza and Ian, Sam and Adam T didn't seem to have begun a game yet. After some polite chat, we began team Push It, me and Adam against Sam and Ian. It was a whitewash, with Sam and Ian picking up the maximum four points in one round as they glided towards victory.

Sam and Ian 11
Adam and Andrew 1

Joe returned with pepperoni pizza and Adam H arrived too. We split into two groups of three. Adam T, Sam and I went for Kodachi, card game based on the combat section of Ninjato. Adam H, Joe and Ian played Kribbeln, using Das Exclusive as the dice arena for that extra touch of class.

Adam H 20
Joe 18
Ian 15

As for the three of us, Kodachi was clipping along at a fair old rate until we found ourselves stuck in a rut. In order to finish the game, certain cards needed to be played but these needed to be bought and, for whatever reason, we never seemed to have the resources when they were available. To add to this, Adam found himself with an increasingly middling hand, full of cards that scored points but weren’t much use in a fight. This all meant that the game outstayed its welcome which is a shame since it started brightly.

Sam 74
Andrew 62
Adam 48

During Kodachi Martin, Steve and Katy arrived and so the five of them set up the card table while we three stayed on the big table - something wrong there. But anyway, they played a game whose name I didn’t write down which seemed to involve grabbing sticks from the table according to the criterion on a card. According to Katy, the winning order was...

Katy
Martin
Steve
Adam
Ian
Joe

It was loud and chaotic, and was followed by a game of Happy Salmon which was also loud and chaotic. Katy won that, and then they played Silent Happy Salmon. Not sure who won that.

Then they played Team Play. Still as a group of six, and still on the tiny card table. Kodachi had ended by now and we played Memoarrr just as a filler. Adam T said he wasn’t keen on memory games, but not liking them is clearly not the same as being bad at them. Early on, Adam and I teamed up to leave Sam with a blue walrus card, which he consistently failed to find a match for.

Adam T 7
Andrew 6
Sam 2

Team Play ended

Team Play, but Martin and Joe still seem to 

be playing Happy Salmon

Katy & Adam 31
Joe and Martin 30
Steve and Ian 28

Now there was a chance to reshuffle the groups, and Andy M called to see if there was a game going on, so he was soon on his way. Sam, Martin, Adam T and I set up Babylonia. The other five then six (still on the card table) considered I’m The Boss, but Joe got the rules sweats halfway through explaining them so instead went for Incan Gold/Diamant. I was lucky enough to witness Steve pushing his luck beyond all reasonable boundaries and also watch Joe and Andy go further into a dungeon together, not daring to be the first out.

Steve 61
Joe 39
Andy M 34
Katy 26
Adam H 24
Ian 18

Babylonia went all Martin’s way as he got a continent all to himself, picking up a load of early cities. At the end of the game, Adam mused that there were two strategies: either play your own game and let Martin win or try and stop Martin and let someone else win.

Martin 153
Sam 105
Adam 102
Andrew 71

Then Katy beat Adam T in paper, rock,scissors and insisted I write it down. Adam T then left. Not because he lost at paper, rock, scissors: he was leaving anyway.

Now the groups changed again. Ian, Joe, Steve and I played Ra. During it, I experienced a strange kind of better’s fallacy whereby I called Ra to trigger an auction with every intention of paying 7 for it. But when the only competing bid for it was a 2, it somehow seemed like a waste of a 7, and I let it pass. With that kind of clinical thinking, no wonder I did so badly. Steve did well on his debut, picking up monuments and Niles, but no one could stop Pharaoh Joe from taking top spot.

Joe 31
Steve 28
Ian 24
Andrew 17

On the card table, Martin, Andy and Sam played Sissi: Die Bohnenkaiserin. I’m sure that Martin likes German games only so he can say the titles in a theatrical German accent. And because he wins them.

Martin 27
Andy M 24
Sam 23

Adam and Katy played a head-to-head game of Yokohama. They started setting up at about 9.30 and the first points were scored at 10.10.

They were done by 11 o’clock when Katy claimed victory while admitting Adam might have won.

Katy 108
Adam 105 (or 109)

Lastly, the other six of us joined together for a final game: Wavelength. This time we weren’t quite as in tune as previously but when the chips were down, and we needed them to fail and us to pick up a point to keep the game alive, Joe got the only perfect score of the game: cluing “sloth” to “stationary/mobile”.

Andy felt he needed photographic evidence to prove

that such a game actually existed

Joe, Ian, Martin 12 (estimated)
Sam, Andy, Andrew 8 (I think)

And so we were done. We picked up our crisps packets and beer cans as if we were obeying the country code and left Joe’s studio almost as we found it. Thanks all. It was a good one.

Studio Line

Games at Joe’s studio has been the GNN way of welcoming in the New Year for at least twelve months now, and this year was no different (to last year). Joe hosted Katy (who arrived first) then myself (fresh from Monmouthshire) and Martin (came after he’d had supper).

When I got there, after limping through Bristol’s streets with a dodgy knee, I found Katy and Joe deep in Lost Cities. These cities must have been cold, since Katy was wearing a scarf and a blanket while Joe looked like he’d just come to the studio straight from his trawler. I found the completely bemusing, as I watched them place cards, pick them up and say that they’re completely screwed on the blues or some such fatalistic sentiments.

Katy insisted on splitting up the scoring to enhance the tension, only to find Joe rendering the whole process tense-less as he strolled to a win using exactly those blue cards that Katy had been throwing away.

Joe 101
Katy 77

Katy then informed me that she had soundly beat Joe at Innovation 6-1, with Joe pointing out that there’s no scoring in Innovation, you either win or you don’t.

At this point the two of them set off to buy pizza while I rest my knee. I take the opportunity to look at the games that Joe currently houses in his studio. Martin, arriving shortly afterwards, referred to them as “the dregs” but it included Lords of Vegas and Oregon. Joe later told us that more games would be transferred here as he is having work done on his kitchen. He’s not going to get any work done at all this year. While we waited for the pizza people to return, Martin and I played one round of Air, Land & Sea.

Next up, with Babylonia being nixed by Katy and Hit Z Road getting the thumbs down from me, we went for the co-op hit of the year Die crew. We started on Mission 23, somewhere near Callisto (one of Jupiter’s 69 moons, according to the thoroughly-researched narrative text) and had five tasks to complete between us. It took several attempts, but we finally nailed it (with me as commanding officer, by the way).

After this Mission 24 proved to be tricky too (six tasks, but in any order), and when we realised we had failed by the slimmest of margins, we put the game to one side and chose a new game: 5211.

This Japanese game sees every player playing two cards from their hand onto the table, revealing them simultaneously. Then, every player plays another one, then a final one in the same manner. The idea is that if the cards in front of you belong to the most common suit, then those will score. But if there are too many cards of the most common suit (seven or more) or if two suits are tied, then they don’t count for anything.

There are a couple of other rules thrown in, but that’s the jist of it. Katy began by asking if the cards had been shuffled, before playing nothing but green cards for all of round one. She continued to profess a lack of understanding of the game.

Some slightly over-designed cards from 5211

Joe 29
Martin 15
Andrew 15
Katy 12

Next was a couple of rousing games of Crokinole. Joe and I were in a team against Martin and Katy and despite a few good shots from Katy (which belied her insistence she was bad at the game) it was Joe and I that won two games, without Katy and Martin scoring a single point. Actually, it was mostly Joe who demonstrated an almost pro level of skill, perhaps putting to rest his reputation for being bad at flicking games.

Next, seeing as how it was too late for Lords of Vegas or Babylonia, we saw the evening out with some lighter fare. First was Mamma Mia, complete with faux Italian accents and Katy’s over-excitement at getting the Mamma Mia card and, therefore, being in charge of dealing out the deck of cards announcing each ingredient in turn.

Katy got off to an excellent start, completing three recipes in round one while I did none at all. I didn’t recover but Martin did and managed to match her at the end of the final round. Martin looked up the tie breaker while Katy dutifully put away the game. Alas, the tiebreaker was “the player with most ingredient cards left in their hand” and Katy couldn’t remember at all. They decided to rejoice in their shared victory.

Katy 5
Martin 5
Joe 3
Andrew 2

And now, with time ticking on (almost eleven o’clock) we played our final game as a quartet: The Mind Extreme. We battled through the first five rounds until we arrived at round six with three shurikens and two lives. Incredibly, round six began with a flurry of cards played to red and we had to stop ourselves and play a shuriken to try and find out where we were in the grand scheme of things. A few cards later we played a second shuriken and then, finally, we ended after a tense stand off between Katy and Martin who eventually played their final cards to differing piles.

We revealed the white pile to show just one mistake: a transposed seven and eight. So close. We needed a perfect run through red, though. It wasn’t looking hopeful.

Imagine our surprise when we succeeded! The crazed opening to the round had, in fact, been us perfectly in sync. We were amazed.

And perhaps too complacent as we quickly came unstuck on the “easier” round seven. A bit of an anti-climax but at least I am now a member of the “I’ve managed to get past round six in The Mind Extreme” gang and I can wear its badge (with its very small text) with pride.

Once Katy had gone, Martin, Joe and I finished off with Kribbeln: the game of complete luck unless you’re winning, in which case it’s all skill. We all had our moments of failure but while Martin and I had two blank rounds, Joe had four.

Martin 19
Andrew 17
Joe 13

And now we were finally done at quarter past eleven. My knee had rested enough, so I was confident about my return and I was pleased to get a little more gaming in before the end of the year. Looking forward to 2020! Cheers, all!

Night of the Grinding Gears

A monumental night in many ways. At parliament, Boris Johnson was being defeated by his own party. At my house, Stan was preparing for his first day at secondary school. And at Joe's, Martin and Adam - according to the host - were waving their dragons around "like scaly cocks" in Res Arcana.

Owing to the seismic events at home, I had arrived late. They'd only just begun Res Arcana, but I said I was happy to sit and watch, as the game usually only takes about 20 minutes to half an hour. But Res Arcana had left its brevity in the box, and prolonged silences were punctured by swearing or me gagging on Sybil's farts, as she laid on my feet and let loose. Martin told Adam his Elvish Bow was really fucking annoying. Adam didn't even say sorry. Adam sighed heavily and passed. Incongruously, Joe began whistling. Forty-five minutes later, Martin threw his hands in the air as the victor, but even he seemed mostly relieved it was over.

Martin 10
Joe/Adam 5 each

"That felt like a slog" Martin said, after his arms descended. Adam and Joe agreed.

Now a quartet, we briefly debated what to play next before settling on Songbirds, Joe's recent acquisition from La Rochelle. Then we debated how to utilise the scoring system, before we realised three of us were saying the same thing in slightly different ways. In this game players are, card by card, creating a 5x5 grid of birds (numbered 1-7) in each round made up of four types of bird - not being twitchers, we called them green, blue, grey and red. At the end of each row and column is a berry, with a points value. When all cards are placed, the bird with the most value in each column/row claims the berry for themselves.

Everyone has kept one card back for themselves, and now scores the points of that colour.

It's an odd bird, very thinky and made slightly thinkier by the fact in the middle of the grid is the crow, who devalues the cards around him. Like a condensed Five Tribes, you can't really plan ahead and so was positively pre-natal with pauses. We all agreed it was probably best as a two-player game.

Martin 58
Sam 55
Joe 51
Adam 50

The sense of underwhelm was still in the air and perhaps in hindsight another thinky abstract wasn't the best choice, but next up was Mini Rails, the stock and track-manipulation game.

Like Res Arcana and Songbirds before it, it was replete with protracted lulls as everyone tried to work out how to get screwed over the least. It's a nasty piece of work and you can be sure if you think you've got a break someone will smash up your dreams with a hammer in short order. Martin invested in beige early on and tried to engender support by insisting "The future is beige". He then told Adam that 'mean is good' when the potential victim was Joe and - ten minutes later - kind is good when the potential victim was Martin.

I floundered and only avoided coming fourth after an error in the final round by Joe cost him the victory and Martin a solo third. Both Joe and Martin said "Let's play something fun after this"

Adam 19
Joe 18
Martin/Sam 14 each

So the something fun turned out to be Memoarr, which not unlike Songbirds consisted of a grid of cards. In this case however you are flipping them over and trying to remember where they are. When it's your turn you must flip a card that matches either the animal or the background of the last flipped card. Everyone - in theory - knows the identity of three cards at the start, which you hope will be your handy backstop. But it doesn't always work that way.

Adam professed confusion. Martin expressed rage. Joe and I had a ball of a time though. You have to doff your cap to a game that has Adam muttering "I've got to find an octopus..." under his breath. Even Martin's palpable disdain dissipated as play continued over seven rounds, during which time you would think you'd get to know all the cards. But it's not as easy as it sounds - luck saved me on one occasion when I went Dirk.

Sam 7
Joe 4
Adam/Martin 3 each.

There was just time for one more sally into Das Exclusive as we ended the evening with Kribbeln. Adam, reeling from Memoarr, came surging back with a spectacular start but halfway through the game his luck ran out with his Krib ended up with an astonishing 35 in it. A great score, but he'd need 5 sixes to do any better in his final two Kribs.

Now Joe who was on Adam's tail surged ahead as Martin fell behind. As we entered the final round my slow-and-steady series of third or fourth places needed a fillip to put me back in contention and three second places got me within touching distance of Joe. But then he won the final Krib as we all imploded and took a convincing win.

Joe 26
Adam 20
Martin/Sam 19 each

A strange night of feisty games that surprisingly plodded a little and silly games that fared a lot better. The biggest fist-clench of the night was probably the news from Westminster. But as always, a total pleasure. Hope to see you Thursday!