What A Great Sense of Yuma

Tonight was the last evening of the season. Some weeks back, Martin had boldly set a target for the chasing pack to reach before April while he went of to do Dad stuff. The evening began with Martin only a 4.57 point lead over Ian and barely two points further back was Katy. A delicate situation. Martin needed us to play only a couple of games and for Ian and Katy to do badly both times to stand a chance.

The top four at the start of the evening

There were six of us: Joe (host), Ian, Katy, Ben, Matt and myself. We began with Birds Of A Feather, the simple yet charming game of birdspotting.

Joe explained the rules to newcomer Matt using, whenever possible, the actual names of the birds instead of just referring to the icons. A nice touch, but the educational aspect still eludes me. After four games, I still can’t remember a single bird’s name.

Ian 28
Joe 25
Ben 23
Andrew 23
Matt 22
Katy 21

And with that victory, Ian closed in on Martin still further.

Meanwhile, we played Birds Of A Feather again, reminding Katy that this was a new game and not the second round of the same game as before.

Andrew 31
Joe 27
Katy 27
Matt 26
Ian 23
Ben 14

At this point we decided to stay as a group of six for the rest of the evening. After a little discussion, we chose Last Spike as the evening’s not-too-heavy main course.

This game of placing track and buying stock in different cities (which only pay out when it is successfully connected to another city) is simplicity itself, if a little bit luck dependent. Ben started badly, needing to pay double for a piece of non-adjoining track. He then invested heavily in the city of Yuma (hence the blog title) which luckily paid out for him in the later stages of the game.

No one needed to sell any shares due to lack of money, although it was close at times. And Katy and Joe both got three free shares for being the first to build from a particular city. Matt, meanwhile, built up a stack of cash hidden behind a bowl of pretzels.

I was lucky enough to put down the final tile, getting me a $20K bonus, otherwise I’d have been left in joint last place.

Joe 71
Andrew 65
Matt 63
Ben 56
Katy 54
Ian 45

Another poor performance from Ian and Katy, but Martin’s title bid is over. I, on the other hand, may just force a late surprise.

Next game to the table was A Fake Artist In New York. I explained the rules and I began as Quiz Master. My topic (“xylophone”) was deemed too specific by Katy and she argued about its suitability throughout round one. Interestingly, Matt joined in with the debate. I say interesting, because he was the fake artist. Clearly, he was trying to look like someone who knew what the topic was. It worked, since he wasn’t chosen as the fake artist.

Joe turned out to be an excellent fake artist once he’d quelled his desire to draw something recognisable. Halfway through the round where he was the fake artist, he said “Surely, this should be...” and then turned the drawing up the other way. An audacious bluff, and a great success.

In the final round, Katy chose “Joe” as the topic and Joe as the fake artist. A bit of a giveaway, really. But we did end up with a nice piece of minimalist portraiture.

Ben 6
Andrew 6
Matt 5
Joe 4
Katy 2
Ian 1

More faltering stumbles from Ian and Katy, and I’m up into second!

As the night progressed, so we introduced Ben to the joys of Incan Gold. I say “joys”, but his inaugural game was notable for the speed with which enemies threw themselves in our path. Temple three may have claimed a record for brevity: zombie lady, rockfall, spider, zombie lady. Joe managed to make his way through a temple far enough to get plenty of treasure and one example of each type of danger. But he just had to push it one card too far.

Katy 13
Ben 12
Matt 11
Ian 6
Andrew 5
Joe 5

Did this result signal a change in Katy’s fortunes? Although we didn’t know it at the time (I wasn’t updating the division as we played), she had claimed top spot.

If she’d known this she may not have eagerly agreed to another game of Incan Gold.

This was a more entertaining game of Incan Gold. The temples didn’t fall down upon us the moment we entered. I had one of those games where you know whichever decision you make, it’ll be the wrong one. I leave: the temple is large and profitable. I stay: it’s hello zombie ladies.

A nice temple (me, absent)

Joe 35
Katy 30
Matt 28
Ben 16
Ian 15
Andrew 10

And so, the evening was done. The season was done. Well done to Martin for winning points ratio (the proper mark of a champion) and the medal table but also congrats to Katy for taking top spot at the last minute.

Samarcan’t

Games never stop, as the old saying goes. And so, for a few hardy gamers, the recent weekend away was followed up by the regular Tuesday meet for Katy, Sam (hosting) and myself. We were joined by Ben, Andy, Chris, Ian, Joe and Martin.

Early arrivals, Katy and Ben played Sam at Verflixxt. While the rest of the gamers came in, having done their best to avoid the football traffic.

Katy 20
Ben 19
Sam 17

Martin was keen to play Twilight, the non-franchise card game of moon cults and bad art. “Look,” he said, as he drummed up support for the game, “they’re burning a chicken on the cover!” Well, that seemed to swing it, and he, Joe, Ben and Katy adjourned to the front room.

Meanwhile, the five remaining players gave Chocolatl a spin. Chris looked offended when Sam started to explain the rules to him, forgetting that they’d played it together less than a week before. Andy listened to Sam’s explanation of the rules, and then double-checked a few things in the book, for good measure.

As for the game, there was bidding, as you’d expect, but I’m not sure it’s at its best as a five player. There was a lot to take into account. So much so, that it wasn’t worth thinking too much. Sam went for the +1 tiles in rounds one and two and, almost by chance, Ian was usually second in the city, so he ended up with a healthy collection of bonus dice to roll at the end. Neither tactic was enough to win the game, which went to Andy and his softly softly collectee pointy approach. What I mean was, it was hard to see his tactic, except avoid losing points. Maybe he didn’t have one.

Andy 54
Chris 46
Andrew 44
Sam 43
Ian 43

During this game, Twilight ended in high drama. Joe and Katy made up the Moon Cult, against Ben and Martin in the Sun Cult. At the end of the third round, the Moon Cult lead 386-91. Amazingly, by the end of the fourth round, the tables had turned completely thanks to a total shut out by the Sun Cult.

Martin & Ben 397
Joe & Katy 386

Since we were still knee deep in Chocolatl, they began Can’t Stop, the fun dice rolling game. Katy managed to go through the whole game without getting a single meeple on the board.

1. Joe
2. Martin
3. Ben
4. Katy

And now our game timings were overlapping, so since they were halfway through Can’t Stop, we cracked out Samarkand. This is a game where your meeple moves around a board following arrows, having to trade with nomads, buy cards or trade cards for points. The trick is arriving at the nomad camp when the camp is full, so that you get all the cards. And then hot-footing it to the right city to sell those goods before anyone else does.

The most notable aspect was some confusion about one small icon in particular: a tunnel entrance. Was it a burnt mushroom? A man? A tunnel? Of course, it was swiftly dubbed the burnt mushroom man tunnel, and cue childish giggles every time someone went to exploit the man tunnel.

Sam didn’t seem to get to grips with it and gave a poor judgement of it by the end. Ian seemed much more favorable but, then again, he did win. I’m sort of in the middle, as my placing will testify.

Ian 510
Andy 405 (possibly more, can’t read my writing)
Andrew 380
Chris 375
Sam 145

In the other room, The Last Spike was now on the table, with Katy seemingly taking her revenge for those two last places she’d had to endure.

Katy 133
Joe 91
Ben 75
Martin 36

So, with that going on, the five of us went for Celestia.

Sam 52
Chris 51
Ian 46
Andy 45
Andrew 39

And with that, we were all together again, for a hearty game of 6nimmt (chosen in favour of Pairs, despite Sam’s new fruit version).

Cue the usual cries of agony and woe, as one piece of shitty luck gave way to something even crueler. It was close for first place, though with four players tying for first and second. (Or first and third, if you prefer).

A particularly nasty situation

Ian 33
Katy 33
Andrew 35
Martin 35
Sam 36
Andy 49
Joe 50
Ben 62
Chris 63

On the division, Katy regains points ratio and top spot, while Martin keeps hold of the medal table.

Bitte, Lemon

This Tuesday was a mild November evening, and Anja and Steve hosted for the first time in a while. Ten gamers were present in total: the two hosts and Chris, Ian, Matt, Martin, Katy, Joe, Adam (making a welcome reappearance) and me.

We split into three groups. On the coffee table sat myself, Anja and Martin, ready to be introduced to Pax Pamir, an exciting recreation of the political upheaval in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. On one half of the dining table, Ian, Joe, Katy and Matt were introduced to The Last Spike – something to do with railroads. At the far end of the table Chris was delighted to discover that Steve owned a game of Keyflower, and explained the rules to Adam and Steve. Soon the room was humming to the sound of three simultaneous rules explanations.

The first game to finish was The Last Spike: the shortest and simplest of the new games. In fact Joe said he’d been hoping to finish before Pax Pamir had even begun.

Ian 150
Katy 125
Joe 99
Matt 93

On our table, Martin explained the rules to us. The game is set during the time when British, Russian and Afghan forces were battling for control of Afghanistan and aim of the game is to be the one who is most loyal to the strongest army when a Topple card is played.

We were going along quite nicely, Anja and Martin practised their counter-espionage skills on me, and I assassinated one of Martin’s cards to try and gain favour with the Afghan forces. But then, just as Martin was cursing my move for ruining his chances of a win, he realised he could do it anyway. And so he did. After only about maybe forty minutes of play, our epic came to an abrupt halt. It was over so quickly, that I forgot to take a photo of it.

Anja said it was a bit of an anti-climax and Martin later admitted he wished he hadn’t won the game. At least, not so soon. There’s only winners and losers in Afghanistan so, although I was also loyal to the winning Afghan forces, while Anja was cosying up to the invading Russians and British, I can’t claim second place. Joint second, though.

1. Martin
2= Andrew
2= Anja

When we’d finished, Joe, Matt, Katy and Ian were having a rip-roaring game of Can’t Stop. In this game, you roll die and move meeples along a track until (a) you decide to stop or (b) you can’t move and you go back to where you started. Get your meeple to the end of the track and it’s yours to keep. The winner is one who has claimed most tracks. Something like that, anyway.

Joe 3
Ian 2
Katy 1
Matt 0

At the far end of the table, Chris, Adam and Steve were deep in thought over Keyflower. We on the coffee table, though, began another game. This time: Sticheln, the trick taking card game that changes every time you try to pronounce it. It’s like trumps, except that not following suit turns your card into a trump card. And there are ‘0’ value cards, which never win and, most importantly, each player nominates a suit whose cards count as negative points when scoring.

Anja had trouble with the rule about not having to follow suit since it’s so different from the norm. Martin was doing okay, but misjudged the very last hand of the last round. He still had a red seven which would be minus seven points if he won it. He was confident that he wouldn’t since I was going first, so imagine his annoyance when Anja changed the trump suit to red. He got stung as he won the trick with his suddenly very strong trump card.

Andrew 28
Martin 21
Anja 16

By now, Can’t Sop was over, Sticheln was done and finally the scores for Keyflower were being totted up. Adam was absent by now, having left in the final stages (having left instructions with Katy as to what to do) because of family business.

Steve 48
Adam 42
Chris 34

Finally we ended with Pairs, as you probably guessed from the blog title. Nine of us, clustered around a table, getting all excited about the prospect of blueberries.

Matt started badly, being killed of by two peaches, and his luck didn’t improve. Anja, too, faced down Lady Luck and came off the worse for it.

Chris could’ve won, but didn’t realise we were playing until 21 points (the last game he played lasted until 33). Joe, in a moment of melancholy reflection, asked that when we’re all playing Pairs in an old folk’s home that, if he should die before us, that we deal him in anyway and decide amongst ourselves whether Joe would stick or twist. That’s one way to gain immortality, I suppose.

On a lighter note, a mention of the catchphrase “That’s Numberwang!” gained approval, but for some reason gained an increasingly German accent, ending up as “Das ist nummerwang!” while people who could speak the language gave our their scores in German.

In the final round, Martin and I were first and second. Just before Martin was dealt a card, the deck needed replenshing, so Martin shuffled and handed the cards to me, the dealer. I didn’t want Martin’s shuffling to decide his fate so I cut the deck and dealt him the next card.

He was out.

Such drama! And I won, with Joe making a late charge into second.

Andrew 26
Joe 22
Martin 17
Steve 17
Chris 16
Katy 15
Ian 12
Anja 0
Matt 0

On the Division I'm first on points ratio for perhaps the first time ever. Well, that's me done for the season. See you in January!