La la la la la la Granja

With Sally and the boys off camping and me (Sam) unable to take tomorrow off work and join them, the silver lining to this lonely cloud was that Andrew and Ian could join me for the debut of La Granja, the game that Cuz talked me into buying but has sat fallow in my cupboard for a couple of months. As it was a bank holiday, we convened around the table at the shockingly early time of 2pm - a full two hours before Ian opened his first beer.

In La Granja you're building a farm a lá Agricola but collecting points a lá almost any Stefan Feld game you care to think of (exception: Rum and Pirates).  There's four phases that, simplified, consist of playing a card - they can be played four different ways - collecting income and sprouting crops/pigs in your fields, collecting revenue via dice, and haggling over turn order and deliveries in the central board, which represents the market town where you're selling or trading your goods. I thought Joe would like it, but I could feel the very idea of La Granja making Martin's blood pressure rise, even though he was miles away.

We got a couple of rules wrong (we would have all scored quite a few more points, we subsequently discovered) but there was no arguing with the winner: Ian ran away with it at a canter, and Andrew and I fought it out over second place.

Ian 25
Andrew 21
Sam 20

Then we broke out the perennial murmured suggestion of Ian's, Lords of Waterdeep. This has been away from the table for a good while, and since we'd never played the Undermountain expansion before we tried it out. The main difference appears to be that the quests score a lot more points, with Andrew surging ahead and staying there throughout. Suspicions that I had the building Lord were unfounded - I just didn't have any better ideas. But I managed to pull off a mini-coup in the final round, completing three quests in total to nearly catch Andrew...

Andrew 210
Sam 202
Ian 158

Sam tries to palm me off with a dodgy cube

Real life intervened at this point, and Ian had to go off to something called a barbecue. Not sure what that is. Andrew and I broke for tea, with Andrew calling out crossword clues while I rustled up some fish and rice. Then we elected to try La Granja again as a two -player, discovering our scoring errors in the process. We both did a lot better, but I snuck my first win of the day:

Sam 68
Andrew 56

It was only 9pm but we'd been playing for a good while now, and Andrew fancied something simple to finish off. I suggested The Duke, which is new to him but very easy to pick up rules-wise. It reminded me of our times at college, when we played something like sixty games of chess over an academic year... facing off over a gridded board, waiting - essentially - for your opponent to make a mistake. That was some 23 years ago! And with the trip down memory lane ending with honours even at a game apiece, we called it a night. Thanks chaps - see you all (I hope) tomorrow!

Andrew here. Just to add a note (along with some photos) that Sam and I also played Letters From Whitechapel. During the first two murders, Sam/Jack got back to his hideout quickly, while I/police slowly narrowed down the options as to where his base could be.

Then, suddenly, Jack the Ripper gave himself up, saying that he'd been cheating! He'd chosen a red circle (ie, a potential murder location) as his base, and this was against the rules. What an honest murderer!

7 Wonders, 7 Hours, 7 Games

Thursday's non-curricular gaming began in slightly unpromising fashion. Ian joined me (Sam) before the working day was even done (4pm!) to try and crack Gingkopolis, which has been sitting on my shelf unplayed for a good six months. But despite watching a guide on BGG and following the instructions, we were still none the wiser, and abandoned it after half an hour of fruitless cryptography.

Instead we played Letters From Whitechapel, the game of hiding and deduction. Except Ian's Jack The Ripper flew close to the wind and was caught in the second move of the first round. But as Joe had just texted to say he was on his way, this proved serendipitous for us as well as the wretched pawns of Victorian London. We just had time to squeeze in a couple of games of Elk Fest (winning one each) before Joe arrived, and introduced us to the pleasures of Ninety-Nine.

Dry Moose

Ninety-Nine is a trick-taking game using a standard deck of cards but removing the low values of 2-5. Each player is dealt 9 cards and then, like Contract Whist, they predict how many tricks they'll take. But there's a twist - you have to make your bid using the cards from your hand: each player discards three cards to predict how many tricks they'll win, with diamonds = 0, spades = 1, hearts = 2 and clubs =3. So if you think you can win all nine tricks you discard 3 clubs.

These bids are made face-down but players have an option to declare, which means they turn their bid face-up for everyone to see. They can also (having declared) choose to play a completely open hand. This strategy is obviously rather risky but a if a declared hand wins the predicted tricks there's a 30 point bonus. An open hand is 30 points on top of that - and as a game where the winner reaches 100 points first that's quite an incentive - one that Joe went for and pulled off! He was leading by several points when Andrew arrived and we abandoned the game in favour of chips and, following that, Beowulf.

Bidding for Victory

We all needed a refresher of the rules (in fact it was Andrew's first play) but having done so, the game was away and over the hills - rather like Beowulf himself I expect. It's neatly devised so the second half of the game speeds by - having done quite well in the first I continually felt short of cards as the game (of almost entirely bidding) closed out, with Joe looking in a strong position. But having ignored the opportunity to rid himself of a wound, he picked up another wound and was hit by a brutal -15 points, careering from what would have been second to last.

Sam 28
Andrew 20
Ian 19
Joe 15

Adam - who had texted just as we took on the Hag - arrived with perfect timing, as the last card went back in the box. After a short debate we broke out 7 Wonders, which - we realised - has really only been played with 2 or 3 players for some time now. With 5 it's a very different beast. My collection of guilds saw off Adam's impressive array of sciences:

Sam 68
Adam 58
Andrew 53
Ian 52
Joe 36

Joe's disastrous form at 7 Wonders returns!

Despite feeling like we'd been playing for hours - probably because we had - it was still early, so we went for another Knizia - Colossal Arena.

Nothing like a bum

This has been played enough recently that the bum jokes are starting to feel tired. In fact they barely featured. What did feature was some brutal screwage as various folk found their backed beasties killed off in the scrum. I think three of us bet secretly on the Magus, who was out first round!

Sam 13
Ian 10
Joe 9
Adam 6
Andrew 6

Then we played Hugo, which I certainly didn't realise Adam hadn't played yet! He picked it up well enough, though like almost everyone he also self-Hugoed. I managed another win, beginning to wonder why I can't pull this kind of form off on a regular GNN night...

Sam 21
Adam 43
Andrew 48
Ian 51
Joe 56

Jolly, yet homicidal

Joe headed off home as the rest of us went for a gaming aperitif. I was now (I realise writing this up) on 4 wins in a row, one away from a non-curricular Perfect Five. If only I'd realised at the time, maybe I wouldn't have been quite so gung-ho in picking up several high-scoring cards early on in No Thanks, hoping to chain them together and also force my opponents to pick up shitty cards. It wasn't a solid strategy:

Andrew 10
Adam 23
Ian 34
Sam 36

There was just time for me to tread on a slug before the night ended.

Night of the Long Axes

Friday. I thought I'd be up to the the gills in family, but Sally was out and her folks retired early, so Andrew made his way to Ashley Down to join me. We weren't sure what to play at first, but a glimpse of Letters From Whitechapel stirred our latent homicidal/righteous detective tendencies and we were away.

This had a flurry of plays on arrival at GNN but because - despite it's claims to the contrary - it really functions best as a two-player, it hasn't seen the table much since. Which is a shame because it has genuine tension and mystery to dispel it's somewhat bleak theme.

Andrew was Jack The Ripper first and I the detectives on his tail. Andrew played a high-risk game of sauntering through my detectives and allowing me to know his potential location. Twice I attempted arrests and failed - but the third time proved lucky, and Jack was caught before he could wreck further havoc upon London.

We quickly swapped over and my hitherto morally sound compass went awol as I played as Jack, making it successfully through the first and second nights by employing a doubling-back strategy that Andrew cottoned onto but couldn't quite negate. However on the third night I made two elementary mistakes - firstly I gave away my position early on (on the third night Jack has two possible starting positions) and then I didn't realise how close I was to one of Andrew's detectives - who made an arrest on a hunch and ended up the toast of the department:

Andrew - wins as detectives
Sam - wins as detectives

After that nail-biting bloodiness I thought it'd be nice to go for something light, so we tried my recent purchase of Bullfrogs. Would it be a little gem, or Kickstarter Crap (©Martin)?

We think the former. Whilst not a two-player classic in the vein of, say, Manouevre or Battle Line, Bullfrogs had a pleasing amount of tactical depth. On the table the Lily cards build a playing area, and having added a card, on your turn you can either add frogs (in columns or rows adjacent to the card you've just played) or sabotage: by moving an opponent's frog - also following the same columns-or-rows rule. Lily cards only have space for so many frogs, and as soon as they are full they 'sink' and the player with the most frogs on the card nabs that lily card for themselves - along with the victory points.

They also 'empty' the card of frogs by moving them (up to four, anyway - staring with the losers' frogs) to adjacent cards, and potentially sinking further cards. Mix into this each player having a couple of feisty axe-wielding bullfrogs (worth two normal frogs), extra points for claiming your own lily cards (as opposed to your opponents) and a central card - the log - that cannot be sunk, and you have a little bit to think about.

thanks to nad24, who couldn't have known I would lose my iPhone lead

It's quite neat, and though I can imagine it would be trickier with three - and simply chaotic with four - for two players I rate it. Having said that, I did win though:

Sam 58
Andrew 52

There was just time for one more game, and Andrew chose Extreme Biblios. And all the shit he made me eat in the gift phase came back to haunt him, as I had just enough of it to outbid him for the crucial brown card that ended up as the decider:

Sam 10
Andrew 5

...I am Mr Biblios!

Cinderella was still at the ball and we were yet to see in 11 o'clock, but it was the end of a long week, so we called it a night.

The Serial Killer I Always Wanted To Be

Finally, at the sixth time of asking, Jack the Ripper managed to get away with it.

Tonight Ian and I convened at my kitchen table with a pre-agreed Letters from Whitechapel already set up. Ian, Andrew and I have all had a shot at being Jack and all failed, either on the second night or - in Ian's case - the third. Tonight as Jack I managed to pull off the remarkable - not to say remarkably lucky - feat of murder most foul followed by dash to the hideout most frantic.

I chose an unusual hideout - rather than being the rats nest of central Whitechapel, I went for the bottom of the map - somewhat isolated, but quickly accessible via carriages. And I must admit I rode my luck in the first round when Ian twice looked for clues in the location I was standing: this action tells him I've been there, but not when. If he had employed Andrew's wave of arrests strategy, he might have got me. But he lost my trail just in time for me to make it home.

Courtesy BGG

The second round followed a similar path - although Ian was never in arresting distance I managed to sneak past him and get home, still not giving away even the neighbourhood of my hideout.

Now was the third round - the double murder. In this round Jack strikes twice, and the police don't know which murder came later - i.e. they don't know Jack's starting position, but know it's one of two possibilities. I set off on a kind of L-shaped course for home, but mid-journey had to pause for thought. I paused for so long, and became so immersed in what I was doing, that as I wrote my supposedly secret location down I announced "I'm moving to eighty".  Whilst this supreme idiocy caused much mirth between us, I consoled myself with the fact that A. Ian couldn't reach me where I was (-he let me retake it in any case) and B. I'm clearly not cut out to be a murderer. Not the type that writes down a series of clues behind a screen, anyway.

Despite my gaffe I made it back, albeit with another close call as Ian searched for clues in my actual location. The last round was a gimme, as I was a simple carriage ride from the crime scene to the hideout! I celebrated wildly before realising, like Lady Macbeth, the horror of what I had done.

Never mind, Ian was about to take his revenge in proper dish-served-cold style. Or maybe hot, actually, as he won the next game. It was two-player 7 Wonders, with Dirk taking the ghostly third-player role. If 7 Wonders was one of those games with intermediate scoring rounds Dirk might have taken it, as halfway through he was looking good for the win. But Ian's blue buildings were rising up like a cheap loaf in Greggs, and he amassed a whopping 33 points for them. I wasn't feeling optimistic, but my spread of military, science, and a little bit of other stuff was enough to tie me on points!

Bloody science

So in the end I lost because Ian had money in the bank, and I - just like life - didn't.

Ian 50 (wins on tie-breaker)
Sam 50
Dirk 44

We were going to call it a night, but I had picked up Pickomino (my copy is called Heck Meck) from Area 51 on my way home and I thought it'd be nice to give it a run-out. I've played it more recently, but the time that sticks in my mind with Pickomino is at Stabcon when Joe, Andrew, Adam and I played for the first time and Hammy kept telling everyone what to do, like a solitaire game for someone with a multiple personality disorder.

That's not going to fill anyone up

It's a game of pushing your luck - a simple dice-rolling Knizia - where you're trying to collect as many worms as possible without going bust - but I pushed my luck too far and went bust too many times. Ian won his inaugural Pickomino adventure 10-5, then followed it with a 12-8 victory. Since my Letters victory I'd had my ass handed to me on a trio of plates, and we called it a night with blood on both of our hands.

Murder most hurried

Tuesday night games was thrown into upheaval when a late cancellation due to illness was announced by potential hosts Adam and Hannah. Suddenly the full force of modern communications technology shifted into hyperdrive as a new venue was arranged. Or rather, Joe said he could host and everyone else seemed okay with that. We were six in total: Joe, Sam, Ian, Matt, Martin and myself.

We began with Kobayakawa and, while we all enjoy this slimmed down betting game, the last round does seem overly powerful. Once again, the player who won the final round won the whole game.

Joe 15
Andrew 5
Sam 4
Ian 4
Martin 4
Matt 0

Next we split, not into the more usual 3 and 3, but into 4 and 2. Martin was keen to play Witness, a game for four players only in which each game has a new brief scenario and each player is given a piece of evidence. We then whisper this evidence to the person beside us, who then has to whisper what you said AND their own piece of evidence to the person next to them. Very simple and very confusing as we try to remember what everyone said.

As me, Martin, Joe and Matt were setting this up, Ian and Sam went for a game of Letters from Whitechapel. Ian managed the best performance yet as Jack, lasting into the third round before being caught, leaving four dead bodies in his wake. Well done, Ian! But, technically, it’s a victory to Sam.

Board games! Such fun!

As for Witness, each case is solved by each player successfully answering three questions. The team needs to get 9 out of 12 or more to succeed. We played three times, solving a murder (9 out of 12) despite one piece of information getting lost somewhere, then we failed in our attempt at helping some people out of a maze of tunnels (6 out of 12, but Joe got all three of his right) and finally we opened up a combination lock with a five-letter word. 12 out of 12! Excellent. Although Joe took a surprisingly long time to work out the word from the letters C, E, H, I, N. (answer below the Division, if you want to work it out yourself)

Mortimer seems appalled at our deduction skills

After Witness, Jack the Ripper was still at large on the other table, so we played Potato Man. This superb trick taking game starring Evil Potato Man, Super Potato Man and Sexy Potato Lady is always a favourite. Especially with Martin. I can’t imagine why.

Martin 17
Andrew 15
Joe 13
Matt 10

By now Letters from Whitehall was over and Ian and Sam had begun on another two-player game, Lost Cities. I kind of recognised it, but didn’t pay much attention to it, I’m afraid.

Ian 71
Sam 56

Then just to fill in the time for Sam and Ian to finish off Lost Cities, we played Rattlesnake, the clever game of placing powerful magnets on a board on a rickety table. More challenging than usual. Martin was first to put down all of his egg magnets.

Martin first to have 0 eggs left
Matt second to have 0 eggs left
Andrew 1 egg left
Joe had lots left

Finally, we were all as one again, so we chose a couple of six-player games to round off the evening. First was Skull and Roses, the simple bluffing game that I’m really quite bad at. Boldest move was Joe who correctly guessed that there were 8 roses out of a possible 9 cards placed face down. Equally impressive, especially since it was for the win, was Sam’s guess of five roses out of six. It was correct, got him first place, and Joe revealed that his card (the one Sam hadn’t chosen) was a skull. It’s a game of fine margins, is Skull and Roses.

Sam 2 correct
Joe 1 correct
Matt 1 wrong
Martin 1 wrong
Ian 1 wrong
Andrew 2 wrong

Finally, Pairs was put to the table as a nightcap. On my way to the toilet, I heard someone suggest Timeline, but Martin firmly demanded Pairs. A decision he may regret. By the way, I recently picked up a handylittle cheat sheet for Timeline.

Pairs remains full of queer coincidence and strange self-defeating predictions as each player tries to avoid picking up a pair of any fruit/vegetable. Martin is an expert at this: his first was expertly aimed at Sam. Martin boldly said “There’s no way a lemon can kill anyone in this round” seconds before Sam was dealt a lemon to go with his other lemon, sending him out of the round.

But Martin didn’t learn his lesson, and his powers flew back in his face in the next round. Buoyed up by a first place in the last round, he optimistically said “I could get back in this!” just before being dealt his second cherry. Poor old Martin went bust four times out of five. I, on the other hand, didn’t go bust at all.

Andrew 21
Sam 20
Joe 17
Matt 9
Ian 8
Martin 6

And with that, the emergency games evening was over. It was just left for me to negotiate a tricky hill start crossed with a three point turn to take Sam home, and the tension and excitement was done for another week.

The five letter word was niche.

Jack, your body

Over the last few days (or nights) Andrew, Ian and I have been exploring the delights - I use the word hesitantly - of Letters From Whitechapel, a deduction game where one player plays Jack the Ripper and his opponents - it's a two-player really, but you can have up to five opponents - play the detectives on his trail.

Unlike the similarly bleak Mr Jack, Jack's job is not simply to escape, but to actually commit five murders over four nights; the nights making up the rounds of the game. Having done so he has to successfully return to his secret hideout (chosen by the player) to end the round.

And the detectives' task isn't to work out who Jack is, but where he is. The large board is a map of Whitechapel, dotted with numbers for Jack to move around on, and a separate grid of black squares for the detectives. After committing a murder the detectives know Jack's current position - there's a dead body - but they don't know where he's off to. Jack has a basic move of one number to an adjacent number, but he also has a couple of special moves - carriages to take him faster, or alleyways to sneak through a 'block' of buildings.

The detectives have no such special abilities but they do outnumber Jack five to one. Now aware of where the murder took place (there is some preamble at the start of each round where Jack and Detectives place both potential victims/detectives and red herrings) the detectives start moving in and looking for clues. If they find a trace of Jack he plonks a marker on the board, and the detectives get an idea of the direction he's going and where his hideout is - and instead of searching for clues they can choose to 'make an arrest' on a particular location they suspect Jack to be in.

Over four rounds the detectives will know more and more about Jack's hideout and it will be harder for him to reach it... in theory, anyway. In the four games we've played, Jack has been caught on the second night every time!

There are a couple of optional extra rules that give both Jack and detectives special moves (the aforementioned letters that bamboozle the police for Jack, some movement and arrest options for police) but certainly as yet I don't think any of us felt the game was crying out for more. As detectives it's an intriguing, shifting puzzle. As Jack it's incredibly tense - and as I think our results display, no mean feat to win. I know we don't do a lot of 2-players at GNN but I think most of us will enjoy this... though I say that with the caveat we have yet to experience a four-round game, which could be rather long.