Nutritious Scarecrow

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and Joe was on driving duty: picking me up a little after 7 and then Ian and Martin en route. Joe insisted he knew where he was going and he mostly did, only losing the thread at the final corner, questioning "Where am I?" in a way that suggested maybe he was reflecting on bigger things than the geography of Barton Fields. But moments later we were relieved of any further existential concerns and in the house, where Arthur and Louie formed semi-adjacent participants for the first game of the night: Perfect Mismatch. 

This is a weird party game where playing co-operatively (there's also a competitive variant) one player is trying to successfully clue the others to one of six possible words on a card. The catch is that the clueing is bizarrely restrained to a series of spectrums - sort of - where the extremes are completely unrelated attributes. Is a scarecrow more unbreakable than it is nutritious? Is a career more legal than it is daytime? Ian, Joe and Martin all took turns clueing as Anja joined us for the finale. We had mixed success, succeeding with maximum points only once but avoiding the ignominy of placing the right guess in the worst place. 

Steve was briefly glimpsed but still focused on settling Lennon, so whilst Louie and Arthur began building a den we split into groups of three and four. Adam wanted a Cascadero rematch and so Ian, Martin and I joined him for that. At the other end of the table, Joe talked Anja and Pete through Sunrise Lane, and the mini-Kniziathon was underway. 

Cascadero had a cagey start - nobody wanted to be the first to offer up points to someone else, so the envoys were largely eyeing the towns from a safe distance. Then when things kicked into gear it transpired we were talking different strategic approaches. Adam was harvesting seals as much as he could, working towards not only that three-point bonus but a late-game salvo that would catapult him up the track. Ian and I were probably more tactically-minded, trying to nab opportunities as they arose. Martin didn't pick up a single seal all game, but we naively let him generate a lot of farming income, and he built a huge early lead. 

Sunrise Lane ended around the same moment as Lennon's bedtime, with Joe taking the win:

Joe 108
Anja 94
Pete 90

And with bedtime also, which Steve appeared. As we were still mulling, occasionally to excess, in Cascadero, they began playing Indigo, a game I've never played but thought it looked a bit like Tsuro. "It's Knizia does Tsuro" Steve confirmed later. 

Or in this case, Anja does Tsuro:

Anja 10
Steve 8
Pete 7
Joe 3

In Cascadero we were now coming to a grand finale - grand for Martin anyway. I briefly caught him only for our resident Kniziaphile to surge away once more, reaching the top of his track just in time before the game ended as we ran out of envoys. Adam's seal-powered surge was impressive, but there was no victory this time. 

Martin 47

Sam 41

Adam 36

Ian 28

Adam and Arthur now said goodbye and made their way home. Louie delayed for as long as possible but the Dalton-Dale hammer came down and he was packed off to bed. The Indigo quartet played Indigo again! 

As Ian and I went from taking a pasting by Martin in one game to taking a pasting by Martin in another: this time, Gazebo. We tried a new board, with 'raised patios', the specifics of which are interesting when you play but too boring to list here. 

As with Cascadero, Martin had a strongish lead mid-game, we caught him near the end before he surged again. I had an outside chance of pipping him to the post with my last turn, if by some wild chance he had no blue on his dominoes. But he did, and instead of a triumphant victory I shunted myself from second to third. Fucking gazebos. 

Martin all gazebos erected!

Ian - two gazebos still in their packaging

Sam - three gazebos thrown across the lawn in a tantrum

At the other end of the table, Indigo had already finished:

Joe 10

Pete 8

Anja and Steve 7 each

And they were blowing each other up in Light Speed: Arena.

Joe won this by Griffithesque margins, with Steve baffled by what just happened. 

Joe - 25

Anja and Pete - 15 each

Steve 12

"It's a silly game, but I like it" said Joe, reholstering his space blaster. I tend to agree, even if you spend longer scoring than you do playing. 

Now what? We shuffled seats with Martin Joe and Pete teaching Anja Gang of Dice and Ian, Steve and I playing Misfits. Here are the three hand positions of the former, illustrated by Anja (whut) Martin (er) and Joe (hah).  

There was to be much drama in both games. At our end of the table both Steve and I made it to our last piece more than once, only to have things collapse on us. Ian at one stage seemed to have All The Pieces, and we confected something so top-heavy that the Gang paused their Dice to watch in wonder. 

Meantime in Gang of Dice Anja found herself on the receiving end of fate's indifferent attitude to plucky against-the-odds dice-rolling, almost entirely bereft of dice halfway through the game. But though I missed the finer details, she staged an incredible recovery - just not quite enough to catch Joe. 

Joe 48

Anja 46

Pete 39

Martin 29

Misfits finished at the same time, after an epic of wild swings and roundabouts. In the end it was Steve who took the win, after Ian and I both knocked things over one too many times. 

There was loose talk of getting Perfect Mismatch out again, but was no time for an all-person closer with the hour now gone eleven. After a brief consultation about Steve's facial hair/lack of, it was time to go home. Thanks all. 

Pic-takers with a fist

This Thursday Joe welcomed three of us initially; Ian, Martin and myself (Pete), with Katy to join after a Christmas party.

We started with Light Speed: Arena, a curious game where both the explanation and the app-driven scoring took longer than playing it.

I believe that took exactly one minute; every 10 seconds we all simultaneouslyish plonked our spaceships down on the table trying to point their lasers in sensible directions

Then Joe took a picture and we watched an app work through the timing sequence (lower power weapons fire first, high power ones that can punch through our partial shields go last).

There seemed to be quite a lot of friendly fire. I don't think we confirmed if it was disabled or not, but lots of things exploded.

Joe did some mining (shooting asteroids, seems realistic), Martin sneakily skimmed a shot just past an asteroid to hit somebody, Ian was the only person to keep his base intact, and I ... well, I'm not entirely sure what I did. Not enough, it seemed.

Martin 24

Ian and Joe something 16-20ish

Pete 8

I think it will go down as a mixed reception, from 'that was quite fun for a 1 minute game' to 'that was a discombobulating experience, possibly not a game at all', roughly in inverse proportion to final score!

There is definitely a lot you could analyse in weapon strength, timing etc, but there really isn't time! 

Perhaps this is what the offspring of Dice Pool Party and X-Wing would look like?

We then opted for Trickarus, a trick taker in which I explained we would fly upwards by winning tricks, aiming to be highest in the sky, but only after someone had triggered the end game by flying too high and melting their wingtips off in the sun. As you skip over any occupied spaces this can come upon you quite suddenly once everyone is high enough..

We also had to deal with cards flipping all played cards and our hand upside down (from 'day' to 'night') and changing the trump suit accordingly from sun to moon.. At this point we welcomed Katy, Martin demonstrated impressive recall by teaching it to Katy, and we were off!

Most of us... Martin did not win any of the first 16 or 17 tricks (not that he was counting). Katy was probably not actually counting, but was definitely amused by this announcement.

That said, the rest of us were still flapping around in a somewhat haphazard fashion, perhaps under the influence of the Rusty Nails Joe had generously proffered, and you can rise quite quickly when sequences of spaces are occupied.

Martin caught up to the extent that he soared past us and was first into the sun, meaning the game would end as soon as our current hands were played out.

I was hovering around the brink myself, having deliberately taken one trick to go up adjacent to it when I thought it was that or win the following and leapfrog someone else straight into it... I did have a zero and a lightning card so I thought I might be ok, but then things suddenly got very hot.

On the last turn a gap had opened up in the field so only Joe or Katy could win, with Katy finishing triumphant (see power pose at the bottom of the picture).

The progression seems a little odd so far - from a lot of seemingly inconsequential early rounds (which I guess at least help people learn in a first game), to suddenly reaching a point when it seems like every one of your cards could potentially land you in the sun depending on what others choose.

Fun though, and I do appreciate the way it fits the setting. After playing it with 5 twice I think I'm keenest to play with slightly fewer next and see how it changes. 

We then nearly played Condottiere, but Martin's plea that Joe needed to address a poor historic impression of it was trumped by Joe's preference for another trick-taker; Mü, at its perfect player count of 5. Rumours that Mü had made Sam ill are hopefully greatly exaggerated.

This is definitely thinkier, though mostly a more straightforward trick-taker.. However, that's preceded by a very intriguing first phase where you reveal a number of cards in your hand to both bid for the role of the 'Crown', and commit to the number of pips on cards that you and your partner will capture. It's ideally played 2 against 3, hence ideally needing 5 players.

The second place 'Shield' would lead the defence against them and choose a secondary trump from their revealed cards, after which the Crown chose both the primary trump and their partner.

So the bids were also auditioning for the partner role and a share in the points, or as Joe put it, waggling our bottoms at them. I think he must have had baboons on the brain.

I did this successfully in a first round of string bidding and benefitted from Martin winning nearly every trick, though not as much as him as the pips also give individual points.

The second round was much more balanced, and also showed that and the rounds feel very different depending on the trumps chosen, which can be number or suit.

The third round seemed like it might be slightly anticlimactic, with only quite low bids, and with the points on offer lower Martin was pretty secure in first place.

However low bids do create different challenges as less cards were revealed in the bidding phase. Martin, Katy and I managed to run Ian and Joe fairly close.

Martin was confirmed a clear winner. With hindsight, I could have done with being on a different team to him at some point in later rounds to have a chance of the significant differential needed, which is another thing to think about when bidding.. definitely keen to play again.

We brought it to a successful conclusion in good time for me to head off for my train, so Ian will lead on the following round of games.

--------------------------------------------

Thanks Pete! Just to run through the final scores of Mu:

Martin 214
Pete 185
Ian 97
Joe 96
Katy 78

After Pete's departure we played another trick-taking game, but a rather silly one at that: My Favourite things.

My strategy, such as it was, was to ask for the person next to me to rank things where I might have a chance of being able to ascertain what their highcard and what their heartbreak card would be. I asked Joe to rate his favourite Switch games, so I was fairly confident that Slay the Spire would be number 5 (the best) (ed: isn't number 1 the best? If not, I played it wrong). When it came to ask the Martin for his last I asked for Discworld characters, which proved less useful as there are a lot and they're all rather good.

Other topics being ranked included  favourite street food, venues, boardgames (I think this time it was specifically Wallace boardgames), beers, and rather weather, and trying to compare these disparate topics against each other proved to be amusing nonsense.

I have to admit after a couple of beers and the aforementioned Rusty Nail I didn't really pay attention to the final score in My Favourite Things. I appear to have scribbled down:

Katy 3
Joe 3
Martin 2
Ian 2

But I'm not entirely sure if that was the score or an arbitrary collection of numbers. 

After that it was time, of course, for So Clover. Which I also failed to make any notes about, which is terrible form by me, but I think we did reasonably well. We played a couple of games, and I think both times we scored mostly 6s with a single 4 creeping in both times?

It was a lot of fun regardless, that much I do recall. And really, isn't having a good time the most important thing?*

*some will say no; points are the main thing. But that feels less festive.