That sinking feeling

On a train with cack wifi - will add pics this evening

Laura was our host this week, and with Andrew a late withdrawal the blogging reverted to my (Sam's) sweaty hands.

Joe kindly gave me a lift over - despite Laura and I being practically neighbours, it was a relief to the foot. After some breaking-and-entering shenanigans, we found the kitchen replete with hairy men, and Laura. Katy was due a bit later, and Andy could only stay until 9, so there was a bit of boardgame jiggerypokery (BGJP) as we debated options, before Martin, Andy and Gareth played Longboards and Laura, Ian, Joe and I settled on Heckmeck (also known as Pickonimo, AKA the Hammy game)

Laura had child-related distractions, and I had bad luck/decisions, so in the early running it looked like Ian v Joe. Then Laura and I struck back, but not that effectively, and though I stole a tile from Ian Joe's stash was insurmountable. 

Joe 10
Sam 7
Ian 4
Laura 2

They were still playing Longboards so Laura introduced us to Roll For It, the game of dice-rolling to claim cards. Initially it seemed underwhelming, as each turn is a single roll of the dice and choosing where to allot them, if at all, to hopefully claim cards if you're the first person to complete the card demands. 

But as the game continued it got faster and funnier with Katy - who arrived as we started - desperate for six 2's as the rest of us fought it out over another card. As we turned from perplexed to engaged, Longboards finished...

Gareth 41
Martin 39
Andy 33

..and they started playing HIT, which I didn't get any photos of. We were too busy chucking dice and shrieking by then. Eventually Ian claimed the win (22) followed by me (17), Katy (15) Laura on 12 and Joe back on a paltry 5 points. He would have some serious vengeance however, later in the evening. Meantime Gareth absolutely rinsed Andy and Martin at Hit:

Gareth 144
Martin 77
Andy 67

Andy's pumpkin hour was looming but we thought we could squeeze in a quick game of Viva Pamplona! After some inevitable rules-clarifications, we were off! 

Andy appeared to be the early front-runner with his strategy of staying ahead of the bull and grouping runners together worked well: he was rarely pushable and therefore (this is the rule I missed Saturday) you couldn't squeeze points out of him (when you push a runner, the owner gives you a point or two). I did okay out of the first two scoring rounds, but as the bull rampaged past the halfway point I fell behind and kept rolling low dice, stuck behind a pile of fucking tomatoes. Gareth was taking a lot of pushing around at the back too, but staged a mini-recovery. I needed the bull - now invisible to me beyond a mound of vegetables - to not move, but it bundled it's way in to the arena and ended the game. Surprisingly Andy didn't win - it was the quiet man Joe!

Joe 43
Andy 37
Martin 30
Gareth 18
Sam 17

At the other end of the table, they finished Forbidden Island around the same time. Katy announced proudly they sank the island, but won anyway. So distracted was I by the Running of the Bulls that I hadn't witnessed any of this, so hopefully we'll get a mini-epic in the comments. 

Andy had to go, so the four remaining Bull Runners set up Mille Fiori, a game I recalled being relatively straightforward (apart from the boats) but felt bamboozled by when on his very first go, Martin took three turns and scored about 30 points as the rest of us watched in horror. I stared at the boards, stared at my cards, and questioned the wisdom of agreeing to play it.

But wily Joe has been here before. He has a rock solid record with Mille Fiori and as the game played out over the next 45mins or so he shrewdly pegged Martin back, pulling off a dramatic move every time Martin surged away again. We had our fleeting moments but otherwise Gareth and I were in a fight for third. The ending couldn't have been more dramatic, as Joe finally bounded ahead to Martin's panicked cries. But on the final go, he pulled out a double turn, moved his ship and pushed past Joe Berger for the win!

Martin 225
Joe 224
Sam 209
Gareth 174

Katy Laura and Ian, meanwhile, had played Marrakech not once, but twice: I think the second time they did the evil variant. Katy won the first (then Laura, then Ian) and Ian was maxi-evil for the second, trailed by Laura and then Katy in third. 

I had a big day the next day today and my foot was complaining a bit already so I hobbled off, aided by Gareth who also needed to get home. The others stayed on for a crack at So Clover, and pulled off a maximum-pointer! Go GNN. 

When we're sixty-four

 I arrived at Joe’s at 8.05pm and found Joe, Laura, Sam, Martin, and Adam T sitting around talking with Laura explaining a scene where she struggled to explain the rules to a new game to people who insist on chatting about, you know, normal things.

First we played Rapido, a dice rolling game by Reiner Knizia. In this, players roll two asymetrically numbered dice to make the highest possible number (i.e, a one and a three would count as 31) while avoiding Xs. Once (if) you have a score you’re happy with, put those dice beside a number, between 1 and 5 and if they’re still ther when it’s your turn again then you score those points. However if someone scores equal or higher than you and places their dice on a lower scoring space, then you’ll be bumped off and won’t score anything.

We began slowly, rolling 6 and 4 a lot and bumping each other off. Then Sam scored a point, but then went bust with his next turn and lost that point. After about five minutes, no one had moved. I rolled 2,2 twice and got two points as a bonus for rolling a double and leapt into the lead. Sam rolled 7,6 which was the highest possible score. Then Laura also rolled 7,6! Then, on his next turn, Sam rolled 7,6 again and bumped off Laura.

In the end, I rolled 7,5 and put my dice on the 5-point spot. If I was still there at the end, I’d win. Everyone tried to stop me, but to no avail.

Andrew 21

Sam 12

Laura 9

Joe 8

Martin 6

Adam 0

Then we split into two groups of three. Sam, Joe and Adam played The Great Zimbabwe, which many people was too long to start so late but Sam insisted they’d get it done by half past ten. 

Laura, Martin and I played Longboard. In this game we are all owners of a surfboard-shaping business and we have to make the longest surfboards with the most stickers on it. Once a surfboard is four cards long it is "shaped" (always said in an American accent) and will score bonus points.

Laura started well, but that was because she hadn’t understood the rules – she’d been following them purely by accident. Once she knew them, she played a lot slower. But slower isn’t necessarily worse, and in the end it couldn’t have been closer.

Martin 46, wins on tie-breaker

Laura 46

Andrew 39

We thought The Great Zimbabwe was still hours from completion so we chose our next game: Mille Fiori or “Mille Fiori (In The Glittering Lagoon)” to give it its full name. We ignored the shipping area at first while Laura and I pushed our ships along the scoring track at the bottom. Martin picked up  bonuses and extra points on the key track and also got more bonuses for that area with oreos, broccoli and fish. Don’t know what it’s called. The market, I guess. 

But despite Martin’s bonuses, Laura kept on his tail and even edged into the lead at one point. Then Martin executed his final move, chained together three “extra turn” bonuses and finished with a healthy lead.

Martin 192

Laura 178

Andrew 142

To our surprise, The Great Zimbabwe came to an end mid-Mille Fiori. I knew little about the game, except for overhearing snippets about trading with cows or having the right God. Apparently it ended when Adam and Sam made the resources that Joe needed to win the game. So he did.

They went on to play Capital Lux 2 Pocket.

Adam 77

Joe 60

Sam 47

And Martin, Laura and I played Sea Salt and Paper. I had a better idea of what to do, but I’m still not sure about when to call a winning hand. Twice I sat on a hand with more than seven points hoping to get more with my next card, only to hear someone else call “stop” or “last chance.” In round two, Laura picked up 5 shells and in the last round we played, I actually had the 2 anchors plus anchor bonus card for 13 points.

Andrew 24

Laura 18

Martin 14

Adam and Laura went home at this point so the four of us played two dismal games of So Clover. During the first game, we fell foul of a mean decoy on Martin’s clover. With clues like “Imprisoned” and “Numbers” we thought a card with “Cage” and “Pie” (i.e, pi) was definitely right but instead
it should’ve been “Nightmare” and “paintbrush” as in “painting by numbers.”

Then in round two we managed to fail on Joe’s clover, getting three out of four wrong. And even on our second go, we didn’t get much closer. We obsessed over thinking that pigeons fly in a v-shape while overlooking that ducks certainly do. But then, the “duck” tile was being used for “Police/Barrack” = “Precinct.”

The only high point was everyone’s guess of “Bang/hook” for my clue of “Trigger” which is really clever and caused a lot of mirth but was unfortunately also wrong.

At this point, we finished, thouroughly defeated by So Clover. I had no work the next day so I was able to stay until the end for a change, but maybe an early night would have been better for my self-esteem.

How I felt after So Clover

Thanks all. See you next week.

Challenge Accepted

Knowing that Adam T finishes work well before 7.30, I (Sam) told him he was welcome to arrive early, and after consuming his own tea at the Lazy Dog, he was treated to my family eating the last of theirs. Adam's presence may have played a part in the boys not arguing over who wipes the table too: good work, Mr T. 

Martin joined us a little after seven, just as we were setting up the first game of the night: Akropolis!

It's a super-simple game, although not so simple that I couldn't get a rule wrong, as we discovered this morning. Martin may thus contest the results, but basically your cities score in different ways: residences like to be together, markets apart, temples surrounded etc. But each district only scores if you have matching plazas, who don't care where they go. Martin was indifferent to its charms; I rather like it myself for it's breezy play and weight of decisions. But liking it and being any good at it are two different things. 

Adam: 131

Martin: 129

Sam: never mind

By the time we were totting up, Joe had joined us and, with Ian and Adam H hot on his heels - sadly we lost Andrew and Laura to 'fatigue' and 'pyjamas' - it was time for a six-player crack at Challengers, the fun deck-builder and possibly-less-fun card-flipper du jour. 

Unbeknownst to me, Ian had been burnt on Sunday when his cards serially came out in non-combo-ing order, and having suffered a similar fate last Tuesday, he had my sympathy when history repeated and he took a battering over the first four rounds. I did better this time; enough in fact to cockily assume I was in the final, only to crestfallenly discover Joe had outscored me, at which point I hated Challengers again. Ian won his last two rounds, like Lazarus rising from a hardback chair, but Adam T was the man to beat, and he and Joe faced off over the final. With almost no power on my phone, I was like a disorganised journo intern, racing back and forth from charger to the table to try and record momentous events. 

Adam wins!

Joe runner-up

Sam third on points, if that means anything

Adam H

Ian

Martin

Then we broke into threes. There was talk of Pan Am again, but with four of us keen to play, it somehow never reached the table. Martin was pushing for Longboards, or Bonerz as it has been somewhat immaturely renamed (see pics). Having coaxed Joe and Ian into Reiner's phallic surfing bonanza, the Adams and I were left to peruse the alcove and settled on Ahoy. 

Last seen at the GNN Christmas shindig, Ahoy's mechanically-specific charms are how it interweaves two types of game into one: as Adam T and I battled (well, I hid) across the water for dominance, the Creeping Custard played a game of pick up and deliver: the aforementioned weaving is his deliveries increase the value of the territories we were fighting over, and he gets to wager each delivery on which of us he thinks will score that territory at the end of the game - getting bonus points if he's right. 

Adam T immediately loaded cannons and, not long after that, recruited crew who made coming anywhere near him a high-risk manoeuvre. I basically kept my distance, using my deck of Plans to run interference when I could. For a couple of rounds we scored equally, but Adam's visible strength and bonus half-turn each round was swinging things his way. Between us, that is. We were so busy circling each other, like boxers in a pond, that we neglected to stop Adam H running away with the game. Meantime Bonerz had subsided, to coin a phrase, and Martin had triumphed. I'll leave it at that. 

Martin 43
Ian 39
Joe 27

They were now playing Spots, but ten minutes in, still hadn't managed to claim a single dog. I think they tried a variant where the action cards keep changing, but found it made the pace a bit stodgy. I didn't actually see who won, in the end, but someone must have done because when Ahoy finished they were playing Sea Salt & Paper.

No such stodginess at our end of the table, however, as Ahoy wrapped up with Adam's smuggler easing to a win of non-sneaky margins:

Adam H 37
Adam T 25
Sam 20

The others graciously packed up Sea Salt & Paper (Joe was winning/won/delete as appropriate) so we could play So Clover as a six. Even for a game as marvellously bamboozling as So Clover, this felt like a high watermark of despair as almost everyone around the table complained that their combos were impossible (full transparency: my 'terrible' pairing was OCEAN/RAY and manta never occurred to me). Despite our misgivings, however, we did rather well. Martin's heehaw clue was nice, and I was quite pleased with Ahoy for ROOT/GATE. Joe's random card stumped us, as shirt/tail went rather well his office and surveillance clues, but despite these red herrings, it was overall a very respectable 30/36. 

I would have been up for a nightcap of the meeple variety, but with the hour approaching eleven and the night air chilly, we called it there.