Greenbank rangers

 This week, with a lack of available venues, five of us converted on the Greenbank pub in Easton for the week's bout of games. This meant I took the train, which gave the whole thing a sort of games weekend vibe. I got off at Easton, and found that Katy was on the same train. She'd even got on at the same station as me but, for whatever reason,  we hadn't seen each other on the platform.

And so we arrived together at the pub where we found Joe, Martin and Ian already playing a game. I didn’t recognise it nor take a note if its name but I do know that Ian won again soon after we sat down.

The first game the five of us played among the hubbub of a busy pub was Bomb Busters. Martin asked if anyone needed a rule refresher and I admitted I’d never played the game at all. I was quickly brought up to speed and thrown in at Chapter 17. This meant that the “captain” had to lie about whatever clues they were giving regarding the value of their wires. 

Since I was the newbie, Martin suggested I rethink my first guess since it was a number that could be a red wire and thus end the game. I did so and we were safe. Until the very next turn, when Katy confidently chose a wire, and Ian revealed it to be red. Game done after three turns. “Did you enjoy it?” Joe asked me.

We played again and this time we were a little more circumspect and we were able to complete the chapter, with Martin having both red wires.

Then I noticed that there was a couple in the corner also playing games. I was impressed that this pub had such a pro-gaming clientele until Martin explained that they’d leant them a copy of So Clover. And they were playing the competitive variant. Amazing.

In a far corner of the pub, the strains of folk music could be heard. “Is that live?” Joe asked and, confused by the background chatter, I asked if he’d said “Is that Laibach?” which would have been a remarkable change of style for Slovenia’s greatest band. But the music was live. Every Tuesday, apparently.

After a lengthy break to cue at the bar for drinks, we got out The Gang, competitive poker. It didn’t end well. We did so badly at our second attempt that the hands were almost perfectly ranked in the opposite order that we’d bid. When we’d finished (ie gave up) Joe expressed confusion after how successful they’d been last time. Martin bemused me by saying there was a competitive variant of The Gang. But surely that would just be Texas Hold 'Em, wouldn't it? 

Finally (for me) we played Mamma Mia! It had been a while since I’d played this game and I had a brief rules refresher. It was a harsh game - bombastic pizzas (needs 15 ingredient cards to complete the pizza) were surprisingly successful which meant the table was often swept clean of any available ingredients. In round one, Ian, Joe and Martin didn’t make any pizzas at all, while Katy managed two.

But right at the end, I came good - I was the last to play cards and so, of course, I put down some ingredients and a pizza. It turned out that this was to be the winning move as my final pizza could be completed and I took a last-minute win!

Andrew 5

Katy 4

Martin 3

Ian 2

Joe 1

And with that, I was out the door, retracing my steps through Easton’s backstreets, and arriving at the station with minutes to spare before my train home.

Thanks all. It was a blast.

Pizza the action

This week's games night consisted of five hardy gamers. The four hardiest arrived on time for a five player game of Marrakech. Except this time they played the variant where you rotate Assam at the end of your turn in an attempt to screw your opponent. 

Andy defied luck a couple of times to fall neatly land on a bare square surrounded by enemy carpets. When he won the game, he made sure to remind everyone that it was a game of skill.

Andy 49

Ian 41

Katy 32

Martin 29

I had arrived mid game and now we were five we decided on a game of Voodoo Prince on playingcards.io. This game of winning three tricks at just the right moment was one of Martin's earliest creations on the site and he had to quickly add a deal button to save us from pawing at the deck of cards at the start of every round like a bunch of hungry hippos.

In rounds one and two both Katy and I won a trick while playing the seemingly perfectly safe Green 6. In round three we were all on two tricks. Andy, the leader, went out first, confident that his advantage was safe. And he was right.

Andy 28

Katy 26

Andrew 24

Ian 21

Martin 16

Then we stayed on playingcards for a rousing game of Mamma Mia. Andy went through the first round having forgot about being able to use cards from your hand in the pizza cooking round. Despite this, he staged a remarkable comeback, ending in what we thought was a joint first until Martin remembered the tie breaker. 

Martin 5 recipes and more cards in hand

Andy 5

Ian 3

Andrew 3

Katy 3

Next we returned to BGA for a game of For Sale. It was a close game and although I came last, I didn't think I'd done that badly, but I still came last.

Martin 55

Ian 52

Katy 50

Andy 48

Andrew 47

Ian set off to bed and the remaining four of us played Buttons, a brand new game to me and one that I didn't really understand until the second round. The idea is to place five stars in a row and you get these stars by placing your buttons on other buttons of the same colour and you place your buttons according to the roll of a diminishing number of dice. It's an abstract puzzle game, basically. Anyone hoping for a Eurogame based on the button industry will be sorely disappointed. 

I approve of the game giving a one hundred point bonus to the first player to place their fifth star, giving the final scores a comedic lopsided look to them.

Andy 108

Martin 10

Katy 6

Andrew 4

I think I'd like to try it again. It seemed like a good game once I was pointing in the right direction.

And then we all peeled our faces off the internet and set off to bed. Thanks all. 

Whose Thurn Is It Anyway?

Just like last week, I arrived late and caught the other gamers (Martin, Joe, Katy, Ian, Adam, Sam) in the middle of a fraught game of For Sale. In amongst all the complaining about their fate, Katy made the observation “I won’t tell you what my four lowest cards add up to, but it’s quite low,” to which Joe responded “Is it a single figure?” I guess Martin was really distracted because he didn’t point out that the four lowest cards can’t possibly add up to a single figure. Ian won, swooping in on the last round by picking up a 15 card with only a 21 bid.

Ian 54

Adam 49

Sam 47

Joe 44

Martin 39

Katy 21

Next we split into two groups. And, just like last week again, Joe, Adam and I joined up while the others went off and had fun somewhere else. There fun was called Mamma Mia, which Sam won.

Our fun was Thurn and Taxis, a game I wasn’t sure I’ve ever played but it looked familiar. Anyway, Adam gave a quick rules refresher and we were off! Well, Adam was off: picking up a province in his first turn. Joe and I did our best, but it was never to be. I lost a route when I couldn’t add to it. Joe, meanwhile, tried to tie up the entire central province in one long trail. Eventually he closed it with one city left because Adam sportingly told us he was about to end the game.

Adam 23

Joe 6

Andrew 3

Adam admitted to having played a lot against Steve and Anja. I’d like to play it again soon, before the rules slip away again.

In the other team, Mamma Mia had given way to American Bookshop. Katy won with 20 while the rest “collectively” got -10. Ian and Sam retired after this game, so Katy and Martin moseyed on over to our hangout to watch us finish off a quick game of Kingdomino. I don’t remember much about this game (and my notes are pretty illegible) but I do recall being amazed that I had the highest ELO points for this game. Before we started playing, that is.

Adam 64

Joe 59 (+ tiebreaker)

Andrew 59

Lastly as a five we had what is possibly the most exciting game of Texas Showdown I’ve played. After round one I was already in last, with four tricks. Then Katy had a run of bad luck: she kept choosing me to lead and then having to take the trick. She also had some connection problems that threatened the game. We asked who her provider was and discovered it was the Post Office. “No wonder it’s so slow,” we chorused, no doubt all imagining the postman delivering each download by hand.

Just after the start of round four, Joe and I were joint last with 8 tricks while Adam and Katy and Martin were joint first with 7. It was far too tense and the game went on for four or five more hands until one of us (Joe, I think) hit his 10th trick and triggered the end of the game.

Martin 7

Andrew 8

Katy 10

Joe 10

Adam 10

An excellent end to the evening. Well played all.

Bubble Trouble

This week, five games were sat around Sam’s kitchen table, quite unaccustomed to the space available. We were Sam, Joe, Martin, Katy and myself. The numbers weren’t right for Babylonia and so we passed the first games night for some weeks without a sight of Knizia’s latest classic.

Instead, we chose Tulip Bubble. This was new to me and Katy, but the other three all said how happy they were to have another go at it. This game recreates those heady days of tulipomania in the Netherlands in the 1600s. The five of us bid on cards representing tulips of three different colours and if we were the sole bidders for one cards we got it for face value. If there were multiple people bidding on one card, then an auction would begin and this is where prices could get crazy. Then, at the end of the round, the value of each type of tulip would be adjusted according to how many cards of that colour remained. It is a clever mechanic, ensuring that tulips that were expensive one round would usually fall in value in the next (and vice versa).

In the first round, Sam asked for a do-over when he realised he’d put bids on two of the most expensive tulips available, despite only having 20 guilders. This early faux pas seemed to haunt him as he would occasionally berate himself for that terrible opening move and then struggled to remember the sequence of the rounds. “I understood this a lot better the last time I played it,” he mused while it dawned on him that he was already quite drunk.

Martin wasn’t drunk but giddy with luck. His early despair at seeing the price of white tulips collapse was wiped out when they rallied again and he was able to sell some of his cards to “a collector” for a bonus return. The same thing happened again a couple of rounds later leaving him with a surely unassailable lead. The next person to reap rewards of their speculation was Joe who had to endure our scepticism regarding his investments in the already expensive reds, only to see them rise again, netting him a decent profit.

Katy, Sam and I battled for most pessimistic and Sam won.

Martin 123
Joe 57
Katy 43
Andrew 29
Sam 14


After this we broke out Mamma Mia. This game might seem like more luck than judgement but that wasn't the way Joe played it. Twice he ended the “making pizza” part of the game with no cards, having used them all to complete pizza recipes that he’d played earlier in the game. This cool-headed efficiency was a joy to watch, but he fell foul of the tie-breaker rule which requires a player to have lots of ingredients left in their hand.

Sam 5 recipes completed (5 cards left)
Martin 5 (4 cards left)
Joe 5 (0 cards left)
Katy 4
Andrew 2

After this, we went all co-operative and lovely, with a game of Wavelength. The co-op version involves beginning with a set number of clue cards and then, every time you score a 4, you add another card. In this way you can keep going, like a game of keepie-uppie, and score as many points as you can.

Notable event was Martin’s clue of “Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles for the spectrum “Happy/sad song.” Sam, Martin and I had to sing it to Joe and Katy while Martin implored Joe to try listening to the album Revolver. Joe, whose apathy towards the fab four is legendary, didn’t seem hugely excited at the thought. But our singing must’ve been good, because it got us three (maybe four) points.

Overall score: 18, a good score!

We ended with more co-operative shenanigans: Just One. We were remarkably duplicate free and Katy can count herself unlucky that our clues all pointed to boots as well as socks, and she chose the wrong option. The first duplicate was for me: all I had was Joe’s clue of “Bixby” and Katy’s clue of “Milk.” Bixby had to be a reference to Bill Bixby, the actor from The Incredible Hulk, but what about “milk”? I plumped for “Incredible” as my guess, but it turned out to be “Hulk” and there was once an advert for milk featuring the Incredible Hulk. If only I’d known.

Overall score: 9, not good apparently.

At this point we decided to leave so Martin ordered an Uber which was waiting in the road outside by the time we’d left the house. Amazing.

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!

Five go mad in Butte

Games night without Joe and Sam is bound to be fallow. With Adam H and a string of other apologies this week and doubts about the fitness of my car, there was a time when it might have been just Martin and Katy. Instead we were five in total: the two aforementioned and Ian, Adam T and myself. Katy and I were late, and when we arrived we found a game of Eggs of Ostrich just ending.

Ian 7
Adam 6
Martin 3

Once we were all settled around the table we looked at the stack of games already laid out that would be good with five. We started with Northern Pacific. It was new to Adam but Martin insisted he could teach it in a minute. It began in a feisty mood. Katy began and placed a cube. Martin immediately moved the train past that cube, rendering it useless.

It was all very cagey stuff, apart from the fairly obvious jokes about putting things into Butte. Round three saw a lot of spread betting as everyone tried to put off moving the train for as long as possible. Katy spent a lot of time saying she was just happy being in third, so you can imagine how happy she was when she finished in second.

Ian 28
Katy 26 (wins on tie breaker)
Adam 26
Martin 23
Andrew 21

After this was Mamma Mia, chosen by Katy who was already in a state of high excitation at the possibility of being dealt the Mamma Mia card. She actually got it in round one and then theatrically dealt out the stack of cards in a broad Italianish accent. It was Adam’s first go at this game, too, and halfway through round one he said he’d worked out how you can play well. Ominous words and they preceded an amazing comeback in round three that had us checking the rules for a tie-breaker. I hoped it was “the quietest” who won, but instead it was “most cards left in hand” so Katy squeaked a win on one of her most loved games. Martin, meanwhile, insisted he used to be good at it.

Katy 5 (won on tie breaker)
Adam 5
Martin 3
Ian 3
Andrew 2

Then we played Nakanuki Paradise at my request. This game of guessing the highest value to bid without the total value exceeding the target is such a simple, clever game. Far too clever for me.

Martin 22
Adam 21
Katy 17
Ian 15
Andrew 13

Time was ticking on and for Adam’s last game before he departed, we chose a three-round game of Voodoo Prince. In round one Katy clearly had no trumps and was heading into a last-player-standing showdown with Ian, with only one trick to her name. Ian made things simple by showing her his remaining three cards: all trumps. She was out last and with only one point to her name.

I went out in similar fashion in round two and Adam in round three. But what of the other end of the scale? The winners? It was Ian versus Martin as we went into the last round, with Adam one point off the pace. Katy, buoyed up by her ten point haul in round two, kept asking if it was possible for her to win. Possible, but unlikely. Almost as unlikely as there being no trumps left in the game once there were only three players left. Katy did finish round three with most points, putting her in a respectable second, but Ian was third to last out for ten points while Martin was out first for five.

I had no trumps at all in round two

Ian 28
Katy 22
Martin 22
Adam 17
Andrew 13

After Adam left, we ended on a baffling round of QE. We bid for points, but those bids increased our chances of losing. Oh, the irony. Ian and I struggled to buy anything at first, and then Ian went on a spending spree that would make the Sultan of Brunei blush. He and I both tied for identical winning bids on one round: Katy had set the starting price at 20,000 and we both put in bids of 20,001. In the end, just like last time, Katy won by miles. A game she excels at, but might have difficulty finding people to play against in future.

Katy 37
Martin 29
Andrew 23
Ian OUT (but had 19)

And with that, we were done. All back homewards with more memories than we can plausibly keep except as a general warm glow of recollection.

Self-Raising Flowers

What once threatened to be eight players (Paul and Anja dropped out, Andrew turned out to be Not in the UK After All) settled into the classic GNN conundrum that is five - what to play, when so many games out there only go up to four? As it was the enthusiasm from myself, Joe and Martin, persuaded/bamboozled Ian and Adam into giving Tulip Bubble a go.

businessmen

This is based on the first ever speculative bubble brought about by over-enthused tulip-investors back in 1637, when the craze for tulips bottomed out and the market crashed (I'm probably getting all these terms wrong, but tulips are definitely involved). Martin shrugged off his unfamiliarity with the rules and bashed through them in about 20 minutes - something that would take me an hour at least. His ability to process information at speed would come in handy - but so would luck, as we shall see.

Like Hab & Gut (other stock-manipulation games are available) the gist of the game is buy low, sell high. There are three colours of tulip (red, white, yellow) and each colour has a type (A, B, C) with the ABCs also having subsections of B1, B2, and so on. It sounds like the ingredients list on a jar of Marmite, but it makes sense after the first couple of rounds.

the market

There are three rows of flowers, the Next Shipment (not available to buy yet, but en route) the New Arrivals and the Just-Sold. Players can bid for up to three flowers in each round from the latter rows, using bidding chips. In the subsequent rounds, they can sell the flowers, either back to the market or to a collector: collectors want specific groups of flowers, but pay more in return. In essence you're trying to get rich, or wither trying.

rich enough to buy the Queen of the Night? Do it and instantly win the game!

The catch is between the buying and the selling the values of the flowers will change: the flower colour with most cards left behind after the buying's done will decrease in value. Conversely, the colour with the fewest cards will increase. And after that, an event card will trigger a rise or fall for at least one colour as well, meaning you are speculating on tantalisingly incomplete knowledge. This went badly for Ian, who splashed out on a gorgeous red tulip only to see it bottom out instantly, and well for Martin, whose three yellow flowers shot up in value just before he sold them to a collector.

The clergyman wants three B tulips of the same colour

There's some nice little mechanisms around that central idea: players can get the bank to pay for a card and hope to resell it at a higher value, claiming the difference for themselves. The catch with that is doing so occupies one of your bidding chips, so you're now you're short one (or more) bids in the buying. If multiple players bid on a flower, the losing bidders will usually get a small pay-off, and that encourages a bit of brinkmanship on bidding for flowers you might be happier without in order to force some pennies your way. And the game ends in extremely unnerving fashion: somewhere in the bottom three event cards is the Bubble Burst - the game ends instantly if this is flipped, leaving everyone on a knife edge as to when exactly they should stop bidding at all; as the flowers themselves obviously are worth nothing when the bubble bursts.

Ian, in hock

Joe spent most of the game borrowing from the bank and not selling anything. Ian decided from the first round he was fucked, and when Martin later said he was fucked, Ian reminded him that that was Ian's catchphrase. Adam made use of my lack of attention to detail by encouraging me to bid for yellows, meaning his yellows would then be worth more. But this trickery backfired when there was a crash and yellows market value dropped dramatically. Joe recovered from his lack of commerce to finish strongly. But in the end, Martin's oranges made the difference...

Martin 102
Joe / Sam 74
Adam 64
Ian 49

Tulip Bubble had taken us a while but the verdict seemed broadly positive. I'd certainly like to play it again. And Joe and I tying for second began a feature of the evening - every game featured a tie somewhere in the placings.

about to go zero!

Joe suggested Zero Down next, so we blasted through that. I began the first round with a zero, but fell apart after that. Martin cursed his cards. Adam scrutinised silently. Ian scored the worst in the first round but then zeroed the second and scored minimal points in the third to grab a win:

Ian 21
Joe 35
Sam 38
Adam/Martin 40

Next up was Mamma Mia, the game where I always refer to pineapple as cheese.

spot the difference

Sorry everyone. It does look like cheese, to be fair. Martin told Adam it was Rosenberg's best game, and Adam gave him what can only be described as a look. Joe completed a single pizza the whole game - surely there were walk-outs in his trattoria?  Ian repeated his Zero Down trick of starting innocuously only to super-charge his way over the line, or in this case, out-pizza us with his ingredient-manipulation and reserves of memory.

Ian 5
Martin/Sam 4
Adam 3
Joe 1

With the clock ticking on what was left of the day, Adam now departed and left us as a quartet. We finished the night with Kribbeln, as Martin challenged us to work out his Decrypto word from the weekend from the clues Mountains, George, and Ska. Answers in the comments below!

Back on Das Exclusive though,  Ian began poorly again, but this time didn't recover. Everyone went bust at some point, but in the end it was yet another tie - this time for first place!

Joe/Sam 23
Martin 20
Ian 17

And with the time now well past eleven, another mini-classic came to a conclusion.

Sumter Enchanted Evening

On Tuesday nights we at GNN like to rock up a storm with some unhealthy drinks and cheap crisps. This week there were five of us: Joe (hosting, with German beer), Sam (wine), Martin (craft beer), Chris (passion fruit juice) and me (Korean soft drinks).

We began as a foursome, with Chris still on his way, playing a new game, Carta Impera Victoria. It's a tableau building game, where you play cards to the table in front of you, trying to get seven of a type or, failing that, the majority in several types. Each suit has its own power that you can use if you have enough of those cards in your tableau. There are also powers for discarding a card, which are more powerful but, then again, leave you with one less card.

It was a bit ho hum. Maybe on the first play the more subtle aspects aren't readily apparent, because it mostly drifted past. As I write, I'm having a hard time coming up with something.

Chris arrived mid game and we eventually finished, having doubled the suggested playing time on the box, when Joe neatly used some special powers to put down two culture cards in one go, such that he had seven and had won the game.

Joe wins!
Martin, Sam and Andrew don't.

So, what next with five? As is usual, I suggest Santiago, but it never gets much support. Ponzi Scheme was poo-poohed with lightning speed by Chris and I and I must admit I felt a little brotherly kinship at meeting another gamer who disliked it as much as I do.

Instead, Martin was keen to try Sam's copy of Fort Sumter, a two player game. It's from GMT, the company that brought us Time Of Crisis, and it looked like a war game, except there wasn't much of a map and a lot of talk about "breaching".

It ended with Sam calling the result "a whitewash."

Martin 10
Sam 5

The remaining three of us considered our, options. Welcome To Centreville was cautiously put forward, as was Lords Of Vegas (surely this game is on a year long sabbatical while Katy is away) but in the end we chose Azul.

It's such a lovely game to look at, it's hard to believe there's a dark underbelly of dickishness hiding below the surface. We were all constantly keeping an eye on our neighbour's player mats. I got hit in the final round. Joe was the only one who could trigger the end game that round and he did. I scrambled to complete my dark blues but, at the end, Joe decided not to take some tiles that would fill a row but actually score him no points while he could take other pointless tiles and force me to take those tiles, giving me minus twelve points. Very harsh but, in all honesty, his only sensible move. It gave Chris the win. Joe afterwards wondered why he'd triggered the end game when he was in no position to win.

Chris 76
Andrew 72
Joe 55

Then we were all together so we played Wordsy. This is a tense game of word creation was given an air of officialdom by the presence of a Scrabble dictionary on Chris's phone.

Sam (“exculpulated”) and Joe (“xenocidal”) fell foul of this dictionary early on as his word was successfully challenged, but since every player's two lowest scores are ignored, it wasn't the set back he'd initially thought. Part of me thinks that Joe's "xenocidal" maybe should be a word.

The presence of L and Y in the selection of letters gave rise to a lot of words ending in "ally". Meanwhile, the high scoring Q and W left everyone trying to come up with a word that included those to letters.

At the end, there was a lot of predictions of fifth place, including me. However when Joe was the first to announce his score I happily declared that I wasn't.

Martin 125
Chris 118
Sam 110
Andrew 110
Joe 95

Next up, we chose Decrypto. Sam and Martin teamed up again, still looking for their first win as a couple, while Joe, Chris and I formed the other team.

Decrypto is a difficult game to explain to a newcomer, and Chris did well to get into the swing as soon as he did. I do wonder, though, if Joe's lengthy ruminations on the use of a plural in Sam & Martin's first clue was actually the key to the word in question, was maybe a clever ploy to make them over-cautious. But, on reflection, it probably wasn't.

We won by the skin of our teeth, getting two interceptions to their one. It was close because I went a bit obtuse (although I thought it was obvious) in my final round. My team couldn't get it but, more importantly, neither could our opponents so we stumbled over the line.

Chris, Joe, Andrew: know their semaphore
Martin, Sam: bad at charades

Finally, there was enough room in the evening for one last game. It was Mamma Mia, and what a peculiar band of pizza chefs we were, contrasting moments of perfectly guessing the ingredients required with long stretches of getting in each others’ way. I don’t think anyone completed a 15+ pizza.

Sam 5
Joe 4
Andrew 4
Martin 4
Chris 3

And that was that. Another fun filled evening. Thanks to all, especially host Joe and hope to see you all soon.

Defecto!

A balmy evening at Joe's house, with the back doors flung wide and Sybil visible on the table, watching the horizon for who knows what. Cats? Birds? Or gamers. Surely she knows Tuesdays by now. We began as a four - the host, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam) with Andy Mosse due to join shortly.

First onto the table was Pikoko, Martin's trick-taking game with three-dimensional peacocks®. Like Hanabi, everyone is unable to see their own cards, but can see everyone else's. Like contract whist, you try to predict how many tricks you'll win - but unlike contract whist, you also predict how many tricks everyone else will win too, and play the cards of the player on your left.

It was an interesting juggle of limited knowledge, speculation, and prediction - what other cards will get played and when. As Andy noted, the peacock theme was probably stumbled on when they were figuring out a card display for the players. We played one round, which was enough for Martin  to display his inherent mastery of trick-takers:

Martin 11
Sam 10
Ian 9
Joe 8

By now Andy was here, so Martin proposed a five-player race around the galaxy in the form of Powerships, another game that reminded me of others: specifically Formula D (speed control) and Robo Rally (damage impeding your control). Each player sets off to pass three buoys and then get to the finish line, avoiding obstacles (planets, dust, moving comets, the edge of the board) and utilising moving elements along the way.

Your speed is controlled by three-sided dice: on your turn you can first rotate the single side of a hex and then move: in moving, you may add a die to what you have in order to speed up, discard a die to slow down, and either keep the numbers you have or roll for new ones. If you hit an obstacle, your ship takes damage and movement is compromised!

Around the first buoy and I surged ahead, stretching towards the second one whilst the others negotiated stage one. But in surging ahead, I failed to plan ahead, and bumped catastrophically into a planet, sending me off course. Meanwhile, Joe was taking the long way around the edge of the board, followed by Martin, whilst Ian and Andy negotiated the shorter but busier centre.

The drama ramped up as they made their way to buoy number three, with Martin first around it, but taking a wide berth again. He got a shock to see Joe, in some kind of galactic Nissan Micra, turning gently around the buoy before shooting off toward the finish, which happened to be Earth. It was a close-run thing, with Martin nabbing the win seconds before Joe rolled over the line.

Martin leads the charge, with Joe and Andy in pursuit

Ian and Andy fought it out for third, and Andy took it. I was still way way behind, but did at least get around the third buoy and nearly pulled off a dramatic finish when I almost sailed through the sun. But it would still have left me fifth...

1. Martin
2. Joe
3. Andy
4. Ian
5. Sam

Great game, and considerably preferable to the two it reminded me of.

Now back on Earth we broke out Decrypto and separated into teams, with myself and Martin versus the other three. Last time I'd played Decrypto I'd felt my clues were too obvious, but in this first game things went too far the other way, with both Martin and I bamboozling each other with our clues for detective. I suggested 'panther' (pink panther!) and Martin 'baker' (Baker Street!). We shot ourselves in the foot, with Martin at one point wailing "We're going to lose!"
"Welcome to my world" I replied.

And we did.

Ian, Joe, Andy - don't screw up
Martin and Sam - do

We changed teams with Andy and I now making a pair, and Martin taking the opportunity to be scathing about his former teammate. This time my clues were more flippant, as I search for elusive, delicate balance of what works in this game. As a result, we were twice decrypted and lost - not helped either when Andy and I guessed correctly but had written the wrong numbers in.

Ian, Joe, Martin - Detectives
Andy and Sam - Defective

Like Montage, I am terrible at this game! But it's great fun. If I could clue myself, I might be onto something.

Next up with Mamma Mia, accompanied by the traditional argument over whether - as Martin asserts - it's Uwe Rosenberg's best game or not. Arle-lover Joe wasn't having it, but Martin was unsurprisingly immovable. Meantime Andy was trying to get the game after a brief explanation and reassurances from all of us that, once he'd played a round, he'd understand it. "Or once you've lost a round" I clarified. But we should have taken Andy's pizza-making abilities more seriously, as he concocted a - for Mamma Mia - huge score, mixing recipes with aplomb in every single round.

Conversely, I made a terrible error of not making my fifteen-ingredient Bombastic pizza when I had the chance. Everyone gasped at my audacity/stupidity, but to be honest it would have used up all my cards, and I just wanted to stay involved. As it was, though, all I did was facilitate Martin's pizza-making with a plethora of toppings to choose from. On the other side of the table to me, Ian kept dropping all his ingredients, possibly distracted by his Mamma Mia duties...

Andy 6
Joe 4
Martin 3
Sam 2
Ian 1

Andy's pizzas, after round two

Last game of the night was Kakerlaken Poker, long appreciated but little-seen in recent times. The game had two mini-death spirals, when Andy tried to get out of the spotlight by passing to everyone in turn, and when Joe repeatedly passed his cards to Martin, only for Martin to flip them over with open disdain to reveal the host's fabrications. Best bluff went to Andy, who passed Joe a card saying it's one of those "green aphid things" - looking for all the world like he was passing a card he didn't know the name of. Joe flipped it over, and it wasn't a green aphid thing after all. We nearly applauded.

The game played out like a Sergio Leone western, with the tension mounting as all of us had pairs and Andy hit a triplet of cockroaches. Joe tried to bluff him into a defeat, but Andy flipped the card revealing more fibbery - and as Joe had no more cards to pass, he lost!

Joe - Kakerlaked
Everyone else - wins!

Lots of fun, thanks everybody. Looking forward to doing better on Powerships next time...