Galactic Hurling

Saturday's gaming plans went through a series of last minute changes, with the alleged trio of Adam, Ian and myself (Sam) at my place losing the Creeping Custard to the creeping plague and relocating to Steve and Anja's, where we were briefly joined by a pyjama-ed Louie, before bedtime curfew was enforced. I'd brought Ancient Civilisations of the Inner Sea and was keen to revisit its brutal charms, but Steve was in the mood for something spacey, so we settled on the equally delightful Sol: Last Days of a Star.

I think most GNNers know the gist by now, but a brief recap: you're building three types of stations: to harness energy (Energy Nodes); convert energy into points (Transmit Towers); or use it building the Sundiver ships you need to carry out your orders (Foundries). Gates are also built to free up your movement around the board, and time will run out at some not-entirely unpredictable moment, when the 13th Solar Flare card is drawn...

I explained the rules to Steve and Anja, mostly, and we were off. The first few turns were cagey as always, as everyone gets their Sundivers into place in order to convert them into stations. I made an error on the rules, thinking that whenever you build anything you draw a card (-correct) and increase your movement capacity (-which you do for stations, but not gates). Anja was building a lot of gates, and when I realised my error and we corrected it, her movement depleted. Anja also suffered from circumstantial misfortune in that Steve, Ian and I found ourselves using each others gates quite a lot (which means free energy for the owner) whereas hers sat on their hinges for long periods.

Ian and I as the comparative old-timers in Sol, set the pace. I was first to build a Transmit Tower and kept getting bonuses as everyone used them. Ian built one too. Halfway through the deck we'd built a reasonably hefty lead over the newbies, at which point Anja's tactic changed, as she decided to hurl her ships into the sun to generate points (and card flips, accelerating the game). She had no hope of catching the leaders this way, but a separate battle was developing between the Dalton-Dales for third place.

As is Sol's wont, the leisurely beginnings were beginning to hurtle towards a dramatic conclusion as the deck-depletion sped up. I maintained enough of a lead over Ian to feel reasonably safe during the final throes of the star collapsing, but Steve's time ran out: Anja hurled one last sundiver into the celestial orb and drew the final solar flare, claiming third place just before Steve could score a chunky ten points!

Sam 37
Ian 24
Anja 16
Steve 13

A solar system down, we turned our focus to the more trivial business of building site worker safety in Men at Work. New to Anja, but easy to pick up and play, this competitive stacker sees you trying to be the least litigious constructor as you balance heavy girders on shoulders and send hard-hatted employees to hard-luck deaths, as Steve found to his cost

There are two ways to win: either by being the last one standing should all the other players cause one death too many, or by having a combined total of Most safety certificates and worker-of-the-month rosettes, which you get by placing the highest thing on the frankly bizarre construction site. Steve was in the lead late game courtesy of his tie-breaker (most rosettes) as Ian and Anja lagged behind both of us. But on Steve's final turn he made a crucial error and lost a safety certificate - handing me the win. Lots of fun; a shame Adam couldn't make it but lovely to catch up with the Dalton-Dales again! Sorry again about the gates rule, Anja 😯

Memoarrr 49

The occasional Thursday Night Club was occasioning last night, but the faces were all different. With no Ian. Andrew or Adam there was no morose fatalism, pithy one-liners or emotionally hollow apologies for sneakily harpooning your best-laid plans. The gouty rules-bungler was present though (me), and so were Avuncular (not fat) Big Joe and sweary Katy, who kicked things off by yelling Shit! the first chance she got.

pic from Joe's earlier in the week

That chance was with Memoarrr! and an audience of two: Stan and Little Joe (less little by the day) and they added a tingling of performance pressure as we tried to remember where our walruses, penguins and lava were. I began as I left off on Tuesday, winning three of the first four rounds, but this was largely down to the assistance of Dirk as thrice I went random and pulled it off. However Katy's resurgence in the endgame - to a soundtrack of wails from Big Joe - proved decisive, as her three treasure cards outscored my eventual four:

Katy 8
Sam 7
Joe 0

It was bedtime for the boys, and I had to shout down Stan's protests as he was keen to play Memoarrr. I felt a bit mean but his first week in secondary has been a big one. Whilst he read upstairs, Joe introduced me to the joys of Mhing, the Mah-Jong variant in card form.

As with Mah-Jong it's a game of set-collection, with the inherent risk that whatever card you discard may help someone else make a set or even complete their collections (they get to shout Mhing if so). We agreed to play for 45 mins and I was unexpectedly the winner, having scored a measly 32 points. Officially you play to 500!

Sam 32
Joe 22
Katy 4

Next up was Men at Work, one of the hits of the summer in the Morrison household with even Little Joe admitting he liked it. It's a very simple stacker where on every turn you add either a worker or a girder to a growing construction on the table, but each one with some caveat regarding placement. Workers might carry bricks or beams, girders might transport things or have to touch certain other colours on the site. You have three safety certificates (lives) to avoid losing, and a quarter-way through the game can start earning Worker of the Month certificates by placing the highest piece on the construction.

This was the most geometrically-sound game of Men at Work I've played - lots of workers came out early (we ran out) and nobody placed a girder at a nasty slant, meaning our construction, despite being the product of a demented architect, never collapsed. Katy was a clear winner and I think Joe and I tied for second. Can't remember now.

Katy: P500
Sam and Joe: P60

After a brief debate we decided to play something we all knew, and settled on the Quest for El Dorado. I gave Katy a brief refresher whilst Joe set up a fairly tricksy route, and then we were off.

While Katy and Joe made slow progress over the first board, I lingered at the back picking up new cards. My plan was to get two Urenhwoners (probably wrong spelling; my edition is German) and reduce my deck so they came around quickly. Katy picking to up the Kartographer (add two cards to your hand) gave me the idea of combining with those two, but while I was busy admiring my plans I was falling behind, and in my rush to catch up had to somewhat reduce the idea of deck-reduction.

Katy, despite having to wait two turns to navigate the final jungle, sailed into the mythical city with Joe and I far behind: I kartographed my way into second place on the next turn but poor Joe needed two more turns to make it over the line. It was nice of Katy to wait for us though.

Katy
Sam
Joe

Joe got up from the table in going-home-haver, but I managed to reseat him with the offer of NMBR9, in a slightly abstracted return to building things upwards from the tabletop. The scores were 73-71-70 (I think) but I now don't recall who won at all. It's both reassuring and terrifying to know this is despite being almost entirely sober.

And with that, another Thursday concluded.

Too much fun

You would think that, as seasoned board gamers, we would be familiar with the concept of Fun. After years pursuing this hobby, we may even be a little jaded with it. But apparently not, as we squeezed eleven lightweight games of varying silliness into one evening.

We started as a five: Sam (the host), Ian, Martin, Katy and me. Steve was expected so we banged out a five-player game of L.A.M.A. until he arrived. Sam’s started very well, not picking up a single card until round three. He was so focused that when his phone rang, he picked it up, said “It’s only Greenpeace,” and put it back down. Saving the world can wait, Sam’s got games to play.

Sam 12
Ian 26
Katy 34
Andrew 35
Martin 44

After this, with Steve finally arrived, we played Fool! (or Fou!, since we had the French version) which is a trick taking game where whoever played the worst card in trick is the Fool (or Fou) and has to sit out the next round which is a problem since you’re trying to play all of your cards first.

I got off to a perfect start with two clear rounds giving me ten bonus points each time, while the rest of them had to each negative scores. Ha! At the start of round three, I was thirty points ahead of my nearest rival. But I needed that head start as my score began to be whittled away. Martin was looking very dangerous and in the last round, he managed to play all of his cards. Luckily, his last card was the weakest card in that trick, making him the fool and meaning he couldn’t pick up the ten point bonus. Phew!

Andrew -8
Martin -9
Sam -18
Ian -41
Steve -44
Katy -68

Around this time, Ian informed us that he’d drunk a lot of whisky over the bank holiday because it was his dad’s birthday next weekend. There was a pause afterwards while everyone tried to process that statement, before Ian explained he’d been taste-testing his dad’s birthday present.

Then Sam got out the four-player Rollet, just to show us and then, since it was out, we had a quick game. Sam & Katy beat Ian & Martin 5-4 and then Ian & Martin beat Steve & Andrew 5-4. It was silly, high tension fun, and it looked great. Martin said it looked expensive and Sam mumbled something in agreement.

Then we split into two groups of three. Normally, this indicates a change towards the more thinky, strategic game but not today. It was full steam ahead for more fun. Sam, Ian and Steve chose Men At Work, a stacking game where you have to place girders and builders on each other in order to satisfy certain orders on cards.

Ian wins
Steve 2nd
Sam 3rd

Katy, Martin and I played Maskmen, which is actually quite thinky but still fun. At least it was for Martin and Katy.

Martin 7
Katy 5
Andrew -4

The two groups were out of sync so Sam et al played a few games of Kartel which is notable for being a Reiner Knizia game that Martin hasn’t played.

Sam 11
Steve 9
Ian 7

Steve 7
Ian 7
Sam 6

Ian 15
Steve 12
Sam was upstairs sorting out some kind of dad thing.

And we played Heul Doch Mau Mau, which I thought I was doing okay at and lost only eight points in the final count, but I guess I gave away too many points to my opponents.

Martin 112
Katy 93
Andrew 91

Then Ian went home, but the fun just kept coming as we broke out QE. After all, with the two QE champions (Katy and Sam) around the same table, it would be madness not to. And talking of madness, after Katy’s initial starting price of 5,000 the bids would not go below six figures for most of the rest of the game. I finally got my first purchase for the handsome sum of 250,000 and picked up a second for 200,100 which looks insane but I was sure I wasn’t the one who’d spent most. Actually, I thought it would be Steve, and was surprised when I found out who it was. Sam, though, deliberately came in just below me having spent 249,995. However, his last-round purchase (for eight points) meant he lost the lowest spender 7 point bonus, and it went to Martin instead who finally won a game.

Martin 51
Sam 39
Andrew 26
Steve 23
Katy OUT! (but had 30 points)

It was after eleven, so obviously there was time for one more game. Flotsam Fight: the game of saving treasures by putting them in lifeboats that share the same factors as the number on your cards. While Martin explained the rules, some people had the audacity to laugh at my dealing technique, which I was not impressed with. Mocking a gamer’s dealing method is like telling a boxer he has a glass jaw. Suitably insulted, I gave as good as I got and called Katy “a fucking cunt”. Possibly overdid it, in hindsight. Martin, meanwhile, was still trying to explain the rules.

After that controversy, we played and I came out on top.

Andrew 4
Sam 3
Martin 1
Steve -1
Katy -1

After this we were done and Steve kindly offered us a lift back so that we might get to bed before midnight. Thanks all for the fun.