That's literally Numberwang

Joe's house. Five gamers. Joe, Sam, Martin, Ian and me. Five is getting a reputation for being a difficult number to please, but there were no worries on that score tonight.

The first game was The Shipwreck Arcana, a co-op deduction game. Four slightly Tarot-y cards are played, each with a rule written on them. Each player has two tiles with a number between one and seven on them. The idea is to play one tile to a card and then the other players have to work out what your other number is. For example a rule might read "If your fates (ie, tiles) are a factor of two or three of each other, then play one here." Then if someone puts a three there, then their other number is either a one or a six.

It was quick to learn but tricky enough to slow us right down at times. Also, when discussing the meaning of a particular placement, Martin sometimes drew logical conclusions that I'm not sure even the person placing the tiles had thought of. Either way, we made no mistakes and brought the game to a swiftish end after getting seven right in a row.

Next up was Mü. This card game made its last appearance six and a half years ago and at the time we found its layers of rules pretty opaque. After such a long time since the last game, we found ourselves in exactly the same situation again.

The game is a trick taking game, but with two teams, which are decided by a bidding process during which you definitely don't want to be "on the hook". Once the Captain and Vice Captain (actually on different teams) are declared, they chose two trump suits, which might be numbers not suits. Then, when a round is completed, you consult the score chart (a sort of periodic table of even more numbers) to discover who succeeded and how much they won.

The winner is first to 500. We ended after two rounds. Criminally, I didn't take a note of the scores, but Martin won.

An intriguing experience, and one we need to try again soon if we're to get a grip on this game.

Next up was The House Of Borgias. This cross between Perudo and papal legacy was well received, as I recall, last time it was played, but hasn't been seen since. After a quick rule refresher, we fell back into our old skullduggering ways, bidding on poison, bribery, rumours, accusations, etc. The game is best remembered for the "Seven bribes" bid usually being followed by "for seven brubbers." Quality comedy, right there.

Ian was the only player to be correctly identified, so he scored no points at all. Meanwhile, Sam played a cautious game and his remaining four dice got his preferred cardinal an extra eight point bonus.

Sam 15
Martin 13
Joe 12
Andrew 10
Ian 0

At this point Sam left us at a sensible hour for sensible reasons. But the rest of us felt no rain on our parade, so we ploughed on.

By this time, there was no chance of a big game, so we stuck to lighter fare. Kribbeln was up next, using Joe's split-level dice arena which allowed us to properly specify which dice were frozen and which were still in play. Essential stuff.

At the end of the second round, Joe and I were level on 17 points. As we entered round three, I failed a roll but scored 34 points. I decided to put it in my Kribbeln, thinking that a guaranteed four points followed by a practically guaranteed no points was better than trying to be clever and scoring twice at the end.

A clever plan, but not enough to beat Joe who scored enough in round four that my dash for glory was for nought.

Joe 25
Andrew 23
Martin 18
Ian 16

After this we plumped for The Mind, the game that Sam had told us, barely able to believe it himself, that his wife had started playing as he was setting out this evening.

We played twice. Our first attempt seemed charmed at the start, as we cleared round one with the cards 2, 8, 9, 50. We lasted until round five where we fell to a combination of 66, 68, 69, 70. My (really quite drunken) notes state "fractionally out... like bad sex." It probably meant something at the time.

Then we tried again. We lost lives in the first two rounds and then in round three nobody moved. Eventually, Joe put down the lowest card - a 28.

We somehow got through round four without losing a life, which ended 93 (Ian), 96 (Martin), 99 (Ian), 100 (Martin). But eventually we fell on round eight, one round before the dark mind.

What a way to end a night. Big thanks to all concerned. And hope to see more of us next week.

Bonjour Bristol

I go away for two weeks, and we have branches? At least it's not factions.
If this continues we'll be able to have a Eurovision style contest - 'Wilkommen, Bracknell - can we please have your scores for Ticket to Ride'?
But really, the more the merrier. If I'd had internet access out in France I'd have joined in. But I didn't, so I couldn't. I did manage to get some games played though.
I was only allowed a small-ish bag of games, so I took my box of card games, Stone Age, Thurn and Taxis, Pergamon, Dixit and Battle Line.

However, the Thurn and Taxis box also contained Settlers of Catan.
In the Pergamon box I'd managed to find space for Notre Dame and Aton, and secreted within the capacious Stone Age box were Alhambra and Lost Cities.
The Battle Line box also held Haggis, Row Boat and Citadels, and the Posion box is far too big for the game itself; much better with Tichu, For Sale, Mu, No Thanks and Coloretto in there for company.

And what did we play?

If it was up to Bea (9), we'd have played nothing but Dixit. It was in fact one of the game highlights of the holiday, playing Dixit in the garden with the girls and my parents-in-law.
I can't think of another game that could be played by six people aged 7 to 70, first-time and seasoned gamers alike, that would be such fun, and a proper game - it's a worthy Spiel Des Jahres winner, and a very unique game.

My father-in-law William is always up for a game, and I had high hopes for Aton, mine and Sam's current two-player favourite. We played once, but it didn't really grab him.
We played a few games of Battle Line, a great Reiner Knizia two-player card game of war in the ancient world - very thematic, even though you're basically making poker hands. But the one that William really took to was Lost Cities; RK again, and a game that really deserves its classic status - everyone I've introduced it to 'gets' it within a single round, and wants to master it. It may be less strategic than Battle Line, but easier to grasp, pick up and play.

Matilda's go-to game was Coloretto, and I played a few games with all the girls; despite the fact that their main strategy was fighting over who got to collect pink, I consistently lost . . .
In exchange for taking them swimming one gloomy afternoon, Matilda and Bea agreed to a game of Thurn and Taxis; Bea won, but they haven't asked to play again. Funny, I thought Matilda might find it an interesting step up from Trans Europa.
Again at Matilda's request, we played a game of Alhambra, and I was reminded of what a great game for three or four it is; and what a long one too, for kids.

And in the evenings, Charlotte and her mum were persuaded to join us menfolk. That's when I realised I'd brought too many games. I couldn't decide what to play; the first night we played Tichu, which didn't go down a storm. I should have learned to avoid card games after that, but the next night, despite showing them both Pergamon and Notre Dame, I ended up suggesting Mu. I found a good teaching method, but we started too late, and it was a giant flop.

Everything changed, however, after I sniffed out a games shop in La Rochelle . . .
I couldn't resist Martin Wallace's new game, A Few Acres of Snow; it's a two-player game based on the battle for control of Canada by the British and the French, which uses a Dominion-style card-drafting mechanic. No, Charlotte didn't play it; and by the time I'd got to grips with the rules, William had headed back to London.

But while I was there, I picked up Pickomino - the Reiner Knizia dice game some of us played at Stabcon with Hammy (he called it Heck Meck). It turns out that if you're allowed to play it yourself, rather than being told what you should do on each roll (Hammy's preferred method), it's really rather good fun. We played it with Charlotte's parents, and I played it with the girls. And finally, we all played it together; in fact we played it every day of the holiday after I bought it.

It's a good little push-your-luck dice game, the pieces are very tactile and lovely, and the worms give it that extra hook for the kids. There's an awful lot of luck, but that's perfect for what it is; and when the dice-gods smile on you, and hand you the single, solitary worm you so desperately need on your eighth dice, well, you smile right back at them. Would make a nice game to end a tuesday night . . .

So Dr Knizia does it again - I could have just packed Pickomino, probably.
Except the box is so small, I couldn't possibly have squeezed the other games in there. JB

Thursday Night News

The tapestry of the games calendar opened up another opportunity last night so come 8pm we found six of us sitting around Joe's kitchen table - regulars Adam, Joe, Andrew and Sam (me) along with one of the Monday Night Club, Steve. Making up the sextet was Joe's eldest daughter Matilda, making her gaming (and leaderboard) bow.

We kicked off with Trans-Europa. Everyone but Steve had played this before, and indeed Matilda had beaten her dad at it. If anyone thought this was indulgence on Joe's part they were soon relieved of that impression as Tilly won the first round, completing her routes before anyone else and leaving us - Andrew and I in particular - trailing in her dust. But come the second round Adam began to show dominance in what would be a winning campaign for him. Round three - won by me - pushed Tilly over the edge and the game finished with Adam in a comfortable first place:

1 Adam

2 Joe

3 Steve

4 Sam

5 Andrew

6 Matilda

Tilly wanted to stay and play 7 Wonders but bedtime intervened, so we were down to five as everyone set up their wonder and began the brain-drain of calculating which card to keep versus which cards to avoid passing on to one's neighbour and competitor. Joe had started collecting the green science cards early, and sitting to his right I found my hand filling up with science and I was forced to keep handing him the good stuff.

Come the end, however, Joe's focus on the sciences - despite scoring big - meant neglecting the rest of his game, and he slipped to fourth. One is tempted to mention the unwritten rule of 7 Wonders - diversification! - as his downfall, except that winning player Adam had no science cards at all. He'd pursued an aggressive route, taking army points off both Joe and Steve, and picked up points in every category BUT the sciences. Having followed a similar path I snuck into second:

Adam 57

Sam 52

Andrew 49

Joe 48

Steve 34

I'm not sure what happened to Steve, who's usually a good 7 Wonders player. He was on the other side of the table and my only interaction was heckling him for taking too long to choose his card...

As we debated our gaming options, Joe brought out a new card game called Mu and we gave it a trial run. It has a good reputation, but we found it a little unintuitive. It's a trick-taking game, and before each round there's a an auction to decide both Chief and Vice, both of whom decide a trump suit form the five available (the chief's trump trumps the vice's trump) and the Chief picks a partner and then has a predetermined target of 'pips' to win based on how many cards he or she used at the auction stage, while the vice and the other players try and stop him making that target. If the chief makes his target he gets a fabulous bonus to go with his pip score.

But wait. There isn't always a chief after the auction, trumps can be numbers not suits, and pips do not appear on every card. And if the chief doesn't make his target there is a penalty based on how many pips he failed by, according to a ranking system.

After our trial round (which Andrew, as Chief, and me as his partner, lost) the general feeling was that it was one to revisit with more time and fresher minds, so we rounded off the evening with a game of Poison.

To be honest I still don't really have a handle on the tactics of this game. The only thing I did differently last night was being more amenable to picking up one or two colour cards early in the game, thinking perhaps a few points was worth having more flexibility in how I played my hand. It might have been coincidence, but I managed to finish in second - first place was taken by Joe, who should have a hat with 'The Poison King" stitched on it. At the back end of the game Steve, who'd not played it before, manage to sneak ahead of Andrew by a solitary point on the final round.

Joe 19

Sam 21

Adam 24

Steve 36

Andrew 37

With a 1st/1st/3rd record on the night, Adam's grip on the leaderboard will give him cramp at this rate, but it was also a good night for Joe with a 1st/2nd/4th finish. The rest of us lagged behind a bit, with Andrew's 5th/3rd/5th not doing his points ratio much good at all. Still, early days. Maybe Adam will go on holiday for six months, or just get bored of winning and take up extreme sports instead...

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	5	28.5	5.7
Joe	5	20.5	4.1
Sam	5	19.5	3.9
Andrew	5	14.5	2.9
Jonny	2	10	5
Steve	3	9.5	3.16
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5