Glen More and More

Chippenham, Friday night, and Paul Jefferies had made the long trip from Croydon, eager to play games. I made the much shorter one from Bristol, and Chris had to go nowhere - except to collect me from the station - as he was hosting.

Ashton, also hosting!

After a scrumptious roast courtesy of Jacquie, and some catching up, it was time to get down to the serious business of playing Glen More, our starter for the evening. We had nearly finished playing a rule slightly wrong when Andrew arrived, and saw enough of the play and general confusion to pick up what was meant to happen.

Me (blue), jumping rather far ahead

The conceit is we are competing clans in the Highlands, building a landscape of tiles, and the turn order is - like Tokaido - determined by who is the farthest back on the path. Jump far ahead to juicy tile and you're gifting other players more turns. But on the other hand, in the end-game scoring it pays to have taken the fewest tiles. Placement is key, as well, and it has a quirky scoring system. I enjoyed it a lot, but unlike the game with the rules played wrong, I didn't win:

Chris 56
Paul 44
Sam 43
Andrew 38

The Chief Chieftain now crowned, we travelled continents to another earlier time: Ninjato. This mash-up of Stone Age and something else I can't quite think of sees you raiding houses and claiming ownership of clans by bribing envoys.

Creeping around on Ninja toes

It's a slightly chaotic looking board when in play, but the mechanics are simple enough to get your head around. I put my regular thrashings by Stan behind me with a win this time:

Sam 118
Andrew 91
Chris 75
Paul 72

By which time the ale and crisps were freely flowing, except for Paul who was trying to shake off a cold. We inducted him into Barenpark, which is a game almost made for Paul.

Bears

Whilst Chris took early digger tiles and Andrew fretted over his tessellation skills, it was looking like a fight for first between Paul and I - or so I thought. But as it turned out, I wasn't really in contention:

Paul 93
Sam 79
Chris 71
Andrew 69

There was just time to, as Andrew put it, "squeeze out a quick NMBR 9" before we retired to bed. Chris ran out a comfortable leader this time, as the rest of us cursed our lack of elevation:

Chris 83
Sam 73
Andrew 57
Paul 53

And with that, the curtain fell on Chippenham for another night. Thanks all!

Goodnight!

Matches of the Day

Saturday! Andrew rolled up to the house at 7.30 and Stan joined us for the first game of the evening, which was Ninjato. Stanley had won something like seven in a row of this game, both two-player and with his friend Peppa. It was entirely new to Andrew, and though the mechanics of it are pretty straightforward, the tactics require a little familiarity with the game. Stanley shot off into an early lead at the first scoring round as Andrew had no Envoys (good for scoring) and I only had two second-places behind the Ninja Master.

But it was early days, and we had time to recover. Ninjato requires you to go raiding in order to get treasure, in order to pay for either Envoy cards (good for scoring rounds) or Rumour cards (good for end-game scoring). But both are fraught with danger - in the raids, you may come up against an undefeatable sentry, and in the scoring, you may be out-Envoyed or simply find your Envoys aren't much use.

I managed to haul Stanley - who forewent his usual Rumour-based tactics - back to claim my first win of the night, and also Ninjato itself. Stan clung onto second as Andrew had a debut third place against two grizzled old-timers. As he noted, it's quite a combative game: opponents can see what clans you want to score and simply oust them from the board, making your Envoys almost worthless.

Sam 95
Stan 69
Andrew 66

The dethroned Ninja King now had to retire to bed, so Andrew and I went for another new game to him - Roll Player. This slightly oddball affair takes the best part of role-playing games - the creating of your character - and makes it the entirety of the game, as you roll dice and try to match colours and numbers to your backstory, character and alignment. Interaction isn't high but brain-burning is certainly present, as you try to give your character high enough scores to nab points, whilst also getting the colours of the dice in the right place too.

It was an exceedingly close-run thing too:

Sam 27
Andrew 26

Next up was NMBR9. I utterly love this game - I didn't think you could improve on Take It Easy but I think NMBR9 has pulled it off. We played a 2-plauer variant of going through the deck twice to use all the pieces, and I managed a substantial win:

Sam 256
Andrew 128

Before we played again, with the standard rules, and managed a draw!

Andrew/Sam 71

Next up was Biblios, and what a corker it was. Andrew made it clear he wasn't going for browns as he kept putting the value down. I didn't have any browns when he first did this, but then I kept picking them up! He also managed to feed me 2 gold on a regular basis...

I knew he was after blue dice so tried to stay quietly competitive, but it was in vain: despite picking up three of the five dice, Andrew ended the evening as Mr Biblios:

Andrew 8
Sam 7

He also ended the evening as Mr Push It, as I somehow threw away a 10-7 lead to see Andrew finish the night with two straight victories!

Andrew 11
Sam 10

Played in Wales

A week in Wales with Mark, Katie, and the four sprogs meant that as well as the beach, chips and ice cream, we got plenty of gaming time as well. I took a couple of bags worth and all but three got played at some stage. Daytimes were often taken up with surfing...

Joe gets a push from Mark

...whereas the night - or the odd patch of rain - was about gaming. The hit of the week with Stanley and Peppa was Ninjato. I touched on this previously, but have since delved further into its depths with another four plays this week. I remain utterly terrible at it, whilst Stan won every time, to mine and Peppa's growing despair. It's fun calling Banzai, though the more I play the less 'lucky' the game feels - it's a tactical battle to keep control of Envoys and start rumours, which are as pertinent here as the cards in Stone Age.

Four skills, but I got nowhere

The early evenings were dominated by Insider, which everyone could and did get involved with. We played too many of these to count, but I was the Insider only once and every other player accused me! The successful Insiders, I noticed, didn't get too vociferous about accusing anyone. Sally was a terrible Insider too, but that was only because as soon as anyone accused her she hid her face in her hands. Mark, Katie and Peppa had the most success, whilst I offset my serial defeats with the joy to be found in the natural world outside:

that black thing is a bottle-nosed dolphin!

The other game that all the kids played was In a Bind - this was the Junior version, where there is marginally less physical challenge but the addition of making animal noises/waving/talking in a deep voice etc when you pick up a card. This is more fun than it might sound after a couple of glasses of the good stuff, but obviously the kids played it sober and seemed to like it too.

Peppa and Joe drew

Peppa, Stan and I also had a few goes at Cobras, which is another one I enjoy without ever getting close to winning. The closest I got was second place with game abandoned due to the late hour and surfing fatigue. I have never been so reluctant to bail on a game!

We managed one game of Near and Far, which my win at made some amends for continual thrashings on the Ninjato board. Mine and Stan's campaign game continues with me holding a slender lead overall...

Peppa and Stanley, both Near

...often the evenings had some kind of dance focus though, with Just Dance 2017 on the Nintendo galvanising all ages - with the exception of Joe - onto the floor. I have promised not to add any photos or videos of this, though, and considering some of them involve a balding tubster with no sense of rhythm, I'm happy to stick to that.

After kids had been scrambled to bed, we struck upon a pattern of Barenpark and Bandu. I had far more success in these arenas than I did Ninja-ing, Cobra-ing or Dancing, although Mark picked up a couple of wins in Barenpark. Tessellating bear houses was Katie's game of the week; in fact, although we also bashed out Wibbell and Honshu as well, Barenpark and Bandu were the nightly staples. Bandu got typically tense, and everyone had to perfect their 'Bandu Breath' - breathing off to one side so as not to disturb the fragile structures on the table...

Katie, breathing east

Late in the week though I thought it was worth introducing Mark to Flamme Rouge, which he fell in love with. It was a drunken Thursday night with everyone else in bed when we played three games in a row, Mark winning 2-1 with a deathly finish on the final race to clinch it!

This tablecloth did my nut in all week

We tried to introduce Katie to this cycling classic on our last night, but she felt she had done enough rule-learning for one week. So we stuck with Barenpark and Bandu, and when the ladies retired to bed Mark and I set up Flamme Rouge for one last race/game of the week; which Mark won, again on the final stretch!

We returned - heavy legged from the beach and heavy headed from margaritas, but sated. A lot of fun - Can't wait for Novocon now!

Tiny Epic Ninjas

Stan and I tried out Ninjato the other day and liked it enough to bring it on holiday. This morning everyone (everyone: all the kids, plus me) was up at 5.30am, so by the time 6.30 rolled around Peppa, Stanley and I had set the game up and were ready to start chucking our shurikens.

The game has a shade of Stone Age - the push-your-luck element - with a layer of strategy on top, as you try to establish most influence with the three clans of the Ninjato world.

raiding by night/morning

The idea is that we are raiding clan houses in the night-time, playing Dojo cards against the sentry guarding it. The Dojo cards number 1 to 5, but the neat twist here is you can attack by strength - play a higher card than the sentry strength - or stealth - play a lower card. Having ousted the sentry, you can grab some treasure, and then choose whether or not to get more - which (if you call Banzai) means facing another sentry. The luck-pushing is evident here because you don't know what kind of strength the sentry will have until you've chosen to face it.

Ninja skills

Each house belongs to a clan, and if you grab the last treasure you can (in fact you have to) change the clan ownership. Ownership of the houses becomes extremely relevant in the three scoring rounds, when the players with the most influence in the respective clans scores points  - meaning that it's not just as straightforward as ploughing into any house you like the look of - you need to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Assuming first place took the available points, second place gets to take a Rumour card (like the multiplier cards in Stone Age).

Envoys

Having influence in clans is gained by cashing in your ill-gotten gains to bribe Envoys: the player with the most has the most influence, with the age of the envoys breaking ties. There's a couple of other things going on as well - you can gain helpful skills from the Sensei, and raids can occasionally get harder to pull off when an alarm sounds and elite sentries pop up - but the meat of it is the twin battles of raiding and the political machinations of the clan tokens.

In our game Peppa and I got into a back-and-to battle over the envoys, whilst Stanley seemed to be content to stay out of it, ending the game with only two. He was last to score, as I saw off Peppa 97-90 in the count-up I thought I'd managed a first win of the day. But Stan had gathered so many Rumour cards on the quiet he totally obliterated us, sailing past to a complete 147 point trouncing!

I blame the fact that wasn't even eight o'clock in the morning.