Some kind of Bala

A summer games weekend. On Friday night Ian and Katy were first to arrive, and after some uncertain naming hesitation on my part - Gambala? Gambola? - loosely inspired by Shambala, which was the reason my house was empty in the first place, Katy insisted it would be Sambala, in honour of me - or at least my email pushiness. I overcame my initial reluctance to use it as excuse for my excesses as the evening progressed - an evening that began with 5 Towers. 

This was new to both Katy and Ian but it's a simple game: we're all building the titular towers and each round we bid on how many cards we'll take to do so, adding them in descending numerical order. You can 'tear down' a previous card, but doing so costs points. Katy kept her powder dry here as Ian and I built, and cleaned up thanks to Ian's shortage of tower tops that increase your score. 

Katy 31
Sam 23
Ian 21

Adam arrived in time to watch the count-up and was intrigued to try it, but we realised with an hour until Anja got here we could do something chunkier, and settled on The Quest for El Dorado, mixing in some of the expansion options I picked up on a recent jaunt to Norway. We added Dangers (though this morning I realise I forgot one of the boards for it) - which are the same as normal spots except you can't end your turn on them - and some crocodiles, which can only be navigated with an exact-number card (the suit doesn't matter) and the Muisca, a local tribe who'll help you, but potentially opponents as well, for reasons I won't explain here as it never happened in the game. 

Adam warned everyone that in the last game I blocked him from card-shedding spots and I began with a similar strategy, trapping Katy behind a mountain as everyone was slightly appalled at me. "It's Sambala" I said. She and I lagged behind and constructed decks as Ian and Adam journeyed forward and Adam went back and forth between a dangerous valley so much that he got his deck down to just four cards. "But three of them are shit" he said. We didn't believe him but it turned out to be true: he was caught and overhauled. I sailed off into a healthy lead with a streamlined seven cards, and felt optimistic that El Dorado was calling my name. But then I stalled at a watery barrier and was caught by everyone. 

It was suddenly tense. Adam removed the barrier but blocked one way. I went the other but for two turns running didn't draw the cards I needed. Katy and Ian were blocked by the pair of us - but not for long, because suddenly Adam - now with some powerful cards - sped off to the end and won. Katy wanted to play for second place until she realised she couldn't get to El Dorado, but I could.

Adam wins
Sam sort of second

Anja still hadn't arrived so we set about playing Poison, still with its Joe-infused Dwarves of the Twilight Galaxy box cover. Katy didn't remember (or know?) the rules, but insisted on not learning them and that she'd get it as we went. This made for a slightly staccato game as apparently brewing poison is not as simple as it sounds. 

Unless you're Adam. We only played one round but he squeaked a narrow win over Quiet Ian, who had gone about his business attracting less opprobrium. 

Adam 2

Ian 3

Katy 8

Sam 17

We stopped after the single round because Anja was now here! After a brief catch-up we returned to business with co-operative Wavelength, with my first spectrum being good superpower/bad superpower. I felt my clue of being able to nap at a moment's notice was not a bad guide, but Katy had to be talked down by the others from seeing it on a par with flying, invisibility and time-travel. We hauled in a three points, but then went off the rails somewhat with our next few clues - we undervalued Ian's A4 writing pad and Anja's perception of country music - only to stage a late-game recovery and come oh-so-close with 13 points - two shy of the official victory condition. 

Not that it matters, as Katy rightly pointed out. Next up was Fun Facts, new to Anja but an easy teach and not a million miles from Wavelength. It transpired that desires to go to space was split along gender lines, with Anja and Katy willing to spend zero pounds on getting there and the boys more sympathetic, although Ian thought he'd get bored and Adam thought he'd get sick. I was more keen: I liked the idea of zero gravity and peeing in my pants.

We didn't do too badly, although the rulebook was hardly effusive about our score of 26. Next up was the little-recently-seen Perudo! What a cracker this game is. 

Adam and Anja took the early hits as Anja kept calling dudo, with mixed results. She was first out, followed by her neighbourly nemesis, as Katy insisted everyone target me as I still had my full complement of dice. It sort of worked: Ian fell next leaving Katy and I on a single die each. Despite her insistence that I had a huge advantage, I've been here before: like poker, my game is only solid until a showdown and then it disintegrates. 

1 Katy wins

2 Sam

3 Ian

4 Adam 

5 Anja

There are no pictures of So Clover, because Katy was so appalled at the outcome of her clover that she flipped it face down. We hadn't figured out what she'd meant with the clue shit, and it's now lost to memory. Mine anyway. Comments are available. 

So Clover: 22/30

There were some good clues, but I've forgotten them too. I was slightly drunk and reading Adam's clue of enrobed as enro-bed for some reason set me off, so while everyone else solved his clover - 6 points! - I had my head on the table. Possibly informed by this, but hopefully the late hour, Ian and Adam took their leave and the remaining trio played Misfits. 

Several collapses later, I took the win and Friday was done. 

On Saturday the games began a little before midday, as Katy and I had a Clans of Caledonia rematch. She had extra order-fulfilment options, I knew how to sail. The last time we played this Katy obliterated me, but on this occasion she struggled to get going and told me that she hated the game in rounds 2 through 5. It was closer than we thought though, and whilst I won my score did not eclipse Katy's in the last game.  

We moved on to another medium-euro: Rajas of the Ganges. 

Here there were very divergent tactics: I built markets and Katy buildings. Buildings race you around the track faster than markets - but they're a score-once-and-done option. Without any trade in her province Katy had no incentive to score markets, and so I took another win here - again, a close one though. 

Katy's province: lacks cornershops

By this time we'd eaten lunch and other gamers were looming. We bashed out a year of Cozy Stickerville as we waited: a game you famously cannot lose, as it mostly consists of putting stickers on the board and regretting your decisions. 

As we ended a mostly-fallow year of having not enough wood to do anything, Anja, Steve, Lennon and Louie all arrived, and hot on their heels Pete, Laura and Ryker. 

We split into two groups. I joined the Dalton-Dales for Forbidden Desert and the remaining quartet began playing The Mind, with hilarious results. I think in the time we set up and reminded me of the rules they'd failed on level 1 three times, then triumphed and called it a win.

Meanwhile in the desert I was being reminded of how much sand there was. 

So much in fact that I took it upon myself to spend most of my turns removing it, as it bothered me. Lennon did lots of excavating to find things, Steve employed his magical powers of movement and Anja had a knack of finding tonnes of equipment. Louie generously sacrificed a lot of actions to stop Storm cards being drawn and basically save our asses. Despite this, it didn't help: we ran out of sand and lost. 

Meantime the others had played Magical Athlete, which was won by Ryker on his GNN debut...

And they'd also played Misfits, the winner of which I totally missed as I was buried in a dune at the time. I heard a big crash at one stage though, and there were the usual alarms about elbows on the table.

We now lost Katy to Weekend Plans and shuffled ourselves into a big group for a revisit to Louie's Game Off, last seen when Martin harrowingly sang Happy Birthday to Steve on a games weekend. 

In this game you go around the table and roll dice to see who you challenge on your turn, then choose what sort of challenge it'll be. Louie and I had to moonwalk, and Lennon saw me off easily in the slowest-press-up face-off. Anja and Lennon both had to sing their highest pitch, and she lost to Louie in the rhyme-off of words that sound like 'right'. The kids dominated here: Louie won with the 5 cards needed to end the game, Lennon runner-up with 4. Whilst Pete and Steve also scored, Anja and I were left with nothing but a vestige of our Game Off worthlessness. SAD. 

Lennon and Louie had a game of Crokinole but decided one round was enough. I'm not sure who won.

Then Lennon, Pete and I began a game of Ticket to Ride: Berlin but there was now an interval for fish and chips, of which there are no pictures. Thanks to Steve for making the run to the chippy (and let me know what I owe!). After the meal Anja thrashed Steve at Trickarious whilst Pete took a narrow win in Berlin. 

There was time for one last family game before the curtain fell, so we played In Vino Morte. Twice actually. Anja ousted Steve in the final round in game one, but in game two Lennon poisoned everyone but himself! I've never seen that before. Extra points for the face of an arch poisoner too. 

Steve now ran the family back to the house whilst Pete and I fretted about what he might like to play, going around the houses circa games night 2012 until we realised we all liked Root. So we set it up and happily his eyes lit up on seeing it. 

He was the industrious Marquis, Pete the expansionist Eyrie and I the sneaky Woodland Alliance. We all forgot some minor elements: Steve the hand limit and I a faction specific thing. Pete managed to forget he was charismatic, which Steve pointed out takes some special kind of charisma. But Steve's eyes, so bright before, were increasingly dark as I dicked everyone over with my sneaky ways. 

As is the way with Root, knowing someone is an asshole and stopping them are two different things. Probably my more recent experiences told - Steve hadn't played in years. 

Sam 30

Pete 16

Steve 12

Steve took revenge in The Quest for El Dorado, which we were surprised to learn he had never played before. No expansions then, just a lot of card shedding: early for me, later for the others. I felt I'd put myself into a good position and reached El Dorado first - but Steve's collection of cave tokens saw him sashay in behind me, and his collection of barriers trounced my one.

1 Steve - Indiana Jones

2 Sam - Small Round

3 Pete - Rene Belloq

After all the excitement of the day I was fading a bit but we squeezed in one last dice-chucker in Pickomino. 

I had just finished telling them about my brother-in-law taking a worm and then rolling seven ones when Steve did something remarkably similar. There's more to it than that but I'm not sure the anecdote will survive the transition to print. He won this too: my huge early lead collapsed into nothing and Pete couldn't get what he needed to deprive Steve of another victory. 

Steve 6

Pete 3

Sam 0

Sunday arrived, bright but not particularly early. Pete was still asleep in the front room when I went out for food supplies, but joined me shortly after my return. We had coffee and a chat and then thought what the hell, we'd play a game. This was Babylonia. 

It's not a game that tells much of a story but my two-player training versus Martin possibly helped here as I took a decent victory. 

Sam 125

Pete 85

We pottered a bit and ate lunch before gamers arrived: Jo was first, and we swiftly set up a trick-taking game called Power Vacuum, where we are trying to be top appliance. 

It was bananas: each trick the winner can take a point or reserve a card for the next round. More alluring is playing the lowest value card, where you can manipulate the energy supply to the appliance of your choice, or away from an appliance of your choice, or maybe both: each player has an area they score because it's themselves, but also bids you can make about which appliances will be most/least energetic. Despite the appliance theme, you also build statues of yourselves. I'm never going to look at the Nutribullet the same way again. 

We didn't manage a whole game but Pete was leading Jo 28-20 and I was back on 17 when Katy arrived, and we switched to another tricktaker Jo had brought with them: Daytime Minutes. 

Back in the world of sentient beings, we're now avid phone users in the early 2000s struggling to manage our minutes. I found this easier to parse than Power Vacuum but I'm not sure I can explain it coherently: each card has a time value and the winner takes all the cards of the led suit. Each round has a maximum time anyone can have and you want to not go bust, and also have not spent the least time: in either case, you lose one of your precious SIM cards. 

Also, there's potentially (in fact, always in our game) two suits in each trick, so with it two winners. Although you don't always want to win, obviously, because Minutes.

Adam H arrived in time for the finale, as Jo and Pete both went bust and Katy, who still had two SIMs, took a win. It's a great game, allowing room for lots of jokes about phone calls to your mum. Katy did one of these and then realised she had to call her mum later. 

Now a five, we introduced Jo to dnup, the spiritual sister of Scout. 

It was a funny game, with a lot of enforced busts and the odd reluctant rotation. I'd like to say my convincing win was because I know what I'm doing, but I think we all know better.

Sam 4

Adam 1

Everyone else 0

Katy demanded Misfits next. We mentioned to Jo that we didn't play the official rule of 'if half the pieces fall, you must take the entire tower' and inevitably bumped into two situations where it suddenly made sense.

By Misfits standards it was a bit of an epic: probably well over half an hour, and Katy ran out of time and had to leave, graciously taking the shitty base for herself before she did so. She wanted to claim a win - she had fewest blocks - but we wanted to keep playing.

As I write now I can't actually remember who won though, although my sources tell me it was definitely Pete (sorry Katy). Mel was now imminent and Adam suggested she would love Steam Power, so we set up and talked both she and Jo - and me, to some extent - through Wallace's Light Railways. (at this point Blogger's labelling runs out of space)

My recollection of the game is one of mild bamboozlement: I do find it - as I repeatedly told everyone (sorry) a very hard game to read, and forgetting a key connections rule meant I inadvertently cheated as well. Thankfully I wasn't in contention though. It looked very much like it might be Pete, who seemed to be scoring contracts almost every turn from about 20 minutes into the game. 

But one should never write off Adam in these scenarios, and when Pete triggered the end game the one turn the Creeping Custard still had in him was enough to hoist him to victory! At least that's what I thought. As it turned out I was simply innumerate (and used to Adam winning). 

Pete 39

Adam and Jo 33 each

Mel 26

Sam 22

Pete had one more game in him and after a surprisingly short debate we settled on The Shipwreck Arcana, something I last played probably nine years ago and had mixed up with Bemused I think. Fortunately it's Jo's favourite game and they knew it inside out, nursing us through the baffling confection of possibilities, often as much about choices you don't make as ones you do. 

We are collectively trying to get seven right answers, the question being a slightly Bilbosque what have I got in my pockets. Although we work together, the active player must keep schtum as everyone tries to figure out as much as they can about a numbered tile in their hand, by examining what tile they aren't hiding - and where it is. The discarded tile goes next to a clue, which hopefully leads everyone to identify what you're hiding.

That's a very loose description anyway. Guessing wrong - or having the card 'fade away' by having too many tiles beside it - causes Despair: reach seven despair and you instantly lose. 

This was fun: we won but not without help: we did a relatively easy setting and had some considerable luck when my first hand was the same as Adam's, so I just copied what he did. It's very clever. 

We now lost Pete and Mel and were down to the last game of the night - and the weekend. I mentioned Hanami and Adam and Jo were both amenable, so we started out on the game that should surely be called Picnics for Dicks, as we serially shenaniganed and caused even the usually-zen Jo to cry out in despair several times.

I thought if Adam had only won lamps, I might have an outside shout of beating him on the tie-breaker. But he didn't and I wouldn't have. A convincing victory for Mr H, vanquishing the ghost of Steam Power. 

Adam 2

Jo 1

Sam 0

And finally, after around twenty-three weekend hours of gaming, your insert-festival-name-of-choice-bala was over. What a lovely weekend, thank you everyone!

It ain't over til it's over. Oh it's over.

Partly due to World Cup fever - other fevers are available - this week's GNN hit a very quiet patch, with only host Joe and myself (Sam) sat across the table from each other when the allotted hour came. Katy was going to join us but she was running a little late, so we kicked things off with a couple of head to heads, starting with Faraway. 

I have never won this game before, but Joe put all his eggs in one huge point-scoring basket, and though he pulled it off my many-cards approach was enough for a narrow victory.

Sam 78
Joe 73

We followed that with Pickonimo/Heck Meck, where Joe got off to a terrible start, getting nothing at all on his first three turns. I hoovered up a whole bunch of tiles, but was concerned that as the game closed out I'd start busting. Joe didn't think I had anything to worry about - but he was wrong. Revenge of the Berge!

Joe 10
Sam 8

Katy now arrived - complete with a new bike - and we debated what to play before settling on Eldritch Horror. We'd flirted with this at the weekend and failed at the hands of the Ancient Ones - could we do any better this time? 

Inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft, this undertaking sees us trying to solve clues, defeat monsters and close gates to horrible netherworlds. It's very Pandemic-like in some ways - a combination of hitting objectives whilst firefighting hordes of diseases (or in this case, ghosts, shoggoths, and the perpetual threat of insanity). Joe played Charlie Kane, a politician with powerful influence. Katy was Jacqueline Fine, who had a strong command of Lore. And I was Lily Chen, who mostly likes kicking the shit out of things. 

We began strongly. Joe used his influence to good effect, and his special power to share the love - or more specifically, some asset cards - with Katy and I, We begin navigating the board in search of clues and gates to close, but round two is our first hairy moment as a Reckoning is triggered and Joe narrowly escapes death. 

Katy is doing some terrible dice-rolling and only her powers and cards are rescuing her. But our biggest problem is the current Mystery: four must be solved to win the game, but we are making absolutely no progress on the first one at all, thanks to the circumstances of the nasty Mythos cards and our poor gate-shutting efforts: we sashay around the planet only to faceplant whenever something important is needed to be done.

Katy twice sacrifices her own health to save Joe and I losing (more of) ours, and although I finally close a gate at the fourth time of asking we still fail on the mystery front, and as time is getting on, elect to pack the game in because after nearly two hours we're no closer to the end than when we started, and completing four mysteries before midnight looks unlikely. We're disappointed. I have loads of lovely kit now thanks to Joe, but am feeling a bit like the all the gear, no idea version of Lily.

Lovecraft was a horrible racist anyway. With all the terrors back in the box there was plenty of time for So Clover. I was quite pleased with my clue of bile for ambulance/mustard, but I hadn't spotted the word body on another card, dammit. We flailed about slightly on our first attempt with Katy and I not in tune with Joe's clever clueing. Our second looked more promising with two sixes but Joe had had a bunch of tricky combos and we fell short again!

Despite us trying to save the world and deciding it was all too much effort, it was still pretty early. But hot and tired from our endeavours we decided to call it a night. Hope to see you all next week. 

Storm Warning

Friday

Only two weeks after Novocon, the weekend that I have hilariously termed Chippencon arrived - Chris and Chippenham pals Paul H and Stuart were joined by me (Bristol) and Paul J (Isle of Wight) for two days and three nights of coastal gaming at the quiet (except for the wind) village of West Bexington.

Before that happened though, Stuart kicked things off at Chris' house by beating him being beaten by him at Kingdomino (no pics) before Paul H joined them and won Incan Gold by virtue of serially 'chickening out' (still no pics) before they began HeckMeck - and I arrived in time to join them a couple of rounds in, which was also just enough to win. Still no pics, meaning the visually arresting image below is from the next game we played: Nidavellir. I don't remember Paul looking (or being) this furious though. It was still early.

I picked up another victory here, although in fairness I was in some way nursed toward it with lots of in-game recaps on how things worked. Basically though I got a lot of green dwarves. Here's Chris pretending he's totally fine with Paul H getting in the way of his oranges. 

We still had a bit of time so blasted through three games of Strike. I think Chris won two and I one. But I'm not sure because we realised it was time to hit the road, and after snaffling a sandwich jumped into our cars and headed south in convoy. Chris and I had a good old chinwag about times past and present before we rode into Dorchester South to pick up Paul from the station. Then we spent the next 2 hours in Dorchester experiencing all the traffic it had to offer, which was seemingly endless. Somewhere in the midst of it we also got some shopping done and, with mine and Chris' various maladies in mind, managed to keep the crisps to reasonably minimal. "But I've got nuts" Chris said, "And biscuits". The food groups were looking slightly monocultured so I balanced it out with some bananas. 

Then there was more traffic - initially - before Google took us along some snowy lanes across hill and dale before we finally trundled into West Bexington. Levering ourselves out of the car, we could hear the sea from south of us, hidden in the considerable dark. We ambled around the house for a bit...

Then as Paul H started making his chilli, the other four of us played three games of Strike which Paul J won. So we played another which Chris won, before eating the chilli (delicious!), discovering every single chair in the room made farting noises, and opening up the evenings' ludological main course, which was Lords of Waterdeep. 

Stuart completed a mission on his very first turn and did spend much of the game in the lead. Despite this Paul H's reputation preceded him as he was repeatedly targeted, and as a result struggled to stay in contention. I was poised to haul in 12 points from my last turn, but then Paul J destroyed the building I needed and all I could do was hire a couple of rogues instead. Chris had just minutes before said he was competing for 4th, but this turned out to be not true at all...

Chris 113
Start 109
Sam 105
Paul H 99
Paul J 98

Then Chris introduced us to Fishing, the new Friedmann Friese trick-taker with interesting gimmick. This was really an interesting must-follow affair where winning tricks gives you a point per-won-card, but the won-cards also form your draw deck for the subsequent round. If you don't have enough cards for your hand, you take cards from the shared deck instead, and these have escalating power - a trump suit is introduced, the standard suits get higher numbers, and there's a few special buoy cards as well. So winning no tricks early gets you a powerful hand for the subsequent round, but winning shedloads of tricks means you have shedloads of low-value cards in your deck, and won't be drawing from the shared deck for a while. 

As a result the game ebbs and flows in terms of who is in the box seat. Both Paul H and I tried to build a super-powerful hand for the final round, but that just meant we scored bugger all in the penultimate round, and shared the last few tricks - which wasn't enough for either of us. Stuart had had three productive fishing trips in a row, and that was enough.

Stuart 87
Paul H 74
Sam 66
Chris 65
Paul J 59

An intriguing game. I can already foresee multiple BGG comments about chaos, but I enjoyed it. With Paul J proposing Waterdeep and Chris Fishing, winner Stuart chose the next game and wanted to try MLEM, which needs no introduction here! Chris was always looking solid here, getting a cat into space on every single mission whilst others exploded. We never got to Deep Space, just close enough to chicken out at the last planet!

Chris 33
Sam 26
Pauls 22 each
Stuart 17

Paul H then instigated a hilarious game of Las Vegas where Paul J couldn't stop winning at Casinos and Chris couldn't start - he picked up two cards over the entire three rounds, whilst Paul was doing things like rolling 5 sixes to steal $90k from me, the bastard, 

Paul J $450k
Stuart $260k
Sam $230k
Paul H $190k
Chris $80k

"Fucking hell!" he shrieked, several times. 

It was closing on midnight now and I pondered going to bed. But everyone else was staying up and it was officially my turn to choose, so I plumped for So Clover (sadly, no pics) which was possibly not the optimal choice for our fatigue levels - maybe something sillier would have been better. Everyone got one or two tricky combos and there were a couple of dangerous red herrings as well - overall an okay 20/30 to finish the evening. 

Saturday

Everyone heard the wind in the night as it bombarded the house with air and spray from the sea. It was a fitful one for us as a result, but a little after nine we were all up and Chris - who'd already reconned the trip - led us down to the seafront. The pictures don't do the wildness of this occasion justice - the waves were well over six feet and the wind was pummelling us so much if you stood on the little sea wall you needed to grip the railing or lean well forward into the gale. 

Back at the house the guys started playing Wingspan. I sat in the corner like an old man and grumbled about my cough, whilst I listened to things like Paul J saying "I'll have fish for starters" and Paul H revealed his mockingbird could repeat the brown power. We also had a big talk about what we do and don't like in games, finding there was a lot of common ground about wanting interaction, avoiding cognitive overload, and games where early mistakes put you out of the running. Not covered in glory here: Battlestar Galactica, Grand Austria Hotel and Photosynthesis.

Chris picked up the win in Wingspan, apparently his first since his debut game:

Chris 90
Paul J 81
Stuart 79
Paul H 78

Then I talked the five of us through Around the World in 80 Days, and off we went! Chris was first to reach Paris, as Paul J did some purposeful dawdling. The game was mostly notable for the amount of times the events threw up a Storm or a Delay, usually drawn by Chris. Paul J seemed most affected by them, though I think we all cursed our/his luck. 

Chris won, not only by circumnavigating the globe the fastest, but even getting back first as well (a small logical loophole in the game means you can be fastest even when you arrive last). Stuart and he both did the entire trip in 78 days, and Chris took the win on the tie-breaker.

Chris - Phineas!
Stuart - Passepartout
Paul J - 82 days
Paul H 88 days
Sam 91 days

I think that keeps my record intact of coming last in this game every time I've played it, but I was very pleased to make it home to London instead of kicking my Victorian heels in New York, fucking ages before Studio 54 opened. 

We then ate a table meats, cheeses, bread and even a bit of colour in the form of salad, courtesy of Paul J's trolley dash in the madcap traffic medley of Dorchester. I forgot to take any pictures as I was eating a lot of gouda, sustenance for the afternoon ahead, which was largely comprised of the 4 hours it took us to punch our way through Champions of Midgard. 

This is worker-placement game where the gist is gather dice and use them to fight beasties for points. The most rewarding beasties are further afield though, meaning you need boats to reach them, and wood to build the boats, and food to feed the warriors onboard. On the big journeys Certain Things may occur, like being attacked by a Kraken (me, twice) or falling into a whirlpool (Paul J) but you can usually make it through and, what's more, usually defeat the beast. The catch is in the small print, which is about how many of your precious dice they take off you in the process. 

There's also a bit of mild asymmetry and a canny system of sympathy from the game's AI: when you lose dice, you remember them viking-style by gaining a matching chit, which can in turn be cashed in for a memorial catch-up mechanisming. I found the game rather long, with a lot of rules-referencing, but the battle system was engaging. Chris and Paul H showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of us, and it looked like a two-horse battle until Stuart did a late-game surge up the track. But then Paul H did a late-game surge as well, and wrapped himself up the champion's banner.

Paul H 138
Stuart 115
Chris 111
Paul J 110
Sam 100

Stuart went to make dinner. Paul J strolled down to the beach and I fell into an armchair. Paul H and Chris had no hesitation though, in going straight to the next game! This was Biblios, still a cracker.

Chris took the win, 8 to 5, and barely had time to celebrate before Stuart's chicken curry manifested before our eyes. I finally remembered to take a picture of a mealtime too.

Delicious again, Peter, to quote the Beastie Boys (quoting Peter Sichel). 

Then we played Seas of Strife - better known to me as Texas Showdown - and I got absolutely pasted:

Stuart 6

Paul H 8

Chris 9

Paul J 11

Sam 14

No pictures here but next up was the camera-friendly Sagrada:

Not a tale of derring-dos but a satisfying puzzle. I won this one, narrowly ahead of Paul H if I recall correctly. The scores are missing. Then we reeled from cognitive to constructive, with three games of Misfits!

This actually plays well with 5 despite the official player-count being 2-4: we take 8 pieces instead of ten and the last two players in turn order get the extra cubes. I won two and Paul J took the other. There was plenty of sabotage and laughter, before we moved on to Incan Gold, notable mostly for serial deaths and Paul H not leaving early, which was apparently most unlike him. Chris picked up a win with Stuart close behind. Paul J ended with nothing, as the only time he left it was to grab an artifact he didn't get!

Then we ended the evening with a slightly feeble 7/13 in Just One, where I snapped a picture of Stuart and Paul J impersonating the Kray twins. In fairness to our score, we had a number of duplicates and poor Paul H had to try and guess his word from the clues 'foot' and 'hateful'.

Or at least I ended the evening there - the others stayed up to play Fantasy Realms! 

Chris 169

Paul J 161

Stuart 155

Paul H 149

Sunday

I woke up feeling pretty crappy and unfortunately stayed that way for a couple of hours. After coffee and croissants and some mid-weekend reflections, we broke in the table with the simple dice-chucking fare that is King of Tokyo, in which Chris coronated himself in short, violent order.

Chris 20

Sam 13

Stuart 6

Pauls - both dead

Paul J went out for a walk to get some post-death energy back, whereas I felt slightly perkier now. We played Foundations of Rome, which I hope went down slightly better than the only photo I have suggests.

Both Chris and I got a juicy civic building out early, and this reaped us dividends. Having played before probably gave me an unfair advantage too, but <I like to think> this was maybe balanced out by my bug. Or maybe it was that I stupidly didn't realise the cards were stacked mostly for three players, meaning all the edge-of-town deeds came out very late. I snuck a narrow, heavily-asterisked win ahead of Chris, then with Paul J back in the room we broke out one of the old classics - El Grande.

Chris. Paul J and I used to play this with Andrew a lot about 20 years ago, and I nostalgically recalled being quite bad at it. Little did I know I was reverse-Jefferies-ing myself to a happy (-for me) victory, as I took off down the score track early and there was enough competitive shenanigans between the others to prevent me being caught. Paul J came in second, then Chris, Paul H and Stuart. But Stuart was to turn the tables on us all in the post-lunch epic that was Res Arcana. 

New to Paul, this engine-building odyssey is allegedly 30-60 minutes but we sailed past that despite the game's relatively breezy pace. I guess the first few rounds are a bit mysterious to a newbie (and I was very rusty myself) with Paul regularly asking what he could do, swimming in a sea of icons. Despite this though he was poised to haul in a huge amount of potentially game-winning gold when Stuart hit his tenth -winning - point. Chris was also poised - on nine points. I was considerably unpoised. 

Stuart 10

Chris 9

Paul H 7

Sam 3

Paul J 0

After that epic we needed something seriously silly, and Camel Up stepped manfully - or ungulately - into the breach, giving us a solid half-hour of racing stupidity. Camel Up not being a game to reward wise planning or tactical shrewdness, I won it. 

Then it was Skull King. 

I like to delude myself I'm decent at trick-takers, but I played this terribly. It was the best fun you can have shooting yourself in the foot though. My perception was that Chris seemed to be running away with it, but the scoring is incredibly swingy and Stuart's late game showing, aligned with Chris' late-game collapse, led to an extremely broad palette of numbers!

Stuart 340

Paul J 140

Paul H 120

Sam 60

Chris 40

I shuffled off to make dinner whilst Paul H claimed victory in 7 Wonders, followed by Chris, Stuart then Paul J.

They squeezed in a couple of plays of Strike (wins for Stuart and Chris) before we ate the chorizo stew, which didn't seem that hot until I realised I was coated in sweat. But I recovered in time for another oldie, in the form of Robo-Rally. I took another picture and realised that on a weekend of a lot of chuckling I had numerous images of everyone looking studious. So I asked them to laugh and I think they did quite a decent job of it...

As Chris said, Robo-Rally did show its age a little. Maybe the newer editions have done a little streamlining but it felt a bit phase-heavy and the chaos was ordered by little rules. However, that's not to say we didn't enjoy it. My decent start was harpooned by Chris pushing me off the board, as everyone else came a cropper of their programming skills and/or unfamiliarity with the whole shebang. The Pauls and I spent a lot of time being pushed, crunched, or falling over, whilst Stuart pursued Chris, eventually in vain as the only shove he managed to get in on him actually gave Chris a somewhat fortuitous win!

Then we went for a couple of shorter games in the form of Fantasy Realms and Raj. Chris thought he'd won the former when he triggered the endgame with the 'Sword of Keith' combo-ing it with a shield and something else I now forget. But Paul H's connecting brain sprang a surprise victory, as Stuart ruminated on his past mistakes...

Paul H 217

Chris 212

Sam and Paul J 134

Stuart 105

Raj was more bonkers. I won the first two rounds but collapsed zeppelin-style, as both Stuart and Chris overhauled me. Mojo is such a fragile thing.

Stuart 51

Chris 44

Sam 39

Paul J 37

Paul H 19

We finished off our last evening with more silliness - Chris and Stuart winning Strike...

Before Paul J suggested we finish the weekend with Misfits.

There was much laughter again, though I'm now a bit fuzzy about at whose expense it was. I do know that Paul H took the win though, and with midnight fast approaching, we wrapped up Chippencon as the storm continued to rage outside. 

Monday

There were no games in the morning, but the storm had abated as if in recognition. The sky was no longer elephant grey and the sea was considerably calmer. All that remained was for us to tidy up and get home, which meant navigating the various closed roads from the weekend's flooding. This was something of an epic in itself... thanks all for the weekend chaps. See you soon!