Swapping Secret Santa for Secret Hitler

Big T was first to arrive at my house for Christmas games yesterday, as we kicked off a few hours earlier than usual at 1pm. Joe was hot on his heels so after a brief catch-up and coffee, we reasoned that it would be silly not to start playing games, so we did. Joe brandished Take Time at us and we jumped in.

This is a fun little Mind-esque game of playing numbered cards around a clock face, with the not-insignificant caveat that each segment, going clockwise, must be of the same or higher value than the one previous. Add in a couple of extra wrinkles and that's pretty much it: but with no communication allowed after you've seen your cards, success proved occasionally elusive. Did we succeed on that final round? I don't actually remember now, but either way, Katy arrived and we shifted gears into sentient vegetable heroism with Potato Man. 

There was just time for a one-round game (won by me) before, as if summoned into being by Adam - compare above and below images - Pete turned up. 

We played another single-round game (won by Big T) and then Adam H and Laura arrived, so we split into teams and broke out Phantom Ink. Joe and I were the clues, with Joe's team at a slight numerical disadvantage (Joe, Pete, Big T) as I clued to Laura, Katy and Adam H. 

Our first word was Pancake, and despite my spelling confusion, our team's question of Who would dislike it was very helpful as I started <mis>spelling CELI(AC). When asked for a nickname I clued CRE(PE) and from there it was a straightforward victory. We went again with the Adams now clueing for the same teams, and midway through the game Chris arrived to bolster the numbers, joining with the short-staffed Pete/Joe/Big T gang. Unfortunately we lost our most coherent decoder shortly after, as Laura had to go off and escape from a room in Cabot Circus, and Katy and I spent most of our time looking at each other in confusion as Adam regarded us with a mix of long-suffering sympathy and crestfallen disappointment. We did figure out Snow, but our shot in the dark simply negated any opposition doubts and they guessed, correctly, the answer was Snowball. 

We realised with a large afternoon stretching before us we could now play some big ol' chunkers. Big T proffered The Barracks Emperors and Joe Chris and Katy leapt in to join him. I played the Christmas sympathy card to get River of Gold on the table and Andy Mosse arrived to find himself dealt in to it, charitably sitting down to an immediate rules-teach. 

In River of Gold, we're sailing up and down (well, repeatedly down, thanks to Rokugan's curious looping geography) the river and establishing trade routes. Despite the madness of the board, River of Gold has a certain simplicity to it: there are only three actions to choose from: move your boat, build a building or deliver to a customer. The goal is to move yourself up the six influence tracks to the east of the river, and the main difficulty we found with the game is remembering to roll the die at the end of your turn instead of the beginning. 

Andy took the laurels here, with Pete second and then myself and Adam lagging a short way behind. 

At the other end of the table, the Barracks were echoing to the sound of a lot of profanity, with Katy summoning her insult of choice for Chris as he did something or other she objected to. There seemed to be a lot of objecting, in fact - the game is a trick-taker of sorts but with a board where cards are laid and prizes - using the word loosely - to be surrounded and claimed. This chicanery continued as River of Gold finished and we began playing Poison. 

This was also new to Andy, but he took to it with his standard zen vibes and nearly followed his River of Gold triumph with a second win, but I just pipped him. 

Sam 13

Andy 14

Adam H 22

Pete 34

Around now the Barracks Emperors concluded as well, and Katy celebrated her debut victory by going off for chips, abetted by Joe and Adam. When they returned, Andrew was with them as well, like the fourth wise man, proffering a festive bottle of ketchup. We paused for dinner. 

After that, Joe suggested Secret Hitler and we split into liberals and fascists. Katy wanted to know if, should she be dealt into the fascists team, she could sabotage it. Joe admitted there was no rule against it, but it could get confusing. And in fairness the game was confusing enough with Joe and I not spotting that each other were fascists and me being convinced Chris was, even though he hadn't opened his eyes. I knew Katy wasn't because she seemed to be enjoying herself.  

I'm still not 100% clear on how the game works, but I did grasp that we all take turns being the president, and the president nominates a chancellor, and then there's a vote and then the president gets some cards and passes two to the chancellor to choose one of, and after this either a liberal or fascist law gets passed. There's enough fog over proceedings that nobody can be totally sure who is who, and Andy found himself shot dead simply for having the temerity to chat in chambers. Then Katy shot Big T who was Hitler and so the liberals won - perhaps for the best in these popularist times, and certainly for Katy's disposition. 

Laura was returning imminently so we split into three groups, with the Fellowship trick-taker, Babylonia and Mille Fiori spread across the table. But now I will hand the reins to our default note-taker and blogger, Andrew.

*

I was walking towards Sam’s house when I was caught up by Joe, Katy and Adam T. I was astonished as the coincidence of all of us arriving at the same time but this was soon explained when I saw the bags full of portions of fish and chips. I had got here just as people were breaking for food.

I had just eaten, so I watched while the gaming table vanished beneath unwrapped papers and various deep fried comestibles. The chat revolved around games, trying to think which games would work with non gamers. Joe told us about a game where you’re given a word and have to guess if it’s a Tolkein character or an antidepressant.

After the food was finished and the table cleared, Secret Hitler was brought to the table. As Sam has already said, it’s a social deduction game, it was capable of allowing all of us to play. In this game, the liberals have to detect the fascists - as determined by drawing an envelope with your secret identity within. And if that weren't enough, one lucky (?) player gets to be Hitler.

I'll be honest, I didn’t really get it. I was a fascist and, as such, I knew that my partners were Joe and Sam but it later transpired that Sam didn't know about Joe, since they were sitting next to each other and couldn’t see each others’ secret signal at the start of the game . Additionally,  Chris kept passing fascist policies. Maybe he was also a fascist and I hadn't noticed, I thought, or maybe he's passing fascist policies because they give the player a little special action. But then Chris, using a special action, assassinated the liberal Andy M, so then I was quite convinced he was a fascist and I’d missed it. Sam voted against himself as President. “I changed my mind,” he explained. I was bemused.

In the end, Katy was the one who identified Adam T as Hitler and killed him, and the game ended with the liberals victorious. It was quite sedate, apparently. Previous (non GNN) games have been quite rambunctious, we were told. Maybe it was the chips, but it was all very low key. I had no idea what was going on at all.

Next, several people adjourned to the front room to choose a game, and Pete came back with a £10 note in his hand, making us all wonder what was going on in there. We hear from Laura that she’s on her way and so we devise a system in which we set up three games and she can join any of them once she arrives.

The choices in this devillishly complex method was Fellowship of the Ring (Adam T, Chris and myself), Babylonia (Sam, Adam H and Pete) and Mille Fiori (Hoe, Katy and Andy M). Although once Laura had arrived, both Fellowship and Babylonia had begun so she joined Mille Fiori. She seemed happy enough.

In Fellowship, the three of us took on Chapter 16 - a tricky hand for a trio containing two relative newbies. But we persevered at Adam’s behest (he wanted to complete all 18 Chapters before the end of the year) and, after three attempts we nailed it! I was quietly smug and keen to try Chapter 17, but Adam checked the game and discovered the next bit was Chapter 16a and looked like quite a long endeavour.

Since Babylonia had finished at the same time as us we decided to leave 16a to another day.

Sam 163

Adam H 156

Pete 127

I remember remarking that Sam’s position on the board didn’t look like a winning one - a couple of small disparate areas, until Pete pointed out all the cities Sam had taken with his strategy.

Mille Fiori was still in full flow, and I heard Joe take a turn that went on for so long that he apologised halfway through.

The six of us played Fuji Flush and I was quietly confident, since this game is - for some reason - my strongest game. Back when we had a Division charting our results, I had a win rate of 50% which is odd for a luck-based game that usually plays five or more. I didn’t say anything, in case I made a target for my back. Plenty of dick points on display and poor old Pete seemed to have a hand made up entirely of 2s and 3s. And I won again, adding my final card - a 7 - to an already existing chain of 7s.

Next up, the six of us bided our time with 6nimmt. Adam T was hesitant to play, but didn’t have the energy or inclination to veto it. And a good thing too, as he ended up a comfortable winner.

Adam T 12

Pete 23

Adam H 24

Sam 32

Andrew 39

Chris 41

And talking of comfortable winners, here are the results from Mille Fiori.

Joe 239

Katy 217

Andy M 167

Laura 154

Joe, Andy M and Adam T left at this point and the six of us played Ito, using the chevrons from Fun Facts as a handy way of keeping track of everyone’s numbers. The categories were vague enough for some details to be clarified. Is a “popular villain” one who is generally beloved by the public, or just very well known? Good job we did check, because we got that one 100% right.

Another curio that this game threw up was when Sam’s reply to “Things that give you goosebumps” was “thinking about goosebumps”. This is about as close to breaking the fourth wall that real life can get but then Sam explained that when he started to think about what might give him goosebumps, that itself gave him goosebumps. Perfectly valid, I suppose.

Things that give you goosbumps - the lower reaches of the scale

After that, I had enough in me for one last game. We split into two groups. I played Katy and Adam at Biblios, and it went pretty much as you might expect. Halfway through I got that sinking feeling that I wasn’t very strong in anything, but it was far too late to do anything about it. And I was right. Amazingly, though, no one finished the game with any orange cards at all, meaning that die was discarded, unscored.

Katy 5 (plus brown die)

Adam 5

Andrew 0

The other end of the table played Soda Jerk which I'm afraid I was completely oblivious to.

Whiskey and soda jerk, anyone?

With that, I was done. Many thanks to everyone for another exciting year. I’ll hand back to Sam for the final part of the blogging.

*

After Andrew left we were down to a quartet - or at least I thought we were. We set up for Misfits and and then saw Pete was quietly watching us, as though not wanting to interrupt. He'd decided to get a later train home and so we redistributed the pieces and set about it. I criticised Katy for going gong-ho saboteur on her very first turn, but the structure survived, long enough to grow big enough that when it collapsed on Pete and later Laura, they were handed enough wooden pieces to start a small fire. 

Chris then drove Pete off to the station and we were left as a trio. And what better way to end the evening than three cracks at So Clover. We kicked off with a 13/18, did about the same in the second game and then finished off with a triumphant 18 in the finale, by which point Katy was sure we had played four times but Laura and I demurred. 

Now a whisky or two to the good, there was even some post-game chat comparing dysfunctional families and putting the world to theoretical rights. Midnight was not tremendously far away by this point, and after a full shift of gaming, it was time to say goodnight. Thanks all for coming, it was epic!

Dice Boobs

This week witnessed the first GNN of the year for a couple of regulars: Sam, the host, and Joe. However, any attempt at wishing Joe a Happy New Year were met with a dismissive insistence that it was far too late by now.

The rest of us trying to wish him happy tidings were Katy, Ian, Martin, Adam and myself. At the beginning we were also joined by Sam's boys, Stanley and Joe.

We began with Fuji Flush to get us under way. Sam began well, but then got stuck on three cards. Katy began slowly and then shed five cards in quick succession. Stanley played the move of the game, as four of us put down fours and were getting excited about our chances of beating two eights (if I remember this right) when he put down a seventeen and cleared the table.

Doomed

Adam, Katy and Martin were all sitting next to each other and were appalled whenever they had to team up together. It ended in tense fashion with more than half on just one card.

Little Joe 0
Adam 1
Andrew 1
Katy 1
Stanley 1
Martin 1
Joe 2
Sam 3

After this we split into two groups. Joe, Katy, Martin and I chose Majesty. Sam, Stanley, little Joe and Adam went for Blokus, the game of, well, blocking. I didn't pay it too much attention but when the final scores were announced, I was pleased that the two adults had not gone easy on their inexperienced opponents.

Sam 13
Adam 15
Joe 19
Stanley 26

Then it was bed for the boys and a quick two player game of Fugitive. This ended in a draw, as Sam explained "we're not sure who won because I don't have the board or the rules." which would explain the improvised card area.

Sam looked it up on the Internet, and concluded that Adam won. "Something to do with the 29."

Anyway, that was the exciting half of the table. The four of us playing Majesty had a fairly hollow experience. Katy complained throughout that it just wasn't her kind of game and the rest of us found it rather bland. The artwork was typical eurogame medieval subjects and the game mechanism of playing cards to get points was quite drab.

Joe 181
Andrew 177
Katy 159
Martin 143

Back as a single group again, it was time to split up again. Ian had bought the Tichu set he'd received in the Secret Santa, so he and Martin faced Joe and Katy. It started in fine fashion, with two Grand Tichus called and completed in the first two rounds.

Sam, Adam and myself played Rajas of the Ganges. We persuaded Adam by telling him that it was exactly the kind of game that he would be good at. In fact, I was preparing myself for a heavy defeat before we even began.

Near the start of the game, when Sam didn't take a particular option that got him a lot of money, Adam asked if there was a reason he hadn't done that. "Just stupidity," shrugged Sam when he saw what he'd missed.

Adam had clearly decided that money was the way to go, since it had all those bonuses along it. He generated dice so efficiently that he had to use his player mat's “dice boobs” to hold them all.

He also made good use of the Score Mixed Markets option. Then, once the money track had paid out its last bonus, he turned his attention to glory points and quickly finished the game. Sam matched Adam for glory, but not for cash. I was a long way back, having not even picked up my second extra meeple.

Adam's considerable lead on the money track.

1. Adam
2. Sam
3. Andrew

The Tichu group played out one last hand when we had ended. Not the full one-thousand pointer, but enough to give Ian a taste, I imagine.

Joe & Katy 600
Ian & Martin 500

Next up was another reshuffling of the groups. Katy, Martin and I played Azul. You'd have thought, after playing against Adam at a eurogame, I'd have learnt my lesson, but I must've been in a masochistic mood this night. Sam, Joe, Ian and Adam chose Poison.

During these two games, and I can't remember why, we all tried to work out our defining traits. We ended up with Martin – evil, Katy – annoying, Andrew – snide, Joe – avuncular, Ian – self-depreciating, Adam – calculating and Sam – mistaken. Joe, though, did not like his nominated trait. He pointed out that the definition was “kind and friendly towards a younger or less experienced person” which he found somewhat inappropriate. Katy pointed out that he was the oldest one here but, like the New Year's greetings at the start of the evening, Joe simply refused to accept his new defining trait.

All of this shouldn't detract from the gaming activities. In Azul, I was disconcerted by Martin's constant glances over to my board. He played a spoiling game, such that I scored only six points in my first round, but I was too distracted to do the same to Katy. She had no issues with putting together her mosaic and spent most of the game complimenting her own work, like a bird happily chirping in its nice new nest.

Only when she felt victory was assured did she look up and try to ruin Martin's game. He had to pick up negative-scoring tiles at the end of the game, which pushed me into an unlikely second.

Katy 75
Andrew 57
Martin 51

Poison ended:

Sam 4 (with two clear rounds, I believe)
Adam 17
Ian 17
Joe 29

Now it was the end of the evening and we were all together. Dead Man's Chest was suggested and pooh-poohed. Instead we decided on a subdued game of Hugo. This game is usually so loud, it's been banned twice, so we kept out cries of anguish to a minimum. It was especially hard for Katy who got so excited she had to insist she wasn't drunk on the gin she'd bought with her. Unfortunately it came out as “I haven't had any more Jill,” so no one believed her.

We played three rounds. In the first round, Sam was the last-man standing but a comfortable distance ahead. Hugo then sped around two corners and finished him off before he could move. In the second, it was the opposite. Joe was left alive in a precarious position but Hugo wouldn't budge. The dice went right around the table without a Hugo in sight. Then Joe rolled a 1 and managed to sneak into a +3 room.

It was a rare piece of luck for him.

Martin 25
Sam 26
Ian 30
Katy 32
Adam 35
Andrew 37
Joe 41

And with that, we were done. Another quality evening's entertainment done and dusted.

Lost Causes

Saturday games began early yesterday, with Andrew and Ian rocking up at 6pm as Stan and I set up Clank! for a four-player. We'd already cranked out a game of Railways during the afternoon...

 Going loco

During which I raced off into an early lead thanks to grabbing all three of those point-scorers: four different cubes, delivered, three-link delivery and so on. In fact I was at one stage about twenty points ahead of Stan with less bonds, but as my goods dried up on the east, his bigger network on the west starting paying out big. I held on for the win, but in the end Stan had ground his way back to a two point deficit. 

Back to Clank! I played this a couple of weeks back with Adam and Hannah and we'd really enjoyed it. And I played with Stan with similar results, although I'm not sure it's best as a two-player really. The game is like a card-drafting version of Incan Gold; grabbing what you can and hoping to get out before you're knocked out by the dragon. 

forgot to take pics of Clank, so here's Adam again

Ian decided to get out early, and put the pressure on the rest of us - once one player leaves, everyone only has four turns left to do the same. This strategy worked for Adam, but it proved Ian's undoing: despite numerous dragon attacks, the clanking cubes coming out of the bag didn't stop us all reaching the surface. There was only one winner though:

Stanley 94

Sam 79

Andrew 70

Ian 64

We all liked it. Next up was a quick blast of Lost Expedition. This can be played as a head to head game or a co-op, and the six of us combined into a three-player version. It's a pretty simple game of trying to make your way to the Lost City of Z - following the footsteps of the explorer Percy Fawcett, whose recently inspired the recent film. (Though there is plenty of doubt about the film and Percy himself, as this somewhat huffily worded critique points out). 

In the game everyone plays cards which form a 'hike' - one in the morning, one in the evening. How you negotiate each hike - from left to right - dictates your progress, as many cards have mandatory events, but also opportunities to manage both your resources (health, food, ammunition) and the hike  itself (adding/discarding cards). You begin with three explorers but only need one to reach the city in order to win. 

But a combination of my desire to push ourselves quickly along the trail, and Joe killing off Roy (the only explorer with the specialist knowledge we needed at a crucial moment!) meant we failed three-quarters of the way!

Ian, Andrew, Stanley, Joe and Sam: lose

Peer Sylvester: wins

With our leafy graves assured just as Andy walked through the door, the boys were packed off to bed and we perused the Alcove of Joy. Much muttering was heard before we finally agreed to revisit Lords of Waterdeep. It's been a long time, but we were all familiar enough with it - bar a couple of rules-checks - to include the Skullport expansion. 

Andrew rocketed off into an early lead, before we caught him up and - occasionally - overhauled him. Ian began to regret his big-quest strategy early on, as the rest of us were ducking and diving he was stoically left to collect adventurers - or cubes, as everyone but me insisting on calling them. Despite Andrew's healthy lead I felt pretty confident at this stage - I had the fewest skulls, and planned to play an Intrigue card in the final round to make having them even more punitive for the others. My only concern was Andy, who seemed to be collecting numerous Arcadia quests and chaining them in classic Bate style. 

Then Andy allowed everyone to return skulls to the corruption track and my plans suddenly didn't look remotely effective any more. I'm not sure what happened to Ian - he said he was coming last from about the sixth round - "just like my life" - and he was right: 

Andy 123

Andrew 109

Sam 100

Ian 81

Sticking with the Old School, we then played Poison. Once upon a time this was the GNN go-to filler, but it doesn't come out the box much these days. 

Maybe because the box is something of an artefact itself, with Berger artwork from that classic sitcom Games Night. Andy hadn't played it before, but that didn't stop him taking us to the cleaners on his very first round, scoring a measly two points. I had to draw on all my Knizian powers/luck to pull this one back from the dead:

Sam 15

Andy 17

Andrew 20 

Ian 28

With the time now gone ten, we finished off with a recent classic - NMBR9. I love this game, but despite my many plays I made a humdinger of an error - leaving a space for a 9 where I could only actually place it the wrong way up. I wasn't alone - all manner of swearing made its way around the table as the game entered its final furlong. But Ian shucked off his three last places to claim a very convincing win:

Ian 81

Andrew 76

Andy 68

Sam 60

And that was that! 

Oh, except to say Stan and I played Steam Park on Friday night. This is a dice-rolling, funfair-building game where what dice you roll dictate your tactics for the round: you want to build and attract visitors, but visitors bring dirt with them, and too much dirt at the end of the game will get you hit with huge fines.

Circular dirt, bottom left

In the midst of this simple roll-to-build thing though is a race: everyone rolls simultaneously and as soon as you're happy with your dice you grab the first (or second, or third) player marker. Finishing your dice rolling first gets you the bonus of removing dirt - and if you're last to finish, you add dirt instead. 

This can be really brutal in a two-player game, especially your opponent declares themselves happy with their very first roll. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I can imagine Katy getting a kick out of this one. 

From Athina to the Pharaohs

Sunday night, and after missing several GNN meets recently, I (Sam) was keen to break out some cubes. Just back from Greece, we'd played some Dice Heist and Pairs, and a lot of Heck Meck - but even in the land of Socrates I couldn't have gotten anyone to play a Greek-themed Euro - especially as I don't own one. So I was craving for something a little heavier - Eclipse, say.

However the evening started belatedly as Sally and I and the boys dashed back from Wales later than planned. My phone was dead and Sally had dropped her phone in the toilet. With no way to contact the guests, we could only veer wildly between traffic up the M4. Luckily they were loitering outside like middle-aged teens, and having gained entry to the house, Ian, Chris and Andrew began playing King of Tokyo whilst Sally and I did housey and parenty things. I didn't witness much of the game, therefore, but Chris was declared King.

Ian then suggested we play Eclipse but by this point my yen for something deep and strategic had slightly waned. Sorry Ian! Instead we proceeded to play a whole bunch of short games, that Chris won. I can't actually remember the order of them all now, despite  drinking no alcohol at all. I must have been drunk on games!

I think the first game was Blockers. Chris was new to it, but it's not hard to pick up. Everyone seemed to have a strategy; Chris going for a ever-widening single group of tiles, Andrew and I going for two groups. Ian berated his tiles, which seemed to come out as some kind of biblical penance. As the game closed out we were all forced to make unproductive moves, and my insistence on sticking to plan A meant I picked up four of Andrew's tiles. Silly game!

Chris
Andrew
Sam
Ian

Then we played Pharaoh's Gulo Gulo, which is exceedingly silly. It's fun though, although the finale can feel a bit of a damp squib if when someone (me, in this instance) enters the Pharaoh's tomb the curse (lifting balls out of a bowl) has been recently reset. Sam wins!

Next up was Spooky Stairs, which is very like Midnight Party in that ghosts are after you, but different in that the hiding in Spooky Stairs is the player's pieces, which get consumed by ghosts. The winner is the first one to the top of the stairs, but the main task of the game (and fun it generates) is all about attempting to keep track of which ghost is yours. When a ghost is rolled, you may swap the positions of two ghosts - even with the early hour, we were thrown into doubt by these shenanigans. I won, but only because Andrew moved my ghost to the top thinking he was winning. And Chris indulged in a (successful) spot of bluff when he deliberately swapped someone else's ghost instead of his own.

We decided to go for a bit of an old-timer after that, breaking out Poison.  It's a filler that takes a little longer than a filler really should, but nice to revisit it all the same. I thought I might be able to snatch the victory from Chris, but a final card with a sting in the tail put paid to me:

Chris 13
Andrew 17
Ian 18
Sam 20

We brought in a few short games to try out but then ignored most of them in favour of playing the quiz game About Time. I've never actually tried the board and bits that come with this game - maybe it's worth a pop, but I can't help feeling the fun is mostly in the cards, were you are trying to identify a year from several facts. We played first to five cards, and Chris won!

There was just time for a little game of Push It before we called it a night.  Chris won...

Chris 11
Ian 10
Andrew 10
Sam 8

Delicate Riffles

This Saturday, Sam said Chris would be in town so I agreed to meet up for an evening games session. During the day, however, the weather was terrible and I had started to regret my choice. Luckily, God loves games and just minutes before I was due to leave, the wind and driving rain were replaced by something more welcoming.

When I arrived, Ian was there too, setting up Riff Raff. Chris wasn’t there, so we decided to start playing and he would be bound to turn up. Seconds later, he arrived.

It was a longish game of Riff Raff, with all of us picking up fallen items at one point. Sam’s revolutionary tactic of hanging the sailor off a yardarm by his other arm worked a treat and he stayed there for the rest of the game, but it was Chris who got all his items aboard first.

Chris 0
Andrew 1
Ian 5
Sam 5

Then we discussed which game to play as our main event. We all stood in front of Sam’s games wall, slightly pulling out games that we were considering and then pushing them back when we decided against them. Viticulture won the debate, and so it was brought to the table.

Sam’s record on this game is not great. Apart from a second place, he’s suffered a couple of heavy last places. It seemed like this time he was determined not to let the same thing happen again.

The first time he’d played Viticulture, he’d tried selling a field for money, but found it held him back. He tried the same tactic again (even having two field sold at one point), but with far better results using the money to train more workers and build more buildings. In fact, so invested was he in the world of wine-making that he finished off a bottle of the stuff almost single handed.

Sam's early lead

The rest of us trailed Sam for most of the game. I simply never got going, with few workers and an empty field that I should have sold. A recurring theme was, whenever someone played a card, the other three would jokingly complain how unbalanced the cards were. This may be true, but I think all four of us relied on the cards a lot.

As the game reached its closing stages, Chris suddenly broke away from the trailing pack, completing a number of orders to put last minute pressure on Sam. He couldn’t quite manage it, though.

Sam 23
Chris 22
Ian 17
Andrew 13

By now it was 9.40, and we were in the mood for some lighter games. Poison was chosen first, as a welcome blast from the past. Chris explained how he was trying to perfect a new riffle shuffle technique. This “delicate riffle,” as he called it, didn’t put so much strain on the cards by bending them. Such commitment to gaming left Ian and I speechless.

During the game, Sam’s King Creosote playlist took a turn for the ambient. At first, I fell into a Celtic reverie, babbling about old fishermen with beards and calloused hands appearing through the mist. Then, as the ambiance became more electro, it felt like an episode of Wallander where the angst-ridden detective had taken a day off to play his favourite Reiner Knizia game.

The classic opening gambit

I can’t remember if Poison is supposed to be a raucous knock-about game or not, but we played one round in almost complete silence.

Sam 12
Andrew 24
Chris 31
Ian 36

Next up was Love Letter. “Ian always wins Love Letter,” Sam declared, trying to curse Ian into losing. It didn’t seem to work initially, as Ian won the first round with a shitty Baron.

The music was changed to prog rock bands. Sam, Sally (in the background, doing domestic things) and myself contributed some lovely three part harmonies on the first chorus of “More Than A Feeling.” I briefly regretted not wearing a jacket so I could roll the sleeves up, especially when the playlist (via Phil Collins) morphed into the soundtrack from Miami Vice.

As for the game, despite Ian being dubbed “the Tony Pulis of Love Letter,” he couldn’t replicate his usual form. It was another win for Sam.

Sam 3
Ian 2
Andrew 1
Chris 0

Finally, we knocked off a couple of games of Push It. First to seven, Chris lead from the start:

Chris 7
Sam 5
Ian 3
Andrew 3

And then first to five. I got to four points quickly and then suffered some yips as everyone closed the gap. I had just enough gaming gas left in the tank, though. It helped that the puck was knocked over in my direction on the last round.

Andrew 5
Sam 4
Chris 2
Ian 1

Games were played, drinks were drunk. Now all that was left was for the way home to be wended.