History in the Making

It's been almost a week without games, and so Sam put out the call for a quick games night before the main event on Tuesday. Only Ian and I were available, so we indulged in our semi-regular habit of resetting our form table standings and ruining our points ratio with a bunch of shortish games squeezed into a few short hours.

We began with Sam on the brink of a Perfect Five. I knew about this, but stayed quiet. Sam and Ian didn't mention it, and I assumed they were doing the same. I suggested starting with 7 Wonders - a nice level playing field for Sam to try for his fifth win. They both agreed. Still no one mentioned anything about a perfect five. I was impressed by our stoic bluffing skills.

The game was swift and close. Ian went for blue buildings and military. I focused on sciences and guilds while Sam did a little bit of everything. Ian's mix of culture and war won the day.

Ian 56
Andrew 53
Sam 51

With that, Sam's dream of a perfect five was over. And still no one mentioned it. I thought that maybe not talking about a failed perfect five was the gentlemanly thing to do. However, when Sam suddenly remembered halfway through the next game, it became clear that absent-mindedness (rather than steely determination to make history) had been why no one had spoken about it.

Maybe we'd been distracted by Ian saying he'd worked out his top three games. I can't remember them all - perhaps he can tell us in the comments - but one of them was Quantum, and that's what we played next.

Ian and I made it easy for Sam, as we fought each other he got three cubes on the board. After that it was quite a feisty game, with ships going into battle just because they were near each other. Possibly because Ian forgot his master plan when he got up from the table to get another beer.

Despite Sam being down to one die at one point, we couldn't close the gap.

Sam 6 cubes down
Andrew 3
Ian 3

Then, since Ian and I had chosen a game, Sam got the next choice: Portobello Market. This quick and simple game has never had a decent run of games at GNN but it's always been lurking. We dragged it out, explained the rules to Ian and got started. I got my area multiplier down early, such that after three rounds I was seventy points in the lead!

Sam came charging up the score track later with Ian close behind, and when Ian got to place the last customer (and, therefore, the big scoring baron) he closed the gap.

Andrew 181
Sam 158
Ian 158

Next we chose Ra because the box was already out. It was a tense game, with Sam fighting off Ian for the buildings and battling me for moat pharaohs. He won these, and had the longest Nile, so the win was pretty comprehensive.

Sam 69
Andrew 46
Ian 27

As a nightcap, we decided on a quick game of Timeline, using Sam's next deck oh historical events. By his own admission, Sam got some easy cards, while Ian and I got confused over the dates of certain Chinese events.

Sam 0 cards left
Ian 2
Andrew 4

Then we had another go. Pretty much the same story.

Sam 0 cards left
Ian 1
Andrew 1

Looks like Sam's already putting together another bid for a Perfect Five. I'll leave the Form Table for after Tuesday, though.

Straight to Video

Saturday night, my place. A quarter of a century ago that meant cans of Heineken and watching Animal House (again), but one kind of societal non-starter has been replaced by another - games.

It was a bit like some kind of 70's war film, where a disparate band of heroes - probably featuring an aging Gregory Peck and under-40-possibly Roger Moore - attempted to negotiate their way to a hideout in the Alps before sabotaging a Nazi rally. But just as in war there were casualties and members of the crack gang who couldn't make it  - Matt was tied down by family and Steve literally was in hospital; thankfully with a short-term treatment for a relative.

While real dramas played out elsewhere myself (Borgnine), Andrew (Bronson) and Gonz (Kinski) did make it to the secret hideout. Gonz was first, and - I'm giving up on that analogy now- the first thing he witnessed was me dropping my dinner on the floor in the front room. I've only met Gonz once before and I was conscious that as first impressions go this wasn't ideal. However we laughed it off and, having put some tired kids to bed, played a couple of warm-up games before Andrew arrived.

Gonz was intrigued by Biblios so we did that first. He focussed entirely on browns and blues and, having won the tie-breaker on the latter thanks to the alphabet, wiped the floor with me 10-5. We then played Tsuro and I exacted some measure of revenge, winning once by default and once again by dastardly tile placement. But these were mere fripperies of course and the meat and drink of the evening began when Andrew arrived.

Gonz gave us the hard sell on Dungeon Petz, but though it did appeal I wasn't feeling energised enough to take on a big rule-learning session for a fairly long game. Instead we perused the cupboard and after a matter of seconds agreed on Lords of Waterdeep - which needs no introduction. Everybody knew exactly what they were doing and we were off. I was fortunate enough to be dealt the mission-that-gets-you-the-leiutenant at the outset and by round three had him up and running. Andrew was leading the field for three-quarters of the game, but fell away at the end as everyone struggled for money and I in particular for rogues. You'd think with no rogues there'd be money about but Waterdeep's a strange place. Before we scored our Lords bonuses I was 1pt ahead of Gonz - and thankfully for me we both scored 28 points for our seven valued missions:

Sam 156
Gonz 155
Andrew 124

 courtesy BGG

Next up was 7 Wonders. Again, a friendly face. But our universal perception at GNN (and Area 51 as I recall) of the sciences being over-rated was turned on it's head by Gonz, who specialised in science to a degree I have never seen before and scored 36 points from them. Allied to little bit of military might (11 points) it was enough to give him a comfortable win as well as opening up a real pandora's box:

Gonz 59
Sam 54
Andrew 40

Finally we played Portobello Market, which is a bit of a sleeper in GNN world. It only takes about 40 minutes to play and I think the fact it feels a bit in no-man's land between filler and not-filler means it doesn't get to the table verey often, but it's very nice; very strategic. My early lead seemed to stagnate though and I was overtaken by my sparring partners:

Gonx 111
Andrew 109
Sam 99

 courtesy BGG

I could have done one more game myself but it was half-ten and the others decided we could blow up some Nazis another day.

						Points
Adam	2	1	1	1	2	7
Gonz	1	1	2	3	3	10
Joe	1	2	3	3	3	12
Andrew	2	3	3	4	1	13
Sam	3	2	1	5	5	16

Rainy Day Games

On a wet Sunday there wasn't much to do in the house. Having exhausted a few appealing options (Lego, books, squabbling) the three boys in the house decided to break out the games.

The final front room

First to the table was Galaxy Trucker. Aside from the timer the boys are now at the stage where they can play this - Stanley completely independently; Joe given some assistance at the build stage. As a result of this assistance Joe always finished his ship-building first, which was to serve him well in a decidedly peaceful universe. I talk them through the cards and while the finer details are still hazy the gist of it - grab cargo, avoid attacks, arrive in first if possible - is pretty much there. However Stan's admirable independence in building his own ship meant he always travelled at the back; and the way the cards came out favoured the front runner. We played all three rounds and Stan and I were soundly beaten by Joe, despite him spending much of round three reviewing proceedings from a static piggy-back position (my back):

Joe 88
Sam 63
Stanley 60

Next up was String Railways. This was a bit of an impulse by after a first-play impression - I thinnk it's not been out of the box much since. Not enough for me to be fully cognizant of the rules anyway - we did a sort of basic version which Stanley won by a significant margin:

Stanley 32
Joe 23
Sam 20

It's impossible to get a serious photo. Impossible.

Finally with the boys really getting into the gaming spirit we brought out Portobello Market. This s a bit of a halfway house game - it looks like a full-on game but time-wise could be thought of as a filler, as it can be over in well under an hour. I realised my explaining skills were not confined to Tuesday nights - as I did my usual mistake of explaining the turn order without giving the theme - when Stan said "But what am I actually trying to do?"

Stan and I drew the first game (66 each? Can't remember) then we drew the second game 82 each with Joe - assisted, but enthusiastic - 1 point behind us.

See?

Just like a Tuesday night though, all good things must come to an end. So we went upstairs and read a bit more of The Hobbit. It's really violent! I felt like complaining to someone. But who?

Sloppy Civilisation

With no GNN session this week due to Valentine's Day, Andrew and I took advantage of Sally working through the (early) evening to squeeze in a quick two-hander. I realise that doesn't sound how I meant it, but I'm not going to change it now. We're grown-ups. 

I made my way to Andrew's with a couple of old, but perhaps underplayed, games in the bag - Mord Im Arosa and Portobello Market. We started with the former. Andrew lists this game as one of his favourites, and though I have a soft spot for it's unique silliness I do believe his preferences are framed by the ample Sean Connery/soft spoken Swede impressions it affords, as we tried various implementations of the phrase 'Sloppy Investigation'. As it turned out, I was by far the sloppier, and Andrew beat me convincingly:

Andrew 19
Sam 13

Don't go to the Mord this summer.

Time for a change. We'd only played Portobello Market 2 or 3 times and I think the general GNN impression was of the arched eyebrow variety - no open derision, but not a lot of enthusiasm either. It does play more tactically with two, I think; you can plan your moves with only one other person to ruin them for you, and it also plays quicker with two as there's less thinking time. But it's still one of those games that allies a simple rule set with deceptive strategic depth, and having started well only to fall back behind Andrew, I managed to jump past him with a sneaky trigger-the-game-end move:

Sam 161
Andrew 147

Andrew suspects those DVDs may not be kosher

One that merits further plays, I feel, though accusations of abstractery must be admitted to.

There was still time before I had to dash back so we broke out another of Andrew's faves (and my nemeses, along with Trans America): Roll Through the Ages: the game of dice-based stuff, where you balance the virtues of extra cities with the fact the buggers need feeding. I did pretty well, for me, but my beautifully advanced civilisation - with monuments and everything - was undone by serial disasters as I neglected to provide any food. How can the people starve? They're only made of wood!

Andrew 18
Sam 9

No knowledge will be handed out unless you have an amphora

With our gaming fix sated, and Andrew winning 2-1 on the night, I headed off into the ether...

"One Snack Rule" yet to catch on

After last week's games night both Sam and I said how ill we'd felt the next day. We didn't blame the alcohol, but suspected the salt-heavy, MSG-laden snacks may have been a factor. But this week, rather than restraining ourselves to one snack like sensible adults, we munched our way through chips, crisps (Kettle Chips, though. They're almost healthy, right?), and two types of chocolate. Oh well. We'll see how we feel tomorrow.

Thanks to Sally being on bedtime duty with the kids, we were able to start a little earlier than usual, and Sam, Adam and I chose Stone Age. Even though Sam and I had played it only yesterday we agreed since Adam seemed keen. And the best time to play a game against Adam is when you've practiced it in the previous 24 hours.

Playing with a third player changes the balance of power. I abandoned my usual hut tactic after Adam got an early multiplier, and for a while I was at a loss as to what to do next. In the end, I plumped for fields after I was able to pick some multipliers for cheap. Adam, however, struggled with some terrible luck on dice rolls. Ones and twos were the order of the day whenever he went looking for food or wood, which on two occasions left him unable to complete a hut.

I admit, with that display of misfortune, I thought Adam wasn't a threat and spent most of my time watching Sam. However, when the points were finally added up, the result was as surprising as it was close.

Adam 147
Sam 145
Andrew 145

If he wins when he has luck as bad as that, what would he have done if he'd rolled fives or sixes?

Towards the end of Stone Age, Jonny turned up. For our next game we decided on a new but simple game – Portobello Market. This game of setting up markets and manipulating the police is easy to learn but takes a lifetime to master. If you only play it once every few years.

Adam's tactic was simple – put markets in the way so anyone who wanted to move the Bobby had to pay him. I went for putting down my scoring tokens as soon as it was worth it. Sam specialised in customer placement. Jonny did a bit of everything, and towards the end, he put down an aristocrat that scored for three of his streets at once. When the game ended (rather suddenly. Very much an "Okay, that's it! We're done!" kind of moment) Jonny's lead was insurmountable.

Jonny 109
Andrew 98
Sam 71
Adam 70

It still felt quite early, so we had a game of TransAmerica. It'd been a while since I'd played it and I sort of remember it being quite quick and light-hearted. Not tonight, as we studied the map, lost in thought, and our tracks seemed to act like repelling magnets whenever they came close. In one round, all four of us built parallel tracks for the first few moves, waiting for someone else to make the first move across the map.

In the end, the game ended when Sam accidentally finished Jonny's network for him. That was enough to give him his second win of the evening, and leave Sam and Adam at the tail of the pack again.

Jonny 9
Andrew 13
Sam 15
Adam 15


This changes the complexion of the Form Table quite dramatically. Jonny leaps up the table with just one week to go with a great performance to steal top spot from Quentin on the "best most recent score" rule. Despite an indifferent performance, Sam gains a point and I am the new Mr Consistency, with an evening of second places, edging me ahead of the old Mr Consistency, Steve. Adam sees both his pride and his position dented. And it all started so well...

						Points
Jonny	1	1	3	1	3	9
Quentin	1	3	1	1	3	9
Sam	3	3	2	1	1	10
Andrew	2	2	2	3	2	11
Steve	2	3	2	2	2	11
Adam	3	4	1	3	3	14
Joe	4	4	1	3	3	15
Hannah	2	3	5	5	5	20
Anja	5	5	4	4	3	21

Troyes, Troyes again

This evening we had six gamers around the kitchen table. Despite our recent extra-curricular games, Sam and I were still excited at the prospect of another games night. Joe, Adam, Steve and Anja made up the rest of the gang. Jonny was going to be here, but couldn't make it at the last moment.

With six of us, we played Mord Im Arosa. This game of gravity-based sleuthing was new to many of us, but it was swiftly explained and before long we were hunting up and down the seven-floor hotel looking for clues or trying to cover our tracks. With more than two-players, it's quite a different game and does need a little more concentration that before. However, late in the game a detached flap on one of the floors caused a blockage which made sleuthing easier than you'd otherwise expect, which pushed someone over the "ten suspicious cubes" limit and ended the game.

1. Anja 10
2= Sam 11
2= Andrew 11
3. Adam 14
4. Steve 15
5. Joe 16

After this, we split into a group of four and a group of two. Joe and I played Troyes (and I found out that the only reason he gave it to me for my birthday was so he'd have someone to play it with) while the others settled down with Portobello Market. I'll leave it to them to fill in the details of their two games, but the scores were

Adam 105
Steve 95
Anja 82
Sam 65

And in the second game...

Sam 106
Steve 84
Adam 82
Anja 79

Meanwhile, Joe and I reintroduced ourselves to Troyes. I discovered a couple of rules I hadn't got right first time round, but I think my recent practise helped me. Joe started by pushing me out of my positions on the buildings, so I got fewer dice, but with only four rounds it didn't seem to make too much difference. And even if I do say so myself, I made some canny decisions in the final round. When the victory points were counted up, I found that I'd won by the slimmest of margins.

Andrew 33
Joe 32

Since it was still early(ish) and we'd all finished our games at the same time, we reconvened for another six-player game. This time, 6nimmt was brought out, and despite its confusing rules (at least until you play it) and Sam's instance it should be called 5nimmt, since you take five cards and leave the sixth, it was a fun game.

Despite his previous good form, Adam did badly from the start but quickly recovered. My form dropped dramatically after the first round, while Sam managed to dodge most of the damage being given out to the other players. By the end, we admitted that no one really had a strategy and Adam said that he did worst when he tried to plan ahead.

Sam 20
Steve 31
Adam 45
Anja 47
Joe 49
Andrew 66

So five games and four winners. And hats off to "Second Place" Steve for his consistency, which sees him up to third with Anja hot on his heels. Despite picking up a sixth place, I stay on the same number of points, while Joe falls due to his habit of coming in fifth.

						Points
Sam	1	1	4	2	1	9
Adam	3	3	1	3	1	11
Steve	2	2	2	4	4	14
Anja	4	4	3	1	2	14
Andrew	6	1	2	3	3	15
Jonny	1	3	5	3	3	16*
Quentin	1	3	5	5	5	19
Joe	5	2	5	2	4	19
Hannah	2	3	5	5	5	20

* the decay rule –people with five results registered, after a while, will find their score go down one point per week if they don't attend for three weeks. It may sound harsh, but it stops the regulars getting resentful. If they attend another evening, all decay points are removed.

Meanwhile, I've been keeping the old style leaderboard up to date. To be honest, it's suffering from the same trouble as last season. Sam is leading with 101 points, Joe is second with 86, Adam has 78 and then I'm fourth with 65.5. After that it's the usual large gap to fifth (Steve, 38.5).

However, the Olympic style leaderboard is looking much more exciting, with a real three-way battle for supremacy. Joe may have fallen to eighth in the form table, but he's still in the running here. And form is transient. Medals last forever. If we gave out medals, that is.

The Olympic leaderboard...

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Sam	8	10	1
Joe	7	4	6
Adam	6	3	6
Steve	2	4	0
Andrew	1	4	7
Anja	1	2	1
Jonny	1	0	5
Quentin	1	0	1
Hannah	0	1	1

Four games in a day, and not a leaderboard in sight

I spent a tranquil afternoon as I played through a game of Troyes by myself, just to get an idea of how it works, with Final Score on the TV to keep me company. And, despite Garth Crooks' increasingly theatrical sighs of dismay at Newcastle vs. Wolves or whatever, I enjoyed my first walkthrough of this dice-based game (but in a good way) of disaster-management.

Soon after that I got a text from Sam about a impromptu games evening, and so before long I was sitting at his kitchen table, complete with red and white polka dotted tablecloth (not a patch on Joe's green felt, frankly) learning another new game.

We began with Portobello Market. In this, one has to build up market stalls along streets and then score them according to the customers (normal, aristocrats or the baron) with an option to score districts, too, which scores big but can reduce the number of actions you can do in future turns. In the first game, we were just warming up, unsure of any tactic.

Sam 195
Andrew 180

On the second go, we were a little more canny. We paid more attention to the position of the policeman (which lets you place market stalls) but it was still too early to fully compute the role of the baron, who appears automatically when the last customer is placed on the board. Is it worth leaving a space on the board where you are strongest, hoping that he'll drop into your lap on the last go? Or should you play safe, use an aristocrat and get the points early? Such is life for the Portobello market-stall holder circa 1901.

Sam 209
Andrew 200

After this, we decided to squeeze in one last game. Mord im Arosa. In this game, players have to solve a murder using only their sense of hearing. Cubes are dropped into a cardboard tower and by listening, each player has to guess where the murder took place. A wrong guess means the player has to add their own cubes to the murder scene, which increases the odds of them being unveiled as the murderer.

It's a silly game and a lot of fun. I turned out that I have quite the aptitude for this game, as my guesses regarding the location of Sam's suspicious cubes was unerringly accurate. The game ended with a large enough margin of victory for the heinous crime to be solved.

"Solid Alibi" Andrew 5
"Blood on his hands" Sam 14

Both games were a lot of fun, although would probably be more so with more players. Especially Portobello Market which has potential for quite a bit of Analysis Paralysis if four are playing, I think.