Busted and broken

What with both Adam T and Martin falling foul of Covid and Andrew a late withdrawal, it was a sparsely attended GNN last night. Indeed, at 7.30 we were a mere quartet, with Katy, Laura, Ian and myself sat around the table as Sally and Stanley cooked and Joe orbited scooping up crisps. We nonetheless embarked on a quick game of Ticket to Ride: New York, before Joe joined us a little later. 

Katy's yellow cabs carved a worryingly easy path through Manhattan, as the rest of us looked less in control of our destiny. Laura and I both fretted over our turns and picked up extra routes that didn't work. They mainly didn't work because Ian - more in control than it seemed - ended the game, giving everyone one last turn when we needed at least two to complete the extra routes. Despite Katy's yellow highway, Ian took the laurels:

And we ended things just as Joe arrived, with Reiner Knizia's new card game Art Robbery in his bag. We set up and started playing straight away. 

In this feisty game, the players have made off with the loot from the robbery and are now 'debating' - via cards - how to split it. There's four rounds and in each round you play cards to either grab a number tile from the communal pile or, possibly, off someone who's already taken one. Cards match the numbers (which equal points) but there are some Knizian wrinkles, like the 'Boss' card only scoring if she's attended by a 4 or 5, the guard-dog protecting your tiles, and some of each set containing 'alibis', which are relevant come the end of the game: the player with fewest alibis automatically loses. 

It was fairly chaotic-feeling compared to something like High Society, but fast and fun, with dick moves aplenty and a reasonable amount of swearing at each other as tiles kept getting stolen. Joe and Laura lost with joint-fewest alibis, and Ian took his second win of the night:

Ian 28

Sam 26

Katy 16

Joe and Laura - Nicked!

After that, we kept to the breezy-games-pace with a blast through Cross Clues, scoring an impressive 24, despite numerous discussions where someone or other initiated the finger of executive decisions. So close to that perfect score!

Then, after some pondering, we introduced Laura to the charms of QE. It's simple, right? Just bid on everything, but make sure you don't spend the most. This almost blew up in my face when everyone was appalled that my opening bid (as auctioneer, so a public bid) was £10M. My protests that I was auctioning the financial system of one of the world';s biggest countries and this was a comparative pittance moved nobody, and Joe - usually so non-evil - encouraged everyone to bid zero to shaft me over before the game had even got going!

There followed a succession of low public bids just to ram home my mistake, but inevitably the prices began to rise, and Laura seemed unable to control her impulses as the winnings piled up in front of her: she was clear points leader, but at what cost? Even my opening salvo was beginning to look like a bargain by the end, when Katy priced her final auction at £30M. As expected, Laura blew us away on points, but was hamstrung by financial ruin. Ian spent by far the least (£19m!) but it was Katy who claimed victory, as I realised my hidden industry wasn't the one I thought it was. 

Katy 39

Ian 36

Joe 31

Sam 15

Laura - Bust!

I wanted to make a note of Laura's spectacular score, but my notes here say "Laura goes home as Katy yells at her" which is probably putting it a little dramatically (and I think she was yelling at me) but not that far from the truth.

Now high on alcohol, crisps and Ian's snack mash-up of dark-chocolate coated nachos, we played Skull. I took one frankly rubbish photo...

And then forgot to take any more. Joe took us to the cleaners, wrapping up a game win before anyone else won a round. With the hour now pressing towards half-ten, we cracked into co-operative Wavelength, playing twice partly because we did so badly on game one, and partly because I drunkenly hectored everyone into trying again (sorry everyone). Inevitably there was mention of Gwyneth Paltrow, and many discussions along the lines of is X thinking of everything in the universe, or just all types of fatty snacks? There was a long debate about Skips, and I discovered that I was the sole member of the party who thought Monster Munch are unhealthy. "It's natural maize!" cried Joe, almost as if he was in the payment of Walkers, like a covert Gary Lineker. 

In the second game everyone started yawning and I felt so guilty I made snacks. Then I discovered I was the only person who didn't think toast wasn't the least meal-like snack. What was happening?!?!

Despite the inebriation, fatigue and stupidity (mine) we triumphed in the second game with a card to spare, coming back from the near-dead. I finally lifted the portcullis and allowed everyone to leave. 

A night on the tiles

This week we (Sam, Joe, Martin, newcomer Steve, Katy, Ian, latecomer Adam H and me) converged around Sam’s kitchen table for more board game shenanigans. With a new gamer joining us, we explained that we usually start with a communal game and then promptly split into two groups (using the logic that we can all play together when Adam gets here).

Katy, Martin, Joe and Steve played QE. As Steve’s introduction to modern board gaming, it’s a bit of a curve ball. It’s just as easy to be bamboozled by it’s charms as entertained. It began with Martin and Katy taking all the early spoils before Joe and Steve came into it a little more. In the last round, Joe was screwed by everyone else bidding low, giving him a share that he really didn’t want, and pushing his cash expenditure high enough that it meant he automatically came last.

Martin 44
Katy 29
Steve 28
Joe 0

Ian, Sam and I played new Azul, where the famous square tiles have been replaced by diamond shapes that fit into flower-shaped areas for points and prestige. The method is the same, with players collecting one colour at a time from a set of seven “factories” in the centre. Except that this time, to place a tile, you have to pay for it: a tile the yellow space “6” costs six yellow tiles: the one you actually put down and five more you discard. Add to this the fact that each round one of the colours can be used as a Wild Tile, and you can use them to pay for any colour.

It was okay. Not an instant classic but maybe, with familiarity, certain strategies will become obvious. This time, with three relative newbies, it was like three single-player games with little attempt as spoiling other people’s plans. I completed three of the flower shape things, and was rewarded handsomely.

Andrew 124
Sam 104
Ian 78

At this point we gave Joe a present, cake and card for his 50th birthday (which, as he pointed out, isn’t just yet) and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Hopefully we were making a great impression on our debutante.

Next we chose again: Sam, Martin, Ian and I went for Babylonia and Katy, keen to impress the newbie, wanted to play Biblios and asked “What’s that game where you have to eat shit?” (referencing our by-now legendary variant: Extreme Biblios) but instead the Katy, Steve and Joe played L.A.M.A. until Adam arrived.

Steve 18
Joe 34
Katy 38


After that Joe, Katy, Steve and Adam chose Down Force, the exciting racing and betting game. Joe picked up his card for a single pound, and then bet on no one but himself. And he then came first. With these circumstances, a distant win is assured.

Joe 29
Adam 9
Katy 8
Steve 3

In Babylonia, we had an odd map, with a swathe of agricultural land splitting two groups of cities apart. I grabbed an early ziggurat and went from five available tiles to seven. Sam went big on cities, swooping in with his “two turns” power to pick up three in one go and, hence, and therefore was raking it in whenever someone triggered the city scoring.

Sam 133
Martin 122
Andrew 110
Ian 107

And as Down Force ended, we broke out Hurlyburly and spent a few happy minutes twanging small wooden cubes at each other's tower of cards. Ian and Sam went super defensive, with Sam's sandbag defences slightly taller than his one-storey tower.

But it was I who sprang up to four floors on my turn and avoided any hits from Sam (had no blocks), Martin (too far away) and Ian (blocks didn't bounce straight). Victory!

Finally we finished with Wavelength. After explaining it to Steve, Sam then went off piste with an audacious clue. For "Fantasy / Sci Fi" he said "High Fidelity by Nick Hornby."Ii scoffed that it was neither fantasy nor science fiction but, you see, that was the whole point. He was aiming for the middle. How smart.

I misunderstood my spectrum of "Good / Bad superpower." I thought it meant political superpower and not, as everyone else thought when they saw it, a special ability. As such my clue of "The British Empire" caused some surprise. We still got close enough to score, though. And a quick nod towards Ian’s clue of “vacuum cleaners” for the spectrum “un/reasonable phobia” in that the more we discussed it,the more reasonable it seemed.

It was a close game. We'd agreed to play until everyone had a go. The score was 10 - 7 as we entered our final turn. We needed a direct hit to win. It was all down to clue-giver Adam. The spectrum was “Has a bad/good reputation” and he chose Barack Obama. Amazingly, we got it spot on for the full four points.

Adam, Joe, Ian, Andrew 11
Steve, Martin, Sam, Katy 10

And so we ended. We were getting ready to go when Sam shushed everyone quiet while he recorded the farty sound of the lid being slid onto the Wavelength box. "Not in front of the new guy," said Katy despairingly. What an evening.

Too much fun

You would think that, as seasoned board gamers, we would be familiar with the concept of Fun. After years pursuing this hobby, we may even be a little jaded with it. But apparently not, as we squeezed eleven lightweight games of varying silliness into one evening.

We started as a five: Sam (the host), Ian, Martin, Katy and me. Steve was expected so we banged out a five-player game of L.A.M.A. until he arrived. Sam’s started very well, not picking up a single card until round three. He was so focused that when his phone rang, he picked it up, said “It’s only Greenpeace,” and put it back down. Saving the world can wait, Sam’s got games to play.

Sam 12
Ian 26
Katy 34
Andrew 35
Martin 44

After this, with Steve finally arrived, we played Fool! (or Fou!, since we had the French version) which is a trick taking game where whoever played the worst card in trick is the Fool (or Fou) and has to sit out the next round which is a problem since you’re trying to play all of your cards first.

I got off to a perfect start with two clear rounds giving me ten bonus points each time, while the rest of them had to each negative scores. Ha! At the start of round three, I was thirty points ahead of my nearest rival. But I needed that head start as my score began to be whittled away. Martin was looking very dangerous and in the last round, he managed to play all of his cards. Luckily, his last card was the weakest card in that trick, making him the fool and meaning he couldn’t pick up the ten point bonus. Phew!

Andrew -8
Martin -9
Sam -18
Ian -41
Steve -44
Katy -68

Around this time, Ian informed us that he’d drunk a lot of whisky over the bank holiday because it was his dad’s birthday next weekend. There was a pause afterwards while everyone tried to process that statement, before Ian explained he’d been taste-testing his dad’s birthday present.

Then Sam got out the four-player Rollet, just to show us and then, since it was out, we had a quick game. Sam & Katy beat Ian & Martin 5-4 and then Ian & Martin beat Steve & Andrew 5-4. It was silly, high tension fun, and it looked great. Martin said it looked expensive and Sam mumbled something in agreement.

Then we split into two groups of three. Normally, this indicates a change towards the more thinky, strategic game but not today. It was full steam ahead for more fun. Sam, Ian and Steve chose Men At Work, a stacking game where you have to place girders and builders on each other in order to satisfy certain orders on cards.

Ian wins
Steve 2nd
Sam 3rd

Katy, Martin and I played Maskmen, which is actually quite thinky but still fun. At least it was for Martin and Katy.

Martin 7
Katy 5
Andrew -4

The two groups were out of sync so Sam et al played a few games of Kartel which is notable for being a Reiner Knizia game that Martin hasn’t played.

Sam 11
Steve 9
Ian 7

Steve 7
Ian 7
Sam 6

Ian 15
Steve 12
Sam was upstairs sorting out some kind of dad thing.

And we played Heul Doch Mau Mau, which I thought I was doing okay at and lost only eight points in the final count, but I guess I gave away too many points to my opponents.

Martin 112
Katy 93
Andrew 91

Then Ian went home, but the fun just kept coming as we broke out QE. After all, with the two QE champions (Katy and Sam) around the same table, it would be madness not to. And talking of madness, after Katy’s initial starting price of 5,000 the bids would not go below six figures for most of the rest of the game. I finally got my first purchase for the handsome sum of 250,000 and picked up a second for 200,100 which looks insane but I was sure I wasn’t the one who’d spent most. Actually, I thought it would be Steve, and was surprised when I found out who it was. Sam, though, deliberately came in just below me having spent 249,995. However, his last-round purchase (for eight points) meant he lost the lowest spender 7 point bonus, and it went to Martin instead who finally won a game.

Martin 51
Sam 39
Andrew 26
Steve 23
Katy OUT! (but had 30 points)

It was after eleven, so obviously there was time for one more game. Flotsam Fight: the game of saving treasures by putting them in lifeboats that share the same factors as the number on your cards. While Martin explained the rules, some people had the audacity to laugh at my dealing technique, which I was not impressed with. Mocking a gamer’s dealing method is like telling a boxer he has a glass jaw. Suitably insulted, I gave as good as I got and called Katy “a fucking cunt”. Possibly overdid it, in hindsight. Martin, meanwhile, was still trying to explain the rules.

After that controversy, we played and I came out on top.

Andrew 4
Sam 3
Martin 1
Steve -1
Katy -1

After this we were done and Steve kindly offered us a lift back so that we might get to bed before midnight. Thanks all for the fun.

Five go mad in Butte

Games night without Joe and Sam is bound to be fallow. With Adam H and a string of other apologies this week and doubts about the fitness of my car, there was a time when it might have been just Martin and Katy. Instead we were five in total: the two aforementioned and Ian, Adam T and myself. Katy and I were late, and when we arrived we found a game of Eggs of Ostrich just ending.

Ian 7
Adam 6
Martin 3

Once we were all settled around the table we looked at the stack of games already laid out that would be good with five. We started with Northern Pacific. It was new to Adam but Martin insisted he could teach it in a minute. It began in a feisty mood. Katy began and placed a cube. Martin immediately moved the train past that cube, rendering it useless.

It was all very cagey stuff, apart from the fairly obvious jokes about putting things into Butte. Round three saw a lot of spread betting as everyone tried to put off moving the train for as long as possible. Katy spent a lot of time saying she was just happy being in third, so you can imagine how happy she was when she finished in second.

Ian 28
Katy 26 (wins on tie breaker)
Adam 26
Martin 23
Andrew 21

After this was Mamma Mia, chosen by Katy who was already in a state of high excitation at the possibility of being dealt the Mamma Mia card. She actually got it in round one and then theatrically dealt out the stack of cards in a broad Italianish accent. It was Adam’s first go at this game, too, and halfway through round one he said he’d worked out how you can play well. Ominous words and they preceded an amazing comeback in round three that had us checking the rules for a tie-breaker. I hoped it was “the quietest” who won, but instead it was “most cards left in hand” so Katy squeaked a win on one of her most loved games. Martin, meanwhile, insisted he used to be good at it.

Katy 5 (won on tie breaker)
Adam 5
Martin 3
Ian 3
Andrew 2

Then we played Nakanuki Paradise at my request. This game of guessing the highest value to bid without the total value exceeding the target is such a simple, clever game. Far too clever for me.

Martin 22
Adam 21
Katy 17
Ian 15
Andrew 13

Time was ticking on and for Adam’s last game before he departed, we chose a three-round game of Voodoo Prince. In round one Katy clearly had no trumps and was heading into a last-player-standing showdown with Ian, with only one trick to her name. Ian made things simple by showing her his remaining three cards: all trumps. She was out last and with only one point to her name.

I went out in similar fashion in round two and Adam in round three. But what of the other end of the scale? The winners? It was Ian versus Martin as we went into the last round, with Adam one point off the pace. Katy, buoyed up by her ten point haul in round two, kept asking if it was possible for her to win. Possible, but unlikely. Almost as unlikely as there being no trumps left in the game once there were only three players left. Katy did finish round three with most points, putting her in a respectable second, but Ian was third to last out for ten points while Martin was out first for five.

I had no trumps at all in round two

Ian 28
Katy 22
Martin 22
Adam 17
Andrew 13

After Adam left, we ended on a baffling round of QE. We bid for points, but those bids increased our chances of losing. Oh, the irony. Ian and I struggled to buy anything at first, and then Ian went on a spending spree that would make the Sultan of Brunei blush. He and I both tied for identical winning bids on one round: Katy had set the starting price at 20,000 and we both put in bids of 20,001. In the end, just like last time, Katy won by miles. A game she excels at, but might have difficulty finding people to play against in future.

Katy 37
Martin 29
Andrew 23
Ian OUT (but had 19)

And with that, we were done. All back homewards with more memories than we can plausibly keep except as a general warm glow of recollection.

Lexicon of Laughs

Eight people squeezed around Joe's kitchen table for the weekly games fest, having walked through Bristol’s indecisive weather which veered from wet to dry and then tried to make amends with a lovely rainbow or two.

Joe, sporting a sizeable scab running along his head but otherwise looking pretty chipper, was joined by Martin, Adam H, Adam T, Katy, Ian, Steve and myself. Katy brought Isle of Skye, "just in case anyone wants to play it," and she placed it prominently on the table (in case anyone wanted to look at it, I suppose). Such deft advertising worked and Ian and Adam H were keen for a game and Steve joined in too.

While the rest of us discussed things, someone mentioned Tichu to which Adam T responded "Did someone mention Tichu?" He was keen for a game, since he'd hadn't played in years.

Joe got out his card table, apologising for the cat hairs on the green felt tabletop. The room buzzed with dual rules explanations while Steve and Adam were brought up to speed, and we began with newbie Adam T paired with Martin and Joe teamed up with me.

New tactic: photo your hand to make people think it's amazing

Joe and me got off to a commanding lead, thanks to me fulfilling a call of Tichu despite Martin and Adam both having bombs. Also, Adam failed a couple of early Tichu calls as he made the error of ending the round with low, unplayable cards left in his hand.

But things started to turn around. Adam got the hang of things and Martin had a very bomb-heavy game. We were still looking good for the win, especially when Joe went out with an instant Tichu, but the gap kept getting narrower.

In the end, they ran out easy winners. Joe felt liked he'd been played by a hustler, such was the way the game played out. All that was missing was for one of them to suggest, when they were 700 points behind, "Say, why don't we make this interesting?"

Martin & Adam T 1080
Joe & Andrew 720

Happily, Isle of Skye was ending at almost the same time. I didn't really follow the game, apart from hearing Katy insist she was having fun despite being in last. When the final count came, perennially last Katy and always-leading Steve had a surprise or two.

Katy's tidy island

Ian 175
Katy 174
Steve 170
Adam 159

With all eight together we discussed our options. Captain Sonar for eight was instantly dismissed by Martin despite him being in another room. Instead we split again, with Tichu making a second appearance, this time with Ian, Adam T, Joe and Adam H. Apart from Joe’s midgame suggestion “Let’s all call Grand Tichu,” I don’t know how the game went, but it ended:

Joe and Adam T won
Ian and Adam H lost

Meanwhile, Martin, Katy, Steve and I played QE. Steve was aghast that there was now a game based on quantitative easing, but he seemed keen to give it a go. I also had reservations, especially due to its comparisons with Ponzi Scheme, but I thought I should give it a fair crack of the whip.

It was okay. Certainly a lot quicker than Ponzi Scheme. Steve (China) and Katy (USA) were the early big buyers and they hoovered up tiles. But Steve gave the impression of having spent more than Katy. In fact, in the last round he put out the final tile for tender at 50,000 only to find that he ended up having to buy it himself. He didn’t realise that was a possibility, but when we added up his money spent, he’d already gone far past the rest of us before that had happened, so it made no difference. Martin (EU) and I (Japan) made some last minute bids that, as it turned out, pushed us past Katy’s spending level, giving her a clear win. “Katy crushed it,” Martin said and Katy insisted I wrote it down.

Katy 41
Martin 30
Andrew 18
Steve OUT! (By miles, but he had 42)

Then we had a quick game of Heul Doch Mau Mau which is something to do with onions. You have to build up a pile of onion cards in front of you but they have to match either the suit or value of the one before and it mustn’t match the suit or colour of either of your neighbours. If it does, then your card must go on that pile, which means it counts towards their score.

But, you can “reset” your pile by playing a card face down – a weeping onion. At the end of the round, count up those onions. That value (say, six) means that any cards of that same value don’t count to your score. As it happens, Steve didn’t get hit by that punishment (nor did I, fat load of use it did me) while Martin lost 24 points.

Steve 91
Katy 77
Martin 74
Andrew 63

It was an odd game. Can’t shake the feeling there’s not enough control involved. Still, I pretty sure I laughed at some point.

At this point Adam T and Ian left, although Ian paused – tempted by the sight of a new word game: Stinker. This game involves each player having a set number of tiles with letters on (23 tiles each, which we thought was impossible with six players, but we ended up with three to spare) and a card giving you a topic about which you have to write an answer. Spelling mistakes are prefectly fine (see what I did there?) and each player has two blank tiles to get them out of a tight spot if they need it. There is a scoring system, but it seemed fairly redundant.

The game was a huge success, reducing most of us to puddles of tears of laughter. “How to avoid boredom,” asked the card. “Wank,” wrote Joe succinctly. My answers were too dull, reaching a peak with the prompt “Where would you go in the past” getting this answer from me:

But others did great work. “Another use for a light saber” was either “Massive Dildo” (Steve) or “Frighten Horses” (Joe). Martin tried to get the word “stinker” into as many responses as he could (i.e., “The perfect crime” = “Cheat at Stinker”).

I wish I’d made notes, but I was laughing too much. Only Adam didn’t seem hugely entertained, but you can’t please everyone can you?

Steve won
So did everyone else
Adam came last (sorry, Adam)

And so, wiping the tears from our eyes, we were done for the night. Two games of Tichu and a blistering debut from a new word game. Thanks for hosting, Joe.

Unlucky thirty

What manner of cruel fates were lined up against us this week? On Monday, it promised to be a bumper crop, with nine of us expected. Then Katy's two friends bailed out before Katy herself decided that exhaustion had got the better of her and she, too, declined. Then Joe, while moving a book case, had it fall on his head and he had to go to hospital to have it checked out. Finally, my neighbour found water dripping down through her ceiling so I stayed until the maintenance guy arrived and sorted everything out meaning that I would be late if I arrived at all .

That's why, at the regular time, only four players sat around Sam's kitchen table, which Sam had pulled away from the wall and put stools around to accommodate far more people. The four in question were Sam, Martin, Ian and Adam (of the T variety).

First they played EQ.

Sam 41
Ian 30
Adam 25
Martin out, but scored 32

Then they played Panic Lab. I arrived just as it was being put away. I don't know the scores but judging by Ian and Sam's air of bamboozlement, I think either Martin or Adam won.

I took my place at the table, exhausted, and waited for the games selection to be brought in by the others.

A sparse games night

Martin and Adam brought in a couple of clever area control/set collecting games while Sam brought in Villagers and his son, Stanley. I went for certain last place by agreeing to Traders Of Osaka (hoping that the method of choosing starting player was Last Player To Visit Japan, but it wasn't) while Ian got involved in a battle between father and son.

Martin gave a rules explanation, prefacing certain aspects with phrases like "the tricky bit is..." "the mean bit is..." And so on. It all seemed typically devious. Simple, yet difficult enough that I struggle to summarise it here.

The main premise of the game is the market - a row of cards. You can buy everything or take only one card and use it as money later. Of course, if you take a card then you make the market cheaper for others. A delicate balance. Buying cards pushes ships of that colour from Osaka to Edo and, once there, those cards will pay out.

There's more to it than that, but I spent most of the time juggling personal needs with communal benefits. There was never any doubt about first place, but Adam's initial reticence to use his reserve token may have cost him second place.

Martin 18
Andrew 11
Adam 10

Villagers is, I believe, about rebuilding a village after the plague has hit and that's all I know. They ended at the same time as we did and although Ian ended with a good score for a debutant, Sam was more concerned waiting for his son to count up his score.

"Thirty eight," said Stanley.

"Really?" remarked Sam, full of hope.

"One hundred and thirty eight." Stanley clarified.

"Go to bed," Sam ordered.

Stanley 138
Sam 133
Ian 66

After this we were a group of five. What to play next? We chose Voodoo Prince and what a tense event it was. We played three rounds and in round two we were all poised for victory/defeat/humiliation with two tricks each. One more trick would see anyone have to bow out and take whatever points were available. In the end it was Ian. But his haul of eight points got him considerably more than the player who never scored that third trick, Sam, who got only two points.

And this is how slow and steady Ian, never last, never first, won the game. Adam must take some of the credit, though. He was in stone cold last as we entered round three and he fell on his sword to spite the current leader Martin; he was the first to get his third trick just to stop Martin from winning. In fact Adam sent Martin from first to fourth.

Ian 25
Sam 24
Andrew 24
Martin 23
Adam 17

Now Adam left, as heroes should, on a high. The remaining four played L.A.M.A. We chuckled as we remarked on those short sighted people on Board Game Geek who seemed to think that the game required no decisions. Then we demonstrated what they meant by playing a round where no one picked up a card and the starting player (Martin) went out.

Martin 12
Sam 17
Andrew 27
Ian 46

Ian left at this point, and the three of us set off on a game of Flotsam Fight. Another gem from Oink Games and with a gossamer-thin theme draped over the game mechanic. Basically, there are eight lifeboats, numbered three to ten. Each player has a hand of cards of numbers between (I assume) 3 and 99. You can only put the cards in lifeboats that are a factor of the card. For example, the card 12 could go in the boats 3, 4 and 6. The factors are listed on the card, so you don't have to work it out yourself.

It was fun and more subtle than I initially thought. Amazingly, the mathematically minded Martin didn't win.

Sam 5
Martin 2
Andrew - 1

And what about a finale? We chose the old favourite, The Mind. Again, Martin regaled us with some of the dumber criticisms of the game from BGG including one reviewer who'd interpreted the silence during the game as being passive aggressive. "It's a co-op game," Sam sighed.

Some people, eh?

The game was amazing. We got through a tough round one (39 - 45 - 51) and in round three Martin managed to slide a 69 under the 70 that Sam was about to put down.

In round eight we lost a life when a 27 got stuck to the back of another card in Sam's hand, only revealing itself far too late. Despite this, we went into round ten with two lives left. We could almost smell the Dark Mind. Alas, we lost those two lives. Both to close calls, as I recall.

And then we were done. Despite my late start, it had been worth it. Keen to give Flotsam Fight another go, and Traders... too. And thanks to all for attending. Commiserations to those who didn't.

Third Dan

The muggy Bristol heat almost made for an eighth player last night, with even Sybil subdued by humidity. But we were seven: Joe hosting, Martin, Adam T, Katy, Ian, myself (Sam) and newbie Dan who has just moved in around the corner from Joe, so - who knows? - may feature regularly for the year he plans on staying.

I was a little late and before I arrived they played Panic Lab. I know nothing about it other than the fact there is a Dobble-esque real-time pressure and therefore probably best I was late. Martin, apparently, was the least panicked when they finished.

Then, with Dan's arrival imminent, we split into two factions of Pax Pamir and Chinatown and set up whilst trying to recall all the Dans who have come and gone in the near-decade existence of GNN. There's been at least two. I thought there was three, but then I remembered one of them wasn't called Dan. Anyway: in Afghanistan it was Adam, Martin and myself. Across the other side of the world Joe, Katy and Ian explained Chinatown to now-present Dan. Or Joe did. "The rules are very simple" he assured him. "I just can't remember them."

We had no such issues in Pamir, having played it only last week. Adam and Martin aligned themselves with the Afghans whilst I went Russian. This gave me a bit of a workout keeping up with the pair of them placing armies and roads on the board - in order to score points I either needed the Russians dominant or nobody at all. The latter was more likely.

Normally when Pamir gets played there's one player who gets stuck in stasis - not having enough cash, or stuck with off-suit cards and taking underwhelming turns whilst waiting for the tide to change. Last night was the first time this seemed to happen to all of us simultaneously though; Adam cash-poor, Martin frustrated by the cards and me having to add cards to my court then instantly discard them several times.

On the other half of the table, there were no in-at-the-deep-end troubles for Dan - he seemed to be in his element, channeling the survival skills of the perpetually self-employed as he haggled for position in Chinatown. But beyond that I didn't pick up much of what was going on, as Pamir's inscrutability took all our attention.

When the first dominance card was activated (by the appearance of the second) nobody was dominant, so Adam and I shared non-dominant points: a massive 2 each with Martin back on zero. I was seconds away from a win as Martin - now aligned with the British - removed an Afghan road instead of a Russian one. But he changed his mind! Then as we inched towards the third dominance scoring, I changed allegiance to the Afghans and so did Martin. Suddenly we were all vying for dominance and I was in pole position. I gave the warlords a second gift, and wrapped the game up with the others unable to prevent me scoring:

Sam 7
Adam/Martin 2

Martin's face suggested he was marginally less enamoured of Pamir than last week, and both he and Adam said Pax Porfiriana is less abstracted. In fact Martin's complaint wasn't about the play but the lack of theme. As the winner, I was less bothered by that but I agreed with Adam's summary: It was too hot to play Pamir.

Chinatown was still in full-construction so we tried our luck, literally, at PUSH; Joe's recent purchase of card collection and implosion. I remembered Andrew's success and decided to bank as soon as my cards went into double figures, and despite some swingy dice-rolling, this tactic worked for me too:

Sam 74
Martin 61
Adam 56

To Martin's disbelief, they were still at it in Chinatown, so we played the (not hugely dissimilar to PUSH) L.A.M.A as well. Martin's evening went from bad to worse:

Sam 8
Adam 13
Martin 43

As we wrapped that up, the final roof tile was placed in Chinatown and the scaffolders left for good. When the dust of negotiation settled, the triumphant wheeler-dealer was Dan:

Dan 11,70000
Katy 11,10000
Joe 10,80000
Ian 10,40000

It had been an epic but everyone seemed happy to have lived through it. But with the time now pressing on somewhat, Ian departed for home and Adam T followed him out the door. We were left as a five and that was the perfect number for Martin's new addition to his games cupboard, QE.

I guess QE, unsnappy though it is, is still more snappy than quantitive easing, which is what it stands for. Players each represent a country (apart from me - I was the EU) trying to become the most profitable by bidding for industries. Over 15 turns (three rounds of five) an industry tile is flipped over that will score between 2-4 points, and represents an industry as well as a country. If you buy your own country tile, it's worth additional points to you. If you have diverse industries, that's good - but you can also score points by specialising. Your industries are gathered together in a bingo-like card in front of you, where your other scores are recorded as well.

One considerable catch with QE is that you can bid absolutely anything you like: from zero to fifty trillion and higher. But the player who has spent the most, like High Society, is an instant loser. This leads to a see-saw battle battle between bidding high enough to win and not so high as to promote yourself to status of most-profligate. And the other considerable catch is all bids are hidden from everyone except the auctioneer: when it's your turn, you start the bidding (everyone sees that) and then you get to see all bids and announce the winner, but without announcing the bid itself. Instead the bid is recorded on the industry tile and kept face-down. Everybody has the option of looking at the winning bid too, which is really helpful, but can only use this special power once in the entire game.

It amounted to a weird mix of group-think and second-guessing. Martin claimed the first two tiles to himself and got them, considering where we ended up, very cheaply. Dan started pushing the bids up as he claimed no less than three housing tiles. Katy also seemed to be doing well early on. I had a strong mid-game, but Joe was stuck on one tile and kept being outbid. Determined to get the final one, he hiked up the price to 10,000 and got the tile - but also shunted himself into last position by virtue of money-spent. Dan and I looked most productive, and I pipped him to the win:

Sam 41
Dan 36
Martin 31
Katy 28
Joe 18 and spent most!

Katy and I now plumped for Dead Man's Chest to finish the evening. Martin was against it, not least because the rules are always so oddly bewildering to us, and when I brought Dan to see Joe's game collection he also vehemently insisted I had "twice as many" games as Joe. We also mentioned the blog to Dan somewhere around this point, which was a real "Let's invite him to the club, Michael" moment: Dan realised that despite the relatively light baptism with Chinatown, perhaps wasn't all quite as it seemed.

Martin returned with some options but found Katy was already explaining the rules of Dead Man's Chest to Dan. We all chipped in with some extra clarifications at this point, none of which helped particularly. I suggested since Dan was to my right I start and he can watch us play, but I'm not sure this helped either. It is such a bizarre game, and Dan was unsurprised to go out first (I think), reflecting that "I should never have looked" after his second challenge on Katy. Martin was next to fall (I think), followed by Katy and leaving Joe and I to face off. I guessed his bluff, and - even more bizarre - picked up my fifth win of the night!

1 Sam
2 Joe
3 Katy
4 Martin
5 Dan

With the distant sound of thunder rumbling in from Clifton but the heat still as stifling as when we arrived, it was finally time to go. Another wonderful GNN evening, and hopefully we'll see Dan again. He seemed to be as coherent when he left as when he arrived.