A night on the tiles

With an unusual amount of thinking ahead, this week's venue had been arranged a full two weeks in advance. Steve and Anja were hosting and Joe, Katy, Ian, Martin and I were attending, with one extra in the shape of Bekah, friend of Steve and Anja's. I don't know what they said to her to convince her that it was a good idea, but she knew enough about gamers to recognise us on the street as Joe hauled his Ikea bag of games out of my car boot, giving us a friendly wave as she drove past.

Once all inside, the eight of us came perilously close to having a conversation when Martin asked what we were playing. Since four copies of Tichu had been brought by three different people (Joe brought two) that was clearly a front runner from the start. Martin corralled Katy into a rematch along with Ian and Joe.

Meanwhile, Anja's eye had been caught by Azul in Joe's bag. I sold it as a puzzley combative game, so she needed no further persuasion and the rest of us set up to play.

Admittedly, a game of Azul with three newbies was never going to be that aggressive and I had to explain that the combat part comes with experience. The experience in question being playing against Martin. One of the main attractions of the game for Steve and Anja was that the tiles matched the tiling around their fireplace. This meant if they ever wanted to play Azul, all they had to do was take a hammer to their fireplace and they’d have (almost) everything they need!

The game was a pleasant affair and any attempts I made at ruining one player's options usually ended up benefiting the next player. Anja shot into an early lead, getting four in a column in the first round. Then my experience paid off and I edged into first until the closing stages when Steve's logical mind kicked in, giving him a clear win by the end. Bekah, though, became obsessed with her yellow tiles and filled up a row of them one by one. Not a winning strategy, but it was her first game. Everyone liked it, no matter how well or badly they did.

Steve 68
Anja 58
Andrew 56
Bekah 43

On the Tichu table was, I assume, the usual examples of luck-defying game play. Whenever I popped over, Joe always seemed to have called Tichu and I think he and Katy had an early lead. I could be wrong, though.

But the award for Hand Of The Evening was won by Ian who had a run of all fourteen cards, going from the Mah Jong card (value 1) all the way up to Ace High. Astonishing. And he had the presence of mind to call Tichu.

They ended when we finished Azul, so no one hit the 1,000 point target, but one team was notably closer than the other.

Martin and Ian 940
Joe and Katy 260

So now we were all together, we discussed what would happen next. Joe's new split level dice arena needed a run out so Joe, Martin and Katy chose Kribbeln, while the rest of us went for 7 Wonders.

7 Wonders is one of those games that I'm so familiar with, that I forget how impenetrable it is at first. I had to explain to Bekah and I did as good a job as possible but it's not a very intuitive game, and there was a certain amount of in-game coaching.

I didn't realise, though, that Anja hadn't played in years either. Once the game began she expressed regret that she hadn't taken the chance of a rules refresher, and was struggling a bit. To illustrate her situation, mid game, she pointed to an icon on her Wonder that she'd just built, asking what it meant.

"It means you can buy basic resources for only one coin." we explained.

"Ah," she said, "so I didn't need to build these," referring to the East Trading Post and West Trading Post in her tableau, which replicated exactly what her Wonder was now doing. Definitely not a great move.

Steve, ever the optimist, said maybe she'd get a Guild that rewards having Yellow cards. Anja did not look reassured.

Meanwhile, Kribbeln ended thus:

Katy 18
Joe 15
Martin 13

Then they played a three round game of Eggs Of Ostrich. All I know about this is hearing Joe's plaintive cry of "I've burst my two-sack."

Martin 33
Joe 31
Katy 29

7 Wonders was drawing to a close. Ian and Steve had both gone for a resource-lite approach and, since they were sitting next to each other, it was a risky endeavour. Anja had the only cloth in the game, making things difficult for Steve and me who were not her neighbours.

Other than that, the final round consisted mostly of people building armies since it was all they could afford. Everyone did that except Steve who, thanks to chaining together buildings or just affording to buy resources from me, built science after science. And an unchallenged scientist is a victorious scientist. Mind you, we were glad that science had won out over opportunistic military campaigns. It seemed morally appropriate. Poor Bekah spent most of the third round clarifying that there was no way she could get one more brick, so she could keep building her Wonder. If she'd finished it, it would have got her 13 extra points and a potential second place.

Steve 59
Ian 48
Andrew 46
Bekah 36
Anja 32

As we were packing up, the last game was wrapping up, too. Joe, Martin and Katy had squeezed in a quick game of Qwinto. I walked over to them just as the scores were being totted up. Joe seemed very disappointed, since he thought he'd definitely won. "I thought I was doing rather well," he sighed as he saw his certain victory turn into a decided last place.

Katy 55
Martin 53
Joe 52

Martin said something about "if only I hadn't rolled those double ones," or something. I was too tired to pay too much attention. It was quarter past eleven and time to hit the road. Thanks to our gracious hosts and hello to Bekah. Can’t wait for next Tuesday!

While the cats are away...

With our respective other halves both out at the Immediate Christmas do, Joe popped round to mine for a rare 2-player games night. To the accompaniment of Effie singing herself to sleep (piped in by the baby monitor), we started puzzling out Joe's recently acquired Bridgette.

As the name implies, it's a scaled-down version of Bridge, specifically for two players. There are three special cards called 'colons', leading to an amusing section in the rulebook headed 'Colon Irregularities'. Fortunately we didn't suffer from these.

Joe made a tentative 2 No Trump bid in the first round but my terrible cards meant he comfortably made it. In the second hand, I benefited from an odd rule whereby if an Ace is the turn-up card, the dealer can draw 9 extra cards and then choose the best 13 from 22. My hand of 11 clubs and two other Aces pretty much played itself...

We decided to move on to another one by the same designer - mad genius Joli Quentin Kansil (also responsible for Montage). This one is called Krakatoa and it's a part-dexterity dice game: you're trying to roll particular combinations of colours on the three sets of d12s, but each successive roll must knock into and move one of the dice lying on the table. The rules also stipulate that it be played on a soft surface such as a tablecloth, encouraging the dice to turn over when hit rather than just skidding.

Joe seemed to have an innate talent for rolling matching sets of three ('volcanoes'), raced into the lead and never looked back. I had a brief moment of hope when I achieved the best combo in the game - a 'Big Eruption' with all 9 dice showing the same colour (pictured). This quadruples your scoring for the next two throws, but sadly four times nothing is still nothing.

It was already 9.30 and we were yet to start the main event! Joe has recently acquired the long-awaited 'Distant Lands' expansion for our old favourite Manoeuvre, offering four new armies with interesting new powers. I went for the Indians while Joe was keen to try the Japanese. Unfortunately, after several minutes of meticulously shuffling the freshly-unshrinked cards, he realised he'd picked up the Swedes instead so an unlikely battle ensued.

The new armies seem to have lower basic strength than the original ones but with a few tricks up their sleeves - my Indians could launch rocket attacks! I made a couple of positional blunders and Joe seemed to have the advantage in the midgame. We settled into an attritional battle, mostly managing to heal wounded units before they could be eliminated, and proceeding through our decks quite slowly.

The tide started to turn when I drew a handful of cards for an infantry unit which had spent the game so far hanging around lazily far from the front line. Now they charged forward and delivered an instant kill to one of Joe's units. We'd now made 4 kills each (5 is needed for an instant win) but our decks were also close to depleted, which brings the game to an end with victor decided by territory occupied. Neither of us could quite manage another kill and my slightly more advanced units gave me a tight 9-7 win.

The ladies still seemed to be happily partying so we finished off with Joe's Secret Santa gift Qwinto. It's another roll-and-write game and most similar to Qwixx. However, while the decisions in Qwixx often seem quite obvious, Qwinto offers a lot more freedom. You can start a row anywhere - not just at the ends, but it's still quite easy to box yourself into a corner later in the round.

Joe easily won the first as I ended it with a sequence of 'fehlwurfes'. The second seemed to go much better than me and we calculated a 79-79 tie until I realised that I'd added 12 points I hadn't earned.

Midnight was striking and it was time to call it a night - and Sarah reported they were just having the last dance too!

The Lord of Mis-roll

I left my flat this Tuesday evening to the warm tones of Silent Night coming from a nearby group of carol singers. Nice of them to come out on the night of the GNN Christmas special.

I went to Joe's for a lift, and then we sat in traffic on our way to pick up Sam. As such, the three of us were the last to arrive at Adam and Hannah's, joining Katy, Matt, Martin and Ian.

First there was the little matter of the Secret Santa to settle. Everyone had bought a game related gift for everyone else, and we opened them in order of age, youngest first. We were all very happy with our gifts since they all seemed perfectly chosen for us. Even for the last minute entry, Matt, which required a slight change in the pattern of gift giving.

Ian's festive jumper won many admirers

After all that generosity, we all played a game together: Avenue. In this game, each player has a map (all identical) of grapes, castles and farms. As the oldest player reveals a card showing a road (straight horizontal, straight vertical and four ninety degree turns) which we all have to draw on our maps. The idea is to link the grapes to the farms and, eventually, to the castles too. But be careful! One farm won't score at all, so take care not to waste useful roads on that one.

It's like a simple Karuba but despite the simplicity, it caused anguish around the table. Katy was appalled to see that the last farm to score was the one she couldn't reach any more. Joe, in contrast, was only one tile away from connecting all of his roads into one long super highway (for grapes).

Joe 78
Andrew 66
Martin 63
Sam 61
Hannah 58
Ian 58
Katy 55
Matt 42
Adam 41

After this was a break from gaming for mince pies and the Quiz of the Year. Sam was quiz creator and question master and the teams were Joe, Martin, Katy and Ian against Hannah, Adam, Matt and me. Since I had written most of the blog this year, it was considered only fair that I should be partnered with those who hadn't been able to attend.

Katy didn't realise mince pies had been served

until there was only one left.

However, my spotty memory was no match for the other team who had, after all, actually been there.

Katy, Joe, Martin, Ian 22
Adam, Hannah, Matt, Andrew 17

Next, we split into two groups. Katy, Ian, Martin and Sam chose The Quest For Eldorado while the rest of us played Zendo.

It was the first go on Zendo for everyone except Joe who talked us through the rules. It's basically a game of Spot The Rule, communicated through the medium of coloured plastic shapes. We played for three rounds. Adam won the first round, with Matt guessing right in the second.

Then disaster struck! As a bag of salty nibbles was passed across to Matt, his bottle of beer was knocked over. Quickly, we leapt into action, saving the rule book. Then we realised that, since all the pieces were plastic, the game itself was waterproof.

All we had to do was dry it, so Hannah got out the salad spinner and we put all the pieces in there. Despite several brisk spins, each piece still needed some personal attention so we spent a little time drying them off one by one.

And after all that, Hannah correctly guessed the rule!

The people on the big table were still playing Quest For Eldorado so we tried Joe's secret santa gift of Qwinto. This is a roll and write game whereby you have to right the results of some rolled dice along one of three rows. Each row has to contain values that increase from left to right. Complete a row and you get a number of points equal to the largest number in that row. There are also a few columns to complete, too. You must write a number on your turn, but can choose to pass on other players rolls. If a player completes two rows or goes bust four times, the game ends.

Since each roll can be used, there’s always something you need to be aware of. As such, I preferred it to other roll and write games. But my warm feelings for the game were nor reciprocated, as I ended the game with four mis-rolls giving me –20 points in the final reckoning. It would’ve been a whitewash if I hadn’t kept rolling eights.

Andrew 63
Matt 63
Hannah 40
Joe 39

Eldorado had, by now, had the shit quested out of it, with Martin getting there first, fighting off a late burst of activity from Ian and a machete-weilding Katy. Sam was only a couple of hexes further back, too.

1 Martin
2. Ian and Katy
3. Sam

So we were all together and a final game of 6nimmt was enough to persuade Hannah to postpone her bed-time. In a display of festive cheer, we also invited Dirk to join us. This loose cannon is always good for a chuckle or two as he either falls on his sword or pushes someone else into danger.

In the first round, Dirk ended with 39. Martin had 22 and I felt obliged to point out that he was the worst sentient being in the room. Ian scored only two in round one and then finished round two clear of any points at all! Adam and Sam were struggling and Sam reminisced about when it was usually him or Adam who won. Sam managed to get through round three with only a single point. Adam did not fare so well. He scored over twenty in each of the three rounds, leading me to dub him “The Human Dirk.” My, I was in a feisty mood this evening!

Ian 24
Andrew 30
Sam 37
Matt 38
Hannah 39
Martin 45
Joe 46
Katy 48
Adam 65
Dirk 80

And so we were off. Full of the joys of the season, with happy memories of mince pies, festive jumpers, wet plastic and mystery presents. Big thanks to Adam and Hannah for hosting and see everyone soon!