Games Knight Knews

I arrived at Sams’s in the turmoil of a game of Cross Clues. I ignored the usual gaming wisdom of never playing until you’ve taken your coat off and sat down and I looked at my card which prompted me to give a clue for “Kinght/Night.” I said “homophone” and got an easy point and an idea for the blog post title. Other attendees apart from me and Sam were Martin, Ian, Adam H and Pete. Martin was a clue machine but Adam was stymied by two clues involving Cauliflower.

21 out of 25

The six of us split into two groups. I joined Ian and Sam in a game of Torchlit, a trick taking game in which you have to guess how many tricks you’ll win. You’re guess is hidden in the form of a face down card and your progress is shown as a meeple on a track.

If your guess is correct, you get 3 points but you can get extra points if that space on the track has cards placed beneath it. Of course, if you miss your target, you can still pick up the points from any cards placed on that particular space.

It was fun. I played the first round in a fog of confusion, trying to work out what was a good hand and what wasn’t. In round two Sam did badly as he won a trick he didn’t want that pushed him onto a low scoring space: just two points for that round. He couldn’t recover and, after three rounds, the scores were

Andrew 18

Ian 16

Sam 13

On the other half of the table, Pete, Martin and Adam played Maya. It’s minimalist design, pastel coloured hexagons with a distinct lack of Mayan flair, gave it a 90s look. I know very little about the game, apart from a typically Martin-esque phrase mid-game, “I have to do that to you to screw you out of ten points,” he said to Pete. Not that it made a difference as it ended:

Pete 157

Martin 147

Adam 131

After this some limited edition (for Easter, I think) chocolate and chili crisps were shared. They got a mixed reaction, but people kept eating them in a sort of fugue state of disbelief at the taste.

After Maya finished, the players discussed it and we soon realised that a lot of our geographical knowledge comes from board games. Although a lot of that knowledge was focused in Germany.

We then split into two groups once more. I stayed in my chair for the third game in a row and watched people move around me. Me, Sam and Adam played Dewan - placing our camps across a map to satisfy various criteria drawn at random from a deck of tiles. 

Adam seemed pleased when he heard there was no hand limit and, indeed, as he played he always seemed to have cards to choose from. I was living hand to mouth, cards-wise, despite my plan of putting camps in the middle of the board, hoping to get cards from anyone wishing to pass.

It was a close one and, to be honest, I was surprised I came last.

Sam 46

Adam 46

Andrew 43

There is a tie-breaker: player with most cards left over wins, but Sam disdained that rule and announced it was a tie, even though he would have won by it. I wonder if we can backdate that decision to my game when I drew with Martin...

At the far end of the table Rebirth: Ireland was in full swing. Clearly, Martin and Pete had not had enough hexagon-based map games for that evening. 

And as I stepped out into the evening, Sam picked up the blogging duties

After Andrew left, Rebirth was still continuing, and it sounded like Ian's early lead was getting pegged back by Pete and Martin. We had time for a two-platyer, so Adam and I stared at the alcove in the front room before deciding on card-shedder Chu Han, which Adam may or may not have played before. Even after beating me, he still wasn't sure.

I won the first round before Adam took the second. In the third round I had huge clutches of 4s and 5s and if I could just get rid of a single six, Adam would be in trouble. But shedding the six gave him the lead *and* doubled points for the round, something I came to regret when I just couldn't get it back and he went out to leave him poised for a win at 29-10. As Rebirth was packing up by now, we decided to award him the victory, as my comeback looked improbable at best. 

Adam - wins!

In Rebirth, Ian had been scampered past by late-game business from the other two, and on realising he had a forgotten objective Pete also realised he'd just completed it with his last tile - enough to take a St Patrick's Day win on the Ireland side of the board!

Pete 244
Martin 241
Ian 232

A triumphant but tired Adam now departed, but Ian said he'd be up for a So Clover. So we did that. Despite some hesitancy and trepidation, it was another Record of Legends night with a cement-hard 24/24. This was despite my putting Queenie for Perfume/Chess. Ian's cradle for Life/Grave was nice. 

Now we lost Ian as well but the three of us still felt we had enough energy for a crack at Biblios, with Martin and I introducing Pete to the Extreme foul-mouthed variant. I suspect Martin ate his own shit at one point, but he didn't say, and who can blame him. I tried to stay out of the battle for brown and blue and focused all my efforts on red and green. If they could outscore any other pair of dice I would be King Biblios once more! 

But this went wrong when I outbid Martin for a +1 Church card late on, only to find the very next auction was a +2 Church card. Pete and I were broke, Martin picked it up dirt-cheap, and with it the crown. 

Martin 7

Sam 6

Pete 3

And that was that for another GNN. See you all soon...

Two-sday

An unusually quiet Tuesday evening saw just two gamers present. I (Ian) made the short walk to Martins for an evening of two players.

We started off with Rebirth, on the Scottish map. 

This recent Knizia works well with two players, which sees a number of spaces blocked off to reduce the player area. Martin managed to build a fairly large Energy Farm that scored big points repeatedly, and despite picking up more personal missions (or maybe because of, as my attention may have been more on reaching those targets than the state of the board) landed in a comfortable victory.



Martin 196

Ian 176

Next, we played Chu Han. We used the event deck, and after the “no-effect” event was drawn a couple of times, we opted to ignore fate and draw a new event. There was an event neither of us had encountered before, Mandate of Heaven (I think it was called), which allowed the player passing to draw from that trick, which gave the hand an interesting twist.



Martin pulled into a lead early (helped by me deciding to use the “pass to take lead” card a few times, giving him points, and I just couldn’t catch up


Martin 31

Ian 19

Next, we played Toy battle, with Martin taking a fairly aggressive stance and rushing into my base for the instant win. Three times. My defensive approach clearly no match for an influx of T-Rexes.

Martin wins (x3)

Ian loses.

Marabunta was suggested by Martin, a game I hadn’t played before. I quite enjoyed this recent Knizia area control game. Simple mechanically, with each player taking it turns to roll a set of dice, splitting them into two groups. The twist is that the opponents get to choose which set they want first, so there are nice considerations to be made.

Despite offering up a few dice-splits that gave Martin pause for thought the game was perhaps inevitable his. I would like to play this again though, a surprisingly deep game for such a small box.

Martin 15

Ian 9

We finished with Viking See-Saw, another Knizia, though possibly the least-Knizia like Knizia I’ve played, being a dexterity balancing game. I do like the pieces, the metal cubes having genuine heft.

This proved to finally be a game I could win, and finished the evening with my sole victory, though I didn’t make a note of the exact score.

Ian wins

Martin Loses



All in all, a most enjoyable evening of two-players.

Come on, Eilan

When I arrived at Sam’s house, Joe, Jo, Ian, Adam T and Sam were all knee-deep in a game of Inkling. In this game, players are dealt some cards with some markings on them which resemble parts of letters. Place these cards anyway you want, and hopefully you’ll be able to spell out one (or more) of the six words on your card.

It was interesting to watch, but are there hidden strategies still to be uncovered? It seemed to reward literally writing the word, while any attempt at cryptical clueing fell flat. Ian tried to clue two of his words with one, admitting he’d “tried to So Clover it.” While Sam went all Rebus on the group. One of his clues looked like “OIST” which I noted may be the noise you make when you pick up something heavy. But it was actually a clue for “FLOOR” - it was the word “1st” with a button next to it, ie. first floor.

Joe 17

Adam 14

Jo 11

Ian 11

Sam 9

Adam tried to encapsulate it’s qualities by saying “It’s like a cross between a word game and…” “a break down.” Sam helpfully suggested.

By now Martin was here, and then a ghost from the past breezed in. Mark, who once appeared in this blog on a semi-regular basis, was visiting from Devon. How nice to see him again. With eight of us, we split into two. Sam, Mark, Ian and myself played Rebirth while Jo, Joe, Adam and Martin played Eternals Deck.

I didn’t notice much of Eternals Deck except for its lovely cloth board and the look of disappointment when, halfway through the game, Jo explained to their colleagues that they were playing the easy version of the beginners stage. But, they all won!

As for Rebirth, after a rules explanation to Mark (that I needed too, frankly) we set off rebuilding a post apocalyptic Scotland with our farms, castles and zeppelins. Mid-game, Sam and Mark started chaining together farms for big returns. Ian and I tussled in the housing market and I also focused on castles. 

Mark expressed surprise at the score, saying he'd only really got the hang of it 70% of the way through the game and that before then he'd been copying us.

I guess that makes it a shared victory?

Mark 141

Sam 132

Andrew 113

Ian 109

After this we rearranged. Both Adam and I were in the market for something shortish and Martin suggested Greed. We agreed (no pun intended) and were joined by Jo. The remaining four brought out The Gang, a clever cross between Texas Hold ‘Em and The Mind. I’ve played this before with six players and little success, but this time the sounds of cheers wafted across the table as they succeeded round after round in an atmosphere of co-operative bon homie.

Greed, as you can gather, is far less communal. There was a lot of PvP action as we took out each others thugs and holdings, but at the start both Jo and Adam complained about the opening hand they’d created for themselves, which were far too forward thinking so left them with few options in the short term.

I, on the other hand, barely looked more than two turns ahead such that apart from an early flourish where I picked up some cash, I was reacting to what other players were doing. Adam had abandoned whatever plan he’d started with and gone aggressive, playing a lot of spoiling cards. Jo, though, smartly got themselves into a winning position, playing a double-your-money card and then another card netting $45,000 which turned into $90,000. 

Jo 170,000

Martin 120,000

Andrew 85,000

Adam 10,000

With that, I was gone. Handing over to Sam for part two. Thanks all.

* * *

Adam also left now, and we were down to six. Martin promptly brought out Things in Rings and attempted

to explain it whilst the rest of us attempted to understand it. At least I did anyway - having slightly indulged things by now I mostly spent my time proclaiming my bafflement. 

As far as I could comprehend it's kind of like a wordy version of Zendo, where instead of figuring out the spatial rule to a bunch of pyramids, we're trying to deduce the conceptual rules for each circle in a Venn diagram, and there are three qualities: the context (eg can be dangerous) an attribute (eg larger than a person) and the text of the word itself (eg it starts with a vowel, which happened to be the one we figured out first). 

Turns are taken by placing a Word card into the puzzle somewhere (or indeed, outside of it) and hoping you're right: first person to successfully shed all cards wins. The person making these decisions was the "knower' - Martin, who didn't get to guess - and there's definitely a subjective element to where things end up - is a zipper dangerous? -  it's possible. Jo sussed out the attribute, but we were all thrown by the context and things ended up there on speculative punts more than Holmesian genius. 

After a 40 minutes or so of bewilderment Jo won (I think) and we all professed our admiration for something so bonkers. Tough being the 'Knower' though. 

It was time for So Clover. I don't recall a huge amount about at this point but it was a reasonable success. 

Post-script: At the start of the night, Adam T thrashed me 3-0 at Toy Battle and he also beat Ian and I at Rainbow!

For Goodness' Saké

Like a rare planetary alignment, every year or so four increasingly aging board gamers meet to catch up and share news, ancient in-jokes and some dubious double-entendres.

I arrived at about 1.30, and Sam told me that Chris and Paul were running late, still picking their way through Bristol’s bank holiday traffic. We drank coffee and chatted while I idly looked at the packaging for Tokkuri Taking, a game that would be our first once we were all here.

The packaging promises a bacchanial party of sake with dinosaurs. In practice, we were playing cards to either represent a clay bottle full of sake (the tokkuri) or the amount of sake each player will drink.

You have to play cards which will empty a (or many) tokkuri(s) exactly. If you achieve this, you flip the tokkuri card, action any text that you may see and keep it as a point. Unless it is a Dummy card, in which case the card is removed from the game and everyone else chuckles at your bad luck.

In fact, the revelation of a dummy card remained funny until the end of the game. It was a nice little game but, as Chris pointed out, where were the dinosaurs?

Sam 20

Chris 13

Paul 4

Andrew 0

After this game, to commemorate the day, Chris took a selfie of the four of us and unfortunately demonstrated how age turns technology into a mystery. We all posed and smiled and, instead of taking a photo, Chris promptly turned his phone off.

Never mind, we got there in the end.

Then we chose our next game. At least, me, Sam and Paul did. Chris stayed at the kitchen table, declaring himself too tired to make a decision. And so we played Tower Up, in which we were rampant civil engineers/town planners, intent on placing our roofs across city skyscrapers. Each of us had a player board with four scoring tracks in white, black, brown and grey which gave us the first childish sniggers as we spoke about “one up the brown” or a lack of “brown movement.”

Sam did impress mid-game with one move that got him three bonuses at once, but Chris’ slew of prominent yellow domes across the city pushed him into first place.

Chris 53

Andrew 50

Sam 46

Paul 40

Next up was Azul. I explained the rules to Paul and we were off. Sam kept picking up the first player token for minus points, insisting that he liked going first. Paul started slowly, with disparate tiles on his board, but managed to weave them all together with a final round that scored over 20 points by itself.

Paul 76

Sam 72

Andrew 70

Chris 66

We discussed food and, since Sam’s son Joe was going to get pizza for him and his friends, it made sense for him to get some pizza for us at the same time. That plan didn’t go down well and not even the promise of a side salad could persuade Joe.

Then we played Scout. A sort of trick taking game with a really light Circus theme. Not as tenuous as dinosaurs drinking sake, but still very tangential. I tried to bring the circus motif into play: when I put down a pair of tens I introduced it as “Lisa and Rebecca with their two cannons” but it didn’t really catch on.

Chris 38

Paul 34

Andrew 27

Sam 18

Next up was Misfits. Chris started with a cylinder placed upright. Then he sat back and smirked. We carefully placed piece after impossible piece until the entire edifice collapsed, leading Sam to declare “every c*nting piece!” as he ruefully swept the debris into his reserve.

We played twice and Chris won both times. After Chris’ second win, we kept playing Speed Misfits for second place, with Chris counting down the time limit in a vague German accent. I placed second.

After this we played Ito - the pocket version of Wavelength where everyone gets to make a guess. We didn’t do too well, with some pretty close calls. 

“Places to have a secret lair” did okay, with some nice distance between our guesses but in the category Imaginary Worlds to Visit we failed to differentiate the two-point gap between The Planet of Stale Farts and Pubic Hair World.

Following this we gave up on pizza and decide to get curry delivered. After that was ordered, we played Pina Coladice. Yahtzee mixed with Noughts And Crosses. Each square of a 4x4 grid has a target to achieve with five dice rolled three times. Place your meeple (if there’s still room) and four in a row will instantly win the game.

It was okay. I felt a bit like I was watching myself play, but there’s a certain amount of strategy as first Paul then Sam found their paths to glory blocked by other players taking the spaces they needed. But in the end, Chris won with four in a row.

With the curry imminent we played a couple of quick games of Toy Battle. A very simple war game with basic mechanics but a nicely balanced range of soldiers at your disposal. Sam beat Paul on a tie-breaker and Chris beat me outright, having successfully stormed my HQ.

Next we broke for food and then I chose the next game - my last of the day.

It was Quest for El Dorado. Paul’s first game, and he got a rules explanation from, as I recall, most of us at one point or another. It was pretty close throughout, apart from the usual early stages of one playing hanging back for tokens (Sam) while another sped off into the jungle (Chris). But Chris was no amatuer just pegging it and hoping for the best. He neatly balanced his deck and picked up tokens as he went. An purchase of the Captain just as he reached the watery fifth hex was probably pivotal.

I tried to think like Adam by buying a Travel Log (or Travelodge, as Paul called it) to whittle away the flab from my hand, but when I appeared I really didn’t know what to do with it. Nevertheless I actually thought I had a chance until quite late on. False hope.

Chris 1st to arrive, wins tie breaker

Sam, arrived same turn

Paul, only a few spaces short

Andrew, at least I reached the final hex.

*                *                *

mysterious change of narrator

*                *                *

Sam here. The hour was around 9pm, I think, when Andrew left us, and we had a couple more hours of ludological frolics ahead of us. We began them with Rebirth, the game of cathedral and castle construction in post-apocalyptic Scotland. I can't help thinking that if all the efforts going into these rebuilding games went into avoiding an apocalypse in the first place, maybe these great designer minds could come up with something. But anyway. This was new to the ever-patient Paul, so I went through the fortuitously-simple rules and away we went, brick by brick. 

Whilst I set about cathedralling like some kind of Ken Follet enthusiast and Paul remarked that he kept pulling the same type of tile, Chris sped off into a chunky lead, passing 100 points way before we did and enjoying saying the word 'dirigible' in celebration. But his momentum slowed in the final act, and my haul of highland castles and completed objectives got me a vanishingly rare win - by a single point! Chris threw his cards on the table in disgust. 

Sam - can't remember

Chris - can't remember -1

Paul - a few points further back

We celebrated/drowned our sorrows in the Milk Tray chocolates Chris had brought with him. There was no flavour reference so I tried one at random, which turned out to be a hazelnut whirl. I enjoyed it so much I had another, before discovering they were everyone's favourite, including Jacquie, who wasn't even here, but added to the chocolatey shame. Apologies all. 

We played Fantasy Realms next, and any crowing I might have been tempted to do in my Rebirth triumph stuck in my throat as I proved abysmally bad at realming fantasies. 

The game is super-simple: you have a hand of cards that score in different ways, and on your turn you pick up a new card and discard one to the table. You can pick up either from the table, or the top of the deck, but the catch is top-decking hastens the end of the game, which happens when a tenth card is added to the communal cards. Chris more than doubled my score, I think it was something like

Chris 190?

Paul 140?

Sam 80

I poured myself another gin as Paul asked me if I was getting tired. "He's got to wait up for his kids!" Chris pointed out, as if we needed an excuse to keep gaming. Little Tavern was next. 

Chris started and immediately parked an elf at his table. I advised him this was maybe not the best move, because elves in this game are racists and only like sitting with other elves. Chris nodded that he understood and immediately picked up three more elves to score 16 points in the first round. In the second I gave him a face-down romantic and he paired it with another face-up to win! Stupid game. 

We finished off with So Clover, of course, but whether it was the marathon games, the gin, the chocolate, the red herrings or the late hour, did appallingly badly with a 3-2-4 haul giving us 9 points from a possible 18! 

By this time, Joe and his pals were home and Stan was on his way back too. It had been ten hours of gaming and with midnight not too far off, we elected to end it there. Thanks all! Sorry about my foul-mouthed breakdown in Misfits. 

Punnet of the Apes

Louie was our genial host last night, welcoming a bunch of old-ish farts with offers of drinks and glasses. Was this the handing of the GNN baton to future generations? Will the blog still be going in 100 years, written by Louie's children? Quite possibly. Last Tuesday's monkey-dominated evening still fresh in some of our minds, Ian and Martin had brought their simian-themed games with them again - and while they didn't dominate, they both made an appearance. But we kicked off with Rainbow. 

We quickly discovered that Rainbow isn't great with six. But at least it only takes ten minutes. 

Ian 30
Martin and Sam 27 each
Joe and Louie 26 each
Adam 23

Anja was still upstairs so we busted out, with a jaded sigh from Martin, the greatest card game in the world. "I'll try not to finish with zero this time" he said. He ended second-last, as Adam took Martin's traditional role of perennially busting. Joe and Ian were rewarded for their bravado, and though nobody hit the official 200 point finish line, Ian secured a win as we wrapped up when Anja materialised. 

We split into two anthropomorphic groups: Ian and Adam talked Louie through the joys of building a Monkey Palace, whilst Martin introduced Joe and Anja to Ape Town. 

Ape Town was as tense as Charlton Heston's jaw muscles, as we tried to grab juicy instant points and control of neighbourhoods. In comparison, the building of the palace beside us seemed pleasant and almost collaborative. 

I nudged myself into a chunky lead courtesy of some lemur action, then stagnated for a bit as everyone caught me up and I ran out of cash. But lemurs came to my aid once more as the board filled up, the neighbourhoods closed out, and the finale loomed. 

While we approached it, Monkey Palace wrapped up with a win for Adam. Explainer's curse?

Adam 38

Louie 29

Ian 24

Louie, threatened with the fart apocalypse after several bowls of chilli peanuts had been consumed, exited for bed, and Ian and Adam went at it in Misfits. They constructed some kind of mad thing, that kept collapsing. Looking at it you can see why. 

 

Meantime Ape Town was a close-run thing. Joe and Martin had strong finishes but I just about held on. 

Sam 76

Martin and Joe 70 each

Anja 56

Ian and Adam abandoned their Misfits game here, seemingly convinced it would never end. Apparently Joe managed to knock it over as well, despite not playing, but I didn't witness this as I was having a wee. We split into two groups: the Misfits duo teaming up with Martin to play Rebirth whilst Joe and I introduced Anja to rainbow while we waited for Steve to arrive home. 

Anja picked up a debut win in Rainbow:

Anja 46

Sam 44

Joe 41

While Joe reminisced about the show Rainbow, which prompted both some dubious impressions and the theme tune staying in my head for the rest of the night. Meantime Steve returned, and after a brief catch-up we played Sunrise Lane. 

I've serially finished last in Sunrise Lane, I think, every time I've played it, and I confidently announced I could keep this streak going. Something about the dovetailing of situational cards v situational opportunities seems to escape me. Steve was confounded by the hard-to-determine colour scheme on the board, and the fact the player pieces contain two different iterations of 'shit-brown'. Subsequently we referred to Steve - well, his colour - as babyshit. Oh, what larks. Rebirth continued, with Martin haranguing Adam at reasonable volume. 

The game finished with the Creeping Custard victorious, despite being unable to play his beloved yellow - Rebirth had a kind of jaundiced brown instead. Not sure who played that. 

Adam 181

Martin 168

Ian 163

They bashed out another Rainbow while they waited for us to finish, and Martin exacted some small measure of revenge:

Martin 37

Adam 35

Ian 28

And in Sunrise Lane, for whatever planetary reason things finally gelled for me, probably not hindered by the fact the game was new to Steve and Anja, and Joe had of course been the doomed Explainer. 

Sam 91

Joe 83

Babyshit 81

Anja 69

Adam could not be convinced to stay, and rode off home while the remaining six of us played So Clover. It was near-perfect, but my clover let us down with some interchangeable words. 

And after a brief tour of the house renovation updates (lovely parquet flooring! game table plans!!) we left our hosts, tumbled into the car and weaved off home. Thanks all, it was opposably-thumbed.