Night on the tiles on the cards

Friday night! Whilst other folk were out at pubs, clubs, or maybe a one-off event, the real action was at my (Sam's) place. Andrew came over early, as the boys were looking forward to a game with him. Ascending Empires was mooted, as was Lords of Waterdeep. In the end though we went for Relic Expedition (the Friendly Animals variant). Joe teamed up with me and across the table were Andrew and Stanley.

Off we went on our explorations. Andrew and Stan conversed, schemed and planned. Joe made weird noises with his mouth and wandered around the kitchen scavenging for actual food, but he did at least roll the die. My team collected the first set of 4 matching relics needed for a win, and headed off to the helipad to conclude matters. Thinking I was being generous I said I needed to roll a 4 on the action die to catch the helicopter (and win) but my generosity was moot - I rolled a two (three is needed to use a helicopter in the real rules) and on the next turn they - having since gathered a set of their own - rolled the 4 they needed to win. AAAAARGH! I cried in anguish. Luckily for Joe, he had nipped upstairs for a poo at this point.

Stanley and Andrew: 4 relics, safely home
Joe and Sam: 4 relics, waiting at helipad with a sense of indignation

Andrew began perusing the games cupboard as I put the boys to bed. When I returned Lords of Waterdeep was now set up, and we dove in without further ado. The score track saw a lot of action as we both built buildings (or 'shops' as they tend to get called) that saw a lot of use, with lots of minor scoring quests - plus the odd doozy. I thought I was safely ahead and then Andrew came back at me. In the end it was down to the Lords rewards - Andrew scored 24 points but I'd managed to get every single quest to score me a 4pt bonus, and ran out OverLord of Waterdeep:

Sam 202
Andrew 180

I chose next, and went for the lesser-spotted Mord Im Arosa. Andrew loves this - and I have to admit it was the second-funnest game of the night in the expletive-loading sense. For those not familiar, the Mord in question is a death - two, actually - in the hotel Arosa, where players are first trying to find the bodies and then secondly trying to implicate each other by guessing where their cubes have landed, having been dropped in the top of the cardboard hotel.

Please enter on top floor

I successfully identified Andrew's location several times, but was totally obliterated when he found my cubes (or detectives) hanging about inappropriately close to the crime scene:

Andrew 6 pieces of evidence against (wins)
Sam 13 pieces of evidence against (banged up)

Heck Meck/Pickonimo was up next. This was completely unpredictable. Andrew surged off into the lead and I was fighting for scraps. But with both of us having claimed all the low tiles on the table, suddenly we were returning tiles of our own as our attempts to claim the multiple-worm tiles faltered.

Itsa Knizia

I was hoping there'd be a pattern where Andrew would return his tile and I'd subsequently pick it up. It didn't work out like that, but - thanks entirely to Lady Fate - I did grab the win, just...

Sam 10 worms
Andrew 9 worms

Finally we bashed out a quick game of 7 Wonders. I didn't get involved in military at all and my plan to have Dirk out-army Andrew never materialised. Dirk did pretty well himself, but it was Andrew who walked away with a convincing win:

Andrew 57
Sam 50
Dirk 45

It was still only ten past ten, but we'd been playing for three hours and Andrew called it a night.

I didn't realise I was this drunk

And I would walk six thousand miles

With the mud of old Japan still clinging to my shoes, I found myself at Steve and Anja’s place after a day of planes, trains and Bristol traffic jams. Steve and Anja had recently been to visit Snowdonia and were now inspired to play the game of the same name. There was even talk of a double-header, with two tables of Snowdonia competing simultaneously. Such decadence!

Joining us tonight were Andy (complete with his unused copy of Snowdonia), Martin, Adam, Hannah, Katy, and Sam. Some of us began with a rousing game of Pairs (keeping the score on a child’s blackboard) as others of us were caught up in baby duty or still stuck commuting.

Pairs invited people to tempt fate as they ask for just one more card. Martin did especially well, confidently saying “The mushrooms are all in here” (meaning the discard pack) before being dealt another mushroom to go with the one he already had.

Katy did so badly in her first few rounds that she decided to shoot for the moon and go out each round. Meanwhile, Anja had started the game but was called away before too long. We kept dealing her in and guessing what she might have done if she’d still been playing. There was also a lot of quick dealing, with a couple of occasions were cards were given out before the word “twist” was uttered. Martin was handed a card just because he thoughtfully said to himself “I need...” He went bust. It’s a cruel world.

Andy 25
Adam 24
Andrew 14
Martin 14
Sam 13
“Anja” 10
Katy 0

Then we split into two groups. Andy, Steve, Anja and myself set up Snowdonia, while Adam, Katy, Martin and Sam tried Sam’s new family game Relic Expedition. Although in the capable hands of Martin and Katy, there’s no such thing as a family game as the swearwords flew thick and fast. Or maybe I misunderstood what I overheard, and they were actually discussing Balzac. I know nothing about the game though.

1. Martin
2. Adam
3. Katy
4. Sam

By the time that had finished, we’d just about set up Snowdonia. Adam went home to complete his daddy duties and the other three played The Game, a co-operative card game using a pack of 6nimmt. They succeeded, with Sam declaring “This game’s too easy!”

Next they played one of the games they’d asked me to get while in Japan: Deep Sea Adventure. This game of risk and reward, where people dive for treasure while risking running out of air, has been such a hit with Katy that it became the first board game she ever bought. There were cries of despair and joy (about a 3:1 ratio, I think) and it ended with Katy pointing out how much she liked it, even though she lost.

Sam 24
Martin 21
Katy 11

About halfway through the evening, us playing Snowdonia noticed that we had overlooked the very part of the game that triggers the end: building the track up Snowdonia. All we had were some very well appointed but remote stations dotted along the route, with no means to get to them. It was already getting late, so I bit the bullet and started building tracks with Andy following suit.

There was enough time for the other group to play another new game from Japan: Go Stop. I don’t know anything about this, and Martin has only a rudimentary knowledge of the rules with some details still unknown.

Sam 3
Katy 2
Martin 1

Snowdonia was still not quite complete, so the other three had a conversation! Amazing! Nobody noted the scores, though.

Snowdonia finally ended. My trainless/coalless strategy did not work.

Anja 107
Andy 101
Steve 100
Andrew 77

And that was that for the evening. Having used the power of board games to fend off jet lag, I got a lift back home and fell into bed.