The Luckiest Casino In The World

Our annual mass exodus from family responsibilities in favour of several days of gaming nonsense took place in a familiar cottage near Taunton - the same venue as last year and all our devices recognised the wifi without needing the password. Sam and I arrived first in the crisp air of a Friday morning in November. Technically we were half an hour early, but the cottage was unlocked and ready for us. We got settled and began our weekend by doing surprisingly well at the Guardian cryptic crossword. Joe, Adam, Ian and Katy were next to arrive at 12:20 and after some arranging and storing of food, we began.

Joe does a few reps before getting started

Sam, Katy, Ian and I began with the aptly named Startups. We played for three rounds, two of which involved Ian sighing in incomprehension followed by a third round where he won handsomely, wiping out all his minus points to date. Thanks to Oink Games usual 2pt, 1pt, -1pt for last place scoring system, it ended pretty evenly.

Sam 2
Andrew 2
Katy 2
Ian 0

Joe and Adam chose a two player war game, Undaunted. Joe won after an attritional battle for farmhouse 13B, apparently.

After this, Katy went for a walk - on her own since no one else seemed keen - while Sam and I went to Waitrose to buy our share of beer and nibbles. Once we were back the others were deep into a game of Artemis Project, which looked like a bit of a beast and came complete with a sort of meeple tower that you would pour meeples are random out onto cards. Jon won, beating Adam by a point.

Sam and I filled the time by playing Assembly, a two-player co-op puzzle game in which you have to open a sealed air lock by moving discs onto cards that have the same symbol. It was entertaining and we managed to open the door with the last turn of the game.

Katy returned and the three of us played Cartographers. I didn’t win, but my map - complete with mountain surrounded by a large lake - seemed to describe a land I’d quite like to visit.

Sam 79
Andrew 77
Katy 69

Now, you remember I began this post by talking about leaving responsibilities behind? Well, alas I found I had one that I couldn’t ignore, so I got back into my car and set off back to Bristol for the evening, promising to be back tomorrow morning. I was somewhat sad about this, but I had little choice.

So, until then, I hand over to Sam to talk us through the proceedings...


After Andrew left I took up temporary blogging duties, with the current situation Joe taking on Adam and Ian at Res Arcana ("Because Martin isn't here") and Steve, Jon and I attacking each other in Rise of Tribes. Katy was busy in the kitchen making a vegetable tagine.

Rise of Tribes began relatively peacefully, as humans perhaps once did, before following well-established pattern of descending into war. Steve and I surged ahead of Jon. Jon urged us to attack each other. We were both hesitant though, knowing that to do so would leave us open to Jon's mustering forces gathering on the other half of the map.

Something had to give, and in the end both Jon and I piled in on Steve (points leader at that point) as Jon's blue tribespeople seemed to proliferate all over the land. He made substantial comeback and a tense finale ensued with all of us potentially one move from victory. I couldn't manage it - Jon was poised to score three points at the start of his turn and win, but Steve was before him in turn order... and he wrapped things up:

Steve 15
Sam 14
Jon 12

Res Arcana ended around the same time, with Joe victorious:

Joe
Adam
Ian

I didn't hear much of what happened at the time, but the next day was assured by Adam that "Joe trounced us in three or four rounds" and by Joe that the game was "hilarious".

The early evening also hosted a staccato game of Tumblin' Dice, but it never ended. At least, not on the day.

After Katy's delicious tea, there were more games to be played. Jon coaxed Adam and Steve into his new acquisition Paladins of the West Kingdom, while I had something close to a mental breakdown trying to remember the rules to Treasure Island. I last played it only two months back but the nuances were totally lost on me and the weird layout of the rulebook meant we spent almost as long working out the (relatively simple) rules as we did playing the game.

Joe was Long John Silver, and hid the treasure somewhere on the island. Ian, Katy and I were pirates looking for it, spending the dwindling days searching before Joe Long John escapes captivity and claims it for himself. It was entertaining, but that might have been partly the ongoing purgatory for Steve and Adam in the nearby game of Paladins.

"I said it was chewy" Jon pointed out.
"You said it was simple!" - Adam
"It is simple. Put a wooden guy on the board!"

Steve worried that there would be an inquisition, and it wasn't entirely clear if he meant the game or not.

Meanwhile Katy found the treasure...

Katy: Rich!

...and we began a game of the long-dormant Alhambra. This used to feature almost every week in the the pre/early blog days, so regularly that between us Joe and I recalled every rule. I think. I built a long wall early on, and found - like Joe - that I was stuck with an alhambra that subsequently resisted the idea of expansion. But late-game we both recovered and my epic wall sealed the win:

Sam 108
Joe 98
Ian 89
Katy 76

Katy felt she should get an extra point for having her surname 'Wall' but we resisted this idea, as there was no structural integrity to it.

Paladins of the West Kingdom was continuing, so we played Mamma Mia. The highlight of which was probably Ian's Italian accent. Or Joe's. We all attempted to make pizzas that ended as ghosts of an idea, but come closing time I claimed the title of Chef with Best Memory/Luck..

Sam 6
Katy/Joe 5 each
Ian 4

Then we played Push It, with Katy and I taking on Ian and Joe. Katy said I should prepare myself for defeat, but actually we ran away with it!

Katy and Sam 11
Joe and Ian 3

The Paladins of the West Kingdom ended! It had been a three hour epic and at time of writing it's still unclear what level of PTSD they are currently undergoing.

Jon 53
Adam 44
Steve 39

Before we joined together for a game of Just One that defied the term 'co-operative' - so drunken, tired and post-Paladiny everyone was that the atmosphere was almost like a begrudging intervention, albeit one punctured by laughter. I don't recall what about now, as I was exhausted at this point and couldn't stop yawning. We didn't do very well.

All of us: 7 - must do better.

Adam, Ian and I all retired at this point, but Joe and Katy partook of further debilitating ingestments and initiated a drunken game of Midnight Party, at midnight. Joe was having some kind of psychotic episode and forgot all the rules, being concerned - he confessed the next day - that his heart might stop beating. Steve remembered them. Katy dealt with the psychosis better and pulled off a win:

Katy -18
Jon -33
Steve -36
Joe -57

And that was it for Friday, at least as far as gaming was concerned. There was still some nighttime weeing in the fields and Joe fell over on the way to his pod.


Meanwhile...

I (Andrew) returned to the cottage mid-morning on Saturday and recommenced blogging duties. The table was already straining under a game of Tales of the Arabian Nights (Joe, Katy and Ian) and a two-player Feast For Odin between Adam and Jon at the end. According to Sam’s notes, Katy was worried that she would still be in jail by the time the game was finished, and Joe found himself grief-stricken.

Adam beat Jon at feast For Odin, after which Jon said he had a headache.

Adam 119
Jon 100

Steve and Sam played Cartographers that ended 88-75 to Sam and then I arrived just in time to join the two of them in a game of Villagers which Steve didn't understand at all for the first couple of rounds. Sam had clearly learned a thing or two having been beaten when playing against his son.

Sam 103
Andrew 84
Steve 81

After this, while we paused and considered our options, Jon taught Sam Getaway Driver, a table top equivalent of all those car chases that used to amaze us when we were nine. He won, too.

Next Sam, Joe, Ian and I embarked upon an epic game: Ancient Civilizations Of The Inner Sea, despite us all having to deal with fatigue/hangovers of various strengths. It was Joe's first game and he surged into an early lead. This,of course meant everyone started picking on him. Then Ian made his move and Sam and I had our hands full with trying to pick on both of them.

We had agreed to only play two epochs, and as we were halfway through the second we were almost neck and neck: Sam 61, Joe 59, me 59, Ian 58. Then, in the final round, I clocked up fourteen points, barging into first position and not even the End Of Game Event could unseat me.

Andrew 76
Ian 72
Joe 68
Sam 67

There was guarded praise for the game from Joe while Sam admitted that it wasn't at its best on a drowsy afternoon. As if to demonstrate that point, Ian retreated to his room to try and sleep off his hangover.

Meanwhile, Jon introduced Katy and Steve to Roam.

Steve 26
Katy 25
Jon 21

While people lazed about, a group of gamers decided to try Sol. I was supposed to explain the rules but my memory of them was too unreliable. I stalled for time by setting up until Sam got to the table and he took over.

It was Jon's first game and he found himself cursed by two offset gates that no one wanted to use. As such, he suffered from an acute lack of energy. Steve refused to drink until five o'clock exactly, even going so far as to pour it a couple of minutes beforehand so he could be really precise.

Sam 29
Adam 29
Steve 25
Andrew 19
Jon 11

During this, a revived (perhaps) Ian and Katy played two games of Kribbeln. First, they drew and then Ian won.

Elsewhere,the ever-present Tumbin' Dice board attracted a new group of gamers. Adam entertained us all by flicking three dice in a row that all scored minus points. He was in second place when that happened.

Jon 120
Andrew 100
Adam 91
Sam 74

And then, just before food, Kribbeln had turned into Push It, where Ian beat Katy 12-7. Joe supplied us all with pasta and tomato salad and following that, we split into two groups. One went down the epic path, embarking on a five-player game of Western Legends. The other three took a route past three different games until one of us gave up and went to bed.

Adam is delighted by the shape he made when peeling a satsuma

The three of us were Sam, Adam and me who broke out Orbit: The International Space Race. I failed to get any of my initial missions and, when the final scoring was announced, Sam admitted to an enormous amount of luck in how the missions he picked up during the game went together.

Sam 47
Adam 27
Andrew 17

Western Legends was played by Steve (who made full use of his American accent throughout), Katy, Ian, Joe and Jon. Joe explained the rules and it took so long that we were halfway through Orbit by the time they’d started. It was a rip-roaring event, judging by the amount of times Katy gleefully called out “Go to the cabaret!” The highlight was a game of poker where Katy saw her full house beaten by Jon’s four of a kind. How cruel.

Ian 25
Katy 23
Jon 22
Joe 16
Steve 11

Ian was so exhausted by this, that he went to bed.

On the other end of the table, Orbit was replaced by Kartel which is a simple game of criminal allegiances.

Andrew 12
Sam 9
Adam 9

And we followed that with Movable Type. “Let’s let Sam win a game,” said Adam when we’d agreed on it. But that turned into a cunning double bluff.

Adam 20 (“Lucky”)
Sam 17 (“Doughing”)
Andrew 15 (“Quiz”)

And now Adam, too, retired for the evening. “But what about Midnight Party?” Katy wailed. Sam and I passed the time until Western Legends ended with Passtally, a clever puzzle game of making links.

Andrew 35
Sam 34

But after Passtally and Western Legends finished, it was still nowhere near midnight. Hugo would have to wait. Instead we played A Fake Artist Goes to New York. I explained the rules to a sceptical Jon, and he didn’t really enjoy it - not his kind of game. I had fun, though. My first key word was Orchestra and it remains a bone of contention if Joe’s drawing of an orchestra pit was far too much of a clue or was brilliant in its execution. Sam, the fake artist, got enough of an idea that he was able to blend in (Katy was accused instead) but he wasn’t able to guess the actual word. Then Jon was found out in the second round, when he couldn’t join in with our hamburger picture.

Next, Sam and Steve retired and the remaining four of us finally dug up Hugo and dumped him on the table. Hugo was very fast up the stairs in each of the three rounds which didn’t suit Joe and his ability to roll ones. Katy finally found out that there were two Hugoes on the die, which explained how unlucky we were in rolling so many of them.

Jon -21
Katy -31
Andrew -54
Joe -54

So, with Midnight Party finished, you might think that was the end of it but there was one more game left in our lungs: Memoarrr. This simple memory game feels like it’s as much against yourself as any of your opponents. It was Jon’s first game and, despite a poor start, he came right back into it.

Jon 7
Andrew 4
Joe 3
Katy 1

What a way to end the evening and start the morning. We finally went to bed to catch some sleep.

On Sunday, I was up first at 7.30am. First, that is, unless you count Adam who’d had to leave his sub-Arctic room for the joys of a sofa. I pottered about quietly, read and did my Japanese homework while waiting for people to wake up.

And they did, making breakfast and slowly getting into gear. Katy informed everyone that there was no pain au chocolat, when there was actually one on her plate! The games began where they left off, with another game of Memoarrr.

Joe 6
Andrew 5
Ian 4

Then Jon, Joe and Katy embarked on Yokohama while at the other end of the table (and of the gaming spectrum) Steve and Sam faced off against each other in three games of Flick Fleet. Sam won the first game but then somehow managed to send his ship too close to the Neutron Star and quickly lost the second round. Steve won the decider in a nail biting finale.

Finally, Ian and I gathered up enough enthusiasm for another game, and decided on Tumblin’ Dice. It was pretty close until the last round which either shows how similar we are in terms of skill, or that Tumblin’ Dice is mostly luck. Ian pulled away in the last round, though, clocking up forty points to my feeble fifteen.

Ian 120
Andrew 98

Next, Adam emerged for his first game: Powerships, against Andrew, Steve, Ian and Sam. Adam found the perfect line to the finish and even landed perfectly on a hyperspace square to get him back even faster, with me, Steve and Ian coming in one move later.

Adam
Andrew
Steve
Ian
Sam

Yokohama finished after Katy insisted that she was enjoying herself even if it might look as if she weren’t.

Jon 155
Katy 142 (“I still had a nice time!”)
Joe 133

We broke for lunch and finally those of us who hadn’t had a walk yet actually went outside. Admittedly, only down the road to the farmhouse to pick up some dishwasher tablets but, nevertheless, this counts as a walk.

Back in the cabin, four of us (Adam, Joe, Steve and Katy) loaded up the saddles once more and rode back into Western Legends. The other four (Jon, Ian, Sam and me) portrayed a different side of American history with Neta Tanka, which involves Native American tribes building the tallest totem pole or most teepees or best craft items. It was an interesting game with plenty of opportunities for screwage after a fairly docile beginning. Ian used The Nomad (an extra meeple that you can buy in order to use in the next round) to take all the meat from the board, leaving Sam bereft. But karma came back in a big way for Ian when he found his penultimate turn ruined by a lack of wood to cook meat. This left his plans in tatters and he ended in full “that’s me fucked, then” mode for the final round.

Jon 47
Sam 38
Andrew 37
Ian 34

In Western Legends, Katy managed to rob a bank, only to find she already had too much money and couldn’t take the $80 with her. She didn’t seem too enamoured with the game this time.

Adam 22 (most marshall points)
Joe 22
Steve 21
Katy 18

Then they banged out a quick No Thanks

Adam 32
Katy 52
Joe 59
Steve 76

Katy went to have a nap at this point while some of us rested. Jon, Ian and Adam had a game of Powerships. Jon came first and then Adam overshot the finish, went around the planet and still got back before Ian did.

Jon
Adam
Ian

Joe, Sam and Steve played Arabian Nights. Joe found himself grief-stricken again while Steve was an envious outlaw on a pilgrimage. Envious, perhaps, of Sam who ended the game first, blessed and respected. That was Steve’s last game of the weekend, and we set him off home with (hopefully) lots to talk about.

Katy came out at some point, looked at the clock and went straight back to bed again saying something about thinking it was one hour later.

Then we played Cartographer:

Adam 95
Ian 92
Andrew 81

Next we play Awkward Guests, an ingeniously designed game which allows multiple murder scenarios to be solved by selecting certain cards from a deck. Then it is up to the detectives to trade clues with each other to try and decide who had killed the victim.

Sam was first to guess, and typed it into the app, only to be greeted with the sound of a sad trombone. I was next, and got the same result. Then, after a while when it looked like no one was getting close, we all guessed again and the last person to guess got it right! Well done Adam.

Next, Katy got her wish for a game of Lords of Vegas. It was Jon’s first turn and he got thrown slightly in at the deep end. Katy and Adam quickly built up large casinos. Katy merging with mine and Adam merging with Jon. People sprawled into vacant lots, only to see them reclaimed later in the game.

Perhaps the craziest story is that of Katy’s eight-tile casino. Once it was impregnable: a seemingly seven-tile solid source of points. She was so confident that when she ran out of dice for new developments, she took on from there, despite my three dice lurking. Then a sprawl was discovered, giving Adam a vital entry and then Jon draw a card allowing him a piece of the action too. This eight-tile behemoth was rerolled several times and, amazingly, it usually ended in Adam’s favour. Even after I rolled everything, and went through four tie-breakers, each time with me as a potential winner, it still went to Adam. Then both Katy and I paid money to Jon to reroll it and Adam won again. Amazing scenes.

Of course, Katy still had options elsewhere, and she had no issues with scoring. Then game carried on much longer than usual and she found herself clocking up a record score, with Adam on his tail. The game over card was fourth from the end.

Katy 66
Adam 60
Andrew 49
Jon 26

The other game being played at that time was Rise of Tribes. Shamefully, I was so caught up in Vegas, I don’t know what happened there.

Ian 15
Sam 13
Joe 11

Followed by Memoarrr, this time the advanced version where the cards move around and stuff.

Sam 9
Joe 4
Ian 2

Lastly the three of them played Just One. As a three-player it worked well with the variant where the guesser can guess the clue in the event of both clue-givers writing the same one.

Then, with all of us in various states of over-excitement, we relaxed for a while and played Sausage & Mash to wind down.

Once we’d winded down, it was time to get tense again with Midnight Party. This time with everyone involved! Sam rolled nothing but Hugoes for all of round one, picking up -14 points in the process. He recovered well, though. But Katy won, beating a pretty close chasing pack.

Katy -10
Andrew -12
Joe -15
Sam -20
Jon -21
Adam -22
Ian -28

With that, it was our final trip to bed before Monday morning, which saw only one game being played among the breakfasting and packing: Passtally. Sam taught it to Adam and Jon and they puzzled over each other’s links before Sam realised that it was nowhere near ending and they had to get moving.

Old Blue Eyes is Back!

An onslaught of spouse's birthdays, tiredness and general unavailability reduced our number to four last night: Katy, Martin and Ian came to my (Joe's) house, to pay our weekly tithes to the lords of gaming.


Speaking of lords, Katy was barely through the door before she suggested Lords of Vegas, and was met with a general murmur of approval. But Martin deftly produced Hats, and suggested we try out the 4 player team variant as an evening starter.

Martin read the blurb in a faintly terrifying manner (apparently Sam stopped him doing this mid-flow last week, and I can see why - very disturbing); something to do with the mad hatters tea-party, and nothing whatsoever to do with the gameplay, as far as I could see. Ian and I were new to the game, and we took Katy and Martin as our partners respectively. The team rules simply add that during your turn you can swap a card with your partner. On a first game it was quite perplexing to know what to swap or whether to bother at all, and despite the simple rules it's quite difficult to see the strategy as the round progresses.

Just look at trompe l'ouil effect of the cookie on the hanky. That's art!

In the end, both teams tied on 63 points, with the second tie-breaker going to Martin and me because I had the cookie. So I won!

Martin & Joe 63 (chocolate chippers)
Katy & Ian 63 (big dippers)

Certainly a game I'd like to try again.

 So Lords it was! Katy almost, but not quite, thought she might need a rules refresher, and we all laughed at the very idea. But as we were setting up, Martin quietly asked for player aid - perhaps it has been longer than we thought - Katy may not even have played since returning from her big trip, can that be right?

Martin got off to a swinging start, getting to 3 points before the rest of us had scored at all. I seemed to be completely devoted to back lots, and though I was able to build three casinos on my first turn, none of them paid out during the next round and I began my second turn with a paltry $2. But at least Frank was there for me - as I built what Martin described as a brothel (I think) on Frank Sinatra Way, he piped up quite unexpectedly on the stereo, hence the blog title.

Ian and Martin certainly did a lot of the early running, but as we entered the mid-game, Katy came storming back to own all three mega casinos on her side of the strip. Though they continued to fight shy of paying out, much to her chagrin, we could all see that they would eventually be the making of her. From then on, Martin and Katy tussled over ownership of a mega 8 point green casino, and the game was probably going to belong to whomever ran it when the final card came out. This made for some interesting offers of help - Ian and Katy bankrolled me reorganising the whole thing on my turn (I had a single die stake), much to Martin's horror. That worked out for Katy.

Note Katy's extremely neat card-stacking.

On a subsequent turn, spotting my plan to takeover Ian's casino, Martin offered to simply lend me $2 - vaguely adding that I might repay it with a hefty vig at some point in the future. It was an offer that felt in-keeping with the 50s Vegas theme, as there was undeniably an air of unspoken threat - I graciously declined the offer, not wanting to end up in a shallow grave in Red Rock West.

The game was also notable for Ian's poor book-keeping, which he blamed convincingly on the level of his beer glass. He inadvertently forgot to pay £24 million for the purchase of two casinos at one point; that's the demon drink for you.

When I drew the Game Over card, it was close for everyone but me. Katy and Martin tied, with the win going to Katy for more cash in hand. Martin was suitably enraged. Ian spotted that he would have won himself, had his takeover bid on the last turn succeeded. It was a game filled with highs, lows and stand up dice rolls (isn't it always?) - an unmitigated pleasure, even from the viewing angle of a distant fourth place.

Katy 44 (won on more cash-in-hand)
Martin 44
Ian 40
Joe 20

Half the board. I confess I was still more interested in Katy's ultra-neat card-arranging.

It was only 9.40, but it felt later - we decided on firm favourite Stinker as a warm down. I can't remember much about it, apart from being able to make the words marzipan and beetroot without using any stinkers in one round - if only it had been relevant to the prompt.

Not that we set much store by such things, but the final score after 8 rounds was close, and we'd each won two rounds. Except that Katy's second win was by judging her own to be the best (with our blessing - she was right).

Katy 27
Martin/Joe 25
Ian 23

After that, Katy and Ian made their farewells, and Martin convinced me that what I really needed was a whupping at 2-player Res Arcana. It wasn't too much of a rout, but I had mentally resigned the moment he began cranking out gold nuggets from his Dragon's Lair on turn one.

Martin 10
Joe 8

A fine evening, thanks all.

Tap the Magic Dragon

This week's games night saw four of us regulars (Sam the host, Ian, Joe and myself) waiting for Adam T and Martin to arrive. With their eta still unclear (Adam had emailed to say ten minutes but no one saw it until hours later) we broke out Rollet, the panic-enducing table top action game. Sam and myself teamed up together against Joe and Ian. I made few notes but, then again, I didn't have much time.

Sam and Andrew 5
Ian and Joe 1

Then Stanley replaced his father and we started another game. We started it, but never actually finished it: the first point was an epic to rival Viking poetry. We battled and made last ditch defensive moves or threw everything we had in the hope of a goal, but for about two minutes we struggled to get anywhere.

Finally, Stanley got the vital touch and sent the ball into the goal and, at this point, we called it a game. Frankly, we were exhausted. Plus, Martin and Adam were now here.

Stanley and Andrew 1
Ian and Joe 0

Now we were six (Stanley chose to just watch the next game), and we all played a game of Frank's Zoo. As we got settled, Sam told us that he and his son were developing a game. Then, midway through the rules explanation, he interrupted to mention that, just like Frank's Zoo, the game they were designing was also based on animals eating each other and that chameleons were wild in their game, too. Must have been some weird deja vu when he was listening to Adam describe how to play.

The game was perhaps not best with six. We each had a limited hand size and I couldn't see any kind of winning strategy. Mind you, I was very tired. Joe and Ian got the hang of it much quicker and both went out in the style of a seasoned Tichu player, by putting down cards they knew couldn't be beaten.

1st Joe
2nd Ian
3rd Adam
4th Sam
5th Andrew
6th Martin

Now we split into two groups of three. Sam, Martin and Adam battled it out in Pax Porfiriana Pamir while Ian and I were introduced by Joe to the arcane delights of Res Arcana.

I had sneered at this game from a distance several times recently but now had it spread out in front of me. The iconography was easy to understand, at least, so even my sleep deprived mind could cope with it, but when Joe suggested we look for "synergy" in our hands of cards I admit I think I blacked out for a second or two.

The game itself, once it was going, was fine. I built, it seems, too many cards and never seemed to have much in the way of essences coming in like Joe and Ian did. I did, though, have options for drawing new cards and reactivating used ("tapped") cards, which helped a lot. I also sang "Tap the magic dragon" to the tune of "Puff the magic dragon." A joke I was so happy with I believe I did it twice.

Ian had a Dragon's Lair (complete with reminiscing about the gorgeous but unplayable 1980's arcade game) and a dragon to go with it, which he used to rack up points. Joe bought a Catacombs of the Dead and then filled it with even more death. It ended closer than I was expecting, and with a different winner, too.

Ian 11 plus he had more essences left over
Joe 11
Andrew 9

We had, somehow, managed to make Res Arcana last as long as a game of Pax Porfiriana Pamir since we finished at the same time.

Pax had begun (with metal coins!) mostly concerned with Russian and Afghan forces on the map and Adam stating "I'm not enjoying this."

Then, the next time I looked over, Adam had a large pile of cash in front of him while Martin looked distraught. I am also quite sure that, at one point, the map had no forces on it at all. Is that common? I've no idea.

The game went until the final dominance check.

Martin 11
Sam 6
Adam 4

So, since we were all together again, and with Ian and Adam making noises about an imminent exit, we chose Stinker! as our next game.

It's the game that throws up more laughs than can reasonably be noted. Adam scored early with his philosophical saying "Dis shit bites." During a round about something a mad scientist might do, I wrote down Joe's "Orbit a shit light" but omitted to write down the winner. Joe, by the way, managed to get the word "shit" into most of his answers. Sam's insult of "funp bungs" is also worth noting, if only for its unpronouncability. But Ian magnificently sailed to a null result, despite always coming up with something relevant but somehow never quite good enough...

Something about church slogans

Martin 53
Sam 29
Joe 28
Adam 26
Andrew 15
Ian 0

Once we were back down to a quartet, we played Yokai (妖怪 which means ghost. Doesn't seem to fit the game but oh well). This cooperative game is a bit Hana Bi and a bit Colour Wheel. There's a 4x4 grid of cards and each player looks at two cards and may move one (not necessarily the ones they just checked). The idea is to rearrange the cards so that the four colours are all orthogonally adjacent. To help us are clue cards that we can place on top of a card to tell the other players what colour a card might be.

It is a sweet little game. We cleared it pretty easily and scored 15 points which is Glorious, according to the score track. Highest is Legendary. I'd like to see that goal achieved one day.

After this, there was still time for one last game. We chose Heul Doch Mau Mau. Sam and Joe got a rules explanation and we were off. I got lucky with early sixes and sevens while Martin had to play two weeping onions in a row. "Give me the damn tissue," he growled, disgusted at his fate. And then, later, we all played weeping onions on the same round.

At the end, my luck continued. When the game was done and we counted up our weeping onions, I had four in my hand that cancelled out only one 4-card. All the rest of my hand scored.

Andrew 101
Joe 76
Sam 63
Martin 59

And then we were finally done. Thanks to all for yet another evening of exciting mental battles.

Night of the Grinding Gears

A monumental night in many ways. At parliament, Boris Johnson was being defeated by his own party. At my house, Stan was preparing for his first day at secondary school. And at Joe's, Martin and Adam - according to the host - were waving their dragons around "like scaly cocks" in Res Arcana.

Owing to the seismic events at home, I had arrived late. They'd only just begun Res Arcana, but I said I was happy to sit and watch, as the game usually only takes about 20 minutes to half an hour. But Res Arcana had left its brevity in the box, and prolonged silences were punctured by swearing or me gagging on Sybil's farts, as she laid on my feet and let loose. Martin told Adam his Elvish Bow was really fucking annoying. Adam didn't even say sorry. Adam sighed heavily and passed. Incongruously, Joe began whistling. Forty-five minutes later, Martin threw his hands in the air as the victor, but even he seemed mostly relieved it was over.

Martin 10
Joe/Adam 5 each

"That felt like a slog" Martin said, after his arms descended. Adam and Joe agreed.

Now a quartet, we briefly debated what to play next before settling on Songbirds, Joe's recent acquisition from La Rochelle. Then we debated how to utilise the scoring system, before we realised three of us were saying the same thing in slightly different ways. In this game players are, card by card, creating a 5x5 grid of birds (numbered 1-7) in each round made up of four types of bird - not being twitchers, we called them green, blue, grey and red. At the end of each row and column is a berry, with a points value. When all cards are placed, the bird with the most value in each column/row claims the berry for themselves.

Everyone has kept one card back for themselves, and now scores the points of that colour.

It's an odd bird, very thinky and made slightly thinkier by the fact in the middle of the grid is the crow, who devalues the cards around him. Like a condensed Five Tribes, you can't really plan ahead and so was positively pre-natal with pauses. We all agreed it was probably best as a two-player game.

Martin 58
Sam 55
Joe 51
Adam 50

The sense of underwhelm was still in the air and perhaps in hindsight another thinky abstract wasn't the best choice, but next up was Mini Rails, the stock and track-manipulation game.

Like Res Arcana and Songbirds before it, it was replete with protracted lulls as everyone tried to work out how to get screwed over the least. It's a nasty piece of work and you can be sure if you think you've got a break someone will smash up your dreams with a hammer in short order. Martin invested in beige early on and tried to engender support by insisting "The future is beige". He then told Adam that 'mean is good' when the potential victim was Joe and - ten minutes later - kind is good when the potential victim was Martin.

I floundered and only avoided coming fourth after an error in the final round by Joe cost him the victory and Martin a solo third. Both Joe and Martin said "Let's play something fun after this"

Adam 19
Joe 18
Martin/Sam 14 each

So the something fun turned out to be Memoarr, which not unlike Songbirds consisted of a grid of cards. In this case however you are flipping them over and trying to remember where they are. When it's your turn you must flip a card that matches either the animal or the background of the last flipped card. Everyone - in theory - knows the identity of three cards at the start, which you hope will be your handy backstop. But it doesn't always work that way.

Adam professed confusion. Martin expressed rage. Joe and I had a ball of a time though. You have to doff your cap to a game that has Adam muttering "I've got to find an octopus..." under his breath. Even Martin's palpable disdain dissipated as play continued over seven rounds, during which time you would think you'd get to know all the cards. But it's not as easy as it sounds - luck saved me on one occasion when I went Dirk.

Sam 7
Joe 4
Adam/Martin 3 each.

There was just time for one more sally into Das Exclusive as we ended the evening with Kribbeln. Adam, reeling from Memoarr, came surging back with a spectacular start but halfway through the game his luck ran out with his Krib ended up with an astonishing 35 in it. A great score, but he'd need 5 sixes to do any better in his final two Kribs.

Now Joe who was on Adam's tail surged ahead as Martin fell behind. As we entered the final round my slow-and-steady series of third or fourth places needed a fillip to put me back in contention and three second places got me within touching distance of Joe. But then he won the final Krib as we all imploded and took a convincing win.

Joe 26
Adam 20
Martin/Sam 19 each

A strange night of feisty games that surprisingly plodded a little and silly games that fared a lot better. The biggest fist-clench of the night was probably the news from Westminster. But as always, a total pleasure. Hope to see you Thursday!

My other mage is a necromancer

Martin hosted and Joe, Adam H, Katy, Ian and myself guested in this week's games night. Joe and I were late and got there just as Katy lost a game of L.A.M.A. Deliberately so, she assured us, so that Joe and I wouldn't be standing around waiting. How clever of her especially since she managed to lose just as we were walking into the kitchen.

Adam 7
Martin 12
Ian 16
Katy 42

We began with a period of chat, during which, Adam and Katy kept the games torch burning by flicking coasters across the table at each other.

There were six of us and so a 3-3 split seemed sensible. Adam, Joe and Martin chose Res Arcana while, after some struggling with indecision and my implacable refusal to play Discworld, Ian, Katy and I went for Azul.

It was a ding dong battle in Azul between Ian and I, swapping the lead while Katy insisted she was bad at this game. I lead after round four but collapsed in the final round while Ian racked up a major score. A score he took several attempts to calculate properly. "It IS important," he insisted, refusing to be satisfied with a rough approximation of his convincing win.

Ian 66
Katy 52
Andrew 51

Over on Res Arcana, things were still ticking along after Adam was introduced to the rules. Joe announced his intention to "tap my horn of plenty" to childish giggles around the table.

We three tried a game of Divinare, the game of being a Victorian psychic (and which takes up more table space than I remembered). Ian, though, found his energy levels waning and he was unable to get much of a grip on the game. He always seemed to be in the right place just before he was forced to move somewhere wrong. Katy did better, getting the hang of it after the first round, once she knew the rules.

Katy 25
Andrew 20
Ian 3

Res Arcana had ended during Divinare and Joe had managed to finish the game just before Martin could do his mega move.

Joe 11
Adam 7
Martin 5

While explaining his winning strategy, which mostly involved tapping his horn of plenty, Joe uttered those words now adorning the blog title but which would also make an amusing car windscreen sticker.

They squeezed in a quick game of Ticket to Ride London and Joe had the unique opportunity to play a TtR game against two players who hoard cards. "I'll just shuffle the discard pile, shall I?" he said, picking up the few cards lying there, which had mostly been played by himself.

Martin 36
Joe 31
Adam 19

Now we were all together so a rousing game of Team Play was suggested to shake Ian from his torpor. The teams were Adam and Katy, Joe and me, Martin and Ian. J&A went into an early lead while Martin got stuck on his opening mission card (is that what they're called?) of a full house. Katy, likewise, couldn't clear her "pair of ones, pair of sevens" and was not pleased to see Adam use those cards to finish the communal mission card instead of passing them to her.

In fact, that was Adam's tactic, as he focused entirely on the communal cards and never finished the mission he was dealt at the start of the game.

Then Joe finished our eighth mission card by drawing a card blind from the deck. A bit of luck but expertly managed luck, I like to think. Ian and Martin's collection of high scoring missions threatened to unseat us from first, but it was not to be.

Joe and Andrew 26
Ian and Martin 23
Adam and Katy 20

Martin then pushed for Karate Tomate, while Katy pined after 6nimmt. Joe was keen to see if Push was any good with six, so we chose that.

The dice were brutal, and Ian, Joe and I all banked but this time fortune favoured the brave as the non-banking Martin took first place.

Martin 53
Joe 43
Adam 42
Ian 36
Andrew 34
Katy 32

Finally we played the oft suggested Karate Tomate. It was a bit of a damp squib with six. It only took two players to decide they wanted to pick up cards and everyone else would instantly get to pick up trophies. And knives. This made for some very short rounds and a sudden ending when Adam revealed he'd scored twelve trophies. Joe, Katy and myself had not picked up any knives at all,

Adam 12
Martin 8
Ian 5
Joe, Katy, Andrew 0

And then we were done. Time to head home with the heady thrill of victory still coursing through our veins. Thanks all.