Just Divine

Whoever decided to schedule Valentine’s Day on a Tuesday this year needs, in my opinion, a good talking to. Due to this special day, there were only three of us this week. Me (the host), Ian and Katy. Katy brought as many games as she could, plus we all brought snacks, meaning the snack/player ratio was an impressive 1:1.

Our first game was Isle of Skye, which Katy tried her best to convince us she was bad at. She mentioned how much she struggled with money last time, and Ian had to remind her that she’d actually won that game.

"It's very zone-y."

I haven’t played in a while and, boy, did it show. Once again I ended with lots of money, but any tiles I wanted either vanished or were bought before I could get them. Luckily Ian and Katy set up a close finish to add a bit of excitement.

Ian 57
Katy 55
Andrew 17

Next up was Divinare. As I explained the rules to Katy, she kept asking if there was another game like Divinare that she thinks she played ages ago. I said I didn’t think so, but she insisted there was. Then I remembered I’d brought it to Roll For The Soul once and the mystery was solved: Divinare is the game that’s like Divinare.

It’s a fun game: a bit luck based and there’s a bit of screwage in there too. I should bring it to games nights more often. Katy proved herself to be best psychic.

Katy 17
Andrew 11
Ian 11

This was followed by Verflixxt (or That's Life), which now comes in its own bespoke carrying pouch since Katy was appalled at the oversized box that originally housed it.

As for the game, we all got two of those clover tiles (complete with illustration of a dog in a parcel) to turn negatives into positives, but Ian also got an armload of positives too. I was doing okay until right at the end when I rolled a bunch of ones, stealing last place from Katy who – up until then – had been the unluckiest roller.

Ian 27
Katy 11
Andrew 9

Next up was more dice! This time, Roll Through The Ages. This was new to Ian and Katy but it didn’t take long for them to get the hang of it. Katy loves a scoresheet and wrote “Dr Katy” at the top of hers, causing Ian and I to add “BA (Hons)” to our names, keen to show our higher education credentials too.

Ian soon had four developments and it looked like he was about to end the game, but he couldn't get enough money together to buy that last development. My joy was short lived, however, as he used the people he got instead to finish off monuments that I had already started.

At the end of the game, when adding up our scores for developments and monuments, we all scored nineteen points! As such, it was down to who had least disasters.

Andrew 19
Katy 15
Ian 14

Then finally, with Ian keeping an eye on the clock for his train home, we played Push It. Or Speed Push It as it might have been called. Only up to seven and, on my small table, we got it over and done with in double quick time with Ian scoring two-pointers three times. Ever the gracious host, I decided not make the game last any longer by staging a dramatic comeback. And that’s the story I’m sticking with.

Ian 7
Katy 3
Andrew 0

And so the evening ended at a sensible 10.25pm. Thanks guys. Hopefully we’re a bit more populated next week.

On the Division we have points along the x-axis, points ratio up the y-axis and the size of the bubble indicates the average complexity of the games played by each player, according to Board Game Geek. Ian is now second, while only a few weeks ago he was back in sixth!

It started with Eclipse

On this Friday, Chris found himself banished from his own home and thus needed somewhere to pass the evening playing board games. Since I was in, and I figured my table was big enough for two-player Eclipse, I hosted a little tête-à-tête across the vast distances of space.

With two-players, there are only five III-level spaces, so the game really funnels the two players towards each other. Also, Chris suggested we try out the alien option. I was a warlike race, with high initiative and energy capacity right from the start while Chris could upgrade three times in one go, and could build for less money.

And talking of money, I had one of those games where I could barely get an orange cube down. It was frustrating, and I soon realised that, as Chris improved his fleet, I needed to make a mad dash for the centre and hope to hold onto it for the rest of the game.

Except I went in under prepared, hoping for some lucky dice rolls by the ancients. I had strong attack (+5) but next to no hull. It was an optimistic plan and one that didn’t work and also left me weakened and unable to stop Chris from rolling in on the next round.

In the end, I was forced to use influence discs to make sure I didn’t go bankrupt and, with that, my ignoble defeat was assured.

Chris 40
Andrew 23

After this we tried Tsuro of the Seas which was fun while it lasted but it can’t avoid a massive sense of anti-climax when someone dies. In this game, Chris died when a new dragon entered the game right where his ship was. Not a lot you can do about that.

1. Andrew
2. Chris

And finally we ended with Roll Through The Ages. There’s some luck already in this dice-rolling game, but Chris won thanks to an extra bit of luck on top of that.

When he built his fourth development, he decided to buy Masonry. As he did, he idly wondered aloud who would ever choose to get Granaries as it seemed fairly useless. Then I took my go and built my fourth development. And when it was Chris’ go again, he realised that he’d actually ticked off Granaries, and not Masonry.

He gamely played on, anyway, and then realised that thanks to Granaries he could sell a spare food for four coins, which meant he could build an Empire, getting him fourteen points and the win. Jammy sod.

Chris 32
Andrew 23

Soul Through The Ages

I arrived late at the fortnightly Roll For The Soul games meet, and I found four gamers (Hannah, Martin, Adam and Ryan) knee-deep in a game of Carcassone, and Joe watching while he ate. It was Adam’s homegrown version, where the fimo farmers tower over their fields and cities like a B-movie version of Carcassone. Except that the usual B-movie trope of the woman falling over at important moments and needing to be rescued by the hero did not take place. In fact, Hannah won, with the others not winning.

While they finished their game, Joe and I played Roll Through The Ages. Joe was a bit rusty on the rules but not on strategy as he went for the quick win, filling himself up with cheap developments, while I got more cities nice and early and went for more exclusive developments. Joe’s spoiler tactic won, and he got to five developments, ending the game, when I had only got three.

I got a beer from the counter, and I guess I must be a regular now since the owner handed me my order before I’d even said anything.

Hannah left and more people arrived, and we decided to split into two groups. The friendly, mixed-gender group playing a game on a recognisable map with trains that passers-by can instantly understand. And the other, less friendly group of three old men in the corner, playing a game with cubes and tiles and no clear objective unless you’ve already played it twice.

Adam cleverly sold Ticket To Ride to the newcomers by describing as being like Inter-Railing. That seemed to swing it, but one of them was intrigued by Tinners’ Trail, amazed that there was a board game set in Cornwall.

I didn’t take many pictures today, so instead here’s one I took earlier:

Happy Adam

Joe, Martin and I decided to give The Palaces of Carrara another go. This game has tantalised us with its sense of almost understanding it, but not quite. Maybe next go it’ll click. Not since Biblios has a game hidden its winning strategy so effectively.

Except that maybe Martin has cracked it. He won the first game, although it was close between himself and Joe. Martin’s strategy was to end the game soon as possible and rely on after-game bonuses, even though he’d barely scored a point during the game itself. Joe got second and I was third.

During this game, a drunken man wobbled over to us, pointed out of the window at a passing bus and stammered “Look! A train! In London!” After a few seconds, he changed London to Bristol, but was still shocked at seeing a train in the street. And then the cafe owner gave him some food in a brown paper bag, and that distracted him long enough for him to forget that he’d been talking to us at all and he wobbled away again.

Then we begun on a second attempt at Palaces... and found it was a closer affair. Possibly because Martin misread one of the end-game criteria (which change every game) and far from being about to finish he was, in fact, in a terrible position.

Despite that, he still grabbed a couple of powerful upgrade tiles and shot himself off around the scoretrack. As for me and Joe, our tussle for second relied on one decision: whether or not Joe would build a new building, or score what he already had. If he built, he risked a cheap building being drawn from the pile which I’d be able to build and end the game immediately leaving him without a chance to score.

He chose to build. A cheap building came out, and his fate was sealed. Martin hit triple figures, I got seventy-something and Joe lay in a distant third in the 30s, cursing his luck.

On the other table, Ticket To Ride ended. Adam didn’t win, despite his usual tactic of hoarding masses of cards in his huge spade-like hands. I can’t remember who did win, but they got 114 points. More or less the only number I remember from that evening.

But before they finished, we were able to squeeze in a quick game of Sticheln. This cunning trick-taking game is beautifully designed, even if it did take us a couple of attempts at getting the dealing right. Joe won, despite picking up the highest number of bad cards. I got no cards at all and came in second.

And then it was time to wend our ways away, into Bristol’s darkened, drunk-lined streets. See you in two weeks!

Two men don't play Cube Quest shocker!

So Paul and I are two thirds of the way through Trans Europa when we started trading our favourite game board based funnies. Possibly initiated by a lame gag that I tried, I regaled / reminded my politely smiling opponent of the time we were all playing Civilisation at my shared flat in Uxbridge. Sam searching around for the right combination of resource cards was heard to exclaim, "Aargh, I'm two fucking short!". Ha! Paul then retold his tale where I was about to leave Sam's for a long late night drive home. On announcing I was quite tired Sam offered "Well you could just crash". Perfect!

Anyway, last night's events didn't offer up any similar gems but it did see three games played out. I was feeling decidedly dodgy due to a persistent neck pain that sometimes makes me quite giddy and sick. Paul proposed that we stick to shorter games and so Roll Through The Ages got a second run out in a week. It was Paul's turn to cop all the pestilence in a reversal of real life events! I was a wash with lovely goods and even had 56 on the stone track. Never seen that before.
Chris 1st
Paul 2nd

Then it was Trans Europa in which I was playing hard ball to Paul's gentleman Jim. In each round I was somehow managing to pip him by one track. The game took a little longer than the advertised box time.
Chris 1st
Paul 2nd

Then we unhoused little Agricola. I had taken the set to my dads for the weekend in the faint hope that we might rekindle our playing of games together. It lasted up until I said "and this little board is your farm". Father is not one to be seen playing with little wooden sheep and cows.

In this closely fought episode though I managed to pip Paul to the post by accumulating more points for things than he did. There was to be no rejoicing in shared victories today.

Chris 1st
Paul 2nd

(At work don't have the scores)

Last weeks report, today!

Those cards in Agricola. They ain’t half bossy, aren’t they? You fan them out and do as you’re told. Or woe betide.

They told James to slaughter sheep. A lot. Use them and churn out butter, slaughter them, cook them up in a gypsy’s crock. The hedgekeeper, stablemaster and woodcutter would between them ensure there was no escape. The cards had decided. This could stand up in court.

Meanwhile, Chris had seemingly been told by his cards to make two tiny pens which acted like little funnels as he sporadically air-dropped cattle into his fireplace. James wanted the cattle, but no. Chris kept nabbing them to serve up an all-you-can-eat-buffet for his massively overbred farming family. He kept shaking his fist at his hand of occupations and James felt assured Chris’ huge empty spaces would work against him. Though James’ plans had faltered a little. The cards wouldn’t be pleased.

But then... Was it a herd? (Nope, no room). Was it the plane? (Nope, Chris wasn’t going to use that card). It was Super-Plough. Yup, Chris finally dragged out his riding plough and filled his farm with fields. With a well-developed farmhouse and a massive family, fed with minced cattle, Chris won.

Defeat for James. He doesn’t blame himself. It was on the cards. (He’s easily led).

Chris 43, James 27.

Then a quick blast at Roll Through the Ages. Chris was playing well. Then, four skulls and an invasion. So he brought the game to a quick close, meaning even James’ grab at The Empire wasn’t nearly enough. A thrashing.

Chris 28, James 18.

A sheep learning curve for James!

Two days after games night was postponed due to Chris’ cold, James was summoned  and promised a germ-free night of farm warfare. Agricola was strewn across the table, leaving barely enough room for a huge and rarely seen bar of Ritter Sport chocolate. This was the night the occupation and minor improvement cards were to be added to James’ training in board games. Scarred by the leap from counting apples in primary school to quadratic equations in secondary school, it was with some trepidation James fanned out two extra hands of cards. But the extra/advanced components were much enjoyed.

James had previously had some unexpected success from merely feeding his farmers, upgrading their home and then fencing off the whole farm without putting anything in it. He hoped to find a tactic more in keeping with the game. One with some farming involved.

Chris was soon ploughing and sowing and knocking up a few pastures. James’ masterplans all seemed to require far more rounds than the game allowed and he sweated under an end-is-all-too-nigh cloud of anxiety. Buying a riding plow, James churned up fields furiously as Chris looked on with envy. But James struggled to feed his farmers and picked up the begging cards (though two were negated by the mendicant being employed). Chris produced grain and vegetables and even had a lettuce patch on the side. Then he snatched up a veritable hoard of sheep (left to multiply on the space with the absence of notorious sheep-grabber, Paul).

Sweeping up the fruits of his orchard and his well, James finished neatly, mental arithmetic almost audible as he racked up the points in the final round, while adding a good showing of cattle. But that left more sheep for Chris, who squashed them together, battery-style. Even so, James felt confident of a victory with only a slight worry about Chris’ vegetable department. So it was with some shock that Chris’ score was quite a lot higher! James was happier that his finished gameboard actually featured farming this time, but there were no bonus points for happiness.

Final score: Chris 46, James 31.

Out came Roll Through The Ages, and having feared catching something horrible from Chris a few days earlier, it was Chris who caught a double-dose of well-rolled plague from James. Floundering as James lobbed yet more cracking dice rolls, Chris brought the game to an early end before the gap between scores widened to humiliating levels.

Final score James 21, Chris 19

Sloppy Civilisation

With no GNN session this week due to Valentine's Day, Andrew and I took advantage of Sally working through the (early) evening to squeeze in a quick two-hander. I realise that doesn't sound how I meant it, but I'm not going to change it now. We're grown-ups. 

I made my way to Andrew's with a couple of old, but perhaps underplayed, games in the bag - Mord Im Arosa and Portobello Market. We started with the former. Andrew lists this game as one of his favourites, and though I have a soft spot for it's unique silliness I do believe his preferences are framed by the ample Sean Connery/soft spoken Swede impressions it affords, as we tried various implementations of the phrase 'Sloppy Investigation'. As it turned out, I was by far the sloppier, and Andrew beat me convincingly:

Andrew 19
Sam 13

Don't go to the Mord this summer.

Time for a change. We'd only played Portobello Market 2 or 3 times and I think the general GNN impression was of the arched eyebrow variety - no open derision, but not a lot of enthusiasm either. It does play more tactically with two, I think; you can plan your moves with only one other person to ruin them for you, and it also plays quicker with two as there's less thinking time. But it's still one of those games that allies a simple rule set with deceptive strategic depth, and having started well only to fall back behind Andrew, I managed to jump past him with a sneaky trigger-the-game-end move:

Sam 161
Andrew 147

Andrew suspects those DVDs may not be kosher

One that merits further plays, I feel, though accusations of abstractery must be admitted to.

There was still time before I had to dash back so we broke out another of Andrew's faves (and my nemeses, along with Trans America): Roll Through the Ages: the game of dice-based stuff, where you balance the virtues of extra cities with the fact the buggers need feeding. I did pretty well, for me, but my beautifully advanced civilisation - with monuments and everything - was undone by serial disasters as I neglected to provide any food. How can the people starve? They're only made of wood!

Andrew 18
Sam 9

No knowledge will be handed out unless you have an amphora

With our gaming fix sated, and Andrew winning 2-1 on the night, I headed off into the ether...

Going loco down in Puerto Rico

Four of the Bracknell posse's totally made up and imaginary non members couldn't make tonights games fest and therefore we were reduced to the three stalwart regulars that continually make the effort, Paul, James and myself Chris.

Inspired by current events across the Atlantic where a group of small islands off the coast of the United States are having a referendum to decide whether they want to take the UK's place as the 51st state (Ooo, a little bit of politics), I put forward Puerto Rico for this weeks main game.

This game has sat serenely in my loft next to classics like El Grande and Tigris and Euphrates for years waiting for the right mix of players to appear. Buoyed by the success of El Grande's reappearance I felt it was time to give another old classic a dusting off.

One of the problems Puerto has is although game play is simple, options are multi-various in the same way that Agricola is and often a first play acts as a tutorial for any newbies. Considering the amount of time since either Paul or I had played it we were all practically fresh to the game. The start was understandably stop start as each action required a quick nose into the rules for clarification. After about three rounds this became less and less however any definite strategies were naturally absent.

I had concluded that the captain was a quick win for me as I was the only one producing goods early on. Clearly we were all struggling with the mechanics to form any consistent approach. Then, subtly, the balance of power shifted as James got his coffee roaster commissioned and Paul manned his sugar refinery. All of a sudden the pair of them were awash with cash and began snapping up the bonus buildings. I read somewhere that if you don't get one of these you stand little chance of winning, so with no small effort on my part I managed to secure the least profitable building, the city hall, and then made a mad trolley dash to claim as many violet buildings as possible before the colonists ran out.

Despite my incredible poor attempt at adding three numbers together the totals revealed a very close game.

Paul - 60
Chris - 58
James - 55

Puerto Rico, another classic which has stood the test of time. All parties agreed that we should play it again in two weeks time and totally disregard what our totally made up imaginary non members might say about that.

10.45 was looming large so we managed to shoe horn in a game of speed Roll Through the Ages which Paul quickly won as he was putting his coat on to leave.

Paul - 28
Chris -19
James - 19

Late report is late.

On Monday I (Chris) found myself looking after Ashton for the day whilst his school's teachers sat around smoking fistfuls of fags and bitching about the kids in what is more commonly known as an Inset day. It took me until about 10 o'clock to realise decide that my son might really love a trip to Reading. Co-incidently the town also boasts my local games shop, Eclectic Games, what luck!

With the whole range of games on display I couldn't quite get past that itch to play Lords of Waterdeep again and duly left the premises with it stretched into a flimsy plastic bag. Only Paul was due in the evening owing to James' jaunt 'oop north' and Sam had reassured me that it played well with two.

We kicked off the evening with Roll Through The Ages. Paul and I made our customary gallop toward gaining the maximum compliment of cities. Being a dice game luck can be disproportionate and no more so when Paul, all out of wheat, copped a revolt, twice. With something like a minus 24 in disasters come the tally up he was always going to have a mountain to climb.

Final scores
Chris: 41
Paul: 24

On to the main event Lords of Waterdeep and the very satisfying unboxing and separation of components. This game has a lovely feel to it and is 10 quid cheaper than Agricola. A briefest refresher of the rules and we were straight into it, placing 4 agents instead of two which the 5 player gave us last time. Paul quickly set the pace by completing some medium quests and settled on a strategy of more quests the better. I took a more balanced approach but felt that I had wasted too much resource on getting the lieutenant which actually didn't benefit me as much as I'd hoped. I had however, picked up a bunch of cheap plot cards which stay active for the whole game, but as I discovered mid way through Paul had the best one of the lot. Every time he received money he also got a Rogue (black) cube. A fair number of the quests require Rogues and he was off into the distance and in a commanding position and there was little I could do about it as Mandatory Quests were swatted aside with ease.

Despite a nice late rally from me Paul notched a convincing win......

Paul -182
Chris - 162

Two's company, three's a lot better to play Stone age actually.

And so after over a year of playing alternate weeks with my gaming friends James and Paul, the planets aligned to bring us all together on the same night. So as not to bog down the evening with rule learning I displayed the range of games I had that all parties were familiar with. After the briefest of introductions we were straight into the gaming action with everyones favourite Roll Through The Ages. After a slow start Paul came roaring through to take the first game. I foolishly decided to end the game early thinking I was in 1st place but forgot I was the starting player thus meaning everybody else got to take a final turn.

Paul- 21

Chris -16

James -13

Next up for the main fare of the evening was everyone favourite Stone Age. None of us are a stranger to 2-player Stone Age, however the addition of a 3rd person was enough to get some heads scratched searching for good strategy. Unlike the 2 player where you can start collecting anything you please and its a sprint to amass the most stuff, the 3 player makes you observe your opponents to make sure you don't clash. Paul struggled throughout trying to feed his family on his worker strategy. James made huge strides around the scoring track buying up huts using expensive resources and at one point threatened to lap me. I settled on the axe route as the first culture cards I picked up had a few corresponding multipliers on them. Paul spotted that culture cards were about to run out leaving us with one final hurrah. Needing a few rolls to go my way I managed to buy two huts and push my score up a vital 30 points. It was enough, plus my healthy axe score, to pass James.

Chris - 206

James - 183

Paul - 113

Chris swings to victory

We wrapped the session with a turbo quick game of everyones favourite Hey Thats My Fish which produced one of the closest games I've seen. After tying with James I tipped the scales on count back of how many tiles I had collected.

C - 33 (19)

J - 33 (18)

P - 30 (19)

New table, new vistas

Tonight Sam and I met up for a little writing session. And then after a whole hour we decided we could reward ourselves with a little game. It was time to test the new big table that I'd just bought, which is in my Room Of No Distractions (ie, no internet or TV) which will house any future games nights I may host.

Sam had thoughtfully brought along Alhambra, and such seasoned players as ourselves set it up quickly. But right from the start, something seemed odd. Despite being thoroughly shuffled, we began with a lot of low cards to pick up. This must have contributed to a flurry of "exact buys" during the middle of the game, which meant that we soon had two sprawling complexes in front of us and we ran out of tiles immediately after the second round of scoring. It was almost Alhambra as it was meant to be played. Fast. Efficient. Deadly.

Our sprawling metropolii

Maybe not "deadly".

Unfortunately for me, Sam had the game wrapped up by round two, so there was no chance to catch him up. And Dirk's uncanny ability at specialising in types of buildings frustrated me, despite my nice long wall.

Sam 155
Andrew 124
Dirk 88

After this we decided to play Roll Through The Ages – the one game that I actually bought myself. It rarely gets a spell on the table top, but I enjoyed it. Lots of thinking, but not so much that you seize up completely. Luckily I checked the rules as Sam closed out the game with his fifth development, and it confirmed all players were allowed the same amount of goes. In my last roll I netted fourteen points, pushing myself past Sam.

Sam points at dice

Andrew 38
Sam 30

With the sultry evening drawing to a close, we parted with honours even. I would've gone home rejoicing in our joint victory, but I was already there.

Bracknell's new recruit

Bracknell's roving reporter reports...

Wow!

Last week went by in a blur. So much so I didn't have hardly any time to do anything let alone write up the games played, which was a shame because Cargo! was tabled for a second time. With rules refined and money/credits now printed out via the colour printer I gave Paul the game is starting to take shape. Depots are reduced to just the players home areas and now it costs to place containers into your opponents spaces and to take containers out. After my defeat last time I decided to beef up on lorries to maximise my route potential. This tactic and a few fortuitous card draws brought off my first win!

We also played 2 games of Roll Through the Ages and a quick game of Mummut all won be me but the real amazing moment of the week came today on my non game week. Driving back from Peppa Pig world with the family my wife Jacquie (confirmed board game disliker), announced that she quite fancied playing a board game this evening. After successfully not crashing into the central barrier I realised that this was probably one of those things people say on a whim like "I think I shall take up archery", and then as quickly as it popped in to their head it vanishes. However, after the bed time routine had come and gone and we had watched another episode of Breaking Bad, the question of a game came up again. I was concerned. This was an opportunity not to waste. Pick a game too nerdy and I could kiss any further requests goodbye. I chose Roll Through the ages as it is quick to learn and has a play time of around 30 minutes.

In a scene redolent of Blackadder teaching Baldrick advanced mathematics, statements such as "No look, it's quite simple" and "OK, don't worry about that" were aired numerous times and at one point the game was completely packed away, only to be unpacked again after brief discussion.

With Jacquie wearing a face like one reacting to the cat litter tray in the morning we proceeded. 20 minutes later Jacquie had proceeded to beat me by 15 points...I mean how does that even happen?

I got my revenge in the rematch but here's hoping to maybe another session one day...

Once around the kitchen table in eight millenia

Six gamers gathered in the familiar surroundings of Sam’s kitchen for this week’s games night. A night that would encompass building step pyramids, the growth of London and colonizing new planets.

We split into two groups of three players with Sam, Jonny and Quentin giving themselves the task of rebuilding London after the Great Fire in Martin Wallace’s London. Meanwhile, I was up against leaderboard high-fliers Adam and Joe as we set up Alien Frontier: the game of space exploration according to the rules of Yahtzee.

Adam was new to the game, but quickly built up a fleet of ships (ie, dice) to expand his victorious empire. Joe could’ve stopped him, but he forgot he had a plasma cannon. Meanwhile, I underused my cards and played an unfocused game. The most fun was inventing advertising slogans for the various parts of the planet ("Come to the Heinlein Plains: Where the trading is always... one to one"), and describing them in the dulcet tones of a sales assistant ("Is this your first time at the Asimov Crater, sir?").

After the game ended, there was a brief autopsy on the game, and we found it lacking. It seemed to be all about the mechanism, and little to do with interaction. I wondered if it wasn’t simply too short. By the time all of the areas of the planet are colonised, there’s only a short period of battling for supremacy before the game ends. Joe decided it could go in his next trade, and it’s hard to disagree.

Adam 11
Joe 8
Andrew 7

Since, by this time, London was still only in the 1800s we began a game of Roll Through The Ages. Thinking back, we should’ve steered clear of another dice game after "Mr Boxcars" won at Alien Frontier, but instead we dug it out of the games cupboard and set up the game.

Adam, true to his laissez-faire attitude to the plague in Notre Dame, was adept at rolling pestilence, hitting myself and Joe. Mostly myself after Joe invented medicine while I discovered quarrying. Apart from that, my tactic mostly relied on expecting Adam’s luck with the dice to run out any second now. This didn’t happen. Joe had almost no food for most of the game, but still managed to come second.

Adam 35
Joe 17
Andrew 11

By now London had finally reached the twentieth century and the evening came to an end. I’ll leave one of them to write up their adventures in the big smoke before I add the leaderboard.

GNN Reports: On the other side of the table Quentin and Jonny were discovering what it's like to experience a game without Joe around to explain it properly. I covered the rules as best I could without really clarifying the theme very well. Then I jumbled up the decks during my 'example' hand and subsequently we had to replay the first round...

Anyway, despite some confusion over building and running cities, we managed to play the game and everyone got the hang of managing poverty so well we finished with equal points. But Jonny hadn't generated a lot of victory cards in his cities, and Quentin had been hampered by his card options in terms of making cash, and was left with three unpaid loans. Final scores:

Sam 65
Quentin 45
Jonny 43

A great result for me, but I'm sure at least partly down to my shortcomings as a game guide! Nevertheless both Jonny and Quent seemed to enjoy it so hopefully it'll feature again soon.

As for the leaderboard, such is the curious nature of the Q system, despite Adam coming first twice and Joe coming second twice, both see their points ratio dip slightly.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	7	38.5	5.5
Joe	7	28.5	4.07
Sam	6	24.5	4.08
Andrew	7	20.5	2.9
Jonny	3	13	4.3
Steve	3	9.5	3.16
Quentin	1	4	4
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5

By the way, Adam did offer to have Roll Through The Ages as a non-leaderboard game. And he said this after he'd won which was very gallant of him. But when I saw it actually lowered his point ratio, I put it back in.

And I can't believe I forgot to mention Jonny's spicy nuts!

WALLACE DESIGNS EASY GAME SHOCK

The planets must have been in some funny positions because despite the lure of a completely blank leaderboard, a mere three gamers sat around the table last night - Joe, Andrew and Sam (me). Adam was playing football, Quent job-swotting and Jonny looking for a missing cat.

My mooting of The War on Terror was greeted with a round of indifference - maybe I should have worn the balaclava - and instead we set up Joe's new purchase - Martin Wallace's Tinner's Trail. As entertainingly explained on the box (along with honest nods to games he had purloined mechanics from) the game was closely based - as close as any game can be without drowning in rules (I'm looking at you, High Frontier!) - on the tin and copper-mining in 1800's Cornwall. Each player is basically prospecting for the resources in question and contending with fluctuating sales prices and a shitload of water in the mines.

The game is made up of four rounds and in each round players use up a limited (ten?) amount of spaces on the time track, building a mine taking up two spaces, pumping out water taking one space, and so on. In WallaceWorld boats and trains not only improve the production levels of your mine, they also dry it out a bit too, so these were popular. Other tools at your disposal are miners - always handy - and adits, draining systems that link between mines and both increase the mine's capacity and decrease it's water levels.

Despite Stanley's repeated requests for me to go up and sing him the dinosaur song, I managed to get off to a decent start by grabbing a slightly less damp mine than most and removing all of the water. I didn't get around to actually removing any copper or tin though, so Joe and Andrew made the early running on the scores; trading their hard-dug cash in for investments, the things that actually win or lose you the game after round four.

Joe was aditting like crazy, not building very many mines, while Andrew and I prospected a bit more and spread our mines across the board. After round two I reaped some cash in and made the first big investment, but round three saw Joe the most productive miner as his adits had their moment in the underground sun. Come round four we were all in the money, but Joe had left an unoccupied mine looking very attractive and after a bidding war that took the price up to record levels I swooped in to grab the tin and copper and make a third big investment, enough to cement first place:

Sam 139
Joe 107
Andrew 76

We all thought this game was great - very nice looking, great mechanics, and enough interaction to keep things interesting without feeling like you're in a war. And not too long, either! Well done, Wallace.

We rounded the evening off with a game of Roll Through the Ages. At this point Joe (little Joe) decided to wake up again and I spent a bit of time going up and down the stairs to soothe him to sleep. However I can't pin my woeful performance on him this time; changing strategy mid-game from getting-developments-as-quick-as-possible to getting-loads-of-workers-who-don't-do-much did for me. Andrew and Joe contested this one closely, both of them building lots of cities and taking the odd disaster minus-point in order to push their developments on. Andrew took first place though, with his Empire scoring a whopping 15 points for him:

Andrew 35
Joe 29
Sam 15

Leaderboard:

The two results above mean the three of us stand, like football managers who can only manage a draw when a win was vital, level-pegging on the leaderboard. Early days yet though. And maybe next week I can play a whole game without infant interference!

The (world's most boring) Leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Joe	2	8	4
Andrew	2	8	4
Sam	2	8	4

Four time's a charm

This week saw a rare five-way battle between regulars Joe, Quentin, Adam, Sam and myself, Andrew. And giddy with excitement at such esteemed companionship, we ploughed through four games in one evening.

Joe was a late-comer, so the evening began with a gentle Roll Through The Ages between the other four players. At least it was gentle until wave upon wave of pestilence swept across the kitchen table causing untold grief to everyone except Sam, who’d invented medicine. This evening saw a new side to Quentin that we’d previously not seen, as a remarkable series of freakish rolls of the dice meant he got no people at all until around the fifth round, with each failed roll or inadvertent disaster greeted with a slew of profanities. But in the end, it was Sam’s disease-free civilisation that won the day, comfortably beating Adam, Andrew and Quentin (in that order), who all struggled to get out of single figures.

Joe arrived mid-Stone Age, and so the first leaderboard-centred game was chosen: Seven Wonders. It was the first time in a while that we’d played this, and we had difficulty remembering a few of the finer points regarding strategy. There seemed to be a general lack of resources around the board, such that Adam and I both had a healthy stockpile of cash by the end. By the end of the game, a quick glance at the table left us baffled as to who had won and it was only after a tense round of totting up the scores that the truth was known:

Adam: 58
Andrew: 52
Joe: 49
Sam: 48
Quentin: 44

The night was still young, so a further game was suggested. No Thanks was chosen, and it was decided that this would also go on the leaderboard. Once again, my tactic of picking up low cards was mocked as never having got me a win, but frankly I didn’t get much of a chance as I ended up picking up middling cards, with little chance of linking them up. Sam’s run of five high cards was very tidy but it was cautious Adam who picked up his second win of the evening.

Adam: 15
Sam: 17
Quentin: 27
Joe: 35
Andrew: 43

At 10.20pm, blood was coursing through our veins and we weren’t about to meekly go to bed, so a fourth game was chosen. This time we decided to keep this off the leaderboard, and it was another bidding game: For Sale. It started well for Quentin who picked up the 30 point card for only $3000. But the bidding-for-properties part is only the first half of the game: it’s how you use those points that’s important. In the bidding-for-money part, in the first round I fluked a $15,000 bill for a bid of only 13 points! After that head start, sensible play was all I needed to ensure a comfortable first place to end the evening. Points (in thousands of dollars) were: Andrew 58; Quentin 55; Sam 49; Adam 45; Joe 41.

After such a concentrated session of gaming, Quentin could only rue the damage done to his points ratio, but Adam was more chipper after last Tuesday’s last place.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	13	67	5.15
Joe	15	59	3.93
Andrew	16	52.5	3.28
Sam	11	47.5	4.31
Quentin	9	36	4
Hannah	3	11.5	3.8
Jonny	1	2	2