Eight games a week

Tuesday rolled around again and it was sans Endersby chez Joes'. Whilst Andrew was at home nursing his leg, I joined Ian, Katy, Martin, and Matt (2) with the host at the table. Matt (1) and Andy were late withdrawals.

After we got over our shock that Ian had forgotten his beer ("You don't bring any games" Martin cried "That's the one thing you have to remember!") we cracked into things with Fuji Flush. I had a bunch of twos and threes and every time I got rid of one, I picked another up. There was a lot of teamwork going on around the table and - as ever - plenty of dick points, delivered with great relish. With the game quite far progressed both Katy and I still had plenty of cards. We both made a late surge for it, but were beaten to the punch by Joe.

Joe - no cards
Katy/Ian/Martin/Sam - 1 card
Matt - 2 cards

Those of us broken by the experience consoled ourselves with the beautiful view out of Joe's window:

We then split into two groups of three, with Martin leading the Hit Z Road faction and me suggesting Raiders of the North Sea. Matt and Ian were amenable, so while Martin talked Joe through the rules of the zombie apocalypse, I explained Raiders.

Raiders has a simple worker-placement thing going on, but with a couple of twists. One is that every time you place a viking (taking the action of a location), you also displace one from the board - taking the second action too. Another is that the vikings have a hierarchy - black, grey, white - and this has a bearing on placement too. You're basically building a crew and gathering what you need to go off and raid - but each member of your crew gives you a little ongoing bonus, and a potential action to play as well. Some of these - not many - involving stealing from your fellow competitors, but while Matt and Ian got into a tit-for-tat of nicking provisions off each other, I was left relatively unscathed.

All the same, it looked to be Matt's game as the final furlong came into view. Ian was ready to raid and end it - however he was stymied by both Matt and I stealing provisions from him. I really wanted to raid and end the game myself, but didn't have the viking to do so. However, with the finale postponed, I hit upon a new strategy: killing off my crew. Vikings love a noble death, and the more you lose in battle the more points you score at the end - so there's a balance to be struck between short-term loss and long-term gain. I managed to kill off my whole crew just before Ian finally wrapped things up - I''d love to say I planned it to perfection, but I didn't. I just got lucky. Nice game though.

Sam 62
Matt 56
Ian 53

While we'd been raiding the North Sea, Martin had been the sole survivor in Hit Z Road, with Joe biting the dust somewhere around Colorado - not helped by rolls like this one:

...and Katy falling at the final hurdle, eaten by the living dead with a marvellous view of the Pacific.

Martin - survives!
Katy - dead last (second)
Joe - dead first (last)

Matt now left, leaving Ian and I to witness the end of Jump Drive, which Joe likes to describe as the snack version of Race for the Galaxy: it follows a very similar path of card selection and using other cards to pay, but with a simpler interface - and a much quicker playtime.

I suggested maybe it was the Boy Band version of RftG, but for whatever reason Joe did not approve. Either way, the ending was very dramatic, with Joe scoring more in his final round than Katy managed in the entire game. He and Martin both finished with the same score, with the latter winning on a tie-breaker!

Martin 91 (wins on tie-break)
Joe 91
Katy 38

After all that competition, it was time for a light-hearted semi-co-operative game where nobody falsely accuses anyone of being something they're not. But instead we played Insider.

I think I'm right in saying Ian was the Insider in the first two games and was correctly accused both times. Oddly we had to guess Board Game in one of them, and failed miserably. Ian gave himself away but justified it by saying we were all being really dense, which was a fair comment considering the context.

Then - drama! - Martin appeared to be the Insider and we all at one point were convinced. "You were asking all the pertinent questions" I said. "That's just because I'm clever!" Martin protested. Remembering his bewilderment at having to lie in Ultimate Werewolf (and subsequent hatred of the game) I was having doubts now. Joe, too, had a hunch that Katy might be letting Martin take the heat. We subsequently accused Katy of being the Insider, and she was!

Phew. All that co-operation was exhausting, so we went back to our default mo of trying to screw each other over - in Perudo. Joe tried to hide 20 dice under the cup lid again, but still couldn't manage it. Maybe he was distracted by the cup lid conundrum, because he was out rather quickly, following Ian. Joe's tactic seemed to be going for high bids, so I - to his left - kept dudo-ing him.Then he made what he described as a premature dudo, and was gone!

Martin fell next, when he found to his chagrin I had 3 aces. It was left to Katy and I, and I managed to dudo her away:

1 Sam
2 Katy
3 Martin
4 Joe
5 Ian

With the shadows lengthening over Europe, and an early start looming for Ian, he stole away before the clock struck eleven. The rest of us kept playing. Next to the table was Qwixx, the dice-roller that gives Joe a chance to bring out Das Exclusive.

It's a funny beast this one, where everyone gets to take the two white dice and on your turn you can combine one of them with one of the coloured dice. All the while you're crossing off numbers on a score pad - and potentially locking off certain colours. I'd played it years ago with Joe and forgotten how sweet it is. There's a tactical element, but also quite a bit of luck.

Sam 61

Martin 36

Joe 24

Katy 15

We finished off with Rolling America, another notepad-assisted experience where you roll dice and assign numbers. Your numeric map of America swiftly takes shape, then just as swiftly falls apart, as numbers can only go next to a matching number or one numerically adjacent. In a game where points are bad, Katy and I picked up a joint win:

Katy/Sam 10
Martin 11
Joe 12

And with no less than eight games played we finally called it a night and weaved our ways home. Thanks all!

From Ostrich to Ore Storage

Tuesday night this week fell on Adam and Hannah's house. In attendance were the two hosts and Martin, Ian, Katy, Joe and me. We all arrived pretty much on time and, in a break from usual proceedings, we had only the briefest chat before the first game was chosen. Having seen that Joe had brought Caverna, Adam put his name forward as a potential player. Joe and I joined him and so we set up in the front room.

The other four played Reined Knizia's Rheinlander. A game about which I know nothing, except for the laughter I heard from the next room, and the final scores that astonished the pessimistic Katy who was sure she was last. Meanwhile, Hannah proved to be unstoppable.

Hannah 52
Katy 36
Ian 35
Martin 32

After this, they played Game Of Thrones: Hand Of The King. This ended...

Hannah& Katy 5
Ian & Martin 2

And this was followed by Rolling America.


Katy 8
Martin 10
Hannah 11
Ian 11

And then Eggs of Ostrich, after Hannah had retired to bed.

Martin 6
Katy 6
Ian 5

All of this excitement occurred quite without my knowledge. I was engrossed in the adventures of my little dwarvish tribe in Caverna. I was the first to have an extra dwarf, and this advantage lasted a couple of rounds so, early on, I was feeling pretty good about my situation.

Joe built the Office Room, allowing him to overhang his tiles off the board for two victory points. He frequently bemoaned his choice, gazing sadly at the wide open spaces in his tableau. But then, whenever he placed a new tile, he'd overhang again, unable to give up on the dream.

Adam went for plants in a big way, not bothering hugely with his caves. I was so impressed by his first moves (get veg, get grain, slash and burn, then sheep farming and build fences) that I copied them as soon as I could. And then, because they worked so well, I did them again. Basically, Adam's opening gambit became my mid-game strategy.

In fact, we all followed a similar path, often choosing each others favorite options. I didn't go adventuring, relying on rubies to get me stuff quickly, much to Joe's annoyance. Adam and Joe both had adventurers, so they were constantly jostling with each other for the best spaces.

While the folks in the other room sped through several games, we appeared to slow down as we approached the end of the game. In the final stages, it was clear that Adam had won (as Hannah had predicted, putting his chances at "100%") but the battle for second was far from over. But Joe's choice to build a Writing Room, absolving him of seven minus points when he had nine empty spaces on his board, proved pivotal.

Adam 88
Joe 75
Andrew 71

It was a great game and I can't complain about bad luck or anything since I thought I'd played a decent game. It was all about small margins. Between me and Joe, that is. Adam was far off in the distance. Plus, this gave him a unique Perfect Five. He'd only played five games this season and he'd won them all. A remarkable achievement, and one that pushed his points ratio up to a stratospheric 5.4, if only for a moment.

By now, though, the six remaining gamers were all together again and there was talk of Fuji Flush to finish the evening. It was new to Adam, but it's not a difficult game to explain.

We played two games, and both were characterised by Adam and Ian being first to get down to their last card and then everyone else trying to stop them or, failing that, join them.

The first game ended

Adam 0 cards left
Ian 1
Katy 1
Joe 2
Martin 2
Andrew 3

This result meant that Adam had matched my "Smug Six" of six wins in a row. And with his only six games of the season! One day, they'll build a statue to him. Although, someone did point out that this season he'd only played when he'd hosted and was well-rested. Hopefully we'll soon see what his away form is like.

Then we played again, and this time, Adam couldn't quite force his way across the finishing line in time.

Ian 0
Katy 1
Adam 1
Andrew 2
Martin 2
Joe 4

And as for those all important Dick Points:

Adam 5
Ian 4
Katy 4
Martin 3
Andrew 2
Joe 1

And if you're now saying “Look! Dick Points are a way to win!” then I wag my index finger in the air, say “aaah” and then wag my index finger some more before pointing out that Adam only had one Dick Point in the first game, where he won. The two aren't necessarily linked. Correlation doesn't imply causation. There. A statistics lesson for us all.

Speaking of which, here's the Division...

I was going to do something exciting with it, but it's already exciting enough. I'm going to go and have a lie down now.

Fully Flushed

Five players congregated at Sam's this Tuesday for our regular fix of gaming delight: Sam, Ian, Katy, Martin, and me.

When we discussed what game to play, Sam wanted to play Covert and he tried a subtle piece of underselling by assuring Martin that he probably wouldn't hate it. Martin was not convinced by Sam's neuro linguistic programming and we decided to do the usual thing of staring at Sam's games wall and reading the names out loud to see if anyone is keen.

This time it took far less time than usual, as we all seemed keen on Beowulf, Knizia's homage to epic Saxon poetry.

I am unfamiliar with this game's source material but if it included a brave warrior who took one risk after another without failing any of them, then tonight's game reflected that perfectly. The hero in question was Martin who, by the end, was taking unnecessary risks because he thought a Viking without at least a scratch would look odd, especially alongside his wounded colleagues.

It was a masterpiece of fortune management, and was in stark contrast to the rest of us. Sam frequently came last in the bidding, but that did mean he was often first to choose which card he wanted in recovery sections. I was mostly fourth, missing out on both the first choice consolation prize and getting anything halfway decent. Ian shared my misfortune and despite his plucky attitude, crying "unleash the foxes!" at the start of some battle or other, he found himself on the wrong end of several bad risks.

Martin 41
Katy 22
Sam 21
Ian 11
Andrew 10

A great game, and very nice to revisit it.

After this saga (by the way, what's the adjective form of "saga"? Sagatic? Sagatious?) we went for the complete opposite as, to my delight, Tsuro was next on the table. It's only drawback is the dull coloured pieces given to each player which, according to Sam, look like colours you'd find in the worst bathroom shop in town.

And it played out as many Tsuro games do. We're all too experienced to make any schoolboy errors, so we were all still very much alive two-thirds of the way into the game. But then, one by one, we all fell from the board. Well, all but one.

1. Sam
2. Andrew
3. Katy
4. Ian
5. Martin

From here on, the theme of short and light games continued. Next was Rolling America, which is Take It Easy for people who preferred geography to maths at school.

Sam and I came joint first which was surprising considering how inefficiently Sam played. He used a guard option on a 2 and then, by the end of the game, he'd surrounded it with 3s, meaning he didn't need to use that guard at all. He could've done so much more.

Sam 9
Andrew 9
Katy 10
Ian 10
Martin 11

This was followed by Mamma Mia! It's been a while since I last played, and I was very slow off the blocks, putting down no recipes at all in round one.

But quite apart from the game, all eyes were on the Mamma Mia card, and whether it would finally fall into Katy's lap. She looked jealous when Ian got it first and then was so happy when she finally got it that she clenched both fists and looked to the heavens in joy.

By now we were well into our whisky from emoji-adorned shot glasses and as for the game, no one could catch Sam after a sterling three-recipe round one.

Sam 6
Martin 4
Katy 3
Ian 2
Andrew 2

Next up was another epic of sorts: a trilogy of Fuji Flush.

This game is already famous for its Dick Moves, whereby a player ruins a winning opportunity by playing a card just one higher in value. As if to say, "I'm only doing the bare minimum to crush your dreams. Because I can."

In game one, I won after we all pushed through at the start when we all put down a three as our first cards.

Andrew 0
Sam 1
Katy 1
Ian 2
Martin 3

This was followed by a resumption of Sam's parade of winning. In round two Katy, Sam and Martin were looking good with three sixes giving them a joint score of 18 until Ian shat on it with a casually played 19.

Sam 0
Ian 1
Andrew 1
Martin 1
Katy 4

Then in round three, Katy was stuck on one card for a long time, unable to close the deal and then Sam snuck a win by playing the same card as the about-to-push-through Martin.

Sam 0
Katy 1
Martin 2
Andrew 2
Ian 4

Once we'd finished, we all voiced our appreciation of the game, which once looked like a luckfest but is now showing certain subtle strategies to (somewhat) negate the luck.

It's back to normal for the Division this week.

Thanks all! More next week!

Ex of Österreich

The moon hung in the night sky, it's grey light turning the gossamer thin clouds into translucent pools of silver.

None of this was important, though, because it was Tuesday and therefore games night. Sam was hosting, arranging this week's shenanigans from an internet-less stay in the Netherlands via Joe. There were seven of us: Sam, Joe, Ben, Ian, Katy, Martin and me.

Our first game was one that Martin picked up during his recent trip to the US. He described it as a Take It Easy kind of game where everyone has the same numbers to complete the fiendishly difficult task. The idea is to fill in a map of America using numbers (supplied by the roll of two dice, coloured to match different areas on the map) but the trick is that adjacent areas on the map can't have numbers with a difference greater than one. For example, 4s need to be next to 3s, 4s and 5s. If you can't place legally, you have to fill in an area with an X and at the end of the game , the player with least Xs wins.

There's more to it than that, with opportunities to break the rules a limited number of times, but at its heart it's a very simple game.

And, just like Take It Easy, there were constant sighs of frustration at how cruel fate can be, occasionally punctuated by cries of delight. But only occasionally.

Martin 9
Sam 11
Katy 15
Andrew 15
Joe 16
Ben 16
Ian 17

Katy wanted to play again immediately, but the consensus was not in favour. Instead, we split into two groups. These two groups could broadly be characterized as a the Happy Giddy Fun Group and the Thinky Ponderous Assassinate Hitler Group. Martin, Katy and Ben went for chuckles with Eggs of Ostrich while me, Sam, Joe and Ian were more historically minded in Black Orchestra.

Both of these games were new to people, and there was a period of simultaneous rules explanations. The ever-competitive Martin wanted to teach and finish a game of Eggs of Ostrich before Sam had finished explaining the rules to Black Orchestra. He didn't manage it, but they were able to finish two games very quickly.

Martin 4
Ben 4
Katy 3

And then...

Martin 12
Ben 9
Katy 5

As for Black Orchestra, it's a game that squeezes every bit out of its theme. The artwork and text really add to the game as the four of us adopted personae from the real life attempt to assassinate Hitler and we shuffled around a map of west Europe to pick up things we need. It is a co-op game, and it had shades of Pandemic in that it requires a fair amount of choreography among the players, all the time dealing with the historically accurate Event cards that are uncovered after each player's turn.

Early on I had a chance to do the dirty deed, but my dice rolling let me down. At least, oddly, no one noticed my assassination attempt. Ian, too, later had a pop at the fuhrer, but he failed too.

On the other half of the table, they played Biblios which, I believe, was Ben's introduction to the game. He did pretty well.

Martin 9
Ben 3
Katy 2

And the crown of Mr (or Dr, in this case) Biblios passed to Martin.

Then they played Las Vegas, roping Dirk into their game, awarding him money whenever the dummy dice happened to win any.

Katy reminded Ben of his duty as a GNNer to pick on Martin when necessary, but alliances never last long when they rely on the roll of a die.

Martin 440
Katy 380
Ben 340
Dirk 110

And this victory gave Martin his very own Perfect Five. And all in one evening, too.

Meanwhile, back in the grip of the Third Reich, Hitler seemed more powerful than ever. But in case anyone runs away with the idea that Black Orchestra was a dour experience, let me put that to right. There's a grim humour, and you can't help but laugh at the things that fate flings at you. For example, Joe was wandering around southern Germany, minding his own business, when the entirety of the Nazi upper echelons turned up on his doorstep. "The wrong time to visit Nuremberg," he muttered, regretfully.

The game, too ended in fine comedic fashion. With Sam, Joe and Ian all in jail Ian managed to escape only to be instantly arrested again as he ran straight into Bormann. Then I went to get them out, but this time my plan was detected and, just like Seinfeld, the four main characters ended up behind bars.

A pity, but I'd thoroughly enjoyed our attempt. It avoids the usual pitfall of co-op games where the most experienced keeps giving advice to the others, because the text on the card and board allows even the complete newbie to understand what's going on and what needs to be done.

While the Gestapo had been busy rounding us up, one more game of Eggs Of Ostrich had been played.

Katy 10
Martin 5
Ben 0

Now we were all together, we had one last game together to round off the evening. We chose Fuji Flush, described at the time as the new 6nimmt or Pairs, only not as good as 6nimmt... or Pairs.

Ben made early gains by chaining his cards to other players', allowing him to push through on a regular basis (which is always desirable) but he was slowly pegged back and when Sam placed the twenty as his final card ("I was wondering where that was," remarked Martin) and no one else could chain together a decent response, his victory was assured.

Sam 0 cards left
Ben 1
Martin 1
Andrew 2
Ian 3
Katy 4
Joe 4

And with that, the evening was over. We set off into the crisp January night, the moon still shining down on us benignly, as if approving of our weekly battles.

Finally, we come to the Division for the first time this season.

You might be surprised at how many points Katy has. Well, I've been finding the Division a bit boring recently and have been thinking about changing things around a bit. Whether these rules stay or are just a passing fad, I don't know. Any opinions are welcome.

One of the ideas (implemented here) is something I call the Loser's Boost. In this, if you agree to a game you're bad at, you get a little multiplier to add to your score, i.e, x2 on your second game, x3 on your third, etc. So, this week, Katy kept playing Eggs of Ostrich even though she wasn't good at it, and her score was increased as a result. I hope that this will be of consolation to anyone who ends up playing a game they never win.