Where there is Discord, may we bring harmony

The evening started in familiar manner -- Ian, Katy and I (Martin) chatting while watching Andy B sign in and out of Discord until he could finally hear us and vice versa. As we waited, an expected Adam (T) and an unexpected one (H) appeared too and then Joe made seven. And we all know what seven means...

Adam T selected his preferred old-school 7 Wonders artwork over the new-fangled version now available on BGA and also discovered an option that lets each player choose their side of the wonder instead of having it assigned randomly. Joe may have regretted his choice, given what transpired. Half-way through Age 2 much cursing was heard as he realised that although he'd assembled all the resources he needed for the second, third and fourth stages of the Wonder, he was one wood short of being able to build the first. 

Adam H - 69
Andy - 65
Martin - 55
Ian - 53
Adam T - 45
Katy - 43
Joe - 23

Joe pointed out that he'd have got 20 points more for completing his wonder, prompting Katy to tactfully note that he'd still have been in joint last. 

Next we split into the three As on BGA and a gang of four on playingcards.io. BGA tells me the former played two games of Kingdoms with rather similar sets of scores.

Kingdom Builder

Andy - 73
Adam T - 67
Adam H - 50

Kingdomino

Adam H - 73
Andy - 60
Adam T - 49

Meanwhile on pc.io we fired up my implementation of Senators. The curse of early wars that plagued our face-to-face games has eerily continued in the virtual realm, and this one was all over before Katy even got to take her 3rd turn. Bad luck for her as she'd probably have overhauled my tie-break win. 

Martin - 8 (9 money)
Katy - 8 (1 money)
Joe - 7
Ian - 5

I'm pretty sure I never cashed in a set of cards at all, relying entirely on extortion for my income and blind bids for my senators. 

Next we tried a new one I've implemented - Knizia's game of the classic battle between robots and ducks, RevoltAAA. The game play is about as odd as the concept and the title and I think we all felt a bit baffled and perhaps underwhelmed. I'd try it again though!

Katy - 10 
Joe - 4
Martin - 4
Ian - 3
Dirk/Deck - 2 (but we cheated it out of a few points I think)

Adam T had dropped offline, having warned us that the start of "Bake-off season" would mean an earlier departure and the other two joined us for a rousing 6-player Texas Showdown. 

Andy - 4
Ian - 5
Adam H - 5
Joe - 7
Martin - 9
Katy - 10 

After Ian and Joe bade their farewells, we finished with yet another of my pc.io games (I got paid for doing this one!): Salvage, the new trick-taker from the family team who brought us Coup, Senators, The Chameleon and Hurlyburly. The bidding in this one is rather perplexing and got the better of me early on, but I managed to pull it back to a three-way tie with Katy's boat first to sink.

Andy - 4
Adam H - 4
Martin - 4
Katy - 0

See you next Tuesday!

Beyond Salvaging

 This week GNN saw a mere four members online (Katy, Martin, Ian and I). But while we were mere in numbers we were far from mere in enthusiasm. Notwithstanding being a bit tired and me being late.
When I'd arrived they'd already played Eggs Of Ostrich with Katy winning (K 19, I 12, M 9).

Next was the online debut of Senators, the auction-heavy card game of Roman political intrigue. Katy got a rules refresher which I needed as well. The game worked pretty well on playingcards.io and Katy was impressed enough with how professional it was, and she asked “Is it difficult to do this?” “Martin answered “Not really,” and then Katy clarified “Is it difficult for a normal person to do this.”

The one awkward part was how to blind bid whenever there was a war: everyone bids, highest gets a senator but everyone pays. Martin suggested a compromise: we all flipped over our coins in our player area and then, on a signal, dragged them onto the playing area. If you wanted to bid zero, you would just say so. It seemed to work well, especially for me when my opponents said they weren’t bidding while I dragged my two coins onto the board. What a cheap Senator!

Andrew 10
Ian 8
Martin 8
Katy 7

Next up was Salvage - a brand new game, not even on Board Game Geek. It’s a trick taker in which you have to avoid winning tricks with flaming boats in them. Doing so means you lose points. However, you have a chance to collect oil barrels to offset the damage. (There’s a story behind all this, I think, but it's pretty tenuous) But anyway, there are 15 oil barrels in total and the players are expected to share them nicely without the 15th barrel being taken. If that happens, then everyone loses points according to how many oil barrels they took. Greed is bad, you see.

Anyway, I had trouble getting my head around it, although I did enjoy Katy losing to Martin, Ian and I playing 1, 2 and 3 red cards (all on fire) and she had the 4. This happened three times. How we laughed. Especially me, since I had nothing else to laugh about.

Martin 14
Katy 13
Ian 11
Andrew -1

Next up was another playingcard game - Krass Kareirt. This game of playing increasingly high hands without actually rearranging your cards. It works well on the internet.

Martin 2

Katy 2

Andrew 1

Ian 0

At this point Ian retired to bed and we three pondered our next move. We went back to BGA because otherwise we're just wasting our money. We chose Can't Stop (which appears to have some kind of desert island theme to it) which I usually do well at since I'm usually able to stop. According to the end of game statistics, I went bust only once. Martin, on the other hand, had only one successful roll in the first half of the game.

Andrew 3

Katy 2
Martin 1

And that was that. Off to dream our dreams of success and derring-do. 

We're all on the spectrum

Games at Sam's was the order of the day and seven of us gathered around his kitchen table for our weekly fix. Sam, Joe, Martin, Adam T, Ian, debutante Mark and myself.

I began with a slight faux pas, asking with disappointment who brought Karate Tomate with them, only to be told that Martin had brought it to sell to Mark. Luckily, my air of derision wasn't enough to ruin the deal.

We began with the exciting new game of Wavelength. So exciting, indeed, that I forgot to take a photo of it. The premise is basic. It is a team game and one player chooses a card with two opposing categories on it (ie, healthy/unhealthy) . They then spin a wheel that randomises where the "target" is in a semi circular area. Only they can see it, then they cover this semi circle and have to think of a word that will cause their team-mates to correctly guess where the target is, assuming that healthy and unhealthy represent the two extremes at either end of the spectrum.

Sam began with an excellent example of how the game can pan out. His categories were Ordinary / Extraordinary and he chose to say "radish". A fascinating clue and one that had Adam and Joe discussing how ordinary a radish may or may not be. As I recall the slight spiciness of radishes prompted them to conclude that it was somewhat extraordinary. But Sam had been trying to push them towards Ordinary.

It went on thusly with Joe's choice of "burger" for the categories "sandwich / not a sandwich" caused possibly more controversy than me saying "the Royal family" for "replaceable / irreplaceable."

Martin, Mark, Andrew, Ian 10
Adam, Sam, Joe 4 or something

Then we split into two groups, desiring something more substantial. Babylonia made another appearance, this time with Martin, Mark, Adam and Joe participating.

I know almost nothing about it apart from Martin's little home improvement job on the racks meant to hold up the tokens. He'd added little plastic feet so they were now high enough and the tokens didn't just flop out uselessly. His care and attention to the game was reflected in the result, with Mark posting a strong score for his first game.

Martin 185
Mark 163
Joe 134
Adam 132

Ian, Sam and I fell back on an old faithful: Quantum. We chose a small map and began with remarkably similar fleets of dice; 5-4-3, 5-4-3, 5-4-2.

It was a feisty game, with Sam's fleet whittled away to a single die at one point. I was able to engineer two turns where I got two advance cards at once, but even that wasn't enough to stop a stirling comeback from Sam, who put his last cube down by attacking us and getting his Dominance up to six.

Somehow red won this battle!

Sam no cubes left
Andrew and Ian, one cube left

While Quantum was finishing, the Babylonians whipped off a quick truncated game of L.A.M.A. which culminated in an astonishing final round that saw Joe and Adam pick up card after card after Martin and Mark had folded, only to play them and Joe ended up with exactly the same cards as he’d started with.

Martin 1
Joe 6
Adam 15
Mark 18

At this point was a brief reshuffle. Martin, Sam, Ian and Mark played Senators which kind of passed me by apart from Mark’s late surge up the scoretrack with a move that got him four senators just before the final war ended the game.

Martin 12
Sam 10
Mark 7
Ian 7

Joe, Adam and myself played 99, a trick taking game where you nominate how many tricks you’re going to win. However, to signify your bid, you have to use cards from your hand which, of course, changes how strong your hand is. Cunning.

It was a cakewalk for Joe who, despite his familiarity with the game, started the game only making a note of his scores and forgetting about ours. I came second only because of Adam’s bravado and optimistic bids flying back in his face and gifting points to his opponents.

Joe 160
Andrew 89
Adam 67

By now it was 10.30 and we were graced with perhaps the latest arrival at a games night as Katy came from a pub round the corner to join us in our closing stages. Adama and Mark went home at this point since neither live in Bristol and had a bit of a trek home. So the six of us played Wavelength again. The five who’d played before should perhaps have taken the time to explain the rules to Katy instead of just starting and assuming she’d pick it up as she went along. She did fine until it was her turn to give a clue. She saw the category (Stationary/Mobile) and then chose the word, before randomising the target. Meaning it was kind of a hopeless task. There was also a moment where things could’ve taken a bad turn when Sam’s category was “Rough / smooth” and Martin advised him not to say “my balls.” Instead, he said “my chin” which lead to a little touching to try and gauge it’s roughness. Very glad he didn’t say “my balls.”

Katy, Andrew, Sam 10
Ian, Martin, Joe not 10

Now that Katy knew what to do we allowed her another try with all of us guessing and, all credit to her, she got it bang on. Between “traditionally feminine” and “traditionally masculine” she said “football” and we got it spot on: perhaps the only four-pointer of the evening. And I remembered just in time to take a photo as it was being put away.

Then we set off into the unsettled evening weather. Thanks all for a great evening.

See you Next Tuesday

It was a night full of the sounds of distant fireworks from many locations and I walked to Joe's wondering if this is what a war zone sounded like.

Joining me at Joe's, apart from the host, were Katy, Ian, Sam, Martin and Adam T. We started with a little conversation where Martin reminded us of Katy's use of the c-word in his birthday card. She insisted that she wrote that he wasn't a c-word and, besides, she had been under a lot of pressure to write something witty. Martin suggested some kind of code like… C U Next Tuesday. On saying that, we realised that we had been saying See you next Tuesday to each other for nine years. What kind of subliminal messages have we been giving out?

Talking of subliminal messages, our first game was Decrypto with the Laser Disc expansion. Martin, Adam, Joe and Katy faced off against Ian, Sam and I.

In this version of the game, a card drawn from a deck will give a category (famous people, cities, etc) to which at least one of the clues must belong. And if you are able to make all three fit, then you get a laser disc. Collect two and you can use them to guess one of your opponents' words.

This new variant was warmly welcomed by Martin who, on his first round, got a laser disc by having all clues relate to a living celebrity. Then Joe also got a laser disc. By now they had two, but no idea of any of our words. Adam was told not to bother trying for a laser disc. "Don't try to be too flash," was Martin's (unintentional?) pun. But Adam is a proud gamer and if they could do it, so could he. And he did. And he supplied chocolate cake as well. Pity you don't get points for generosity in Decrypto.

On our side, we didn't bother trying to get all three and when we did, we got a miscommunication both times. As such the game finished on round five, delicately poised. We had two miscommunications and two interceptions. They had one of each. It was down to the laser discs. If we could guess a word and they couldn't, we would score an unlikely win.

We correctly got our confident guess (Jack Black plus sponge pudding plus recorder equals School) but then they worked out one of our words at the last minute (runny egg plus Venice plus cold equals Water) and they prevailed.

Katy, Joe, Martin, Adam: piece of cake.
Sam, Ian, Andrew: oh, crumbs.

Then we split into two groups. Martin, Joe, Adam and Sam played Die Crew. But that "die" is the German definite article, not the English exhortation that someone end their life. Ian, Katy and I were remarkably quick (by our standards) to choose Senators as our entertainment.

Oddly, the four-player group decamped to the card table while the three-player game had the whole kitchen table to itself. I heard Martin describe Die Crew as "a mission based co-operative trick-taking game" to which one wit replied "What? Another one?" I know little about it except for getting a yellow five to Joe became very important at one point.

After they played for a while, they were faced with a dilemma. When to stop? The game had another 40+ missions. Should they keep going and head for the moon or try something different? Joe was keen to play Sigma File and after some discussion, they did just that. The moon would have to wait.

Meanwhile, in Senators, it was a ding dong battle. I sped off into an early lead by cashing in a 7-8-9 combo and bought several senators. Then Katy made the running, building up an insurmountable lead mid game but then Ian used Consuls to take points from her and, in one move where he gained four senators, overhaul her. The third war had passed and Katy was desperately holding onto an office card before she cashed in, paying off two extortion attempts by selling a senator, putting her temporarily into last place.

But temporary became permanent when she turned over the next card to find the fourth war. No chance to cash in and she finished in last place.

Ian 16
Andrew 12
Katy 11

After this, I suggested No Thanks. Katy insisted she was terrible and I assured her she can't be worse than me. Ian kept quiet, perhaps not wanting to seem over confident. I started off by picking up the 33, hoping for lots more cards in the thirties that I could milk for coins, but none came out. Not one.

Katy 53
Ian 55
Andrew 101

By this time, Sigma File was ending, with Sam the winner (“I went heavy on Bruno,” he explained) but apart from that, I know very little.

Then they began a game of Cartographers, even going so far as to sharpen their pencils first.

We three never saw the end of that game. We played a game of Las Vegas during which Ian mostly texted and I took a call in round two, much to Katy’s disgust.

Andrew $410,000
Katy $260,000
Ian $240,000

After this, Ian had to go and, frankly, after last week’s midnight finish both Katy and I were keen to finish early. Cartographers was still in full swing so we decided to pack up and leave. We set off at a refreshingly early half past ten, looking forward to an early night.

Except, soon after Katy and I parted, I realised my phone was still at Joe’s. I turned around and ran back to Joe’s house and got there just as Adam was leaving. I soon found my phone and turned down their kind offer of another game, so tired and sweaty that I really needed an early night now. But I was there long enough to hear Sam refer to the game Startups as “Breadsticks” just because he was looking at some while he described it to Martin.

Sam texted me the scores later.

Cartographers:
Martin 100
Adam 95
Sam 84
Joe 73

Startups:
Sam 3
Joe 1
Martin 0

But I finally got home at the usual post-games night time. At least I had my phone. Now it’s all downhill to the games weekend! Woo hoo!

Rome burned, onions wept

Seven gamers and Joe's kitchen table came together this week in a resounding crash of bonhomie and rivalry. Joe, Sam, Martin, Ian, Adam T, Katy and me were all seated by 7.30 and we began with all of us collaborating in a game of Belratti.

This Dixit-ish game of detecting conscious choices from random chance is a firm favourite but are we getting to good? Since discussing our choices is not allowed, Sam hit upon a method of giving his cards a percentage according to how good a match they were for one of the two targets. This was quickly adopted by all of us except Katy who refused to reduce her art to a mere number.

We did well but, also, we got lucky. We linked wasp to a clapperboard because they had stripes, only for Adam to tell us that the real link was B-Movie. Too smart for us. And despite a lengthy discussion as to what was better matched to mouth: bread or cigarette, we got it wrong. Bread should have gone with the other topic - tiger. Tiger bread, you see. Well done, Martin. Sorry we didn't get it.

Us 21
Belratti 6

Then we split into two groups. The Was Sticht gang (Joe, Ian, Adam and me) regrouped for another attempt at the wily trick taker while Katy, Martin and Sam sat around the card table for a feisty game of Senators.

Was Sticht started hesitantly, with Ian having to have two attempts at explaining who won which trick during the opening matrix stage. Then the game was remarkable for a large number of no trumps, and for round three when I dealt out no green cards at all in the first half of the matrix.

The game was much smoother this time, with Joe cleverly choosing his cards according to one of the criteria ("no tricks", "no green cards," etc) he needed to complete.

But I won again! Is this the game for me? It was close, though.

Andrew 3 plus 16 on the tiebreaker
Joe 3 plus 13
Ian 2
Adam 1

While we finished that, the card table gang finished Senators and two other games too. From what I can gather, Martin was in the lead and then saw a sudden collapse in support, followed by the third war ending the game in dramatic fashion.

Katy 11
Sam 10
Martin 9

They followed this up with Heul Doch Mau Mau. I don't know what variant they were playing but when Martin said "balls!" in frustration, Katy replied "hairy or shaved?" I didn't note Martin's answer but judging by the final score, his frustration can't have lasted long.

Martin 114
Katy 85
Sam 83

They also managed to squeeze in one round of the word game Handsome. Sam won.

Sam 3
Katy 1
Martin 1

Then there was a period of reshuffling, with four crossword wizards (Sam, Adam, Joe and Martin) going head to head over a game of Montage. Although Sam did apologize beforehand that anyone paired with him would lose.

I tried to listen in to make notes but the only clue I heard was "Donkey" and its answer was "Ass". But I'm sure the rest of the clues were brilliant.

Joe and Martin won!
Sam and Adam didn't.

The rest of us played Downfall of Pompeii, which needed a little rule refresher but was otherwise smooth sailing. We were a little surprised when the rules told us that the owner of the game should set everything up but, since Joe was already playing Montage, we struggled on without him.

It was a memorable game Katy who got one Omen card after another, allowing her to throw her opponents into the volcano. She ended with no meeples left to put on the board when, luckily, Vesuvius erupted. I wonder if I got the Relative Rule wrong but it was wrong for all of us, so never mind.

It was enormous fun pushing lava into the path of our opponents so they died a fiery death. Kathy's early advantage lead to her victor.

Katy 7
Ian 6
Andrew 5

Around this time Adam left and the remaining three bashed out a quick game of Eggs Of Ostrich to fill the time until Pompeii was covered in lava.

Martin 11
Joe 6
Sam 3

Then the six of us played Stinker. Winning entries that I managed to write down were...

Why is a good man hard to find? Polio Death (Ian)
What's under the Pope's hat? Courgettes (Joe)
The name of a fairy tale? Alana and the Bum (Martin)
How to tell someone they have bad breath? Smell toilet to compare. (Katy)

Don't recall the category for this one.

Martin 32
Joe 27
Katy 25
Sam 24
Andrew 11
Ian 9

Then Sam and Ian left, while the final four played on past the eleventh hour with a rousing game of Krass Kariert, the card game of no winners, just losers. We all lost one life in the four rounds that we played and so we called it a draw and went home rejoicing in our shared non-defeat.

Wrong end of the sticht

This week witnessed the return of Katy, so that seven gaming stalwarts sat around Sam's kitchen table (Sam, Joe, Adam T, Martin, Ian, Katy and me). In fact, we began with eight, since Sam's son Joe joined us for a round of Fuji Flush.

It had been a while since we had last played it, but our biggest concern was not being able to talk about dick points in front of a child. A real shame since we began by all putting down 2s until Ian cleared the table with a 15. A big swinging dick, and we couldn't even mention it.

Adam 0
Joe M, Joe B, Martin 1
Ian, Andrew, Sam 2
Katy 3

Then Joe M requested a round of Insider, which we quickly cranked out. I was the master, and the word was Thermal Power Plant. During the guessing round, Katy, Sam and Joe B all suggested power plants, seemingly out of nothing, but despite that it was Ian who was the Insider. He'd won by using the old "quiet and mysterious" method.

Now we split into two groups. Three of us (Sam, Katy and Martin) played Hats. Not the album by The Blue Nile, but a set collecting game that comes with its own cookie. With it being so far away (again, I was perched at the end of the table) I know little about it. Not even what the cookie is for, but they played twice with Sam winning both games. I only noted the scores for the second, though.

Sam 29
Katy 28
Martin 26

We (Adam, Ian, Joe and me) chose Was Sticht?, a game whose box has been taken to several GNN nights but was rarely chosen. Until tonight. It's a trick taking game, but to describe it like that is like saying Kafka's Metamorphosis is about a man who just doesn't want to get out of bed.

Instead of dealing out the cards, they are distributed through a sort of mini game in which each player chooses a card from a column of a grid displaying all of the cards face up and then the "dealer" (who knows the trump suit) tells everyone who won among those four cards. In this way we are expected to deduce what the trump card is and adjust our choices accordingly.

Once that is done, each player has to chose one of the five targets they selected right at the start of the game, with criteria like No Tricks or Last Trick. If you complete this target then you discard it and the winner is the first to discard all five. Although, right from the start, we had agreed to play just four rounds. On top of all of this, lots of other rules kept cropping up during the game like someone who can't admit defeat in an argument and keeps coming back saying "and another thing..."

I found it all hard going at first, but by round four I think we'd all got the hang of it as we had gone from hesitant questioning to silent contemplation before our turns. This was certainly a good sign and I'd like to try it again soon.

Andrew 3 targets completed
Joe, Adam, Ian 2

Was Sticht took long enough that the other three squeezed in a game of Yokai and Eggs of Ostrich while we were in the final stages. In Yokai, Martin struggled to interpret his colleagues actions, saying to Sam that "I thought you were being clever," to which Sam bluntly replied "No." Nevertheless, they succeeded and were Glorious according to the scoresheet.

Then, in Eggs of Ostrich, Martin complained about how brutal it was. I think the score was

Martin 8
Sam 5
Katy 4

At this point, we were all available for mingling and, astonishingly, Toad in the Hole was offered up as a snack. This beat even Adam's offering of bite size sausage rolls at the start of the evening. The whole snack scene is seeing a revival that even Knizia would be jealous of.

Anyway, as for games, Adam, Ian and I chose Impulse while Sam, Joe, Martin and Katy played Senators, despite Katy's attempts at steering them towards Hit Z Road.

Senators was notable for Joe offering to buy olives in a creepy tone of voice. Katy seemed to enjoy her first game so maybe there's a chance of a revival?

Martin 9
Joe 8
Katy 6
Sam 5

During Impulse we started slow and with a remarkable lack of fighting coupled with a large amount of available Build actions meant that our space sector got pretty crowded.

Ian declared that he'd cocked up his techs and I was looking forward to a win when Adam snuck in and hit twenty points before I got a chance.

Adam 20
Andrew 14
Ian 11

While we finished Impulse, the other four amused themselves with a quick burst on Belratti. With Sam, Joe and Martin playing, some of the deductions about which painting belonged to which theme had an air of cryptic crossword to them. Sam tried to link Recycle to "re-sickle" until Joe told him that the drawing in question was a scythe. Martin tried to link Eye and Saw because it made "eyesore". Despite all this overthinking they did well, scoring 13-3.

Finally, we played Just One. This is a word game that I just don’t get. I keep expecting normal words but instead I get pop culture references or, as was tonight, an actual name. Despite clues to the moon landing and the other clue “Lance” I couldn’t get “Armstrong.” Sorry. Joe gave away the word by saying it out loud (Zeus) meaning a re-deal was necessary. Martin’s word was “passion” and when he saw our remaining clues: Desire, Throes and St Matthew, he said “Jesus Christ…” with an air of despair. At the mention of JC, I sort of chuckled and from that he was able to deduce the clue. Phew.

After this,we were finished. Thanks all, and hope to see you all again soon.

Beginner’s Luck vs. Explainer’s Curse

This week, Joe was the host and we began as a tentative six: five present and one expected imminently. Joe and friend of the family Dan, Sam, Martin and me, with Adam sure to arrive at any second. There was some idle chit-chat as if the presence of a newcomer was enough to put us off our natural inclinations to skip past the small talk and get down to the nitty-gritty.

With Adam surely about to appear at the door step, we decided that Team Play would be a good six player option to take us up to the time when Katy and then Ian were due to arrive. Dutifully, Joe talked Dan through the rules and he was almost finished when there was a knock at the door. It was Adam. And Katy. Too many players for Team Play and Joe put it away with a sigh.

Now we were seven. Katy was angling for a game of Lords Of Vegas, all they (Joe, Katy and Dan) had to do was wait for Ian to get here and they. Adam, Sam, Martin and I played Sol, the recent debutante. Martin looked through the rules as we set up (but he didn't seem keen on reading the short stories that go with it) and clarified a couple more rules.

In the game, Martin and I are both energy rich thanks to our very popular gates. Sam begins hurling his ships into the sun very early on, making him the man to beat. Was he banking on the sun collapsing quickly? He was to be disappointed as card after card was revealed without a red sign indicating the sun is becoming more unstable.

Adam finally got together enough cubes to complete his plan, but then the sun let out a solar flare and his stock of 13 energy cubes was suddenly depleted by half. How we laughed at his discomfort. Then we allowed him a do-over (since other players had been already given the same opportunity) in which he didn't take the optional bonus cube he was entitled to and therefore his 12 energy cubes were safe.

As the game progressed it looked like the sun wasn't going to collapse at all. I hurled four ships in one turn into the dying star and still it didn't end the game. The final red card was actually the final card in the deck. Luckily no one was in a position to catch me, although Adam was able to grab joint second with the last turn of the game.

Andrew 27
Adam 24
Martin 24
Sam 20

The other three played smaller shorter games. First was Kingdomino, a new game to Dan but one he seemed to take to rather well.

Dan 54
Joe 40
Katy 38

After this, they played the only Taiwanese game that Joe owns, apparently. namely, Castle Crush. Again it was new to Dan again, again, he came out victor. He modestly tried to pass off his second win in a row as beginner's luck while Joe tried to tell him about Explainer's Curse and how it is a real thing.

Dan 24
Katy 21
Joe 15

Ian arrived during Castle Crush and was informed swiftly that he would be playing Lords of Vegas as soon as they were done. Something he had no problem with.

The table was heaving with the joys of modern boardgaming and for a while, you could barely see the tabletop for cardboard.

After Sol, Adam, Martin, Sam and I got stuck into Senators the craze that's turning into a tradition. In this game of political bribery in Rome, Martin set off into an early lead while Adam and I fell back. But Adam and I both had a card that would let you steal points from the leading player. With this in mind, I cashed in as soon as I could and Sam and Adam joined me. Suddenly, Martin fell from first to joint last.

He tried to claw his way back but was beset by misfortune. In a blind bid for a senator, he bid seven talents and Sam bid eight, which is exactly how this game should be played. Then I got a stroke of luck in a round where each player has the option of buying a senator for a steadily decreasing value. I passed with the price at nine. Martin prevaricated over eight but then passed. Adam passed on seven and Sam passed on six. I didn't expect to get another chance and I snapped it up for five! Good job, too, because the fourth war came soon after.

Andrew 9
Sam 8
Martin 7
Adam 7

In Lords of Vegas, Dan's beginner's luck seemed to be holding. His first three plots where all in the same block. Katy was delighted, meanwhile, to have a casino on the strip at almost the very start of the game and then spent most of the game chanting "Strip! Strip! Strip!" whenever a new card was revealed.

But for us lot, Senators was followed up by the lighter fare of Spy Tricks. The four greatest minds of GNN clashed over this simple trick taker and deduction game and, seemingly, cancelled and each other out. In the first round, none of us got a single guess right. Astonishing.

In the second round, I guessed the right rank and Sam got the correct suit, but our attempts at finding the right card were hopeless. Any signs of improvement, though, were mere illusion as we bumbled through the last round with only me guessing something right: the suit. And that's how I managed to win a game of Spy Tricks with a score that would normally see you in distant last.

Zero correct

Andrew 7
Sam 2
Martin 0
Adam 0

Adam went home at this point and Lords of Vegas hadn't finished so we cracked out a couple of confused rounds of Sticheln (chosen after Martin checked the remaining cards in Lords of Vegas to get an idea of how much time they had left to play). Despite Martin scoring no points at all in round one, his second round stole the game.

Martin 16
Andrew 14
Sam 12

Lords of Vegas continued with Dan's six tile casino flipping to Ian in an unlikely re-organisation. It didn’t last and, if Ian’s claim to be “floundering” is anything to go by, it was the final bit of luck to go Ian’s way.

Bottom left, Ian has stolen Dan's casino

Katy, though, was in such a good position that she was able to leave the table between her turns and have a conversation with Joe’s wife. That’s confidence for you. And then, later on, she ran out of dice: a first for her. All of this added up to an impressive win, despite the Strip barely paying out at all.

Katy 54
Joe 40
Dan 26
Ian 23

Now we were seven again and, despite it creeping towards eleven o’clock, we had one more game inside us. Pairs. Joe described it to Dan as being like Blackjack in that we were aiming for 21 points. But then he had to admit that, apart from that, it was nothing like Blackjack at all.

I was Mr Cautious and, for once, it paid off. I was the only one to score in every round. Ian sneered at my and Katy’s timidness seconds before he went bust, and similarly Martin cursed himself by saying “I’ve got to go big,” before being dealt a pair.

Andrew 22
Ian 16
Sam 16
Katy 15
Joe 13
Dan 7
Martin 2

And so we were done.Thanks to Joe and a hat-tip to Dan. See you all next week.

New gamer passing through

This week, six of us pitched up around Sam's kitchen table for yet another bout of gaming goodness. Sam, Martin, Ian, Katy and I were joined by Katy's friend Reevesie. He was lucky enough to be in town on a Tuesday evening and so Katy brought him along.

Our first game was Just One or, as it soon to be called, Find The Working Pen. We started well, with Pig being the opening word and "shit" being Katy's opening clue. We rattled off the correct guesses until one clue, Vacation, stymied us. We later discovered that four of us were considering "Lampoon" and Sam even wrote it down before changing his mind. In the end, none of us wrote it and Ian couldn't get the word from our sadly generic hints.

I stretched the rules a bit. When faced with "Fitzgerald" my mind went blank. I couldn't think of anything to do with that name so I wrote "nope" indicating that I'd bowed out of this round. Luckily that's how Reevesie interpreted it and he didn't spend ages agonising over how "Ella" and "Gadsby" relate to "nope". Lastly, Katy requested that we should go low-brow in her clues. Alas, her word was "Gothic" and she ended up with "Poe,'" "Shelley," and "Cathedral. " Sorry, Katy.

We got nine correct, but didn't bother checking our rank on the patronising score sheet.

Then we split into two groups. Martin and Katy introduced Reevesie to the joys of Azul. Sam, Ian and I chose Letter Tycoon. A choice that I was all in favour of until Sam leapt into an early lead by playing three seven letter words in his first three rounds. Amazing to watch but also quite galling. He had the decency to apologise after the third. Ian kept in the running with a patent that allowed him to play two words in one turn. I made a revival with the longest word of the game (Ablution) but it wasn't enough. It was a dead heat between Sam and Ian, with Sam winning on a tie breaker.

Sam 53 (34 in patents)
Ian 53 (32)
Andrew 47

Down the other end of the table, Azul ended with Martin remarking that if he'd known Reevesie would be such a threat, he might have been meaner sooner.

Reevesie 93
Martin 76
Katy 60

After this was a pause as we debated our next game while eating crisps standing up. Next, Ian, Katy and Sam played Menara, the fun game of tower building according to an ever shifting set of criteria.

Martin, Reevesie and I went for the hot craze of the year, Senators. After a rules walkthrough from Martin, Reevesie was transported back in time to ancient Rome. We connived and cajoled, extorted and auctioned. I got an early lead thanks to a cheap senator in the game's first war and then I cashed in a set of cards (30 talents, very nice) and bought two more.

There was a lovely moment of synchronicity during our respective games. Martin, annoyed at Reevesie's strategy, muttered "You son of a..." and then Sam accidentally finished his sentence while reacting to the reveal of a new card by saying "Shit."

Reevesie came back into it and drew level with me while Martin seemed to be languishing. Albeit languishing with some very high value cards in front of him. There was a decent amount of extortion and Martin refused to let any go. Then, on the eve of the third war, he cashed in two sets for a handsome 44 talents and he bought three senators, bounding over us and into first place . Would we have a chance to catch him? Nope, the fourth war came out next and victory was assured.

Martin 9
Reevesie 7
Andrew 7

Sadly, I was unable to exploit the fact that I was the only one not distracted by checking their phone every minute to see if Liverpool had beaten Barcelona.

While we were finishing off, Sam, Ian and Katy successfully completed their tower. They admired it for a second or two before trying to build higher, using cards as impromptu floors. It didn't last long.

Then they played a one-round game of Kariba, another new flavour of the season.

Sam 19
Ian 18
Katy 12

At this point Ian left and the five of us launched into a game of Raj. "Do I hate this game?" asked Katy, her memory of certain board games addled by a year abroad. I couldn't believe anyone would hate Raj and I assured her that she didn't. I was wrong.

Raj served up its usual range of crazy injustices. Katy cruelly picked up a -5 tile despite playing a fifteen (10, 10, 13, 13, 15) and when something similar happened to me, she insisted that I write it down too. So here it is: I got the -5 with 11, 11, 11, 11, 14. An amazing and wonderful sight... for four of us, at least. Sam got lucky in the last round (or is it skill?) getting a nine tile with 15, 15, 6, 6, 4. This helped him leap from fourth to first in the final round while I fell from first to third.

Sam 41
Martin 37
Andrew 30
Reevesie 23
Katy 7

And now Katy and Reevesie left. This meant that there was one more game left for the remaining trio. We chose The Mind. Round one and two were tough. I think the first card to be played in round one was 68, and then we lost a life in round two.

But then we got into a groove. By round six we still had two lives and, despite round nine throwing an abundance of cards in the nineties at us, we got to the Dark Mind with two lives intact. We didn't last long, however, since we were dead by the end of round two but even so we'd defied luck enough times to make it feel like an achievement.

And then we were done. Thanks to Sam for hosting, and thanks to all for attending, especially Reevesie. Hope to see you again sometime. We're here every Tuesday!