They were playing Sheep and Thief, a new addition to Joe's collection. Because I only caught the end of it I can't give an entirely accurate description, but there was 7 Wonders-style drafting aligned to card-laying along with sheep moving, road and river building, and sheep rustling by virtue of a fox.
I know the latter because Katy stole three sheep from Joe, who was suitably unimpressed. The game did appear to fit the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing description, as it was feisty enough for a variant on the classic Dr Wall insult to come out more than once...
Katy 36
Joe 29
Ian 23
"At least it's more than zero" Ian said, heroically channelling Eeyore.
We debated what to play next, with Istanbul and Orleans both mentioned before settling on Jorvik, Stefan Feld's game of spiteful Vikings. Well, they're not really spiteful, but it can sometimes feel that way. Like Beowulf it's a game whose mechanics fly in the face of its theme: this is a bidding game where however many people bid decide what the 'winner' - not necessarily the person who bids most - has to pay. What you're bidding on is cards, and they do various stuff in the way of point-scoring, but really the game is all about the bidding, broken up occasionally by raids from the Picts, who I usually saw off (for points) as Joe disdained mine and Ian's efforts at defending the collective - see post title.
We all enjoyed the swingy, screwy nature of it - but agreed the game is probably a little too long for what it is. Personally I felt an hour would have done it justice, but it took two. However repeat visits would probably bring that down substantially.
I didn't really play with a long-term plan, and went for short-term gains in the main, bolstered by my cards that gave me points for string (?) and one completed order, whereas the others each had at least two orders apiece. And Joe had a bit of string too. But my in-game chiselling had built me enough of a lead that I couldn't be caught:
Sam 52
Ian 41
Joe 29
Katy 25
We then blasted through a couple of attempts at Magic Maze, which has been explained in the previous post. Playing with Katy was a new experience - having grasped the logic of it all in our first (failed) attempt at pulling off the heist, she pretty much co-opted the Do Something piece and dictated events in the second game. It's supposed to be a co-operative really, but I think Katy won.
Then we played Perudo!
Ian needed a little convincing this was the best choice, so I offered him a lift home, and Joe broke out the dice. He also insisted that the cup lid could easily hide 19 dice underneath it, which brought much scorn from Katy and I. Oh, Joe, you hopeless optimist!
Katy was out first when she put too much faith in everyone else's numbers. It looked like Ian or I might be next, but then Joe got caught in a death spiral and went swiftly from the only person with five dice to the next one out!
At that point Ian was still palafico and I had the advantage of three dice. I played cagey with a low bid on twos and Ian - not unreasonably - gambled on a dudo - giving me my second win of the night.
I like these 4-player evenings!
All that remained was for Joe to prove that the cup lid could easily hide 19 dice, at which he failed miserably. Katy's opinion on fellatio, which came out candid and unbidden during Jorvik, is probably best left a mystery.
