Steaming Mad

At one stage it looked like last night's GNN would be just Martin and myself, so decimated were we by festive colds, but then Pete put up his hand, my friend Vincent said he could join us and at the last moment Adam H materialised as well. Whilst this drama was playing out its finale, Martin and I were playing Bombastic. 

the worst ever pic of bombastic

This is basically an evolved tic-tac-toe, as one player is noughts and the other crosses. On your turn you can either utilise a card - which lets you peek at/reveal/swap/shuffle the face-down tiles - or, if you're confident/optimistic enough, you can Go For It, which means flipping three in a row and hoping they'll all be your symbol. If they are, you win. If they're not, the game continues. Unless you reveal a bomb, in which case you instantly lose.  Martin won two of our three games, with my second-act triumph as bombastic as I ever got. 

boom

Pete and Adam now arrived and we debated what to play. Martin and I had already gotten halfway through setting up EGO before realising neither of us knew it well enough to teach coherently. We settled on Steam Power, and Vincent arrived to greet three new faces and take on an instant rules-teach. 

Fortunately, there are basically three actions in Steam Power (well, there are five, but only three get used with any regularity). Build track, build factories to produce cubes, fulfil contracts to 'deliver' said cubes along links in the network. It's Railways but condensed down into an hour or so. 

After we'd all taken two turns, Martin remembered that each turn gives you two actions rather than the paltry one we'd had, so we defaulted to the game's suggested method and sped up a little. I speculated that maybe early factories on other player's networks could be viable, but I bottled actually trying it. Adam took the plunge and later regretted it, as he and Martin built competing networks down through industrial-age Germany. Vincent focused on the collection of red-cube towns in the east, and I skirted the south, but it was Pete who played the most coherent game, as he began completing contracts and seemed to have all the cubes he needed in his own cities. Visually, the game - already busy with three - reaches overwhelm at five players. It's hard to see what the hell is going on anywhere. 

As the game closed out I'd been assuming that Pete was going to take a debut win. But it was the green trains of dickishness that took the laurels after all. At least the first player in turn order didn't win again - although as the first player was me, maybe that doesn't say that much. 

Martin 37

Sam 35

Vincent/Pete 33 each

Adam 27

We moved on to Texas Showdown as Vincent and Pete took on another learning of rules. The opening round was tight, with all of us taking enough hits to keep the scores close. 

Then in round two Vincent went into an orange-flavoured death spiral, and I almost outdid this in the final round with a spiral of my own, ending the game with a flourish, albeit an unplanned one - like falling down the church steps on your wedding day. 

Adam wins!

Martin 2nd

Sam can't remember the other scores, but was last behind Pete/Vincent

It wasn't horrendously late but after the main course of Steam Power and the combative tricks-are-bad vibes of Texas Showdown, Adam took his leave. Vincent almost followed him out the door, but we persuaded him to stay and try So Clover. Then Adam returned! "It's pouring down out there" he said, sitting back down. I poured the non-drivers all a whisky and Martin talked Vincent through the So Clover silliness. 

I really struggled with my combos, scratching my head at quilt/revolver (eventually plumping for maid) and then taking an age to finally invent a word - inkists - for tattoo/branch. Unsurprisingly, my clover did not merit a 6. 

We began rather well though, with Martin and Vincent's leaves both harvesting maximum points (I particularly liked Vincent's neck for pigeon/blue) but as the whisky glasses grew lower in content, so did our success rate, following my 4 with Adam's 3 (we somehow missed fairy/hero for Puck) and then being bamboozled by Pete's clover, which seemed to have multiple options for three sides and none at all for the fourth (what does one write for boxing/crossroads?)

Nevertheless it was a great way to end the night, as always. Not a marathon session, but a lovely confection of games and people. Hope we'll have the absentees back next week!

Working 8 to 3

At one stage it looked like there were going to be eight of us last night, but we lost Andrew and Adam T to illness and Katy to a massage. "Don't get a massage on games night!" Martin lamented, as another gamer failed to materialise. But by the time we heard the latest breaking fallen-member news, we were already knee-deep in fun. Martin had been first to arrive, with a big enough window to beat me at Panda Panda: taking the first round on his second turn. We were mid-second-round when Ian and longtime absentee Andy Bate arrived: I suggested we abandon it, but Martin thought we could finish the round, and promptly won. 

We weren't sure how long before Adam H arrived, so bashed out a quick Wanted Wombats. Martin won with $20k - Andy and myself didn't have a dime at this point. 

Then Adam H arrived! At this point we were still assuming Katy was coming so chose a shortish game in Skull Queen, the risk-taking pirate trick-taker, which Andy realised after it was set up that he had at home. A quick refresher and we were away, with Martin leading the early running with his knack of capitalising on the double-move cards, no matter who played them. "You dirty bastard" I told him, and Andy sagely reflected that some things never change. 

It was a tightly-fought contest, with everyone close enough behind Martin after round two to give him pause. And indeed, I drew level with him in the third and final round to tie on 68 points. However to my right Ian's pirates all finished at the tip of his board, hauling him in a whopping 32 and with it, the pirate crown:

Ian 79
Martin and Sam 68 each
Adam 63
Andy B 50

By this time, we'd heard that Katy's escapades had put her into a soporific state and she understandably didn't want to walk a mile to trade insults with a bunch of middle-aged farts. So Andy introduced us to the only game he'd brought with him, in an impressive show of restraint: 6 Nimmt! Baron Oxx. 

As with 6 Nimmt, you're trying not to take cards because they are points and points are bad. As with 6 Nimmt, we choose a card to reveal simultaneously and place them in ascending order. But after that, things are very different. 

The cards all have big ox heads on them of varying colours, and when you place your card you now ignore the numbers at the top entirely and can place your card in any row where the last-placed card has an ox head that matches one on your card. If your ox heads are all blue, you need a blue ox head. If you've different colours, you may have a choice. 

If your ox head doesn't match any colour, it's like placing a lower-than-visible number in the ancestral game: you take a row of your choice. If you're forced to place the six card, you also take that row. But there's another danger too: the sixth ox head of a matching colour also pressgangs the row into your unwanted points haul. There's four rounds of four cards each, lots of disaster-impelled chagrin, and after that you discover that Adam only took a single card the entire game. 

Adam 2
Ian 32
Andy 33
Sam 34
Martn 60

Some things really do never change, do they? 

Andy had time for one more short game so we all piled into the front room and argued over what it should be, with Adam Martin and I debating the merits of Tsuro before I suggested we ask Andy if he liked it. "It's okay" he said diplomatically. We played No Thanks. 

It was kind of nuts, with Ian running out of money and forced to take the 27 just before Adam - who had the 26 and 28 - picked it up. Despite this, Ian put together a crazy run of something like ten cards and I harpooned my chance of second place by sending the 34 around when Andy was out of cash, leaving me with the 33 and 35, and this paragraph being maybe one of the nerdiest ever to grace the pages of GNN. But even if I'd kept it, I still wouldn't have caught Ian. We debated whether it might be seen as a co-op victory, as we'd expended more than a breath or too giving him 'advice'. But as it wasn't intended to be helpful, I think this is Ian's win. 

Ian 16
Martin 40
Adam 45
Sam 60
Andy 69

Andy now had to go so we were down to a four. Adam suggested Steam Power and the rest of us were amenable, so we set up and I explained most of the rules to Martin, even getting them largely correct. At Martin's request, Ian kicked off so he could see what the three of us got up to on our first turns. And Ian displayed the inherent dickery of Steam Power as he carved a path across the middle of the board, creating an east-west supply chain that all of us would at some point use, gifting him an ongoing income for the next hour. 

Adam took to the northwest, delighting at the points-rich white-cube cities there, and Martin and I nestled beneath him. Ian seemed to spend so much time building track I wondered if he was leaving his contracts too late, but he knew what he was doing. As the factories emptied and opportunities dried up, Ian's hoarding of the entire northeast and it's desirable red cubes led him to a narrow win:

Ian 47

Adam 46

Sam 43

Martin 42

All fuel to the fire of Joe's turn-order-favouritism suspicions, as the points finish matched the turn order. There is a thread on BGG about this, but I can't be bothered to read/summarise it, sorry. 

Next up was Llama Llama, as my flirty mentions of FlipToons went unheeded. This uses the same deck as Panda Panda but when Martin explained it to me I said it sounded like Panda Panda with a migraine. I think Andrew has explained it previously on here but I - admittedly now onto the whisky - found it initially bamboozling, and naively went for a a huge score I was *never going to pull off. But once you're through the door, the game has an easy rhythm to it and I went from 3pts in round one to 48 in round two. But none of us could catch Martin, even though at one stage he ended a round with the *impossible hand and couldn't score it. 

Martin 102

Adam 72

Sam 70

Ian 42

Adam now announced he really had to go, and cycled off into the night leaving the three of us. We poured some more whisky and now did play FlipToons, to a dramatic finale.

There's some nonsense theme about casting an animated show but basically each round you deal six cards in a 2x3 grid and then calculate their fame, before spending said fame to either/both recruit new actors from the market or dismiss your underperforming actors who are getting you precious little fame. The catch of course is that as your deck grows, your inconsequential am-dram dudes may come out and your high class stars remain trapped inside it: so it's a deck-builder, and, unless you want to spend multiple actions putting actors out of work, a luck-pusher at the same time. 

As soon as any player hits 30 fame, there's one final round where the most flipped fame wins. Martin looked in the box seat here for the vast duration of the game, and indeed hit 30 points before Ian or I got particularly close. But in the finale Ian's actors let him down and Martin and I tied, causing a play-off. Martin's elephant - big ego - undid him here as it flipped his biggest point-scorer face-down, and I pipped him by a point. 

Sam

Martin

Ian

It was time for So Clover and whisky. We started with a 4 on my clover, dropped to a 3 on Ian's and then back up to a 4 on Martin's, which looked the worst night of your life, or maybe the best if you could remove Gordon Ramsey. A tricky end and not helped by me drunkenly wondering whether owls are birds or not (apparently they are). What can I say, it had been a night. But So Clover is always fun, regardless how of zoologically deranged you are. 

Dolphins aren't fish though, I'm pretty sure of that. 

Fishing for Experts

Although we had unfortunate late drop-outs (Pete and Andrew) there was still a solid six last night at the table. Long-time absentee Adam T was back, and he, Ian and I kicked off the evening whilst we awaited the others with a game of sumo-wrestling shoving match Slambo. I didn't snap pictures but here's my hand v Martin at the weekend.

It's super-simple. All we're doing is playing cards to a shared discard where we keep track of the current, cumulative value, as blue cards (positive) force it up and red cards (negative) down. If anyone is forced to take the value over ten or below zero, they have lost the bout and everyone else gets to crow 'Slambo!' at them. Shame is enforced - in the form of a card - and as soon as someone loses three bouts they lose the game - whomever has least shame at this point wins. We didn't get to three, as other sumo wrestlers were arriving around us, but Adam was least shamed when we packed it back into its tiny box again. 

Adam - top sumo
Sam - average sumo
Ian - abashed

Now Katy and Adam H were here I took the liberty of setting up Whirly Derby. Martin's infamous greens (win most races) had been replaced by a new set from the publisher, and Katy dismissed insider advice on the outsider-ranked black marbles, saying she would navigate the problem with skill. Joe arrived to find himself already marbled, so to speak, as we began racing in earnest. 

Katy's confidence seemed to evaporate fast as the blacks stayed true to the bookie's predictions early on, and Ian - playing green - got off to a solid start. Despite the new green marbles being clearly larger than the old set, class is permanent and they seemed keen to dominate. 

Not entirely though - Adam T's reds pulled off the result of the game with this finish...

...causing him to - temporarily - change his feelings about Whirly Derby not being a 'proper' game. However, it wasn't enough to catch Ian, and again there was talk about perhaps adding a bidding phase for the marbles: green still seem strong, and blacks trailed in nearly last:

Ian Green 45
Adam T Red 43
Sam Blue 21
Joe Orange 20
Katy Black 14
Adam H White 10

We split into trios for the evening's main courses, with Joe, Adam H and I keen to try out Martin Wallace's condensed Railways of the World game, Steam Power, and the others perusing the alcove of joy before deciding on Mille Fiori. 

Steam Power shares a lot of genetics with Railways. There's no turn-order auction or special cards, but you're building track to deliver cubes from factories - this time to fulfil contract cards. There's only four resources and, as with Railways, you can share connected networks. Unlike Railways, once you've started building track, you can only extend from there and not jump around the map - Germany, in our case.

Adam - yellow - and Joe - red - began contesting the mid-west whilst I struck a more independent note in the south. I forgot to take any photos again (apart from the one above) but overall the vibe is recognisably Railwaysy whilst being faster: as soon as anyone completes X amount of contracts (11 with three players) endgame is triggered, so there's a balance between building an empire and exploiting it for all you can. As players can take cubes from opponents factories there's a tangible, and not always totally inadvertent, dickishness to things. We enjoyed it, although Joe and I probably knew what would happen score-wise going in:

Adam H 64
Sam 60
Joe 48

Mille Fiori wrapped up at exactly the same time, having exhibited the same levels of shenanigans and muttering throughout. All three players had taken turns leading, but it was Ian - green! - who emerged triumphant in what, for Mille Fiori, was a tight finish. 

Ian 210

Katy 202
Adam T 190

We shuffled seats. Adam T suggested getting back in the Fellowship trick-taking saddle, and Ian and I joined him. The others went to bathe in the alcove's golden glow and returned with a selection of boxes before ultimately deciding on Fishing, which all of them had played before. I'm not as good as Andrew at keeping track of what's happening on the other side of the table, but I did snap Katy looking very excited by the prospect of fish. 

In the Fellowship, we took on Chapter 13, where we set out from somewhere or other hoping to reach Moria (I think) and mechanically, this meant a 'long' chapter where multiple hands are played until all 7 (or 8, if you include the optional Bill the Pony) characters have made it through.

We got off to a solid start, with a clear opening round as Frodo, Merry and one of the Elves made it through the gauntlet. But Boromir - morally compromised - and Aragorn - picky with numbers - both harpooned the second round. 

Then we rallied somewhat, used the Mithril shirt to protect Frodo, and finished our jaunt to Middle-Earth with a solid victory. There was a brief debate about continuing into Moria, but it was another long chapter so we elected to move on to the different speed of Gadget Builder. 

This is an UNO-inspired card-shedder where you can play like UNO - play matching colour-or-number cards to a shared discard pile - but you can also spend cards to build gadgets which give you special powers. The gadgets are helpful, but you can only use one per turn and you can't go out if any of them are unused. First to three rounds wins, and we were poised at a 1-0-0 score when the others finished Fishing, with Katy the victor in an incredibly tight finish, as all anglers brough their hard-won North Sea experience to bear:

Katy 94

Adam 93

Joe 90

We were going to pack Gadget Builder in, but all three of them were exhausted by their time at sea and bade us goodbye, not even taking up the offer of So Clover! Incredible scenes. More credible scenes followed, as we continued Gadget Builder with all of us utilising gadgets and winning rounds, leaving us poised again, this time on 2-2-2 with a next-round winner. Ian and I conferred this morning that we'd both forgotten who won, but knew it wasn't ourselves. So it must have been Adam!

Adam - 3

Ian and Sam 2 each, plus bonus senior moment

And that was that!