We all Shrove Tuesdays

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cakeblazers

After a last-minute change of venue, Katy and I (Sam) were first to arrive at Joe's, and our host set the tone for the evening with a lighthearted quip about masturbation. As we pondered what kind of day Joe might have had, Martin arrived and before long was setting up Accuse! the game that we all profess to be terrible at, but I definitely am. 

I was first to accuse, and got almost everything wrong. Katy followed me and missed out by just one factor. But of course with a murder, knowing where it took place can be critical and Martin's decision to go with the airport won him the game, and we all rued the fact we never challenged him when he said "Hairport".

Martin: Promoted

Joe: Passed over

Katy and Sam: Fired

Steve and Adam had arrived and although Steve briefly vanished again, we were now at our full capacity of six, so promptly split into two groups. Whilst Joe, Steve and Martin played Tajuto...

Katy was keen to try Trailblazers, and a freshly-shorn (but according to himself, grumpy) Adam was happy to give it a go. The game has three different 'settings' and we played twice, first on Adventurer mode and then Animal mode. 

On Adventurer mode, you're building two trails. They have to loop back to the campsite they started in to score, but the longer the better, because adventurers move along said trails, establishing campfires for points. I made it more complicated than it needed to be, panicking that I'd previously played it wrong - before later realising I hadn't - so we ended up with far too many campfires that we subsequently snuffed out. But it was fun anyway. 

Katy took a narrow win, as Adam's scheming fell apart on the final turn, possibly because we drafted our cards in the wrong order to be fair to him:

Katy 46

Sam 43

Adam 26

Tajuto was still going, with Martin complaining that all he'd achieved so far was an aneurysm. Steve went to the toilet and they marvelled at his collection of tiles (on the table, I mean). 

We Trailblazered again, this time forfeiting adventurers and campfires to just go animal mode: now, all your looped trails score points and distinct animals on the trails score escalating points, instead of the basic 2points-per-animal happening in Adventurer mode. Katy loved the animals. 

And I think they both preferred Animals mode, as creating numerous overlapping loops certainly had some agonising fun. Adam said he really liked it despite the fact there's some tangible luck-pushing in how far your trails go, and the fact we kept screwing up the card draft. But this time Katy completely mullered us, scoring so many points she needed to ask Martin to do the addition.

Katy 82

Adam 56

Sam 53

Tajuto finished at the time, with Martin and Steve celebrating their shared victory. I missed the fine beats of the drama here, but everyone seemed happily sated, even Joe.

Martin and Steve - 12 each

Joe - 6

We regrouped as a six and played Auf Teufel Comm Raus (or as my phone likes to call it, Said Refuel Comm Raid) the game of pulling coals from the devil's cauldron - obviously - until you are caught by the devil himself, and his 'disturbing' bellybutton  (-Martin). This was new to Steve, who requested a player aid and nobody seemed sure how serious he was. 

We seemed to get caught by the devil a lot, except when we didn't. Numerous busts would be had then suddenly someone - usually Katy or Adam - would pull out six hot coals in a row. Joe seemed to bust himself nearly every time, but despite a poor start, and serial lagger Martin constantly rinsing everyone for cash when they busted (-he made a deal with the devil) Joe recovered to sail off up the track courtesy of some preposterous bidding coming off, seeing off Adam at the death to claim the win as they both passed the 1600 finish-line:

1 Joe 1840

2 Adam 1710

3 Steve

4 Sam

5 Katy

6 Martin

At some point around the devil's bellybutton we also had cake, provided by Katy. Thanks Katy! Steve cut his slice into two, enjoying the fact he now had 'an extra slice' on everyone else. 

Post cauldron, Adam and Steve took their leave and the remaining four set up So Clover. Katy was even studiously gazing at her freshly-arranged cards when Martin swept all aside and announced we would play MLEM first. Katy's protests weren't strong enough to prevent her being assigned a cat, as we all suited up our catstronauts, ready for space travel. 

It was a first game for Joe, who may not have embraced the strategy but definitely embraced the sense of adventure, as time and again he sent his Deep Space x2 Cat onto the rocket, only to see it return one life down from multiple doomed missions.

It was slightly surprising the game didn't end from our serial failures, so many times did we crash. But Martin's eighth catstronaut making it into the cosmos instead triggered the finale, and unsurprisingly, with so many cats in space, he took a convincing win. 

Martin 33

Sam 20

Katy 13

Joe 12

Then we did play So Clover! And it was a triumphant set of leaves, even if Martin did hiss at us to look at all the words again. We'd missed the fact that 'dead' went quite well with his clue of 'extinct' but having had the ambient tip-off, rounded off the evening with maximum points. Thanks all!

Squid Games

Six doughty gamers assembled around the table last night - Gareth and Martin were first to arrive, followed by Joe, Ian and finally Katy. We kicked things off with My Gold Mine, an Incan-Gold-esque escapade of trying to make out of the mine with the most gold and not be dead. On your turn you can either move towards the exit, or stay where you are and grab some gold; the catch being that doing so may provoke the ire - and movement - of the dragon, who will roast you its fiery flames if you're caught, like it's been reading the Daily Mail its entire life.

Some movement cards allow you to swap places with someone. I was discouraged from doing this and praised when I took Katy's advice. She then praised Gareth for swapping places with me! I had won round one, I suppose, and put a target on my back. The game was mainly notable for these dick moves and Joe despairing at everyone else referring to the exit direction as 'forward' - he explained it's obviously backwards because we were returning the way we came in. But are we? Other rationales were discussed. 

Maybe we should have paid more attention to Joe, even if his talk of being roasting was conjuring some unsolicited images in our heads:

Joe 6

Gareth/Sam 4 each

Ian 2

Katy/Martin 0

We split into two gangs of three, with Mille Fiori  set up one end of the table (Martin, Katy, Ian) and Calimala the other. One game involved passing cards and swearing, the other was a weird mash up of area majorities, token activations, and silk. 

Calimala's USP is that each turn you take an action, but if someone took it before you at any point in the game, they get to do so again as well. The actions are generating resources, using them to build infrastructure, or shipping silk to far off destinations. Whenever an action is taken a fourth time a scoring round is triggered, meaning the game starts off sedately but escalates into an every-turn-scores display. I thoroughly enjoy that mechanic and the manic pace it gives rise to, but it's not an easy one to jump into from a strategic perspective, and Joe confessed to being bamboozled by it. "I thought it was about calamari" he rued, leading to the post title. 

Despite that however, he did enough to ultimately draw on points with Gareth, who claimed the win on the tiebreaker of council seats. I was some way behind!

Gareth 35

Joe 35

Sam 28

They'd finished Mille Fiori and Ian's romance with the game continues to endure:

Ian 208

Katy 175

Martin 165

And also reversed their positions in Gang of Dice:

Martin 96

Katy 38

Ian 27

We shuffled seats with Joe, Katy and Martin setting up Tajuto and myself Gareth and Ian embracing Quantum. I confess I lost track of the meditative bag-plunging drama at the other end of the table as Quantum developed into an epic. Things didn't look promising for Gareth and I when Ian got a cube down on his first two turns. Moreover, he picked up beautifully synergising cards that allowed him to tweak resource and dominance in either direction, like a madman with a nuclear etch-a-sketch. 

He needed stopping. 

Somewhere in the stopping-of-Ian, we managed to eke our way forwards as well, slowly catching him up and placing the game into a fragile state where all of us were poised on a single cube for the win. Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Tajuto continued apace, complete with what now looks like a face-pulling contest amongst the fun-loving monks.

Ian kept engineering himself into one-turn-to-win conditions, cooking up a seemingly-imminent victory, and Gareth and I kept shitting in his pie. We hampered him with attacks and when that didn't work, I sabotaged him by moving one of his cubes into the planet he was ready to win with, meaning he now needed to migrate elsewhere.

It was a dramatic and ding-dong battle, and I managed to sneak the win courtesy of a bit of guerrilla tactics and a couple of spawny dice rolls!

Sam - 0 cubes

Ian and Gareth - 1 cube left

With everything in cosmic balance on Tajuto, they wrapped up at the same time. Joe proved to be best at monking:

Joe 18

Katy 16

Martin 14

And although I waved my new purchase Cafe Order Overload around hopefully, we elected to finish the night off with the classic that is So Clover. And it was so clovery, as Martin and my clovers kicked us off with a couple of six-pointers and we followed that with Joe's, which was nearly a car crash until we spotted some links we'd missed. We did less well on Katy's, surged back with Ian's and then Gareth revealed he'd ignored our demands he not make up words when we saw he'd written Margarglerita and Mashhhhhh on his clover. For shame, Gareth!

On the other hand, they were damn fine clues and we got all his clover leaves immediately. And then everyone left immediately, as another fine Tuesday came to a close.

Pharoah killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est?

 For the first time in years, I was first to arrive at Joe’s. I sat in the kitchen, anticipating playing one of those short little games that I usually interrupt on my arrival. Martin, Ian and Laura came in almost simultaneously but instead of playing, we chatted. Joe anguished over his new speaker not connecting properly, and some of his distress centered around the fact that he shouldn’t be this distressed about it.

Adam H and Katy arrived and now we were all present we began.

Adam, Joe and Ian played Knizia's temple building game, Tajuto while Laura, Katy, Martin and I chose Noli. Despite worries that it might be too loud with Katy playing, we promised to keep the noise down. I assured Laura of its simplicity - "there are only three rules," I insisted.

I started well. In the first round I split my 9 coins into three piles of three and each one succeeded. That, it transpired, was the high watermark of my game. Katy and Martin both overtook me on towers and then Katy persuaded Laura to remove one of Martin's two boats instead of one of her three, insisting that Martin was the one to attack.

.Katy's plan (if it was a plan) worked better than she could've imagined as she won lots of cash in the next race and built the fourth and fifth parts of her tower. After that, it was a bit of a victory parade until the end.

Katy 6

Martin 3

Laura 1

Andrew 1

With Tajuto still midgame, we played a quick Harvest. This is another game of ruining other players' chances and there seemed to be a little meta gaming hangover from Noli as Katy received more than her fair share of negatives.

Martin 140

Andrew 110

Laura 50

Katy 40

As Tajuto wound to a close, we finished off a quick one-hand-only game of Sea Salt and Paper with the extension (a few extra cards) “Extra Salt.” It was brief and I was poised to win until Martin stole one of my octopuses.

Martin 8

Laura 6

Katy 5

Andrew 4

Then Tajuto ended and a close finish – the final placings decided only on the final turn.

Adam 8

Ian 7

Joe 4

Then there was a brief reshuffling of chairs and groups before we reformed as Joe, Laura, Ian and I playing Ra (Luxury Ra, of course) while Katy, Martin and Adam turned their back on opulence and played the sparse, clip-art themed Muscat.

Lots of pointing in Muscat

I don’t know anything about Muscat except for something to do with turning elephants in burning sticks.

Adam 42

Katy 18

Martin 17

As for Ra, just like Noli, I started quite well. I collected lots of Nile tiles and then cleverly used my God to pick up a lone Flood tile so that they’d score. I was pleased with myself until loads of Flood tiles came out in the first epoch. I could’ve kept that God tile for something rarer, like a Civ tile.

Then, in rounds two and three, Floods all but vanished. My niles shrivelled up and died. Everyone else went for monuments. Ian hung on to his 13-tile for about two-thirds of the game. Ian ended the game alone on the auction track, although the round was almost over and he filled up the track with tiles. But only one Ra tile would end the round and we were begging him to stop. Which he did, and he scored ten points from just those tiles.

Turns out he should’ve kept going after all

Joe 40

Ian 36

Laura 31

Andrew 30

Joe maintains his vice-like grip on this game.

And then Me, Katy and Adam left. The rest stayed for what might have been a round of So Clover but who knows.

Thanks for the evening, everyone. See you next Tuesday.

Do you know what's Swat?

 I arrived at a little before 8 and found four gamers around Sam's kitchen table: Sam, Martin, Ian and Katy. They'd just finished a game of Spicy in which Katy didn't score until the final round and Ian didn't score at all.

Sam 35

Martin 33

Katy 13

Ian 0

Then we set up Cross Clues as the ideal game to play while waiting for Joe to arrive since he could just join in once he was here. He arrived mid game and initially misread Airport as Apricot but luckily that didn't hinder his clue giving.

We didn't do very well. I'm not sure but I think we got six wrong. 

Then we played Formula Motor Racing, an old Knizia game that showed it's age in the instructions that referred to the players as "gentlemen (and ladies)". It might be a Knizia game, but there’s player elimination, even though each player has two cars so if one spins out, you can be more cautious with the other.

Martin was the first to spin out and he did so in spectacular fashion. He used the spin out card in which the active player rolls a 12D die and the car in the position indicated by the die is out of the race. If the roll isn’t favourable, the player can roll again.

Martin rolled a 1. No good for him, since he was leading at the time so he rolled again. Martin rolled another 1. How we laughed. 

Katy also crashed and took Sam out with her but she recovered from that to win the race and the game.

Katy 10

Ian 7

Sam 6

Joe 2

Andrew 1

Martin 0

The game’s instructions suggest running seventeen races to recreate an entire Grand Prix. Maybe not.

Then we split into two. Martin, Katy and Joe played Tajuto during which Joe boasted about how good he was at pulling the pink and that “I’m known for my lucky drawers.” In among this Carry On Tajuto type humour, Joe seemed to be looking good for the win until the final count which saw Martin and Joe rejoicing in their shared victory.

Joe 19

Martin 19

Katy 11

Ian, Sam and I dug out Tin Goose again. Just like our last game, I was frugal again and I even passed on a chance to buy a plane when I thought the price had got out of hand. And this happened a fair amount as the auction prices were much higher than before.

Andrew 324

Sam 303

Ian 210

The two games ended at the same time, so we finished with Swat, a sort of cross between Ra and Snap. The aim of the game is to collect scoring sets while avoiding negative cards. The cards are dealt from the top of the deck by one player while the others wait until they’re happy with what’s on offer at which point they slap the player board in the centre of the table. Often this would be accompanied by cries from the other players, annoyed at having missed out on a promising haul. Sometimes it was accompanied by the cries of the player who claimed the cards only to find a last minute -4 fly card added to the pile.

Sam once slapped so slowly that Martin was able to get his hand under Sam’s to claim the cards. Ian managed to underslap (is that a word?) Katy twice, much to her frustration. However, Katy scored 41 in the first round and no one else got close.

Katy 75

Sam 65

Martin 55

Joe 52

Ian 52

Andrew 45

Then Katy, Ian and I went home while Martin, Sam and Joe finished on Sheepy Time. According to Sam, “Martin won, Joe in second and I was miles back in third.”

Thanks for the evening, guys. See you all soon.

East of Adam

It was raining so hard when we arrived at Adam and Hannah's house all Joe, Katy and I (Sam) had to do was cross the road from Joe's car to arrive drenched. Already present and surprisingly dry were our hosts (plus Arthur!) along with Adam T, Martin, Gareth, and Mel, whom I last saw something like 15 years ago playing football on the Downs. After some catching-up time, Hannah took Arthur off to bed and we decided games should be played, foregoing an 8-player opener in favour of the same Knizia one-two we saw recently: Joe, Adam and Katy began teaching Mel Tajuto in the kitchen whilst the rest of us migrated to the front room to set up on the other table. I realised I'd probably be on blogging duties and went back to take a photo, but Katy said to come back when something had actually happened. 

My phone died halfway through writing this up so I'll update with the correct scores later

In Babylonia it was happening fast. Like last week, Martin snaffled up the first ziggurat and grabbed the free extra turn. Gareth and Adam occupied either end of the board as I tried to weave a path between them, stymied by both the river and, inevitably, Martin. Adam made the early running, but Babylonia moves so fast we all took turns ahead of the pack, with one turn Gareth made sending him from fourth into a clear lead. 

I ignored ziggurats, feeling I had enough to think about already with Babylonia's cascade of options on every turn. I was pleased when Martin said my farmers had fucked everything up though - always a good sign. In the other room, meanwhile, Tajuto had moved on.

I was impressed with their discipline around the Monster Munch; we'd devoured ours already along with Gareth's Pringles, a fact I'm regretting at my leisure this morning. "It's only me eating them" admitted Adam. Not sure what was happening in the game, as I was mainly focused on crisps at this point. Meanwhile in the other room we'd moved on too, both in the snack department (honey and mustard pretzels) and the games also: I'd managed to stumble onto a win in Babylonia, jumping into the lead with my last big-ish move but without realising I'd also triggered the end of the game. Yes me! 

Sam 138 / Adam T 135 / Gareth 130 / Martin 120

Thanks to Adam too, who realised to everyone's chagrin (apart from me, of course). We were now playing Whale Riders, where a clear split in strategy came early: Gareth and Martin raced ahead whilst Adam and I lingered behind. 

I was first to complete a contract but after that my whale seemed to stagnate somewhat. Both and Adam and I were concerned we'd made the wrong choice in our lingerings, as the better tiles all seemed to lay ahead of us, with the others hoovering - other more whale-applicable verbs may be available - them up willy-nilly, and completing several contracts at a time. I made a late-game mini-surge, but it wasn't enough, and the surprise ending this time didn't help me:

Martin 26 / Gareth 21 / Sam 19 / Adam T 14 

Tajuto finished around the same time, it being Katy's turn to beam happily at the Knizia-fuelled shenanigizing, having beaten Adam off to claim the win:

Katy / Adam / Mel / Joe

There was surprisingly little debate about what came next: Martin, Adam T, Joe and Gareth swiftly teamed up for The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, and hosting Adam was keen to revisit the cube-rail auctions and manipulation craziness of Luzon Rails. When Katy saw the bits she wanted to try it too. It is a lovingly-presented game.

It was a cagey start as the opening sale of shares all went for around the same price, with yellow the only one - restricted to three shares total as opposed to four or five - a little more expensive. Mel grabbed it and began building in the south of Luzon, so I went for a second share in yellow and before long Adam joined us too. There was a great community spirit in this little corner of the board. On the other side, Katy was very reluctant to share the spoils of her investments, outbidding me me on both red (which made sense) and pink (which probably didn't) before apologising for her latent capitalist leanings. As the game headed for yet another abrupt climax, Adam's incremental nudges forward on yellow and green pushed me - as the co-owner of both - past Katy even as she triggered the scoring on an extremely close game:

Sam 50 / Katy 45 / Adam 42 / Mel 40

My win, but also Adam's, in a way. 

In the other room, the four astronauts divers had sailed through no less than seven missions first-time, and only took three to complete mission number 8. They looked pleased with their night's work. 

The hour was getting late and so Gareth and Adam T headed home, leaving us as a six. It was the perfect number for Cross Clues, which immediately looked like it was going to be tricky with the words 'bag' and 'suitcase' both appearing. From early on it didn't look like it would be our finest Cross Clues hour as several guesses hit the wrong mark. I wrinkled my nose at Martin's conviction that my clue 'leather' definitely went with 'hat', and everyone wrinkled their noses at Katy's interpretation of Adam's 'helmet' clue. But we rallied somewhat and finished with a respectable-ish fifteen.

There was time for one more game, so we segued into So Clover. Though my memory at this point is somewhat foggy, I do recall was a comparative triumph. I think we scored 30 points from a possible 36, which is the best we've done, possibly? It doesn't quite have Cross Clues' hilarity, but it's immensely satisfying for both cluer and clue-ees when things come off.

It was not that far off midnight so we wrapped things up, happy with a salvo of games played and memories, if at this point slightly out of focus, acquired. There was a tinge of sadness that Hannah is still an avowed non-gamer. Maybe next time we should start with Cross Clues and do some gentle cajoling?