Not so clover

It was a scarce night in terms of regulars - with many missing, we only made up a four at full count: Joe, Martin, Andy M and myself (Sam). Joe was first to arrive and we had a couple of games of the very brief and stupidly-named Pina Coladice. This is a Yahtzee-style dice-chucker where you get three rolls to claim territory on the board:

Each tile scores points, and you also get points for any tiles adjacent you occupy as well. The catch is that if you make any row/column/diagonal of four, you win instantly. I pulled this off twice, then Martin arrived and we had a couple of three-handers which he and Joe won. 

The notable takeaway for me was how much it encouraged us to cajole each other to, for example, 'stop Joe' when doing so would help one of us win. By now, Andy was here, and with four of us it seemed the perfect moment to go Bomb Busting.

We attempted the mission we'd failed last time. On this occasion I was assigned the rookie card, which meant if I made a mistake we'd be instantly blown into oblivion. Fortunately the guys cleared a risk-free path for me throughout, and I only had to take one gamble. Mission cleared! And for good measure, we did the next one as well, where the helpful equipment was hard to get hold of. It transpired that we didn't need it. Another bomb busted, despite some early-evening confusion over numbers.

Next up we tried the latest trick-taker with a twist: Prey. There are no trumps, it's a must-follow, and the goal is to win X number of tricks: how many that is is determined by dice rolls. The additional twist is that halfway through the twelve tricks everyone flips their cards upside-down, changing their value.

So more than one player can win a round, and hitting your target in any subsequent round wins you the game. Joe was victorious after he and Martin both hit their targets in round one and Joe and Andy (I think) were successful in round two. I bust out on both occasions. 

Next in our evening of tapas was Gambler x Gamble. I'd only played this once before, and Andy not at all, so Joe and Martin talked us through the intricacies, which are not many: it's largely a game of table-reading and trying to make sure our collective bid values match one of your payout cards. 

Andy and I did best here, maximising our 5-value payouts whilst on the other side of the table, Joe and Martin gnashed their teeth at the repeat failures of their 6 and 7 cards to do anything other than look flashy. I managed to get myself close to winning, but it wasn't as close as Andy, who hit the 15 coins mark to take his first victory of the evening. I don't know if there are second places. 

Andy had suggested Tiger & Dragon and I was more than amenable. After the numeracy shenanigans of Bomb Busters, we jumped the shark here as Joe, Andy and Martin all managed to take too many tiles at some point, quite an achievement for such a simple game. My idiocy didn't extend that far in Tiger & Dragon, but it was in the pipeline for later. 

Martin took round one with a 4 point haul, then I grabbed round two. I could have taken round three easily, but using a dragon for a single point. I gambled on a bigger win, and lost to Andy, who then won the next round as well to wrap up another triumph. The table seemed somewhat divided on this admittedly opaque game, but I love it. 

Andy - 10 points
Sam 6
Martin 4
Joe 0

We moved on to Gang of Dice! I can't remember why I took this photo, but obviously in context these numbers have incredible drama:

This was a two-horse race, as for half the game Martin and I didn't win a single round. Then, in the second half of the game, I continued not winning single rounds until on the last card I couldn't compete at all, having run out of dice entirely! Martin performed better, but it seemed like Joe and Andy shared the majority of wins. And it transpired that Joe won the bigger hauls, as his huge stack of chips attested, making even Andy's second place look feeble.

Joe 88
Andy 53
Martin 23
Sam 0

The four of us had played six games by now and it was late-ish, so we moved on to So Clover, where I had a cognitive catastrophe and gave four bad-to-awful clues, the worst of which was probably Honeydew for cabbage/size. The first attempt to solve it was a write-off, and the second came back with an ignominious 1. How embarrassing! 

I'm blaming Gang of Dice. Collectively we scored an unimpressive 17/24 and I felt responsible. We went again, and my clover got a redemptive six, though I was still traumatised enough to forget photography at this point. This was a slightly better haul overall, with 19/24 instead. I wish I could remember some of the clues, but that was it for the evening. 

The Stupidest Game of All Time

Our hosts were Anja and Steve last night - or at least, they were eventually. As Joe, Andy M, Martin and myself arrived we found Louie had taken on the duties himself, and was entertaining Ian in the lounge with some small assistance from Molly. Steve was in the other room, power-tooling his way through some fireplace renovations, and Anja was upstairs getting Lennon to bed. Under Louie's capable supervision however, we cracked on with the games. While Martin set up Hold Your Ground for everyone else, Joe and I played Kribbeln. 

Hold Your Ground was new to everyone except Martin, but the rules are pretty straightforward and before long they were all dicking each other over. Meantime I beat Joe in a narrow and fairly jammy finale to Kribbeln, recovering a 6-10 deficit going into the final round. As the others were still knee-deep in Hold Your Ground - we could hear Ian's laments - Joe and I set up Tiger and Dragon and Anja appeared just in time to join us. 

I really enjoyed revisiting this game, even though the best strategies escape me. Joe won twice: in the first game, it only took him a single round as he went out with the '1' tile as defence: that's ten points and an insta-win. Anja and I resolved to be more canny as we reset, but our best efforts were no match for Joe, who won again in two rounds. Maybe next time it'll take him three. 

Joe: Tiger!

Anja and Sam: Gazelles

We finished around the same time as Hold Your Ground, as Ian found himself jettisoned into the stratosphere. 

Louie followed him out, leaving just Andy and Martin, and Martin admitted fate favoured him in the face-off.

Martin: Held his ground

Others: Ground to pieces

We did some mild seat rejigging, as Louie retired to bed. I was up for Foundations of Metropolis but had my head turned by Bomb Busters, which was set up for myself, Andy, Joe and Martin. With Adam H a late cancellation, Steve, Anja and Ian plumped for Mille Fiori. 

Joe and Andy were new to Bomb Busters but we took a risk, skipping the training missions and diving in where we'd left off on previous plays with Katy and Laura. We started poorly when Andy took a slightly lassez-faire approach to existence and boomed us into atoms, and had to reset. However, this was a forgivable error for a cadet: it soon transpired the biggest risk in Bomb Busters is having me on the team: I kept costing us lives, and in the second mission completely forgot there were wires to cut of colours other than blue. 

Meantime the glassblowing was hotting up, as Steve cursed Ian's name for depriving him of points. "This is exactly what happened last time!" he cried plaintively. Little did he know there was worse to come - much worse. For a start, Anja wrapped up a fairly comfortable win:

Anja 166

Ian 155

Steve 127

Then, as we saw out our fourth mission in Bomb Busters - (a great game, but not a relaxing one) failing twice; succeeding twice - they collectively failed at flying Kites, which was so rapid I didn't even get a picture. We gathered together again as a seven to crank out a tournament of Champions, which was reason enough for Martin to mildly berate us again about PlathversusKermitgate, now fully established as a GNN meme. 

The first round had some bankers: Hagrid is far more likely to scratch his butt in public than Claudia Winkelman, and Bagpuss seemed more of a toenail biter than Hermione. In fact the most notable moment in these early stages was Andy confessing he read the latter's name to his children as Herm-y-own. Consternation set in in round two however, with the Titchmarsh-Paxman face-off: backing the wrong horse here set you back several furlongs. Steve was maybe distracted by his reminisces of meeting Mickey Dolenz, an anecdote he wanted to indulge further but found himself barraged with get-on-with-it Steve input from across the table. In a bit of competitive celeb-bathing, I recalled the Fonz slapping me on the back at the BAFTAs, although I had to admit he wasn't in character and it was only because I moved a chair out of his way.

Martin 30

Joe 24

Anja, Ian, Sam 22 each

Steve 19 

Ian now also retired, maybe saving a bit of energy for his birthday (today) and we were left as a crestfallen six as we realised nobody had a copy of So Clover. Instead, we played the self-proclaimed 'Greatest Card Game of All Time', Flip 7, which is basically Pairs with a few special cards thrown in. "What promoted this?" Steve asked of the claim.

"I think Christmas was coming" said Joe. 

But it wasn't for Steve, who took Ian's mantle of serial-buster-supreme (see: Novocon) and ran with it. I blew up in the first round and the early running was made by Anja. Steve exploded so often that his verbal contributions settled on various iterations of the post title, as he scorned the idea that the game was even competent. 

Martin caught Anja up, and found himself the target of several freezes. Then Anja caught Martin again with a spectacular turn: emboldened by a Second Chance card, she twisted her way to a huge haul of nearly a seventy or so points. But it wasn't enough to stop Martin, who took the plunge and got the card he needed to hit the 200 point winning mark!

Martin 201

Sam 165

Anja 161

Andy M 79

Joe 77

Steve 34

And that was that! Happy Birthday Ian. 🎂

Mille Fruit Flies

 I arrived at Joe’s a little after eight, having already been told by WhatsApp about two games of Strike! (Ian won the first, Sam won the second) and then a score of 20 in Cross Clues.

There were six of us around the table once I’d sat down (Martin, Joe, Sam, Adam T, Ian and myself) with Katy expected at some vaguely defined time in the next forty minutes or so. We split into two groups: I had my first game of Mille Fiori with Joe and Martin. Adam, despite having brought a load of games, declared that he was in the mood for something new and so Sam and Ian introduced him to Gold West.

Gold West happened at the far end of the table so, apart from Sam killing three fruit flies (many of which danced around our drinks all night), I have little idea about the game. It was very close though.

Adam 97 + tie breaker

Sam 97

Ian 95

As for Mille Fiori, it was a smorgasbord of potential. Not so much a point salad, more a point kaleidoscope, and I had little idea about what to focus on. I was a permanent distant last and while I enjoyed it, I had little chance of challenging for first place against these experienced players.

Martin 204

Joe 198

Andrew 157

During this time Katy arrived and watched us finish off our respective games. Then the seven of us played Doodle Dash, a simple game of speed drawing according to a single-word clue randomly chosen from a card. Adam asked, just for clarification, exactly how many people here had an art background. But as it was, it was the non-artists who made the running in terms of grabbing the “first to finish” stick. Katy stated that, since she can’t draw, then it was the only option she had. Some of the “doodles” where hilarious, with Martin warning that one of his was “a little bit conceptual.”

One of Katy's offerings. Can't remember what it was meant to be

and, frankly, I have no way of guessing

Sam had the best drawings, but was only once quickest to finish (and then I couldn’t guess his drawing). Ian amazed us all by correctly guessing Martin’s “sandal” which looked more like a croissant to me. I just picked up points by waiting for the first two doodlers to fail, after which the guesser gets to see everyone’s drawings.

My rendition of "skipping". A success!

In the final round, Joe and Martin physically tussled for the “first to finish” stick, with Joe remarking afterwards that he’d actually been scratched. Joe’s nice white tabletop also didn’t do well, with ink smudges wherever we’d put our doodle-boards face down. Joe didn’t seem to bothered about it, while Sam went into full parent mode, wiping up as much of it as he could.

Two drawings, same word.

"Monorail"

Joe 10

Adam 7

Andrew 7

Sam 5

Martin 4

Katy 4

Ian 4

Then we split up again. Martin, Sam and Adam played Tiger and Dragon and, apparently, broke it. They played three rounds and the same strategy won each time. Then Adam left and Sam and Martin played Sea Salt and Paper.

Joe, Ian, Katy and myself played Break The Cube, a puzzle game in which you ask simple questions and try to guess what formation each player has secretly stacked their blocks in. We went around a few times, made a few guesses but began to forget what our initial clues had been.

“I suppose we should’ve used the pads,” said Joe, revealing the existence of some bespoke sheets of paper that we could’ve used to note down our information. We finish the game with no one guessing correctly.

At this point Ian and I left, while the remainers finished off with American Bookshop. Katy used to be so good at this…

Sam 21

Joe 20

Martin 17

Katy -20

Thanks all, it was a blast.

Getting back into orbit

 I arrived at Sam’s to find Ian, Sam, Martin and Adam H having just finished their second game of Strike! This dice rolling arena game has been a firm favourite for the past few weeks, but I’ve yet to have a single game.

Joe also arrived shortly after me and, with all six expected participants, we began a game of Swat. This was new to Adam, and he was given a rules refresher. Five of us sat around with one hand face down on the table like a nervous seance while the sixth one dealt out the cards. When we were happy with what we’d seen, we’d slap the cardboard rectangle and make our claim. At one point me, Joe and Martin swatted just as a negative card was revealed and suddenly we were all very gentlemanly in our insistence that we can’t have been the quickest. I got zero in round one and never recovered. Joe was in the lead from round one and never looked back.

Joe 73

Martin 59

Ian 53

Adam 48

Sam 45

Andrew 31

Then Katy texted to say she’d be here at nine o’clock, which meant we had enough time for a game of So Clover. But what a vexatious game it was. After Joe went clear, we failed on Sam’s with a difficult decoy. Martin went clear despite using “formicarium” as a clue and then I failed miserably with a difficult clover, unwittingly two of my clues, “stink” and “fishy” overlapped, and on top of that a third clue “Pi” was a reference to Life of Pi (Circus/Raft) but only made sense if you’d got the other three clues first. Katy arrived mid-game and she was the first to mention the film. Ian and Adam also failed, despite Adam’s lovely clue of “Tarot” for “essence/forecast”.

24 out of 36

Then Katy arrived and we split into two groups. Ian, Adam and I went for Orbit while Martin, Joe, Sam and Katy played Gambler x Gamble! It seemed to go by very fast, with Joe reaching 14 coins in double quick time. Then the next time I looked, they were all in a position to come first, with Joe winning thanks to his instant win 4 gambler paying out.

Then they played Tiger & Dragon.

Martin 10

Joe 6

Katy 3

Sam 0

And Trendy

Sam 38

Katy 36

Joe 35

Martin 35

And finished off with three more games of Strike, with Katy, Joe and Martin winning one game each.

As for Orbit, I was Japan, Ian was China and Adam chose Russia (although he rejected their black pieces for his usual yellow). I was a bit rusty (like my spaceships, lol) on the rules but it was fine once we got going. 

As always, start with the planets in the astronomically correct place

I stayed entirely inside the asteroid belt for the whole game while Ian and Adam zipped around the solar system willy nilly. Adam quickly levelled up his feul and points statistics to great effect, while Ian slipped back to third after some drawing unlucky mission cards.

Adam 47

Andrew 23

Ian 21

And then, we were done. For once, with no work tomorrow, I stayed until the end. Orbit might have been a brave choice at nine in the evening, but I was in the mood for something more Euro-y so I was happy. Maybe one day I’ll play Strike.

Gamers x Games!

 I walked into Steve and Anja’s house a little after eight to find myself immediately thrown into the opening round of 6nimmt. I’d been dealt in and, if I’d remained absence, would’ve gone Dirk until my arrival.  Before then, they (Anja, Adam H, Luther, Sam, Joe, Martin and Ian) had played Strike, which Adam had won.

As for 6nimmt, I thought I’d done okay in round one until I added up my points and found myself ten points adrift in last place, while Joe was the early leader. At the end of the second round (of three) the scores we surprisingly close, with a cluster of players behind new leader Adam on 24, 26, 29, 30, 30, 31, 32.

In the final round, Luther said his heart was beating fast. It was his first game at 6nimmt, I think, and we made sure to explain that the cards were mean to everyone, not just him. We needn’t have worried. While Ian collapsed, Luther went clear and he and I grabbed an unlikely win.

Luther 32

Andrew 32

Joe 34

Anja 37

Martin 42

Sam 43

Adam 45

Ian 64

Then we split into two groups. Sam, Anja, Adam and the newly arrived Steve played Tiger and Dragon, a Japanese game I still know nothing about apart from it having nice pieces.

Martin, Ian, Joe and I played a new Japanese game, Gambler x Gamble! In this simple yet cunning game, one player plays a numbered tile face up and the other three play theirs face down. Then all the numbers are revealed and added up. The trick is to guess/influence/predict that this total matches one of the gambler cards in front of you. If so, then that gambler pays out. More gamblers can be bought in order to increase your opportunities of winning and they can also be flipped to super mode, where they can win you more. First to 15 coins wins.

Easy, except if no gambler pays out, then that’s a Gambler’s Fumble and the chip leader(s) have to pay half of their money, rounded up, into a special fund which may be redistributed later. This means you don’t want to be in the lead for too long.

I won with a piece of deduction that I’m rather proud of. I wanted my 6 to pay out, Joe had a 9 and Martin’s and Ian’s highest was both 5. I began with a face up 2 and the other three put theirs face down. I was sure Joe would go high, trying to hit his nine, while Ian and Martin would do the opposite. I guessed Joe would play a 3 and the other two both zeroes. Therefore I paid a coin to adjust the total up by one.

I was right! My six gambler paid out, and I hit 15 coins for the win! I was so excited that I forgot to note down the other players scores.

While they finished off T&D, we sped through a game of Trendy, which is basically the game Whale Riders: The Card Game was based on (and was, itself, based on something else). Midway through the game, Martin put down a 3 card when Anja, across the room and still playing T&D, said “three”. We were surprised at such psychic ability and, keen to see if it continued, I put down a card: a 4. “Five,” said Adam. The moment was ruined.

We played twice

Martin 31

Andrew 28

Ian 16

Joe 14

And then

Joe 43

Andrew 42

Martin 34

Ian 32

As for Tiger And Dragon, Sam won one game and Adam won twice.

Then we reshuffled a little. Steve explained that their games collection is loosely divided into two groups: games that Steve usually wins and games that Anja usually wins. Amazingly, Thurn and Taxis was brought out at this late hour (almost ten o’clock) and Anja, Sam, Joe and Adam sat down to play. I preferred something lighter, so I joined Martin, Steve and Ian for a game of Piece o' Cake.

In this game an 11-segment pie/cake or various flavours is split into four by one player. The others take turns choosing a piece and then the splitting player takes what’s last.  Each flavour has a value that you’ll score if you have the most or join most of that flavour. Otherwise you can “eat” you cake/pie immediately and score a point per blob of cream on the slice.

The start of the game was postponed after Martin spilled a little beer on the game. Despite being a small amount of liquid, it somehow managed to get on every single piece.

Ian went big on Chocolate cake, with it’s 11-point value. He collected four early on, which seems like a loss since they had three blobs of cream each and could’ve been eaten for 12 points, but it certainly rendered everyone else’s chocolate cake valueless. I, on the other hand, went for lower scoring pieces and ate the rest. It was lovely.

Andrew 35

Steve 34

Martin 32

Ian 24

I left at this point, and Martin, Steve and Ian played Strike three times. Martin won twice but, when he emailed me, he couldn’t remember who won the third. Then they played High Score

Martin 17

Ian 13

Steve 11

As for late night game of Thurn and Taxis, I got a message from Sam at half past eleven with a photo and the scores.

Adam 26

Joe 15

Sam 11

Anja 3

Thanks for hosting Steve and Anja. See you all next week.

Six Sixteen

With Andrew one of a few late drop-outs, blogging duties fell to me (Sam) and unfortunately I missed the rousing opening of Strike!, Martin's new dice game, arriving only in time to see Adam T's triumph and Adam H's chagrin. The host was Joe, and arriving at the same time as me was Gareth. 

Now a six and destined no longer for any more arrivals, we set up another new Martin title, called King Up. Essentially a series of elections, several wannabe monarchs - the discs - are positioned at the bottom of the board, and on your turn you simply push one up to the next level; assuming there's room to do so - each level can hold four wannabes. Naturally everyone has their own agenda: six aspirational nobles you'd like to either be king/queen, or at least still in the court when the round ends. 

They might get jettisoned when you or someone else elevates them to the throne: as soon as soon as this happens, there's an election with everyone voting aye or nay: only a universal aye will keep them there, otherwise they're kicked out of court. 

The problem is that although you always keep your aye card, you only have two nays to spend: once they're gone, they're gone, and everyone being hesitant to spend them can mean you end up with a monarch nobody wanted. There are three rounds and when a monarch is declared, all nobles score according to their position: on the throne is ten points, further down the board becomes a more paltry return. Although Martin scored the same as Joe and Adam T, he lost on a tie-breaker:

Joe/Adam T share the throne: 52
Martin - scheming Salieri: 52
Adam H - influential lord: 50
Gareth - noted dignitary: 46
Sam - nodding yes man: 45

A fun game. We then split into groups of three, with Adam T and Martin about to get schooled by Gareth in Rumble Nation and Adam H and I inviting a similar experience from Joe. Both are fairly simple games, but deeper than they first appear. Rumble Nation takes place in two acts, with armies added to the board before its territories scored in ascending order, and winning a territory allows you to add reinforcements wherever you have adjacent forces. Gareth took advantage of the domino effect and won something like seven or eight of the twelve available, as Martin and Adam looked on in despair, and the latter's embryonic winning streak was cut brutally short:

Gareth 49

Martin 37

Adam T 16

Meanwhile Joe, despite protesting he had no idea what he was doing, was trouncing Adam H and I at Tiger & Dragon. The game is super-simple - there are a bunch of numbered tiles; eight 8's, seven 7s. six 6's and so on down to a single one. There are two wilds (the tiger and dragon) one for any odd and the other for any even. Everyone draws X amount of tiles and tries to shed them quicker than anyone else, by playing a tile as attack. If the next player can defend by playing a matching tile, they do so (unless they pass) and now it's their turn to attack. If you play attack and everyone passes back to you, you get to discard a tile face-down, and attack again. 

That's it. But critical is watching what's gone out already and gauging when to pass, when to play low and when to go high. Only the winner of a round scores and they get more points for going out with a high tile (in theory at least, easier to defend against) than a low one. The exception is the 1, with which you shoot the moon and instantly win the game; I'm guessing because although it's the best attack tile it's the worst defence tile. 

We played three times, and Joe won every single round!

Whilst Adam and I were reeling at the dextrous hands of The Berge, the others played Piece O Cake, which they may tell you about in the comments. All I know is that it's the precursor to New York Slice. Whatever happened getting there, it was a resurgent Adam T who finished the experience with the biggest slice of the points:

Adam 42

Martin 38

Gareth 35

While they were finishing that, we'd blasted through a couple of games of Strike! and I now comprehended it. The inside of the box is basically the arena for dice-chucking and you're trying to get matching numbers. A single die starts in the arena and on a turn you throw one die at a time in there. If you don't get a match, you can either keep going - the more dice there are, obviously the greater chance of a match - or pass. If you run out of dice, you're out, and if your turn arrives with nothing in the arena at all, you must throw all of your dice! Additionally, there's no 1s but instead crosses. Any crosses rolled are removed from the game. 

You've little decisions to make - basically, keep going or pass - but it's a lot of fun anyway. Surprising too how many of us managed to actually miss the arena (even the box, in Joe's case) and lose a precious die as a result. I won game one, and Joe game two, before we reconvened as a six and busted out So Clover. And what a triumph this was, thanks in part to the kind of smutty clueage we'd usually only see from Katy. Or Joe. Or Martin. Or Ian. Or me. Anyway, when we opened with 6/6 we felt satisfied. Then as we kept hitting sixes, we grew into optimistic, tense, excited, and finally as triumphant as one can after connecting mustard wand the way Adam did.

36/36! Joe wrote the score into the Legend of Legends or whatever it's called. Adam T had a drive home to think of, so left on a high note. Adam H was looking sleepy, but stayed on for a 5-player crack at Tiger & Dragon. It's not as good at it's maximum player count, as there's very few tiles not in play and the passing option feels less enticing. Adam H got his revenge on Joe though, winning in two rounds even though he was now professing to have no strategic idea what he was doing. 

Then we played Strike! again! Joe won the first game after Martin was out on a single roll, announcing with joyous despair that it was his most fleeting involvement in a game ever. Then Gareth and Adam butted the three of us out to perform an epic, dramatic, swinging ding-dong finale as momentum swung about like a pendulum on time-lapse. Gareth's rolling was preposterous, but in the end Adam nabbed the win and like his namesake, went out on a giddy high. Gareth retired as well and myself, Joe and Martin tried out Lettertricks, where you win tricks to put together letters to then make a word. I wasn't bowled over by the competitive game: even playing badly (as I no doubt did) I ended up with a Z and an L. Joe fared a little better, making a three-letter word (I think) but Martin had multiple letters and trounced us partly by virtue of having lots of late-alphabet letter cards, if I recall. But apparently it's more suited to four.

We tried the co-op version, where you collaborate to spell words as you play, hampered by both a lack of vowels and having to follow suit. We succeeded in winning (scoring more than the required 12 words) but to me it felt like an unsuccessful cross of Letterpress and and The Crew. Maybe because I was getting rather tired though, and I bowed out, leaving Joe and Martin to finish the evening with a head to head of Hanamikoji. Martin won the sixteenth game of an action-packed night!