The Third of March

The 3rd of March 2026 was a Tuesday, so that means it was a time for games, and so convened at Anja and Steve’s. As well as the hosts, the expected gamers included Adam H, Martin, Paul (a visiting friend of Anja & Steve’s), Pete, and myself (Ian), and we also expected young Louie to join us for an early.

Whilst we waited for everyone to arrive or finish parental duties, we had a quick game of 6 Nimmt. It’s been a while since I’d played this once perennial game, so it was good to revisit. We were playing Adam’s Walking Dead themed copy, and I think somebody pondered that bullets were more thematic than the bullheads found on the classic design.

Regardless of theming I had started to slip into a typical death spiral. We ended the game early when others had arrived at the table at the scores were thus:

Adam 10

Paul 16

Martin 27

Anja 36

Ian 43

 

As our numbers had increased, we split into two groups. Martin enticed me, Pete and Steve to try out a new acquisition, Maya – so new that we had sprues to punch. On the other end of the table, Adam, Paul, Anja and Louie set up Cottage Garden. I didn’t really follow much of what happened in their game, but think it took longer to explain than Maya did.

Maya is designed by Gilbert & Benjamin, but if you’d said this was a Knizia I would have had no reason to doubt, as it did feel very much like a game from the prolific German designer. A tile laying game, it reminded me of Rebirth and Babylonia. The theme is that we’re cultivating various crops in the ancient Maya civilization, and the theme led to some interesting phrases being banded around, such as the chain of potato farms being referred to as both a “potato wall” and “the potato belt”.

I rather enjoyed it and put in a decent performance, but Martin proved victorious.

Martin 139

Ian 121

Pete 114

Steve 95 (ish, I forgot to get scores before we started packing away)

Cottage Garden was still ongoing, so we played a quick game of Jungo. I was first to shed my cards and won, with fortuitous timing as Cottage Garden was wrapping up. I can only apologise for my lack of notes, but the scores made it sound like a fairly close game for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, but Anja had a clear lead over the others.

Anja 51

Adam 43

Louie 41

Paul 40

 

As all gamers were present, we decided to mix things up and rotate groups slightly. Adam, Paul and Steve embarked on a 7 Wonders, whilst Anja, Martin, Pete and I tried the partnership version of Gazebo.

The partnership certainly added some interesting wrinkles. The game ends when one player has placed all their Gazebos, but the winner is decided by which pair has the fewest remaining once the game has ended. Players sit next to their partner and play continues in a clockwise fashion, and Martin demonstrated the value in setting up his partner, Anja, who getting her Gazebos down with alarming pace.

Pete and I couldn’t really keep up, and Anja had soon depleted her Gazebo stash. The scores were interesting, as whilst Anja had placed all 15 of her Gazebos, Martin had only placed 3. Pete and I had a more balanced split, as we had managed to play 5 each, but the victory was Anja and Martin’s

Anja / Martin – 12 Gazebos remaining.

Pete / Ian – 20 Gazebos remaining

7 Wonders had also drawn to a close. I had been too focused on the battle of Gazebos to pay heed, but the scores make it sound like a close run game.

Steve 52

Adam 50

Paul 48

After this we finished with a game of So Clover. Strictly speaking we had more players than the official player limit of 6, but Adam fashioned a makeshift clover on a notebook and away we went. Some clue highlights include “Halberd” for “Spicy” + “Axe”, “Longbottom” for “Wizard” + “Leaf”, but there was a bit of head scratching for “Spoor”. Fortunately, somebody had managed to remember that it was something to do with animal scent, which allowed us to eventually get to “Animal” + “Marker”.

It was all going extremely well, scoring 6 after 6, but alas we fell apart when trying to decipher Adam’s clues.

Strictly speaking though, as So Clover is only marketed as a 6 player game, you could actually claim this as a perfect 6 player victory…

And with that we stepped out into the night to make our various ways home (except for Anja and Steve who were already home, and Paul who was visiting.)

... of course

 Downstairs at Joe's place could be the name of an exclusive speakeasy in prohibition era Chicago but is, in fact, the location to which eight ardent gamers gathered. I arrived at the same time as Martin and remarked on Joe’s new dining table to which he replied it wasn’t that new at all. We put it down to the fact I hadn’t been to his house for a while, but then more people arrived and commented on Joe’s new table. He tried to explain this Mandela Effect by saying maybe there’d previously been a table cloth on it, or perhaps the new curtains were contributing to the sense of newness in the room. Either way, the mystery of Joe’s “new” table remains unsolved.

Anyway,we began with six of us (Martin , Adam H, Sam, Joe, Ian and myself) playing Continuous Pairs. Adam changed seats just after the game began, causing a little confusion in the dealing and Sam misremembered the rules for when to deal people in, but nevertheless we muddled through..

Adam played an amazing game, having a run of five consecutive values. I tried to get a photo of it but Sam had folded and he decided to take the lowest card in the run just before the photo was taken. 

Martin lost and Joe declared himself winner until someone pointed out that I had fewer points at which point Joe reverted to the official rules of there being no winner.

We played again, Katy arrived, and Sam lost.

Now we split into two groups. Martin, Adam and Katy played Gazebo, despite Katy’s reservations about the amount of plastic. Joe, Sam, Ian and I played “Fives” a trick taking game where the sum total of the winning cards in your tricks can’t exceed 25. What makes the game unique (and, some might say, unintuitive) is the fact that every card can be a purple 5, allowing you to get rid of some unwanted high value cards in your hand. 

We spent some time trying to understand when it is permissible to play a purple 5 and then we began the game. Then, after round one, Joe looked at the rules book again and noticed something in tiny writing, explaining that players can’t play more than one purple 5 cards in a trick “of course.” And it was the “of course” thing that really bothered us, as we tried to work out what part of the game set-up would suggest that particular rule. “I’m being gaslit by a rule book,” complained Joe.

So we started again and Ian impressed us all by finishing the final round with exactly 25 points in front of him, getting him a 3-point bonus.

Ian 13

Andrew 10

Sam 9

Joe 8

Gazebo had finished 

Martin - no gazebos left

Katy 4

Adam 6

And they went on to play Soda Jerk with Katy apparently unaware that this was a real thing and not just a phrase made up for a board game.

Adam 23

Katy -2 

Martin -45

Around this time Andy M arrives and he joins Martin, Ian and Katy for a game of Jungo which Martin wins, exclaiming “Soda Jerk is erased!”

Then there was a reshuffle in personnel and I was introduced to the joys of Big Wave, along with Martin, Katy and Sam. This trick-taker is “a very mental game” according to Martin although he only said this halfway through. It’s a trick taker where you have to not follow suit to any card that’s been played before in a trick. 

There are a bunch of rules that tweak the typical trick-taking procedures for those who don’t win a trick. I usually “caught a wave” allowing me to boost a future card by 2 or more points. Martin often took a point and nominated the next person to begin a hand, and invariably chose Katy. It didn’t seem to help.

Sam 58

Andrew 46

Katy 43

Martin 38

Then I left. I think Katy left too, since I later heard from Sam that he and Martin played So Clover twice, scoring 10 and then 9. Sheepy time ended with a victory for Ian with Adam in second and Joe and Andy “nowhere”.

Thanks all, it was special.

Nutritious Scarecrow

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and Joe was on driving duty: picking me up a little after 7 and then Ian and Martin en route. Joe insisted he knew where he was going and he mostly did, only losing the thread at the final corner, questioning "Where am I?" in a way that suggested maybe he was reflecting on bigger things than the geography of Barton Fields. But moments later we were relieved of any further existential concerns and in the house, where Arthur and Louie formed semi-adjacent participants for the first game of the night: Perfect Mismatch. 

This is a weird party game where playing co-operatively (there's also a competitive variant) one player is trying to successfully clue the others to one of six possible words on a card. The catch is that the clueing is bizarrely restrained to a series of spectrums - sort of - where the extremes are completely unrelated attributes. Is a scarecrow more unbreakable than it is nutritious? Is a career more legal than it is daytime? Ian, Joe and Martin all took turns clueing as Anja joined us for the finale. We had mixed success, succeeding with maximum points only once but avoiding the ignominy of placing the right guess in the worst place. 

Steve was briefly glimpsed but still focused on settling Lennon, so whilst Louie and Arthur began building a den we split into groups of three and four. Adam wanted a Cascadero rematch and so Ian, Martin and I joined him for that. At the other end of the table, Joe talked Anja and Pete through Sunrise Lane, and the mini-Kniziathon was underway. 

Cascadero had a cagey start - nobody wanted to be the first to offer up points to someone else, so the envoys were largely eyeing the towns from a safe distance. Then when things kicked into gear it transpired we were talking different strategic approaches. Adam was harvesting seals as much as he could, working towards not only that three-point bonus but a late-game salvo that would catapult him up the track. Ian and I were probably more tactically-minded, trying to nab opportunities as they arose. Martin didn't pick up a single seal all game, but we naively let him generate a lot of farming income, and he built a huge early lead. 

Sunrise Lane ended around the same moment as Lennon's bedtime, with Joe taking the win:

Joe 108
Anja 94
Pete 90

And with bedtime also, which Steve appeared. As we were still mulling, occasionally to excess, in Cascadero, they began playing Indigo, a game I've never played but thought it looked a bit like Tsuro. "It's Knizia does Tsuro" Steve confirmed later. 

Or in this case, Anja does Tsuro:

Anja 10
Steve 8
Pete 7
Joe 3

In Cascadero we were now coming to a grand finale - grand for Martin anyway. I briefly caught him only for our resident Kniziaphile to surge away once more, reaching the top of his track just in time before the game ended as we ran out of envoys. Adam's seal-powered surge was impressive, but there was no victory this time. 

Martin 47

Sam 41

Adam 36

Ian 28

Adam and Arthur now said goodbye and made their way home. Louie delayed for as long as possible but the Dalton-Dale hammer came down and he was packed off to bed. The Indigo quartet played Indigo again! 

As Ian and I went from taking a pasting by Martin in one game to taking a pasting by Martin in another: this time, Gazebo. We tried a new board, with 'raised patios', the specifics of which are interesting when you play but too boring to list here. 

As with Cascadero, Martin had a strongish lead mid-game, we caught him near the end before he surged again. I had an outside chance of pipping him to the post with my last turn, if by some wild chance he had no blue on his dominoes. But he did, and instead of a triumphant victory I shunted myself from second to third. Fucking gazebos. 

Martin all gazebos erected!

Ian - two gazebos still in their packaging

Sam - three gazebos thrown across the lawn in a tantrum

At the other end of the table, Indigo had already finished:

Joe 10

Pete 8

Anja and Steve 7 each

And they were blowing each other up in Light Speed: Arena.

Joe won this by Griffithesque margins, with Steve baffled by what just happened. 

Joe - 25

Anja and Pete - 15 each

Steve 12

"It's a silly game, but I like it" said Joe, reholstering his space blaster. I tend to agree, even if you spend longer scoring than you do playing. 

Now what? We shuffled seats with Martin Joe and Pete teaching Anja Gang of Dice and Ian, Steve and I playing Misfits. Here are the three hand positions of the former, illustrated by Anja (whut) Martin (er) and Joe (hah).  

There was to be much drama in both games. At our end of the table both Steve and I made it to our last piece more than once, only to have things collapse on us. Ian at one stage seemed to have All The Pieces, and we confected something so top-heavy that the Gang paused their Dice to watch in wonder. 

Meantime in Gang of Dice Anja found herself on the receiving end of fate's indifferent attitude to plucky against-the-odds dice-rolling, almost entirely bereft of dice halfway through the game. But though I missed the finer details, she staged an incredible recovery - just not quite enough to catch Joe. 

Joe 48

Anja 46

Pete 39

Martin 29

Misfits finished at the same time, after an epic of wild swings and roundabouts. In the end it was Steve who took the win, after Ian and I both knocked things over one too many times. 

There was loose talk of getting Perfect Mismatch out again, but was no time for an all-person closer with the hour now gone eleven. After a brief consultation about Steve's facial hair/lack of, it was time to go home. Thanks all. 

Four gazebos in one day

 “You're early,” said Sam as he opened his front door. Technically, I was late but I had been too pessimistic in my ETA and had arrived a full six minutes before I said I would.

Inside, Martin, Ian, Adam H and Joe were just starting a game of Pairs. Continuous Pairs to be exact. Ian ended the game as he collected more than 15 points and Adam, who’d been doing very well, was disappointed that there was no winner, only one loser.

Since there were six of us, we split into two groups of three. At the far end of the table, Sam, Ian and Martin played Gazebo. This was a “new” Knizia game - a reskin of Qin, but I guess someone decided that it was less like a territorial battle for China and was more like making the biggest gardens.

The game requires that people put down tiles, trying to make areas of the same colour into which they can place gazebos. A single gazebo is in danger of being overtaken from neighbouring gazebos with a larger area, but a double gazebo is safe. The idea of the game is to be the first to get rid of your gazebos. 

They played twice:

Sam 0 gazebos left

Ian 4

Martin 5

And then 

Martin 0

Sam 4

Ian 5

Meanwhile, Joe, Adam and I played Ponzi Scheme. This game involves picking up money with impossible terms of repayment. I was bemused by the player aid, with its grey text on a grey background, but the game is simple enough that I didn’t need it. 

Adam was cautious throughout,  whereas I was the first to pick up a big card in round 3. Adam also excelled at trading, and he soon had a column of yellow buildings in front of him. Buildings are how you score points in this game but I was mostly selling them for money to pay off my debts. 

This explains the gulf in scores - the game suddenly ended when Joe admitted that he'd miscalculated a transaction and now couldn’t afford to service his debts. 

Adam 24

Andrew 4

Joe 0

At this point,  we rearranged our seats and games. Sam brought out some chocolates: only slightly sqaushed and discoloured with age. We still ate them. 

Meanwhile, regarding games: Sam, Adam and Ian played Cascadero while Martin introduced Joe and I to Gazebo.

Cascadero ended with a win to Sam, "and after all that complaining," he admitted.

I start badly, focusing on blocking Martin and Joe without having a plan of my own. Despite a good move in round three that removed two enemy gazebos (not a term you get to use very often in everyday life) and placed three of my own. But it was too little too late and Martin marched to a win. 

Martin 0

Joe 5

Andrew 10

We set up again. I was determined to erase the ignominy of the worst score of the day, a played super cautious. As indeed did Joe and Martin. We were so focused on not opening opportunities for our opponents that a third of the board lay untouched for most of the game. 

It ended with Martin stealing a territory from Joe, allowing him to place his last gazebo. 

Martin 0

Joe 2

Andrew 3

By now, Adam had left. Sam and Ian played Toy Battle and Sam won. They'd set up to play again but I left before any victor could be decided. 

Sam informed me late of two games of So Clover with scores of 22 and then 21 out of 24. Oh, and before I'd arrived, Martin had beaten Sam at Bombastic and then they'd all played a 1-round game of Jungo that Sam won.

Thanks all, another special evening.