The Wild, the Innocent, and the Suicidal Shuffle

Andrew and I haven't managed to squeeze in a little Monday night session for a while now, but last night we had a shared 8 to 9.30 slot in which to squeeze in a couple of games.

Firstly we played the effervescent 7 Wonders, which was notable - to me at least - because of my score which I think is a new record. Neither Andrew nor Dirk contested me on military, and that combined with my Mausoleum of Halikarnnassus (which allowed me to build two discarded buildings for free) allowed me to put together a string of sciences too, culminating in 81 points. Thanks Gonz.

It looks like 61, but it's not

However if I thought the evening couldn't get better I had forgotten the charms and potential of Cube Quest, which after an initial burst of play has had a little turn on the shelf. 

Our first game was over fairly quickly and had it been the first play ever might have left us slightly underwhelmed. But the second was an epic. Skirmish after skirmish was fought around the perimeter of the battle, and at this point there was only small hints of the madness to come. But as we ran out of troops, the pressure told on both of us, and our armies began to take on an air of unregimented disorder. Wild flicks sent them careering off the board at a rate of knots, and the closest we came to defeating the opposing king were slightly fey slaps to the face as a wannabe hero flew by. At one stage my promising-looking flick propelled my cube kingwards, only for it to suddenly leap skittishly into the air and over the king to his own demise. 

After a breathless 10 or so minutes we were down to a Mexican standoff, with two cubes each left on the board.

 9.02pm

We shuffled for position, and promptly both flicked our Grunts off the board with opposing kings unscratched.

9.03pm

Andrew moved forward to try and tempt me into a flick. I chickened out and move backwards, hoping to do the same. Andrew shuffled forward an inch. Then I decided that it was death or glory, and went for the kill. As it turned out it was death and glory, as after punching Andrew's king off the board my own reeled away in celebration and didn't look where he was going, falling off the table and leaving the kingdom entirely unpopulated. Why can't these guys just share?

Survival of the Fattest

Sunday, Portishead. Games weren't originally on the agenda, but after a beach walk and an enormous meal (this was nearly called Roulade for the Soul) Katie, Mark, Sally and I stuffed to the point of inertness, and communication was reduced to a series of gestural wheezes. We were ready to hand over the communal child wrangle to the television, so a screening of Despicable Me was set up and, a window of time opening up, we were struck by the urge to play a game.

Vegas was brought out. For those uninitiated, this cheeky little number has a playing area of six casinos labelled 1 to 6, that at the start of the game are dealt a bunch of dollars (minimum $50,000). On your turn, you roll all of your dice (you have eight at the start) and choose which ones to put in a casino in an attempt to win the money. The dice numbers and the casino number must match, so if you choose your three 4s you put them in the casino marked 4. And note: they all must go in; you can't split up matching numbers.

This continues until everyone has run out of dice, then the person with the most dice in a particular casino takes the highest showing money card. If there's a second card, the person with the second-most dice takes that and so on.

The potentially brilliant/agonising thing about it however, is that if two people tie for the same amount of dice they cancel each other out - so (as in our game) when Mark and Katie got into a battle for a $90,000 money card they ended up with four dice each, and Peppa and I (playing as a team) took first place and the cash with a solitary die.

courtesy BGG user Tonksey

I started well with a decent haul in the first round, snagging a small lead over the others. My tactic was to hedge my bets and put in a single die here or there, hoping to give myself a bit of choice when the others ran out of dice. But in the second round we were all blown out of the water by Katie, who picked up $250,000 while the rest of us ended with scraps.

At this point it seemed like The Chiseller was well on her way, but three things happened in my favour. First, Mark and Katie began fighting over the same casinos. Second, Peppa got bored with Despicable Me and joined my team as Official Dice Roller, performing the task with something akin to dark magick in terms of what we wanted. Finally Joe peed on the sofa and Sally's attention was distracted by admonishment and laundry duties.

Also I should add that I encouraged the others to go after Katie, like the sneaky little shit that I am.

As Katie and Mark got into a philosophical debate about how their shared love was or wasn't manifesting itself through die placement, and Sally chased a damp-crotched reprobate around the living room, Peppa and I cleaned up.

Peppa and Sam $520,000
Katie $450,000
Sally $330,000
Mark $240,000

All of which means, after a long period of playing second fiddle to Katie or Mark, I stay top on the extremely occasional KMSS leaderboard. Sally improves her numbers but stays fourth, and Katie leapfrogs Mark. I keep telling them we're going to play 7 Wonders so that will probably be next...

KMSS						Points
Sam		1	1	1	2	5
Katie		2	3	4	1	10
Mark		4	2	2	3	11
Sally		3	4	3	4	14

Old tool(s)

With Netrunner not really catching fire with myself and James this weeks 2 player event saw some tried and tested titles in attendance. When asked James said he had a hankering (Or a synonym like it) for Stone Age. It felt a while since we had played it but we both knew the game inside out. As is often the case in 2 player Stone Age access to everything is pretty much on tap and therefore keeping an eye on which of the 4 key multipliers your opponent is majoring in and taking up the slack is sort of the only challenge. There is the opportunity to damage each others scoring potential by picking up a culture card which duplicates a technology you already hold. In this game we both elected not to do this (Unspoken of course)  as it often felt like a sub optimal move.

James' tactic of hoarding expensive resources and then over paying for huts saw him make great gains on the score track and build such an impressive line of dwellings I had to double check we weren't playing Alhambra. (Pause, wait for laughter to die down.) My tactic, purely decided by the first culture cards that I picked up, was for fields and axes and trying to keep up with James in the scoring. Before the final count up I think I was somewhere between 15 and 20 points behind and not keen on my chances. James scored his multipliers first and lapped me twice to post 284. My totals faired better than I feared and I managed to creep past reaching 304.

Chris - 304
James - 281

Next up was 7 Wonders with the 2 player free city variant. We both are becoming old pros now when it comes to using the free city to our advantage. Cards your opponents want can be generously handed to the non-player it so that its money can flow into your coffers or used as a card to build layers of their wonder. Their military often gets a boost if one player has neglected to invest adequately in red cards, similarly the blue buildings cards when its a free upgrade building. The game was close and in fact was only decided by me getting a very useful guild pop up at the end from the draw deck that gave me 6 points.

Chris - 51
James - 44

Soul Through The Ages

I arrived late at the fortnightly Roll For The Soul games meet, and I found four gamers (Hannah, Martin, Adam and Ryan) knee-deep in a game of Carcassone, and Joe watching while he ate. It was Adam’s homegrown version, where the fimo farmers tower over their fields and cities like a B-movie version of Carcassone. Except that the usual B-movie trope of the woman falling over at important moments and needing to be rescued by the hero did not take place. In fact, Hannah won, with the others not winning.

While they finished their game, Joe and I played Roll Through The Ages. Joe was a bit rusty on the rules but not on strategy as he went for the quick win, filling himself up with cheap developments, while I got more cities nice and early and went for more exclusive developments. Joe’s spoiler tactic won, and he got to five developments, ending the game, when I had only got three.

I got a beer from the counter, and I guess I must be a regular now since the owner handed me my order before I’d even said anything.

Hannah left and more people arrived, and we decided to split into two groups. The friendly, mixed-gender group playing a game on a recognisable map with trains that passers-by can instantly understand. And the other, less friendly group of three old men in the corner, playing a game with cubes and tiles and no clear objective unless you’ve already played it twice.

Adam cleverly sold Ticket To Ride to the newcomers by describing as being like Inter-Railing. That seemed to swing it, but one of them was intrigued by Tinners’ Trail, amazed that there was a board game set in Cornwall.

I didn’t take many pictures today, so instead here’s one I took earlier:

Happy Adam

Joe, Martin and I decided to give The Palaces of Carrara another go. This game has tantalised us with its sense of almost understanding it, but not quite. Maybe next go it’ll click. Not since Biblios has a game hidden its winning strategy so effectively.

Except that maybe Martin has cracked it. He won the first game, although it was close between himself and Joe. Martin’s strategy was to end the game soon as possible and rely on after-game bonuses, even though he’d barely scored a point during the game itself. Joe got second and I was third.

During this game, a drunken man wobbled over to us, pointed out of the window at a passing bus and stammered “Look! A train! In London!” After a few seconds, he changed London to Bristol, but was still shocked at seeing a train in the street. And then the cafe owner gave him some food in a brown paper bag, and that distracted him long enough for him to forget that he’d been talking to us at all and he wobbled away again.

Then we begun on a second attempt at Palaces... and found it was a closer affair. Possibly because Martin misread one of the end-game criteria (which change every game) and far from being about to finish he was, in fact, in a terrible position.

Despite that, he still grabbed a couple of powerful upgrade tiles and shot himself off around the scoretrack. As for me and Joe, our tussle for second relied on one decision: whether or not Joe would build a new building, or score what he already had. If he built, he risked a cheap building being drawn from the pile which I’d be able to build and end the game immediately leaving him without a chance to score.

He chose to build. A cheap building came out, and his fate was sealed. Martin hit triple figures, I got seventy-something and Joe lay in a distant third in the 30s, cursing his luck.

On the other table, Ticket To Ride ended. Adam didn’t win, despite his usual tactic of hoarding masses of cards in his huge spade-like hands. I can’t remember who did win, but they got 114 points. More or less the only number I remember from that evening.

But before they finished, we were able to squeeze in a quick game of Sticheln. This cunning trick-taking game is beautifully designed, even if it did take us a couple of attempts at getting the dealing right. Joe won, despite picking up the highest number of bad cards. I got no cards at all and came in second.

And then it was time to wend our ways away, into Bristol’s darkened, drunk-lined streets. See you in two weeks!

Eclipse round the ear

Tuesday evening, mid October. Time for games.

Today we were six: Myself, Adam, Joe, Sam, Gonz and Quentin, who’d brought Eclipse with me. Well, when I saw that game on the table, my decision was made. It was time to go back to the stars!

Amazingly, people weren’t keen on my suggestion of six player Eclipse, so Joe, Sam and Gonz went into the other room to play something lighter and more fun, and they refused to take the twiglets with them. Adam, brave man that he is, was plunged headlong into a set of rules that, at first, make little sense even when explained patiently by Quentin.

We began, and Adam began by exploring the less risk/less reward III hexagons. I got a couple of lucky planets and ended up with lots of money coming in, allowing me to build up my fleet. Quentin sent his brave Interceptors into battle, only to see them shot to pieces by the implacable alien forces.

In fact, Quentin found himself stuck behind two alien sectors, unable to expand because Adam had taken most of the III hexagons. Instead, he busied himself in making his area as full of victory points as possible. I went for the big prize in the middle: The Alien HQ in the centre of the board! But by chance, Adam also wanted to have a go, too, and arrived at the same time. We we duty bound to fight it out amongst ourselves first.

What could have been a mighty and epic battle was over rather quickly, as luck favoured me and I shot down his two dreadnoughts. And if that wasn’t anti-climax enough, then I wiped out the alien base in one go. We stared at my collection of fives and sixes in stunned silence, before I took the spoils of (a very short) war.

By this time, the we were into the last round, and we tried to get as many victory points as possible. I went exploring, hoping to find more aliens to kill. Adam levelled up his technology and Quentin built a monolith.

Then, we added up the scores, and I’d won: Andrew 34; Adam 33; Quentin 33. But then Adam changed his last move, giving him the win: Adam 35; Andrew 34; Quentin 33. At the time I was so caught up in the excitement of a close result that it didn’t occur to me: You’re not allowed to take back your last go after the results are in. Maybe I’m being over-sensitive about this, but at least I should’ve got to change my last go too (which would’ve given me a win). Any thoughts? I’ll hold back on doing the leaderboard until it’s settled.

[EDIT] Joe has spoken. Adam's win stands.

Adam 35
Andrew 34
Quentin 33

In the other room, they played Kingdom Builder first.

Gonz 83
Joe 58
Sam 45

And followed it up with Downfall of Pompeii:

Joe 12 (fewest in the volcano)
Gonz 12
Sam 11

Hopefully, they'll fill us in with the details soon.

						Points
Adam	1	2	1	1	1	6
Gonz	2	1	1	1	2	7
Joe	1	2	1	2	3	9
Sam	3	3	3	2	1	12
Andrew	2	2	3	3	4	14
Quentin	3	5	5	5	5	23

Whose Top Ten?

Not my top ten games, and not yours. But all of us. Looking at the stats for games played since we started the blog it's interesting - okay, it's obsessive and unhealthy - to note which games have been played the most. For this list I'm disregarding fillers such as Trans America, Incan Gold, Biblios etc and just picking up on those longer games which have been played into double figures.

7 Wonders - 33 plays
Stone Age - 28
Alhambra - 26
Lords of Waterdeep - 22
Tinner's Trail - 21
Ticket to Ride - 17
Agricola - 14
Ra - 11
Railways of the World - 10
Ascending Empires - 10
Macao - 10

- with Brass just bubbling under on 9 plays so far. What does this tell us about our little group? Aside from the fact that this member has a limited attention span when it comes to drawing maps... That's what I should be doing right now. I think we should doff our caps to Lords of Waterdeep - for all the praise Tinner's Trail garners Lords has swept past it in pretty short order. Agricola would be higher had we started the blog a year earlier. And in a year's time I'd bet Railways will be higher.

Out of interest here's the top fillers list:

Biblios 33
Trans America/Europa 26
Tsuro 25
No Thanks 17
Poison 15
6 Nimmt 12
Roll Through the Ages 12
Incan Gold 11
Cube Quest 11

Straight to Video

Saturday night, my place. A quarter of a century ago that meant cans of Heineken and watching Animal House (again), but one kind of societal non-starter has been replaced by another - games.

It was a bit like some kind of 70's war film, where a disparate band of heroes - probably featuring an aging Gregory Peck and under-40-possibly Roger Moore - attempted to negotiate their way to a hideout in the Alps before sabotaging a Nazi rally. But just as in war there were casualties and members of the crack gang who couldn't make it  - Matt was tied down by family and Steve literally was in hospital; thankfully with a short-term treatment for a relative.

While real dramas played out elsewhere myself (Borgnine), Andrew (Bronson) and Gonz (Kinski) did make it to the secret hideout. Gonz was first, and - I'm giving up on that analogy now- the first thing he witnessed was me dropping my dinner on the floor in the front room. I've only met Gonz once before and I was conscious that as first impressions go this wasn't ideal. However we laughed it off and, having put some tired kids to bed, played a couple of warm-up games before Andrew arrived.

Gonz was intrigued by Biblios so we did that first. He focussed entirely on browns and blues and, having won the tie-breaker on the latter thanks to the alphabet, wiped the floor with me 10-5. We then played Tsuro and I exacted some measure of revenge, winning once by default and once again by dastardly tile placement. But these were mere fripperies of course and the meat and drink of the evening began when Andrew arrived.

Gonz gave us the hard sell on Dungeon Petz, but though it did appeal I wasn't feeling energised enough to take on a big rule-learning session for a fairly long game. Instead we perused the cupboard and after a matter of seconds agreed on Lords of Waterdeep - which needs no introduction. Everybody knew exactly what they were doing and we were off. I was fortunate enough to be dealt the mission-that-gets-you-the-leiutenant at the outset and by round three had him up and running. Andrew was leading the field for three-quarters of the game, but fell away at the end as everyone struggled for money and I in particular for rogues. You'd think with no rogues there'd be money about but Waterdeep's a strange place. Before we scored our Lords bonuses I was 1pt ahead of Gonz - and thankfully for me we both scored 28 points for our seven valued missions:

Sam 156
Gonz 155
Andrew 124

 courtesy BGG

Next up was 7 Wonders. Again, a friendly face. But our universal perception at GNN (and Area 51 as I recall) of the sciences being over-rated was turned on it's head by Gonz, who specialised in science to a degree I have never seen before and scored 36 points from them. Allied to little bit of military might (11 points) it was enough to give him a comfortable win as well as opening up a real pandora's box:

Gonz 59
Sam 54
Andrew 40

Finally we played Portobello Market, which is a bit of a sleeper in GNN world. It only takes about 40 minutes to play and I think the fact it feels a bit in no-man's land between filler and not-filler means it doesn't get to the table verey often, but it's very nice; very strategic. My early lead seemed to stagnate though and I was overtaken by my sparring partners:

Gonx 111
Andrew 109
Sam 99

 courtesy BGG

I could have done one more game myself but it was half-ten and the others decided we could blow up some Nazis another day.

						Points
Adam	2	1	1	1	2	7
Gonz	1	1	2	3	3	10
Joe	1	2	3	3	3	12
Andrew	2	3	3	4	1	13
Sam	3	2	1	5	5	16