It was back to drawing games out of our mini league tub for this week's entertainment. Only we cheated a bit because we all had a desire to play something substantial, and on a board.
Ticket to Ride and El Grande was nudged to the front and as two titles that hadn't been unboxed in many a Bracknell moon. TTR is not my favourite game as I feel it's a bit too light weight for it's length but James and especially Paul, regard it with much fondness.
Everybody plumped for a regular style of play whereby you do a little bit of card hoarding, then get a little bit worried someones going to go in your place, then stick down some routes and then hoard a few more cards. Only Paul's strategy varied from mine and James. His experience playing my iPad app had taught him that lots of short routes interlinking creates more possibilities when picking up extra route cards. At the end his routes were many and completed which meant that my longest route didn't affect him. Or James for that matter as I had forgotten to finish one of my routes.
Paul - 146
James - 124
Chris - 118
On to El Grande the old lady of Euro games. It was only James that needed a few prompters so ingrained that it is in Paul and my memories but we were up and running pretty quickly. Paul's general advice of "get men distributed on the board early" was heeded by all bar himself, and as James and I stretched our leads after the second scoring round he never recovered. In the final third it became nip and tuck between James and myself as he steadily ate into my lead and eventually passed it. All of the tricks were being adopted, moving each others men into useless places, usurping each others home territories, and out guessing everyones placements with the wheels. All the while Paul played catch up whilst admirably not becoming kingmaker in the process. My penultimate move where I moved 5 of James's men into one low scoring territory seemed to be enough to nudge me ahead as he wasted his final move repositioning them.
Chris - 154
James - 146
Paul - 109
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Games are like Amerigo-round.
GNN is like a lucky dip these days: you never know what you’re going to get. One minute Adam shows up unexpected, then Chris can make it over from Bracknell, and today Paul came all the way from London to visit Cardiff and join us in our regular Tuesday games night. And if that weren’t enough, Steve manged to make it over too. Adam was hosting and, with Hannah to tired to join in, we were seven in number: Me, Sam, Matt, Paul, Ian, Adam and Steve.
But before Steve arrived, we indulged in a little Camel Up. This betting game is simplicity itself, which is probably why it appeals so much to us. But this was the first time we’d played it with so many, and that did change the game slightly. Because there was such a long gaps between turns, it seemed like everyone was doing whatever they could except actually move the camels along. If they did this, then they next few players would be in a better position to bet with the new position of the camels. Steve arrived midway through and commented that, for a race, the camels didn’t move much.
Matt 24
Paul 15
Ian 14
Sam 13
Adam 10
Andrew 8
Then we split into two. Like last week, Adam, Matt and myself we sent to the front room while the other group played a game that needed more surface area. We chose Concordia, while Ian, Steve, Paul and Sam took on Amerigo, an epic game whose promises of random maps and a dice tower were enough to convince the newbies to set sail.
In the front room, I explained the rules of Concordia to Adam and we began. It was pretty slow going, and Adam found the cognitive load quite a burden. He said that every new card that was revealed made him want to change his strategy.
Matt’s reputation as the obscure mule was well deserved, as he quietly monopolised wine. I went for brick and cloth cities mostly. In the end, those rolls of blue silk were enough to push me into first.
Andrew 125
Matt 120
Adam 104
With Amerigo nowhere near ending, we went for a game of No Thanks. This was new to Matt, so we explained the rules and then explained them again midway through the game as he didn’t seem to have understood the rule about chaining cards together. He still did okay though.
Matt 43
Adam 67
Andrew 74
Still Amerigo had land untouched by human hand, so we squeezed in a second game. This time I eschewed my usual strategy of low cards and went for higher cards instead. I got a bit of luck with a run of five, and that was enough to give me what I think is my first ever win on No Thanks! (I’ve come joint first before, but this is my first solo victory.)
Andrew 30
Adam 31
Matt 49
And by now Amerigo was over, and multipliers had been totted up. As you might expect from someone with such a strong reputation with long thinky games, Steve came away the winner.
Steve 128
Sam 118
Paul 118
Ian 100
Amazing scenes on the leaderboard, as Joe rises to top spot, even though we haven’t seen him in about two weeks!
But before Steve arrived, we indulged in a little Camel Up. This betting game is simplicity itself, which is probably why it appeals so much to us. But this was the first time we’d played it with so many, and that did change the game slightly. Because there was such a long gaps between turns, it seemed like everyone was doing whatever they could except actually move the camels along. If they did this, then they next few players would be in a better position to bet with the new position of the camels. Steve arrived midway through and commented that, for a race, the camels didn’t move much.
Matt 24
Paul 15
Ian 14
Sam 13
Adam 10
Andrew 8
Then we split into two. Like last week, Adam, Matt and myself we sent to the front room while the other group played a game that needed more surface area. We chose Concordia, while Ian, Steve, Paul and Sam took on Amerigo, an epic game whose promises of random maps and a dice tower were enough to convince the newbies to set sail.
In the front room, I explained the rules of Concordia to Adam and we began. It was pretty slow going, and Adam found the cognitive load quite a burden. He said that every new card that was revealed made him want to change his strategy.
Matt’s reputation as the obscure mule was well deserved, as he quietly monopolised wine. I went for brick and cloth cities mostly. In the end, those rolls of blue silk were enough to push me into first.
Andrew 125
Matt 120
Adam 104
With Amerigo nowhere near ending, we went for a game of No Thanks. This was new to Matt, so we explained the rules and then explained them again midway through the game as he didn’t seem to have understood the rule about chaining cards together. He still did okay though.
Matt 43
Adam 67
Andrew 74
Still Amerigo had land untouched by human hand, so we squeezed in a second game. This time I eschewed my usual strategy of low cards and went for higher cards instead. I got a bit of luck with a run of five, and that was enough to give me what I think is my first ever win on No Thanks! (I’ve come joint first before, but this is my first solo victory.)
Andrew 30
Adam 31
Matt 49
And by now Amerigo was over, and multipliers had been totted up. As you might expect from someone with such a strong reputation with long thinky games, Steve came away the winner.
Steve 128
Sam 118
Paul 118
Ian 100
Amazing scenes on the leaderboard, as Joe rises to top spot, even though we haven’t seen him in about two weeks!
| Points | ||||||
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Matt | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Sam | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Martin | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Chris | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| Andrew | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 14 |
| Adam | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 14 |
| Ian | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 17 |
| Paul | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Steve | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
| Hannah | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Wine bottles and cola cubes
On Sunday with the house still empty - and having spent a day doing tax return stuff - I whimsically texted Chris in case he could make it to Bristol… and he could! We sent out invitations and Andrew - despite the epic games session of the day before - came up to join us, and help me out with the 5-litre bottle of wine I've been struggling through over the weekend.
Before he got there I familiarized Chris with Camel Up, so when Andrew came in we were ready to dive straight into leaderboard action with a flurry of ungulatory betting.
But despite mine and Chris' warm-up game it was Andrew who romped home with the most winnings:
Andrew 31
Sam 24
Chris 18
With that palette-cleanser out of the road, we browsed the cupboard. Chris fancied playing something new and reasonably weighty, so I proposed Concordia. It was to be an epic battle! Concordia's unusual scoring system reminded Chris of Stone Age, and after taking over Spain, generating enough cloth to put a curtain around it, and getting a whole bunch of followers on the board, he was worried that he hadn't picked up enough cards for the end-game bonuses.
I was of a similar mind, but Chris' strong showing on the board was enough to score him a big 96 points - exactly the same as me, in fact. Chris won on the tie-breaker rule of holding (or being next to receive, in this case) the Prefectus Magnus card. Andrew had never seemed to get going to me and I thought maybe he was worn out from the camels - but obviously he'd been effective enough to stay competitive:
Chris 96 (wins on tie-breaker)
Sam 96
Andrew 88
Next up we pulled out Take It Easy. This game burnt bright for a good few weeks at GNN before sloping off to the cupboard; but I still really enjoy it. We stuck with our meme of announcing the tiles with a theme. Andrew did things from the eighties, I did B-Movies, and Chris did sweets-you-had-when-you-were-young, meaning 5-7-8 was cola cubes.
I decided not to obsess over nines and curiously, it paid off:
Sam 537
Chris 505
Andrew 340
Andrew at this point said he was going to head off and Chris and I decided to do one more game before he too, went home. We chose 7 Wonders, at which point Andrew shucked his coat off again and sat down at the table.
Not for the first time I elected to go for sciences, only to abandon the plan very early on. Andrew did them instead, and scored big - but neither of us got close enough to the 7 Wonder king, who combined military might with a hefty collection of blue buildings:
Chris 58
Sam 54
Andrew 49
Great to get Chris on the leaderboard, even if he won too many games for our liking!
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Adam | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Martin | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Chris | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| Andrew | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| Matt | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 14 |
| Ian | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Hannah | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Nights of Camel-ot
Saturday games! Two words that don’t go together nearly enough. Sam’s injured foot meant he was unable to accompany his family on a brief camping trip. And so, with the house to himself, he and I met up during the afternoon for some gaming and writing shenanigans, with the evening open to all for some leaderboard activity!
We wrote a bit while the other set up a game. At first, I was typing away while Sam sorted out a game of Camel Up (at first we erroneously called it Camel Cup, a name that I’m quite fond of now I’m used to it) which is a quick and quirky betting game. Five camels run around a short circuit, propelled by dice that go from 1 to 3. But the catch is that if one camel lands on another, then it is carried on the second one if it moves too. Therefore, it is rare for a camel to be completely out of the running, and common for the possibilities for the eventual winner to be very complex.
Add to this plenty of mid-race betting, and other ways to get money, and you have a quick half hour gambling fix that reminded both Sam and me of Manila, but shorter and sillier and more tense.
Andrew 46
Sam 36
Then, with about three hours before Ian’s arrival at six, we decided to try one of the epic games that have been taking up precious space in Sam’s games cupboard. First, we went for Colonial, with it’s lovely design and promises of politics and diplomacy on the high seas. But, as we were setting up, we noticed the rules suggested that the first game shouldn’t be a two-player game, since that’s a variant of the “real” game.
Not to worry, we thought, and we switched our attention to Terra Mystica. However, after painstakingly separating out the pieces, lining up the scoring tiles, we discovered that first-timers needed to follow certain rules... which we couldn’t find in the rule book. With time pressing, we put it away too, and broke out another new game.
This one, Lewis & Clark (nothing to do with Superman - apparently they were two pioneers of the American West) was quicker to lay out and easier to understand. Sort of. Sam struggled with some of the maths, and with almost every card having a different power, the options available towards the end of the game meant there was some analysis paralysis.
The game is simple. You need to explore the wild west of North America (as shown by the progress of your scout along a river from Saint Louis to Fort Clatsop) and to do this, you need to activate certain cards by using other cards to support it and, if necessary, some native Americans too.
This allows you to collect resources, turn them into canoes/horses to help you progress, but be careful: if you end up with no cards left and having to “set up camp” (ie, take all your cards back into your hand) while you have lots of resources and Native Americans, then you can find yourself being sent backwards down the river.
It’s not very intuitive, with lots of obscure icons clogging up cards and tiles. I got the hang of it quicker than Sam but, ultimately, my winning move was actually an illegal move that we’d been getting wrong all through the game (the number of Native Americans able to use each space in the village: I thought it was unlimited, Sam thought it was two, it turned out to be one). It would’ve been wrong to suddenly play by the real rules, but it still felt like a hollow victory. But a victory nevertheless!
Andrew won!
Sam didn’t.
An interesting game. Interesting and worth a second look sometime.
By now, Ian had arrived, and we had supper (Sam’s chili – very nice it was too), completed the Guardian’s cryptic crossword (Sam had already done most of it) and set forth on a real game.
Sam and I were keen to get Camel Up (still called Camel Cup at this hour) back on the table. We explained the rules to Ian, and we were off!
Sam 28
Ian 24
Andrew 22
The first game whizzed by so fast that we couldn’t resist the lure of a second game. Like the cheesy nibbles I kept scooping into my mouth, it was impossible to just have one. So we set the game up again, and they were off!
Andrew 45
Sam 28
Ian 25
I played the odds and bet early on that the camel in last would finish last, and the camel in first would be first, and I turned out to be correct! That alone inflated my win to huge proportions.
After this, I suggested 7 Wonders, since Ian had just learnt the rules, I thought it better to get him back on the horse as soon as possible.
I had the Pyramids of Gizah, so I concentrated on building that, with some military and the occasional blue building here and there but little else. Sam had the Gardens of Babylon (which he said were shit) and went for sciences, a little warfare and a general spread of cards. I don’t remember what Ian had, but he went the pacifist route. Meanwhile his wonder’s power of copying guilds was annulled by neither me nor Sam building any guilds. Ah ha ha!
Sam 57
Andrew 56
Ian 36
As we were finishing off, the doorbell rang. Who could that be, we wondered? Perhaps a neighbour with some pressing domestic crisis? No! It was Adam! We welcomed our friend from Easton with smiling faces and open arms. And then, perhaps foolishly, we gave him the choice of game. He plumped for Railways of the World. This was brand new for Ian, but he’ll have to learn one day so why not today?
We guided him through the rules, but there’s no substitute for experience in this game. Adam rushed off into an early lead, with me in hot pursuit, with both of us picking up bonuses and bounties. Adam had the lucrative north-east seaboard mostly to himself but, for some reason, he wouldn't deliver the many yellow cubes in the vicinity to Baltimore where I had a hotel.
My operations focused around Charleston and Mobile, simply because that’s where the service bounties sent me. Sam went for the big link from Kansas to New York, which shot him into second place midway through the game – a gap I couldn’t close. Ian built around the Great Lakes and, as you’d expect for a first game, never really got going.
Adam 92
Sam 76
Andrew 66
Ian 35
To finish the evening, Camel Up (now properly called Camel Up, thanks to Adam reading the back of the box) was brought back to the table. The rules were explained to Adam, and before he could properly assimilate them, the camels were unleashed! Adam often claimed he didn’t know what to do, but he seemed to know how weigh up the probabilities.
Sam 39
Adam 32
Andrew 29
Ian 25
And after this, we were away into the night. Adam remarked that he should take more months off, because everyone seems to pleased to see him when he arrives. Speaking for myself, I don’t think he should be given choice of games next time. Or any time. Just saying.
Meanwhile, on the Form Table, my reign at the top comes to an abrupt end, with Sam and new-boy Adam fighting it out for top spot.
We wrote a bit while the other set up a game. At first, I was typing away while Sam sorted out a game of Camel Up (at first we erroneously called it Camel Cup, a name that I’m quite fond of now I’m used to it) which is a quick and quirky betting game. Five camels run around a short circuit, propelled by dice that go from 1 to 3. But the catch is that if one camel lands on another, then it is carried on the second one if it moves too. Therefore, it is rare for a camel to be completely out of the running, and common for the possibilities for the eventual winner to be very complex.
Add to this plenty of mid-race betting, and other ways to get money, and you have a quick half hour gambling fix that reminded both Sam and me of Manila, but shorter and sillier and more tense.
Andrew 46
Sam 36
Then, with about three hours before Ian’s arrival at six, we decided to try one of the epic games that have been taking up precious space in Sam’s games cupboard. First, we went for Colonial, with it’s lovely design and promises of politics and diplomacy on the high seas. But, as we were setting up, we noticed the rules suggested that the first game shouldn’t be a two-player game, since that’s a variant of the “real” game.
Not to worry, we thought, and we switched our attention to Terra Mystica. However, after painstakingly separating out the pieces, lining up the scoring tiles, we discovered that first-timers needed to follow certain rules... which we couldn’t find in the rule book. With time pressing, we put it away too, and broke out another new game.
This one, Lewis & Clark (nothing to do with Superman - apparently they were two pioneers of the American West) was quicker to lay out and easier to understand. Sort of. Sam struggled with some of the maths, and with almost every card having a different power, the options available towards the end of the game meant there was some analysis paralysis.
The game is simple. You need to explore the wild west of North America (as shown by the progress of your scout along a river from Saint Louis to Fort Clatsop) and to do this, you need to activate certain cards by using other cards to support it and, if necessary, some native Americans too.
This allows you to collect resources, turn them into canoes/horses to help you progress, but be careful: if you end up with no cards left and having to “set up camp” (ie, take all your cards back into your hand) while you have lots of resources and Native Americans, then you can find yourself being sent backwards down the river.
It’s not very intuitive, with lots of obscure icons clogging up cards and tiles. I got the hang of it quicker than Sam but, ultimately, my winning move was actually an illegal move that we’d been getting wrong all through the game (the number of Native Americans able to use each space in the village: I thought it was unlimited, Sam thought it was two, it turned out to be one). It would’ve been wrong to suddenly play by the real rules, but it still felt like a hollow victory. But a victory nevertheless!
Andrew won!
Sam didn’t.
An interesting game. Interesting and worth a second look sometime.
By now, Ian had arrived, and we had supper (Sam’s chili – very nice it was too), completed the Guardian’s cryptic crossword (Sam had already done most of it) and set forth on a real game.
Sam and I were keen to get Camel Up (still called Camel Cup at this hour) back on the table. We explained the rules to Ian, and we were off!
Sam 28
Ian 24
Andrew 22
The first game whizzed by so fast that we couldn’t resist the lure of a second game. Like the cheesy nibbles I kept scooping into my mouth, it was impossible to just have one. So we set the game up again, and they were off!
Andrew 45
Sam 28
Ian 25
I played the odds and bet early on that the camel in last would finish last, and the camel in first would be first, and I turned out to be correct! That alone inflated my win to huge proportions.
After this, I suggested 7 Wonders, since Ian had just learnt the rules, I thought it better to get him back on the horse as soon as possible.
I had the Pyramids of Gizah, so I concentrated on building that, with some military and the occasional blue building here and there but little else. Sam had the Gardens of Babylon (which he said were shit) and went for sciences, a little warfare and a general spread of cards. I don’t remember what Ian had, but he went the pacifist route. Meanwhile his wonder’s power of copying guilds was annulled by neither me nor Sam building any guilds. Ah ha ha!
Sam 57
Andrew 56
Ian 36
As we were finishing off, the doorbell rang. Who could that be, we wondered? Perhaps a neighbour with some pressing domestic crisis? No! It was Adam! We welcomed our friend from Easton with smiling faces and open arms. And then, perhaps foolishly, we gave him the choice of game. He plumped for Railways of the World. This was brand new for Ian, but he’ll have to learn one day so why not today?
We guided him through the rules, but there’s no substitute for experience in this game. Adam rushed off into an early lead, with me in hot pursuit, with both of us picking up bonuses and bounties. Adam had the lucrative north-east seaboard mostly to himself but, for some reason, he wouldn't deliver the many yellow cubes in the vicinity to Baltimore where I had a hotel.
My operations focused around Charleston and Mobile, simply because that’s where the service bounties sent me. Sam went for the big link from Kansas to New York, which shot him into second place midway through the game – a gap I couldn’t close. Ian built around the Great Lakes and, as you’d expect for a first game, never really got going.
Adam 92
Sam 76
Andrew 66
Ian 35
To finish the evening, Camel Up (now properly called Camel Up, thanks to Adam reading the back of the box) was brought back to the table. The rules were explained to Adam, and before he could properly assimilate them, the camels were unleashed! Adam often claimed he didn’t know what to do, but he seemed to know how weigh up the probabilities.
Sam 39
Adam 32
Andrew 29
Ian 25
And after this, we were away into the night. Adam remarked that he should take more months off, because everyone seems to pleased to see him when he arrives. Speaking for myself, I don’t think he should be given choice of games next time. Or any time. Just saying.
Meanwhile, on the Form Table, my reign at the top comes to an abrupt end, with Sam and new-boy Adam fighting it out for top spot.
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Adam | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Martin | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Andrew | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| Matt | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 14 |
| Ian | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Hannah | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Thursday, 7 August 2014
Cornish Pastimes
Last week Sally and I took the boys to Polruan, Cornwall, and though most of the time was spent on the beach we did squeeze in a few games. I'd taken Ice Flow, Flash Point, Hey That's My Fish and Sumeria, the latter an incongruously popular choice with the boys (usually; we didn't actually play it this time).
First out of the box was Hey That's My Fish, or Hey, That's My Fish as Jon correctly emphasizes it. This was a two-player with me and Little Joe. After some early shenanigans of Joe's penguins slaloming toward the more rewarding tiles, we settled into a neat pattern of Joe picking up the most fish while I made suggestions as to how he could block me off. It ended closely:
Joe 52
Sam 46
(two tiles left on the 'board')
Stanley had spotted Blokus at the cottage so we pulled it out. The board is a grid of 1cm squares and each player is given a collection of tetris-style pieces in their own colour. I looked for the rulebook only to find there wasn't one, and I was thinking ho-hum... until I realized the rules are printed on the back of the box. Genius. Here they are:
1. Each player starts in a corner.
2. On their turn players place a piece that cannot be adjacent to any of their own pieces (they can be adjacent to other players') but must touch one of their own pieces at at least one corner.
3. Whoever manages to play the most pieces wins.
The key is squeezing between the corners of opposing players pieces really, and making sure you don't have all your biggest pieces left in the endgame. It was so simple and the boys really liked it - even Sally did, in fact. What I don't understand is how it works as a 2-player - there's so much room on the board you'd have to make a concerted effort to not get all your pieces down. There's probably something on BGG about it…
We played lots of games of this and there were many winners. We also had some pub lunches and I messed about with my phone:
Stanley and I played Ice Flow. I'd remembered it as quite simple but it's actually a bit of a puzzle, trying to get three explorers across the Bering Strait while being pursued by polar bears and stymied by the opposition. There was a fair bit of head-scratching, and although Stanley won (a collaborative effort) it was not requested again.
The other popular game was Flash Point. Stan is not one for tantrums when he loses but he can occasionally get a little forlorn, so I think he liked the fact this was a team effort. Together we put out many fires and rescued many victims, but we also (courtesy of my longstanding blind spot) played a rule wrong, making it easier for ourselves than it should have been. Having corrected it we both died as the building collapsed on us. Oh well.
Finally upon returning to Bristol I suggested Lords of Waterdeep, which Stanley has played before. Joe did not play but was The Shopkeeper - in charge of cube distribution.
Last time Stan needed a little help with some of the reading, but no such qualms for him this time. In fact he shot off into a healthy lead, and although I assisted by 1. once pointing out he could get wizards by going to the harbour and 2. not nicking cubes off him when I could have, he pretty much bossed the game, picking up handsome endgame bonuses that I didn't see coming:
Stanley 145
Sam 122
Castles of Beige
First out of the box was Hey That's My Fish, or Hey, That's My Fish as Jon correctly emphasizes it. This was a two-player with me and Little Joe. After some early shenanigans of Joe's penguins slaloming toward the more rewarding tiles, we settled into a neat pattern of Joe picking up the most fish while I made suggestions as to how he could block me off. It ended closely:
Joe 52
Sam 46
(two tiles left on the 'board')
My apple
Stanley had spotted Blokus at the cottage so we pulled it out. The board is a grid of 1cm squares and each player is given a collection of tetris-style pieces in their own colour. I looked for the rulebook only to find there wasn't one, and I was thinking ho-hum... until I realized the rules are printed on the back of the box. Genius. Here they are:
1. Each player starts in a corner.
2. On their turn players place a piece that cannot be adjacent to any of their own pieces (they can be adjacent to other players') but must touch one of their own pieces at at least one corner.
3. Whoever manages to play the most pieces wins.
The key is squeezing between the corners of opposing players pieces really, and making sure you don't have all your biggest pieces left in the endgame. It was so simple and the boys really liked it - even Sally did, in fact. What I don't understand is how it works as a 2-player - there's so much room on the board you'd have to make a concerted effort to not get all your pieces down. There's probably something on BGG about it…
We played lots of games of this and there were many winners. We also had some pub lunches and I messed about with my phone:
Stanley and I played Ice Flow. I'd remembered it as quite simple but it's actually a bit of a puzzle, trying to get three explorers across the Bering Strait while being pursued by polar bears and stymied by the opposition. There was a fair bit of head-scratching, and although Stanley won (a collaborative effort) it was not requested again.
The other popular game was Flash Point. Stan is not one for tantrums when he loses but he can occasionally get a little forlorn, so I think he liked the fact this was a team effort. Together we put out many fires and rescued many victims, but we also (courtesy of my longstanding blind spot) played a rule wrong, making it easier for ourselves than it should have been. Having corrected it we both died as the building collapsed on us. Oh well.
Finally upon returning to Bristol I suggested Lords of Waterdeep, which Stanley has played before. Joe did not play but was The Shopkeeper - in charge of cube distribution.
Stanley 145
Sam 122
Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Don’t Take No (ko) For An Answer
I arrived at tonight’s games night with a troubled air. In the last GNN bulletin, I scored my fourth win in a row. Thus the first game tonight was to be pivotal. I stayed quiet, hoping that no one would remember. There were five of us at first at Adam’s house. Adam (his first time back after paternity leave), Ian, Matt, Sam and myself.
7 Wonders was chosen. I thought “This is possible.”
I was given the Mausoleum at Harlicarnassus. This one gives the player the chance to build a discarded building for free when they complete a part of their wonder. A tricky one, easy to get wrong. But play it right, and it’s pretty powerful.
The game was new to Ian and Matt, and Sam explained the rules to them. Considering it was their first time, they did pretty well. They focused on armies, facing off over a steadily increasing pile of blood red cards. Adam went for sciences but found that he couldn’t build his science-friendly wonder because of a lack of wood.
I kept my wonder unbuilt until the very end of the second round, when I thought there may be some decent buildings in the discard pile. And then in round three, I was able to build three guilds and a last minute army (to stop Adam’s sudden conversion from non-violent research to blood-thirsty warlord. No doubt driven to violence by the lack of wood) to assure a comfortable victory and my very own Perfect Five!
Andrew 62
Sam 50
Matt 49
Adam 45
Ian 35
After this hands were shaken, celebratory texts were sent out, and I could finally relax as I basked in the glory of only the second ever perfect five!
Then Hannah came down from putting their baby to bed, and we split into two groups of three. I found the Japanese stylings of Takenoko (which I guess is 竹の子, Child of Bamboo EDIT: I was too literal. It means Bamboo Sprout) irresistible and so Adam and Matt joined me in the front room, while Sam, Ian and Hannah chose Concordia.
Takenoko is a lovely game to look at, with tiny but perfectly formed Panda and Gardner pieces to move around. The rules are simple: you have two actions and a random action decided by a die each move. The aim is to score points by achieving particular formations of tiles (coloured pink, green and yellow) on the table, or particular combinations of bamboo that the panda has eaten, or particular heights of bamboo that the gardener has grown. You find out these criteria according to cards dealt to you at the start of the game, but you can pick up more cards as you go.
The first player to successfully complete eight (me) gets a bonus of two points, and the other players get one more go to try to finish what they can.
Andrew 38
Adam 35
Matt 34
And I’d won my sixth game in a row! An occasion so rare, that it doesn’t even have a name! The Splendid Six, perhaps? Although the Smug Six might have been a more accurate description of my attitude once the scores had been added up.
We’d finished but Concordia was still in full swing. When I went in to check, Ian had France all to himself, and there was still a largeish pile of cards to be bought. We went back into the front room and decided on Galaxy Truckers: a game that Matt actually owned but hadn’t played yet.
Adam explained the rules to him, but it is simply a game about a bunch of unlucky jigsaw puzzles. Once put together, they are beaten up by cards and dice. My fate was sealed in round two: I had looked at the cards beforehand, and had planned accordingly. But a mistake in my ship meant that one of lasers fell off immediately, and before long a stray meteorite had removed a second, leaving me at the mercy of the same pirates and slavers I’d seen earlier and had been so confident of beating. Instead I was desperately trying to slow my ship down, and let Adam go first. Cowardly, but necessary.
But my shoddy engineering left me in a distant second, my dreams of a seventh win in tatters. Adam added insult to injury by hitting three figures.
Adam 100
Andrew 47
Matt 35
The last round of Galaxy Truckers was played with an audience, as Concordia had ended and been packed away, so the three of them watched us rush through our final round of meteorites after meteorites. Adam remembered a rule that allows sideways facing lasers to shoot either side of their level, but he described it so badly that no one believed him. In the end, he found it in the rule book, allowing him to reinstate his previously destroyed engine.
But as for Concordia, Ian's Francophile approach did not pay dividends. Sam said that if Hannah had been fully up to speed on the tactics, she would have won. Hannah expressed surprise at how easily Sam had spread his influence across the map. He explained that he’d just moved around a lot. Ah, such depth.
Sam 155
Hannah 144
Ian 117
All of which leaves me at the top of the form table, but more importantly, it welcomes two familiar faces back to the world of games. Cross fingers that they can come again soon.
7 Wonders was chosen. I thought “This is possible.”
I was given the Mausoleum at Harlicarnassus. This one gives the player the chance to build a discarded building for free when they complete a part of their wonder. A tricky one, easy to get wrong. But play it right, and it’s pretty powerful.
The game was new to Ian and Matt, and Sam explained the rules to them. Considering it was their first time, they did pretty well. They focused on armies, facing off over a steadily increasing pile of blood red cards. Adam went for sciences but found that he couldn’t build his science-friendly wonder because of a lack of wood.
I kept my wonder unbuilt until the very end of the second round, when I thought there may be some decent buildings in the discard pile. And then in round three, I was able to build three guilds and a last minute army (to stop Adam’s sudden conversion from non-violent research to blood-thirsty warlord. No doubt driven to violence by the lack of wood) to assure a comfortable victory and my very own Perfect Five!
Andrew 62
Sam 50
Matt 49
Adam 45
Ian 35
| Points | ||||||
| Andrew | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Sam | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Martin | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Matt | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| Ian | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 16 |
| Adam | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
After this hands were shaken, celebratory texts were sent out, and I could finally relax as I basked in the glory of only the second ever perfect five!
Then Hannah came down from putting their baby to bed, and we split into two groups of three. I found the Japanese stylings of Takenoko (which I guess is 竹の子, Child of Bamboo EDIT: I was too literal. It means Bamboo Sprout) irresistible and so Adam and Matt joined me in the front room, while Sam, Ian and Hannah chose Concordia.
Takenoko is a lovely game to look at, with tiny but perfectly formed Panda and Gardner pieces to move around. The rules are simple: you have two actions and a random action decided by a die each move. The aim is to score points by achieving particular formations of tiles (coloured pink, green and yellow) on the table, or particular combinations of bamboo that the panda has eaten, or particular heights of bamboo that the gardener has grown. You find out these criteria according to cards dealt to you at the start of the game, but you can pick up more cards as you go.
The first player to successfully complete eight (me) gets a bonus of two points, and the other players get one more go to try to finish what they can.
Andrew 38
Adam 35
Matt 34
And I’d won my sixth game in a row! An occasion so rare, that it doesn’t even have a name! The Splendid Six, perhaps? Although the Smug Six might have been a more accurate description of my attitude once the scores had been added up.
We’d finished but Concordia was still in full swing. When I went in to check, Ian had France all to himself, and there was still a largeish pile of cards to be bought. We went back into the front room and decided on Galaxy Truckers: a game that Matt actually owned but hadn’t played yet.
Adam explained the rules to him, but it is simply a game about a bunch of unlucky jigsaw puzzles. Once put together, they are beaten up by cards and dice. My fate was sealed in round two: I had looked at the cards beforehand, and had planned accordingly. But a mistake in my ship meant that one of lasers fell off immediately, and before long a stray meteorite had removed a second, leaving me at the mercy of the same pirates and slavers I’d seen earlier and had been so confident of beating. Instead I was desperately trying to slow my ship down, and let Adam go first. Cowardly, but necessary.
But my shoddy engineering left me in a distant second, my dreams of a seventh win in tatters. Adam added insult to injury by hitting three figures.
Adam 100
Andrew 47
Matt 35
The last round of Galaxy Truckers was played with an audience, as Concordia had ended and been packed away, so the three of them watched us rush through our final round of meteorites after meteorites. Adam remembered a rule that allows sideways facing lasers to shoot either side of their level, but he described it so badly that no one believed him. In the end, he found it in the rule book, allowing him to reinstate his previously destroyed engine.
But as for Concordia, Ian's Francophile approach did not pay dividends. Sam said that if Hannah had been fully up to speed on the tactics, she would have won. Hannah expressed surprise at how easily Sam had spread his influence across the map. He explained that he’d just moved around a lot. Ah, such depth.
Sam 155
Hannah 144
Ian 117
All of which leaves me at the top of the form table, but more importantly, it welcomes two familiar faces back to the world of games. Cross fingers that they can come again soon.
| Points | ||||||
| Andrew | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Martin | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Matt | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 14 |
| Ian | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Adam | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| Hannah | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Sunday, 3 August 2014
It's the 500th post
I hope no one wanted to use this special occasion to make a speech or anything. I decided to mark our 500th blog post with a division that covered the whole history of the GNN blog. Sam wins on points and the medal table, while Dan takes points ratio with just three games! Amazing. As we turn to the regulars (tipping a hat to Jon on the way) we see that Adam just beats Quentin by 0.02. Well played chaps. And well done to Bea and Martha, whose combined ages probably aren't even half of most regulars here, but they've both managed to win a game (Long Shot and that Ancient Rome bingo-ish one - I forget the name).
As for the rest, well, look at us all. Aren't we magnificent? 724 games on the leaderboard, and each one has its own story.
As for the rest, well, look at us all. Aren't we magnificent? 724 games on the leaderboard, and each one has its own story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)