Bloops in Hoops

Six of us assembled at Joe's house last night, or seven if you include Sybil, who stalked the table alternating between demanding Adam H's chips and barking at the cat in the garden/harrumphing at life. As well as Adam and the hosts there was myself (Sam), Ian, Katy and Martin. As we discussed Joe's baize-like tablecloth, I took a photo that made Martin look much smaller than usual. 

And then we began the night by extorting half of Adam's tea from him and playing Team Play. I apologised to Martin in advance as I have no knack for this game at all and spent most of it hoping a 1 would come out. Adam was similarly bereft - he didn't complete his own goal the entire game - and Katy and Joe made the early running, completing 3 goal cards before Martin and I had even done one. 

Martin did most of the work for our team and while Ian completed his own goals his partner went for the public ones. I finally grabbed a 1 and got involved, but it was too little too late: 

Katy and Joe 35
Ian and Adam 30

Martin and Sam 29

We split into two groups, with Joe Adam and Ian setting up Thurn and Taxis and Martin cajoling Katy and I into a game of Greed. 

Greed is a pretty simple and pretty feisty card-drafting game: everyone is dealt twelve cards and adds one to their hand, then adds one from the eleven they were passed and so on. From round three, everyone also plays a card from their hand: loosely speaking Holdings raise money, Actions do a thing and Thugs are a sort of combination of both. Holdings and Thugs also have symbols on them, which are way of generating revenue, something Martin seemed to be rather intent on, judging by the proliferating cash on all his holdings:

I only had two the entire game, but went heavy on a good Thug combination that showered me with cash every time I played an action. Katy found herself cash-bereft with a hand that demanded payment to play cards, and was also a little unfortunate with timing. It ended with a somewhat fortuitous debut win, as Martin slightly undid himself by misreading an action card in the penultimate round:

Sam $170k

Martin $150k

Katy $125k

Thurn was still taxi-ing (sorry) with Adam describing current events as 'subjectively shite' so we broke out Misfits. 

We ended up playing twice, as the Thurn trio eyed our structures nervously, aware that any collapse might have catastrophic consequences for the post offices of Bavaria. I cheekily began the first game, even though Misfits doesn't actually have one of those 'last person to x' starter rules. 

Martin tried some ambitious things and they didn't come off, and in short order I was down to my cubes - and a win. We reset and Martin started, quickly degenerating the idea of a tower into something less imposing...

Which we collapsed and built again, slightly more impressively at first before realising there was precious little to do with it. More collapses followed.

I was laughing so much I'm still not sure how I took this picture of Katy and Ian.

But I picked up another win and as they hit the closing stages of Thurn we bashed out a quick game of Panda Panda. This is a super-simple card-drafter where you win two rounds to win the game. To win a round you need to have any of the possible winning hands (there are ten, varying from two specific cards to seven) at the start of your turn, at which point you call out 'Panda Panda' and delight in Martin's disdain. 

On a turn you can either pick up - from the deck, or the top of another player's discard pile - or discard to your own discards. If anyone discards an A (the most common card) everyone passes a card to their left, a kind of sabotage/lottery combo you can use to screw over someone who looks like they're about to panda but also stumble on something useful.

Luck over judgement for sure, but I won again just as Thurn and Taxis wrapped up with some dramatic scores: 

Adam 32

Joe 10

Ian 7

Joe would have won had he played his last turn differently, it transpired, pulling Adam back a couple of points and catapulting himself forwards. But just like Martin in Greed, he came away with regret instead. "It wouldn't have made any difference to me" Ian piped cheerily as he raised his mug of beer "Because I was last either way".

As they packed away, Adam pointed out I was now on four wins - one away from the perfect five. I realised I also won Expeditions at the weekend - had I done it already? I didn't think so because I was a critical part of coming last in Team Play since then: a team game, but still a competitive one. No matter - I'd just have to win the next game too. Unfortunately the next game was Things in Rings. 

Joe was the Knower who knew the rules of the three Venn circles. Ian, Martin and Adam were the Keen Deductionists. Katy and I were the bewildered Starers in Bafflement. Only a few cards in, Martin murmured that he'd worked one of the rules out already and Ian and Adam mumbled assent. I could only see words and string, though in hindsight the yellow rule ('contains an o') was gettable. But that's the thing about hindsight... Adam won this one as Joe revealed the other rules were 'useful' (context) and 'flammable' (attribute). Flammable is quite a broad concept, we've found (it's appeared before) as so many things can burn if you put your mind to it. Or even if you don't, as my perfect five went up in smoke (sad face).

We played again, but this time trying the co-operative game. I demanded to be the Knower because I wasn't enjoying feeling stupid, and Martin said it can be even harder. I explained at least I would know why I was stupid, and Katy and I teamed up to respond to guesses as new cards appeared. Our rules were one syllable, often has spots or stripes, and you expect to find it at a school. 

The school was our flammable: there are a billion things at a school so we leant into the word 'expect' and tried to stick to that cognitive connection. The team worked out single syllable very quickly and Ian pointed out that underwear, skunk and kite (stripes/spots) all had a wind element. But shirt put paid to that theory - kind of a shame. However Joe spotted the reoccurring stripes and they figured out the last circle not by definition but by noticing a kind of logical pattern. It came down to the last card in the end - goggles - that Joe put in 'None' for no connection. It could have gone in 'expect to find at a school' - as Ian pointed out, there are goggles in a science lab - but Katy and I allowed it, reasoning that they looked more like pilots goggles: the rules do say if you're unsure you can use the images as a steer. So: a victory for everyone!

It was So Clover time. And what a clovering it was as we began with a couple of solid sixes and got excited about the prospect of a hall-of-famer. Then we hit Martin's clover and struggled with the amount of possibilities for Laughtrack, ultimately failing after two guesses to spot syrup/comedy and that glasses might go in a dresser. Martin was so disappointed he openly canvassed for more failures and had to be reminded that it's co-operative game. Maybe he was pleased when stumbled on the last clover - Joe's - as we were convinced that tea must go with his clue of 'scald', particularly as he has scalded his own hands numerous times. But it didn't. 

Still, 31/36 is not to be scoffed at. Some nice clues. We called it there and all - except Joe and Sybil - made our way out into the Bristol rain. Until next week!

Lucky (thirty) sevens

I walked into Joe’s place on a relatively mild day between peaks of British summer and found myself walking into a game of Cross Clues with Joe, Sam, Katy, Adam T, Ian and Adam H. Before long it became clear that everyone were on very different frequencies when it came to giving clues. One misunderstanding followed another. “Club” for “weird/foot” was missed and my one contribution was also hopelessly wide of the mark as I thought “Solstice” would go with “mean/night” since mean can also mean “average.” Katy tried to dissuade us that the Solstice wasn’t the average night but too late. 

We didn’t even count up the score, that’s how badly we did.

 

With Martin on his way, we decided to give Cross Clues another go. This time we did better but still not amazing. Hats off to Adam T for his clue “diarrhoea” for “brown/lightning.” Classy. His clue “bite” for “angry/horse” sparked off a discussion about what angry horses are best known for: biting or kicking. But that’s all horse feathers. We did well enough to count up the score this time. 

22 out of 25

With Martin still en route, we broke out Flip 7 and took out the freeze cards. In fact, it was quite dick-move-free. Whenever someone got a “Flip Three” card, they almost always used it on themselves. And, in fact, it almost always worked. Especially if you were Ian who seemed to be blessed with a surfeit of bonus point cards.

Katy only scored in four rounds but on three of them, she clocked up 37 points. She also found herself concerned when Adam H shuffled the deck of cards just as she was about to draw another card. Convinced that the deck was now stacked against her, she asked the dealer (Adam T) to cut the deck before handing her a card. He did so. She went bust all the same.

Adam H managed to flip seven cards in one round and he’d run Ian a close second throughout until the last round. Ian decided to stick first and Adam just pushed his luck long enough for him to squeak a close win.

Adam H 209

Ian 203

Katy 144

Joe 128

Adam T 105

Andrew 95

Sam 0

By now Martin was here and we split into two groups at two separate tables. Sam, Martin, Adam T and Ian set off for the Shires in The Fellowship Of The Ring. I think I heard mention of starting on Chapter 10. Impressive but I've no idea how far through the game that is.

Katy, Adam H, Joe and myself indulged in the luxury of Ra - Pharaoh edition, with its chunky tiles and metal money. Katy got a brief overview of the rules, just to refresh her memory and then we began. 

Round one saw a lot of disasters and floods pulled from the bag. Adam and Katy were the last two players and they let tiles fill up and clear themselves out twice, due to the grim nature of what was on offer. 

Round two ended in a similar fashion,  with Katy the last active player insisting that it was more fun to play with yourself. 

By round three,  the Nile had pretty much dried up and I was regretting buying quite so many pharaohs. Also, I had very few buildings unlike Adam who had so many that Joe had to explain about stacking the same buildings on top of each other, you know, like they did in Ancient Egypt. 

At the end, Katy was delighted by her score and I was pleasantly surprised by mine. Joe said he usually did better than his and Adam admitted that he didn't really like Ra.

Katy 43

Andrew 41

Joe 33

Adam H 32

And so, I gathered up my belongings and set off at a sensibly early hour, leaving the rest of the evening in safe gaming hands.

Over to you, Sam.

*             *             *

In Tolkien-world things started out well, as I recall - not that I recall that much now. But I believe we cleared chapter 10 and Adam T read out the narrative intro for the next chapter. I don't remember that either, but it was either 11 or 12 where we ran into trouble, as it's a 'long' one: meaning there are multiple characters to complete and two of them were rather tricky: Boromir needed to win the last trick but couldn't be trusted with the ring, and someone else needed something crazy like a card of each rank. We - or Adam - pulled the latter off, but went wrong somewhere else and needed the Vest of Mithril or something to save us. But then we went wrong again anyway. Fellowships are work.

After Andrew left Martin tempted Adam T and and Katy into a game of Greed. I don't know what the mechanics are, but the name does a pretty good job on the theme.

...whilst Ian, Adam H and I showed Joe the ropes - ho ho - to Monkey Palace. For a reason that I missed, the rules weren't in the box and so we did a little hazarding around the finer points. The basic ones are easy: build a monkey palace, build your engine, get bananas. The result on the table was as impressive as ever.

Not sure if our slightly fudged rules favoured me, but I picked up a win as debutant Joe found himself up against three experienced simians. 

Sam 42

Adam 38

Ian 36

Joe 29

I don't know what happened in Greed, other than Martin was greediest:

Martin 160

Adam and Katy 155 each

Katy and the Adams now left for home, leaving just four of us to clover out the evening, which we attempted twice. Our first effort was a very solid 22/24, with only my clover muddying the waters.

We went again, which as everyone knows is always a terrible mistake. And so it proved here, with a shabby 18/24 thanks to a couple of dodgy red herrings and maybe some heat/game fatigue creeping in. Did like (Joe's?) essential for friend/oil though. 

Muddle Management

Feast or famine: after last week's bumper crop of gamers, we were suddenly down to three. But moving the venue to Martin's meant we could coax a tired Ian out to join the host, Adam H and myself. We kicked the evening off with another new one of Martin's: Big Boss. 

This is a curious thing: what looks like a score track is actually a shared board where companies are established: a mix of financial heft and physical geography. Players have numbered cards that can be played to establish (in the early game) or develop - ie make larger - companies along the track. When you do either of these things, you collect cash equal to the current worth of the company, and may also buy shares. At the end of the game, players compare share value (and cash) and the richest wins.

We begin with a hand of cards and on a turn can either play one as above, or pay $5m to get an extra card. In addition to that, players have the option - at a cost - of adding a 'radio tower' to a company, meaning that they now own three additional shares in it. Where the game gets interesting is the shared (or not) incentives of development, and the unknown aspect of who has what cards. I found myself improving Ian's share ownership in Lunar several times when I picked up cards of numbers I had no kinship wth. 

early game

mid-game

As companies grow they will sometimes come into contact with each other, and this causes a merger. The bigger company subsumes the smaller one and suddenly there's a vast behemoth where once a Mom and Pop store sold you homemade sandwiches. Martin and Ian were the significant beneficiaries of these corporate takeovers, whereas Adam and I less so. But Adam still managed the inscrutability of the game rather well, and only a late-game error shunted him into third (as well as boosting my score into a more respectable fourth).

1 Ian $610m
2 Martin $565m
3 Adam $563m
4 Sam $510m

I struggled a bit making sense of it all, and I think we all felt the second half of the game was an improvement on the first: it significantly sped up and things got more interesting. 

late game

Next up was a new one of mine: Sardegna. Actually it's a reskin of an old game (Kreta) but packed into a tiny box that unfolds to become the board: quite a neat little device. Over 11 rounds we contest for control in different regions of the island, which we do by playing cards to add forts (influence all surrounding regions) villagers, priests, boats and villages (influence the region they're in). Everything has one influence except villages, which are two.

An array of region cards define the rounds and which regions will be contested, but we can only ever see the next two, so building in anticipation - as I did - turns out to be kind of a dumb strategy. On a turn you play a single card which allows you to add/move villagers, boats, priests, place a fort, or establish the more powerful village - if you have used a villager/boat combo to harvest resources: you can't build villages without them. 

The moment someone plays a Sentinel the next region in the array is scored, and everyone gets their played cards back into hand. But there's a catch here: when the next region card is revealed, whoever played the Sentinel can choose to discard it and flip a random one from the deck. I was bitten three or four times by this, as my strong south side of the island kept missing out on scoring opportunities. 

The board can be a bit fiddly to read but I enjoyed this; very interactive but reasonably speedy. My lack of strategic/tactical/any management skills steered me into last place again, as further up the track Adam and Martin duked it out on in the north, and Ian navigated his way to a joint first place by triggering the final scoring round!

Ian and Martin 61 rejoice in shared victory
Adam 53
Sam 47 

It was past 10 by now so we moved on to So Clover. Maybe it was the heat but instantly there was a round of plaintive groaning as we all looked at our words and grumbled about them. Surprisingly we opened with a six, but followed it with a four and two threes as there seemed to be so many possible combos and luck was not on our side. Adam's snip for bomb/gamble was a highlight though - when we eventually saw it. 

It was now moments from 11pm and loose talk of a second crack evaporated in the heat, and we made our ways home.

Come on, Eilan

When I arrived at Sam’s house, Joe, Jo, Ian, Adam T and Sam were all knee-deep in a game of Inkling. In this game, players are dealt some cards with some markings on them which resemble parts of letters. Place these cards anyway you want, and hopefully you’ll be able to spell out one (or more) of the six words on your card.

It was interesting to watch, but are there hidden strategies still to be uncovered? It seemed to reward literally writing the word, while any attempt at cryptical clueing fell flat. Ian tried to clue two of his words with one, admitting he’d “tried to So Clover it.” While Sam went all Rebus on the group. One of his clues looked like “OIST” which I noted may be the noise you make when you pick up something heavy. But it was actually a clue for “FLOOR” - it was the word “1st” with a button next to it, ie. first floor.

Joe 17

Adam 14

Jo 11

Ian 11

Sam 9

Adam tried to encapsulate it’s qualities by saying “It’s like a cross between a word game and…” “a break down.” Sam helpfully suggested.

By now Martin was here, and then a ghost from the past breezed in. Mark, who once appeared in this blog on a semi-regular basis, was visiting from Devon. How nice to see him again. With eight of us, we split into two. Sam, Mark, Ian and myself played Rebirth while Jo, Joe, Adam and Martin played Eternals Deck.

I didn’t notice much of Eternals Deck except for its lovely cloth board and the look of disappointment when, halfway through the game, Jo explained to their colleagues that they were playing the easy version of the beginners stage. But, they all won!

As for Rebirth, after a rules explanation to Mark (that I needed too, frankly) we set off rebuilding a post apocalyptic Scotland with our farms, castles and zeppelins. Mid-game, Sam and Mark started chaining together farms for big returns. Ian and I tussled in the housing market and I also focused on castles. 

Mark expressed surprise at the score, saying he'd only really got the hang of it 70% of the way through the game and that before then he'd been copying us.

I guess that makes it a shared victory?

Mark 141

Sam 132

Andrew 113

Ian 109

After this we rearranged. Both Adam and I were in the market for something shortish and Martin suggested Greed. We agreed (no pun intended) and were joined by Jo. The remaining four brought out The Gang, a clever cross between Texas Hold ‘Em and The Mind. I’ve played this before with six players and little success, but this time the sounds of cheers wafted across the table as they succeeded round after round in an atmosphere of co-operative bon homie.

Greed, as you can gather, is far less communal. There was a lot of PvP action as we took out each others thugs and holdings, but at the start both Jo and Adam complained about the opening hand they’d created for themselves, which were far too forward thinking so left them with few options in the short term.

I, on the other hand, barely looked more than two turns ahead such that apart from an early flourish where I picked up some cash, I was reacting to what other players were doing. Adam had abandoned whatever plan he’d started with and gone aggressive, playing a lot of spoiling cards. Jo, though, smartly got themselves into a winning position, playing a double-your-money card and then another card netting $45,000 which turned into $90,000. 

Jo 170,000

Martin 120,000

Andrew 85,000

Adam 10,000

With that, I was gone. Handing over to Sam for part two. Thanks all.

* * *

Adam also left now, and we were down to six. Martin promptly brought out Things in Rings and attempted

to explain it whilst the rest of us attempted to understand it. At least I did anyway - having slightly indulged things by now I mostly spent my time proclaiming my bafflement. 

As far as I could comprehend it's kind of like a wordy version of Zendo, where instead of figuring out the spatial rule to a bunch of pyramids, we're trying to deduce the conceptual rules for each circle in a Venn diagram, and there are three qualities: the context (eg can be dangerous) an attribute (eg larger than a person) and the text of the word itself (eg it starts with a vowel, which happened to be the one we figured out first). 

Turns are taken by placing a Word card into the puzzle somewhere (or indeed, outside of it) and hoping you're right: first person to successfully shed all cards wins. The person making these decisions was the "knower' - Martin, who didn't get to guess - and there's definitely a subjective element to where things end up - is a zipper dangerous? -  it's possible. Jo sussed out the attribute, but we were all thrown by the context and things ended up there on speculative punts more than Holmesian genius. 

After a 40 minutes or so of bewilderment Jo won (I think) and we all professed our admiration for something so bonkers. Tough being the 'Knower' though. 

It was time for So Clover. I don't recall a huge amount about at this point but it was a reasonable success. 

Post-script: At the start of the night, Adam T thrashed me 3-0 at Toy Battle and he also beat Ian and I at Rainbow!

Plank's Wobbly

There was a flurry of late drop-outs and one happy addition of Adam H as even the venue changed and finally Ian, the Adams and myself (Sam) arranged ourselves around Martin's table, ready to clash swords. And that we did, firstly in the form of Martin's latest trick-taker, Skull Queen. No relation to Skull King, other than that both are trick-takers with a pirate veneer, and both feature cries of dismay. 

Skull Queen follows standard trick-taking rules in that it's a must-follow and highest card wins the trick. There's no trump suit. However, the trick winner will push their pirate up the plank, and the trick loser (lowest card of the led suit) will push their pirate down. Before play starts, you can place each of your pirates wherever you like on the plank though, so it's 'simply' a matter of looking at your cards and working out where you think you can get your pirates to: at the end of the round they'll score for their position on the plank - if they haven't fallen off entirely. 

The extra twists are that this highest/lowest dynamic doesn't just apply to the led suit, but any non-matching suits as well (as long as there is at least two of them - if not, they stay out on the table for the next trick). There's also a wild 13 and a wild zero, and 5s and 8s will cause trick losers/winners to move two spaces instead of one. Adam H was a perpetual victim of this as almost everyone took a turn dumping his pirates into the sea (in a flagrant disregard for how ships work, they can fall off either end). 

Martin led from the moment we left the harbour and never let up his iron grip. We tried to target him but couldn't work out how to manufacture his demise: Ian was on his coattails at first but faded in the last couple of rounds, as the rest of us were just grateful to have pirates left at all.

Martin 109
Sam 92
Adam T 89
Adam H 85
Ian 79

Next up was Bites. This is a kind of commodities game where we move ants along a track - any ant you like, players don't have a specific colour - taking them to their next matching-coloured food spot and picking up either the food token ahead or behind it. When there are no more matching spots ahead, the ant will move onto the anthill, which will define the value of all it's matching food pieces.

The catch is that if you want to up the value of apple, say, then you want to get the red ant to the anthill as quickly as possible - but moving the red ant generally doesn't let you pick up apples, as it lands on them. Mix in a couple of wrinkles - wine for set-collection, chocolate that allows you to grab two pieces instead of one - and you have Bites. 

It was interesting, but felt like a puzzle that never totally swam into focus, probably because although it officially plays 2-5 with the full complement turns were in short supply and decisions verged on the arbitrary-feeling, so much so that Adam T was mildly underwhelmed by his triumphant anting. We did manage to prevent Martin winning again though. 

Adam T 17
Ian 16
Adam H / Sam 15 each
Martin 14

We moved on to Whale Riders. Recalling Louie's push-the-pace strategy, I decided to race to the end, cash in a couple of contracts and buy my way to victory. This plan was harpooned when Ian picked up the free tile I needed and I decided there and then that Whale Riding is a silly occupation. 

Behind me there were plenty of busier whales going about their business in a more ambulatory fashion, and it served them well - mostly. Adam H made a rare miscalculation and the game ended literally one turn before he could rectify it. 

Martin 19

Adam T/Ian 17 each

Sam 16

Adam H 14

The Adams then left us for home, so our traditional closer of So Clover featured just three players. We played twice, and our opening game was so profoundly average I didn't take a picture: we scored 4 each. Ian still had beer in his glass so we set up for a second, and this time did much better: seeing off a couple of plausible red herrings to nail an 18/18 to finish! Ian's Gentrified for tame/region was nice. 

Hope to see more of you next week...

Miele Furore

 With various stalwarts of the Tuesday night gang absent and/or unable to host, Martin, Jo and I (Joe) rolled up to Anja and Steve's at just shy of 8pm, each of us armed with several high player count games. Louie was on a trampoline somewhere else, but joined us just as Puerto Banana hit the table, and seemed to grasp the inherent idiocy quite quickly. "Can I bid ten million bananas?", he asked. "Of course!", we replied. 

I don't think anyone bid ten million bananas, but I might have missed it - after a few rounds, Martin accidentally handed what he described as a pyrrhic victory to Jo, winning the round with 1234 bananas but owing Jo so many bananas they ultimately won the game. As pointed out by Steve, it's game that probably teaches us more than we'd really like to know about how financial systems work. Bananas!

A photo of Puerto Banana that really captures the fun...

Louie had about half an hour before bedtime, so he, Steve and I played Ticket to Ride Berlin, whilst Martin and Anja introduced Jo to Mille Fiore. Louie schooled me and Steve at TTR, springing the end game on us before we could complete our extra routes. Steve and I played Sea, Salt and Paper while Mille Fiore wrapped up; my win was convincing enough to make Steve peer at me from over his glasses in a withering way.

Joe 40

Steve 18

Mille Fiore finished with a squeaker, Martin edging past Anja by two points, with Jo only 30 points behind her:

Martin 205

Anja 203

Jo 173

Together at last, we five embarked on a pun-laden trick-taker that's not a trick-taker except it sort of is a trick-taker in the form of Jo's UKGE purchase, Power Vacuum. Jo had explained it to me in the car on the way over; "It's based on the death of Stalin, but with household appliances". Of course! The game was notable for the fine art and lavish production values, players demonstrating their points by building multi-part statues to themselves (in the event of a tie, the best statue wins). The reason it's not really a trick taker is that it's far more beneficial really to lose the trick, and get to manipulate the power each player is going to win at the end of the round (along with your bid on who's going to win and lose) than to win it. That part was the crux, and lead to some agonising moments. Anja, Jo and Steve I think all managed to score their bids at some point - I only managed a half bid a couple of times. It was a lot of fun, though quite befuddling at first, and according to Martin, perhaps having one or two too many good ideas crammed into it. 

Despite the game's exceptional table-presence I didn't take any photos because I'm a twit, so here's a couple of really quite odd Berger & Wyse cartoons we managed to get the Guardian to publish a few years ago...

We only managed four hands of Power Vacuum before the clock struck 11 and we felt we ought to leave our hosts in peace, so we called it: Anja took the win - was on the cusp of the winning prerequisite of 40 points:

Anja 37

Jo 31

Martin 25

Steve 23

Joe 20

It was a fun night - I really should have taken some photos.

Mothers of Incension

Just the four of us last night in the end: Joe, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam). Martin was justly cheery about his fresh new best-in-world ELO rating at online Tigris and Euphrates and when I said it's better than being number 1 shithead, he said "Well, I am that as well". He had a bag of new goodies with him and after some heavy sprue-popping, we began with Die Patin, the game of the raccoon mafia. 

 

yellow (Joe) green (Martin) red (Ian) and blue (me) start feeling the heat

Die Patin translates as The Godmother, but this is a Mario Puzo reference rather than any benevolent fairy. Over five rounds, we send our four raccoons out onto the board, either to patrol our own territory, setting up illegal card-playing 'back rooms' and extort loot - or to extend our turf across town, whereupon we start bumping into each other and having the gangster equivalent of a squabble. 

my fledgling hood

As well as the card games and protection rackets, the raccoons can also add to their presence on the street corners/manhole covers of the city - or remove an opponents' - and it's these 'rats', along with the presence of a raccoon, who determine who controls each area. At the end of each round players can add score markers to the board if they dominate in one of the ongoing objectives (biggest territory, most loot etc) and achieving them later is better than earlier: in round 1, they're only worth a point, but when round 5 comes around they're each worth 5 points (though you can only claim one per round). 

crazily, nobody currently occupies the city centre!

It was a game of punch and counter-punch. We more or less divided the board into two wars - Ian and I came to serial blows in the north whilst elsewhere Martin and Joe wrangled with each other so regularly that by the end of the game they'd basically swapped territories. Martin grabbed the loot objective and then cock-blocked it for the next few rounds, until I nabbed it in the finale. Both Ian and I suffered for our expansionist tendencies, as late-game Joe and Martin both made inroads into our territories - there's not much sense on holding on to what you have here, other than to stymie: the game, just like a capitalism-loving gangster boss, demands expansion. We ended bloodied but unbowed. Well, Martin was unbowed anyway. 

Martin 22
Sam 19
Joe 18
Ian 15

Joe and I felt it was maybe a little too brutal for the 90 minutes it took - a slugfest of underhanded moves and overhanded face slaps. But Ian and Martin disagreed. It's certainly an interesting game though, if you're up for a bruising brawl. 

Joe felt we needed some remedial ludic loving and so we decided to defuse some bombs. 

In our first mission we had to cut certain wires in sequential order, and we succeeded easily - although Joe (and in fairness, all of us) forgot about the specificities of the number 11. It was such a tiny (reversed) mistake though, I think you really need to peer close to see the asterisk. The game was still out on the table, so we thought Why Not defuse some more explosives. The next mission was interesting: Joe was new recruit Rhett Herring, and the standard game now had the additional challenge of Rhett always lying (with his number signifiers) about what numbers he had. For example if someone asked him if he had a six, Rhett will tell the truth about whether he does or not, but if he doesn't then he'll lie about what number wire it really was. 

Rhett's problem with the bomb disposal department is never made totally clear, but we accidentally cheated again and then lost anyway. 

It was already Clover o'Clock, so we set up for our standard evening-closer. "What is Fun Facts doing on the table??" Martin said, as though it was an actual steaming turd. All was forgiven when I explained we just needed the pens. 

Our first attempt was not a classic. There were some lovely clues in there (I enjoyed Joe's inferior for short/lake and my own Model T for garage/bone) but we were dealt some bastard Rhett Herrings and scored something pretty average. 

So, employing Bomb Busters logic, we went again. But as with Bomb Busters mark II, we couldn't pull off a success. Ian's Vogon for grate/poetry was a highlight (after I was reminded who the Vogons were) and both he and Joe harvested sixers, but Martin and I couldn't match them. This one was 19/24 - not awful, but not championship form either. 

And that was another GNN wrapped up and sent on its way. Hope to see you all next week.