Flip flip hurray

After last week's sparse turn out, we were somewhat back to normal with seven gamers: the host Sam and Joe, Martin, Matt, Katy, Ian and I.

From the start, we split into two groups. Katy had reserved a game of Lords of Vegas, and was all excited about it until it was pointed out that, given the recent tragedy, it might not be the most appropriate game to play. She went off the idea, but by then she had three opponents and so the game began.

Matt, Sam and I (and Stanley, too, in the latter stages of the game) played Flipships, the game that would be the board game version of Space Invaders except there's already a board game version of Space Invaders. I've never played it, but I can't imagine it's better than this.

It looked bad for us early on, with hoards of angry aliens bearing down on us. But it turns out that Matt is the last starfighter, picking off aliens with his short-range cannon, and taking two out with one flick.

He kept us alive long enough that we got to The Last Assault: the part of the game where all pretense of strategy goes out the window and we just target the Mother Ship. The Earth was on one health point, but we whittled the mother ship down and I, the last player to flip their ships, dealt the fatal blow with my penultimate ship! How we all cheered!

Earth Alliance 1
Alien Federation 0

Lords of Vegas was barely underway. They'd been tolerant of our ships overshooting the Mother Ship and landing on Sunset Strip, while they wheeled and dealed in Vegas.

Ian's early attempt at a sprawl, making a four-tile casino, blew up in his face when Katy drew the card that gave her the lot that Ian had sprawled into. Suddenly, that four-tile casino was hers. She made no attempt at hiding her glee, while Ian slipped into glum Eeyore-mode. He fell behind and never recovered.

Meanwhile, the other half of the table was not finished with War In Space. We chose Quantum for our big-ish game to last until the probable end of Lords Of Vegas.

Buy-in setting up Quantum, Sam brushed against a wine glass, sending it to the floor with a smash. I noticed that the first thing he wiped down was the board game box. Sam knows his priorities.

After more wiping and hoovering, we were ready to start. And what a game it was. We chose the Origin Of Thought map, an thanks to some good rolls, the early part of the game was mostly the three of us putting cubes down in the far-flung outer reaches. But then we were forced into the middle where it all kicked off.

I was one cube behind quite early on, and spend a lot of time fighting people to try and stop them. Sam used his Tactical card to good effect, often squeezing in a final attack at the end of his go. Matt, though, was relentless which came in very handy with a seemingly invincible 4-dice the Sam kept attacking but never destroyed.

The end, when it came, was swift and unexpected. I thought Sam was no threat, so focused my attacks on a clearly dangerous Matt. Then Sam launched a ship, and used Tactical to move it into a battle over an orbital point. A battle against Relentless Matt. But Sam won, and he moved into the space with allowed him to put down his final cube. If Casino Royale had been about Quantum, not Poker, that's how it would've ended.

Sam 0 cubes left
Matt 1
Andrew 2

By now, people were remarking on the strange Eighties turn that Sam's YouTube playlist had taken. He tried to put it right, but even then it veered back to Peter Gabriel via a period of Kate Bush.

By now Lords Of Vegas had finished. The final stages were notable by how close it was. Whenever I looked over, the first place space was always occupied by at least two counters.

Maybe the crucial moment was when Martin tried to reorganize a large casino, but failed and gave it to Joe, causing him to declare that the purple casino was cursed.

But was it so important? The Strip paid out for the last time, and Joe squeaked a win.

Joe 32 plus $49m
Katy 32 plus $23m
Martin 29
Ian 23

An odd game of LoV, with no brown casinos built at all. Was that why it was so close?

Then all seven of us played Bemused, the game that so successfully lived up to its name last week. Technically, it's only a six player game so Sam and I joined forces as a team.

The game itself seems like a simple card game with a bit of hidden secrecy regarding our gemina (a card telling us which other we are especially interested in) and how we feel about them (love, hate, disdain etc).

I'm not sure if the whole bit about getting into character is entirely necessary for the game, but we did enjoy a bit of role playing. Joe (painter) complained about Martin (dancer) visiting his studio and making snide remarks. Sam and I (thespians) we're offended by any critique of our stage version of Jaws, and people flung doubts at Ian (poet) telling him to get back to his garret.

Katy (singer) was not enough in character to give us a tune, but she did prove pivotal to the game. She drove Martin insane which curiously lead to the death of Joe. And then, right at the end of the game, she killed Matt who revealed his gemina was Katy, which gave her a Dread card, killing her off too. The only people left standing (albeit insane) was the Thespian. However, it seems that survival is a losing tactic in this game.

Katy 7 (died last)
Joe 7
Matt 5
Ian 5
Martin 5
Sam & Andrew 3

Then we reformed into two new groups. Martin, Ian and Sam banded together to defeat the Alien Federation again (they don't give up, I'll give them that) while Joe, Katy, Matt and I played Animals On Board.

My tactic was to get as many 5 value cards as I could, but it’s an optimistic one. I was soundly beaten by Joe’s and Matt’s set collection.

Matt 46
Joe 39
Andrew 36
Katy 35

As for Flipships, the aliens didn’t last long in the face of Ian’s, Martin’s and Sam’s withering death ray. “Good flicking, guys!” said someone as Ian put the fourth decisive hole in the mothership’s hull.

Earth Alliance 2
Alien Federation 0

They filled in until we finished Animals On Board with Eggs of Ostrich.

Sam 10
Martin 9
Ian 3

Then the night ended with Fuji Flush. It’s all luck of course. Wish I could remember more about it, but by now I was really quite drunk.

Ian 0 cards left
Katy 0
Matt 1
Sam 1
Martin 2
Andrew 2
Joe 2

After that, we bid our fond goodbyes. Or did we? Joe, who was driving, admitted that he couldn’t be arsed to give the Eastonites a lift across the M32, preferring to help out Katy and I since we live closer to his home (and also closer to Sam’s home, which may be where the argument began). Here’s hoping this doesn’t lead to a massive schism in the ranks. Let’s all love each other again next Tuesday!

Flipping Heaven

Sorry to once again use the blog as a personal games-with-boys memoir, but I couldn't let this week pass without mentioning Flipships, which has been a bona fide hit in the house with all three males.

 left to right: invaders, scores, special powers

This is a co-operative cardboard version of Space Invaders. A mothership is sending tiny attackers down to Earth, and we collectively fight them off by flipping our ships. If we land on a card, we destroy it (unless it has xx on it, in which case it needs a double hit). But after every round the ships move closer to Earth, travelling at three different speeds. If they enter the atmosphere, we take punishment! Successful invaders are shuffled back into the deck, and more ships come out at the start of each new round.

ready for lift-off!

It's a blast. Joe has proclaimed it his favourite game and Stan says it's in the top-ten. As the state of the Earth worsens, more defending ships are released to you and your powers increase... but will it be too late? You can only win by destroying the Mothership - a long flip away - but you need to hold off the invaders whilst doing so. If you see off the fleet, there's a final round where you desperately flip your ships at the mothership to kill it off before it devastates the Earth with a whopping 20 point hit, completely obliterating you.

aieeeeeee

We won last night when Joe flipped a ship on the last go of the last round into the Mothership, dealing it the death blow. I subsequently discovered we had been bending a rule (helping ourselves to ships a little too easily) but what's a little cheating when the future of the world is at stake?

We played again today and were defeated with only 8 ships left to destroy!

aaarrrrrgh

It's a lovely game. It's so lovely it almost got them asking to play again instead of Playstation. But not quite.

And then there were four

It was a very old-school GNN last night in terms of numbers - no Andrew, no Katy, and several other potential attendees absent meant that by the time 7.30 rolled around, there were a paltry four of us perched in Joe's kitchen - or five if you count Sybil, who populated the evening with her Victorian harrumphs at well-chosen intervals. The host was joined by Martin, Ian, and myself (Sam) - we began with Bemused.

me

I'm hard-pressed to describe this game even now, having played it. The conceit is that each player takes some kind of creative role (painter/poet/singer/musician) and has a muse, which is one of the roles - perhaps even your own, if you're a complete narcissist. They also have a secret which describes how their muse inspires them. It might be love, but then again they might hate their friggin' guts. On your turn you cast Doubt or Dread on another player's role, or play your special ability which allows you to move or discard the aforementioned afflictions. If anyone hits a five-card affliction (doubt or dread) they go insane, and if three of them are dread cards, they also die.

me later

You can still win if you die, but you need to try and kill the other players in order to do so. Which is hard to pull off when you're dead.

I had no idea what I was doing, but the game was mainly notable for the table talk, with people exercising their doubt by saying Martin's last song was a little bit Dire Straits or Joe's recent poem was doggerel. Ian's rule clarification enquiry was to check whether being dead counted as insane, and Joe cut a deal with Martin where he promised if Martin made him sane again, he wouldn't kill him.

I was first to go mad, first to die, and in last place. It was kinda enjoyable but as Ian pointed out, mostly in terms of its bemusement. Because my muse was myself, I had no real strategy other than to pretend to target someone else - Joe, in this instance, as I had matching doubt cards - and I'm not sure I'm as enamoured of the game as everyone else. It felt like it was made by someone who detested creativity.

Ian 8
Joe 5
Martin 4
Sam 3

With that appetiser done, we blasted into the first - the only - meaty (ish) game of the night in Clank! the luck-pushing, deck-building adventurer of trying not to make too much noise. I went a risk-heavy route by picking up noisy cards, but planned to exit first having grabbed the (third best) 20 point artefact. With the fresh air in my nostrils though, I was tempted away to try and grab a bit of treasure, and it was to prove an exacting downfall.

Whilst I struggled to make it back to safety, Martin triggered the game end and Ian and Joe sashayed their way to the surface despite multiple dragon attacks. Meanwhile I dealt myself non-moving cards and succumbed pathetically, tragically, and greedily. Joe waltzed his way home with the most prized artefact of all for a convincing debut win:

Joe 94
Ian 65
Martin 55
Sam 42

If I'd only listened to the voice, maybe things coulda been different...

Spires was next, the new card game of tower-building where if you build more than three sections (cards) in a tower, they cease to be worth 5pts per card and become -1pt per card instead. This was a first play with four and the main thing to note was how many contests there were over the cards. Martin wrapped things up with a flourish at the end - the (possible) sting in the tail with Spires is your have to add any cards in your hand at game-end to your towers, which often makes them too tall. But Martin had saved the point-scoring symbols to ensure his over-building was substantially offset by rewards for swords and crowns. Joe took the points for scrolls:

Martin 56
Joe 54
Sam 47
Ian 46

We finished off with not one, but two - two! - games of Polterfass. I'm terrible at this game but I do really enjoy it; and fortunately (for me) this evening Joe was even terribler than I was. Falling behind, Joe repeatedly bid big in an attempt to catch up and went bust, handing over points to the opposition, often to Martin's appalled chagrin. Meanwhile we all bid fractionally too high for Ian's 25 beer haul (we bid 26!) ensuring him a solid win in game one:

Ian 79
Martin 63
Sam 49
Joe 26

Then in the second game - after we talked Martin out of playing Super Potato - I got off to a flier, up in the forties with Joe and Martin still hovering around or under zero. But Ian hauled me back to set up a dramatic finish. I needed one point, Ian needed eleven. But if he got more than eleven, he could potentially beat me. As innkeeper, I rolled again... and went bust! Disaster! As it turned out though, Ian had bid low, thinking I would play nasty. Now he was the innkeeper, and I bid low... it was enough for the win... just.

Sam 77
Ian 73
Martin 34
Joe 14

It wasn't yet eleven pm, but with Joe and Ian feeling a little under the weather, the most sparsely populated GNN in a while came to a civilised close.

Calmer chameleon

Tuesdays at Joe's. Six gamers: Joe, Katy, Martin, Sam, Steve and myself. We began with The Chameleon, a new Spyfall-esque game of pretending to know more than you really do. Perhaps I should be concerned that I seem to be quite good at it.

We played three rounds. In the first round Sam was the chameleon and the clue was Rom-Com. Halfway through this round Steve finally worked out that all the non-chameleons knew the same word. This probably made things clearer.

Our words for rom-com mostly seemed based around vague references to Four Weddings and a Funeral, but it wasn't clear enough to Sam. He was outed as the chameleon and incorrectly guessed Comedy as the mystery word. We'd won.

At the start of the next round, Joe remarked that it'd be almost impossible to not be identified as the chameleon. I checked my card and discovered that it was me this time. I found it surprisingly stressful. Suddenly the game turned into Codenames as I frantically (but calmly) tried to think of words that would cover as many potential answers as possible. I chose Grey and, boy, did I get lucky. The mystery word/thing was Game of Thrones, which involves a family name that contains the word Grey. All the suspicion fell on Joe who was last to think of a word, and it did not impress. I won!

For the third round I was appalled to find myself as the chameleon again. The subject was historical people, and I worked out that about a third of them had connections to islands, so that's what I said, realising that if the secret was Anne Frank that I'd be caught out pretty quickly. And I got lucky again, since it was Charles Darwin. But not lucky enough. The vote to identify the chameleon was split three ways and Martin had the deciding vote, and he voted for me. I was exposed. I successfully identified the secret so technically I won, but I was still disappointed.

After all that stress, we split into two groups of three. Sam, Katy and Martin chose a number of short games. The first of which, I think, was Spires.

Sam took a risk on the last turn and, apparently, got royally screwed for his bravery. This lumbered him with a pile of negative points right at the end.

Martin 97
Katy 61
Sam 28

Joe, Steve and me brought Manila to the table. It was new to Steve but it's not hugely complicated. At heart, it's a betting game, appealing to the compulsive gambler in all of us. My early game went well, with a couple of choice pirating expeditions bringing in a heap of money. But the dice were being generous anyway, with one round ending with all of us earning over 30 in cash.

Meanwhile, the other three moved on to Steam Park. A massively complicated looking game whose main mechanic seems to revolve around cleaning up dirt. At the beginning, Katy and Martin kept protesting that they didn't know what they were doing.

But before long, those teething troubles were over and they were well into the swing of things. It ended:

Martin 88
Sam 79
Katy 76

In Manila, Joe was in money troubles and had to encumber some shares. He had to pull of an audacious tactic of getting money and also betting on none of the three ships coming in. And it worked.

Steve also struggled with cash but had no encumbered shares to worry about.

The other three played Lords of Scotland. I barely remember it, but the scores were:

Katy 41
Martin 31
Sam 16

Then they played Eggs of Ostrich, which Katy won despite bursting all but one of her bags, but having two lovely chunks of amber.

Katy 13
Sam 9
Martin 2

Finally, Manila was coming to a close. Once I was far in the lead in money mid-game, I'd played cautiously. Steve made a late conversion to piracy but it didn't pay out as much as mine. Joe managed to unencumber his shares to fight his way back to a healthy second place.

Andrew 157
Joe 125
Steve 98

Then we played a quick game about dirty pigs. If I hadn’t taken a photo I would have completely forgotten about it. I think I won.

Now we were all back together, and ready for a game of Fuji Flush. I started to flag during this game, and helped Martin to a quick win causing howls of dismay from the other players (although, in my defence, it also stopped me coming dead last).

Martin 0 cards left
Steve 1
Joe 1
Sam 2
Katy 2
Andrew 2

But then as some of us got ready to go, a hardcore splinter group of Sam, Joe and Martin stayed seated, contemplating another game. I was briefly tempted to sit back down and join them but was quickly reminded that I ended the last game on purpose. And so, banished from the games room, I snuck off into the night.

Lost Causes

Saturday games began early yesterday, with Andrew and Ian rocking up at 6pm as Stan and I set up Clank! for a four-player. We'd already cranked out a game of Railways during the afternoon...

 Going loco

During which I raced off into an early lead thanks to grabbing all three of those point-scorers: four different cubes, delivered, three-link delivery and so on. In fact I was at one stage about twenty points ahead of Stan with less bonds, but as my goods dried up on the east, his bigger network on the west starting paying out big. I held on for the win, but in the end Stan had ground his way back to a two point deficit. 

Back to Clank! I played this a couple of weeks back with Adam and Hannah and we'd really enjoyed it. And I played with Stan with similar results, although I'm not sure it's best as a two-player really. The game is like a card-drafting version of Incan Gold; grabbing what you can and hoping to get out before you're knocked out by the dragon. 

forgot to take pics of Clank, so here's Adam again

Ian decided to get out early, and put the pressure on the rest of us - once one player leaves, everyone only has four turns left to do the same. This strategy worked for Adam, but it proved Ian's undoing: despite numerous dragon attacks, the clanking cubes coming out of the bag didn't stop us all reaching the surface. There was only one winner though:

Stanley 94

Sam 79

Andrew 70

Ian 64

We all liked it. Next up was a quick blast of Lost Expedition. This can be played as a head to head game or a co-op, and the six of us combined into a three-player version. It's a pretty simple game of trying to make your way to the Lost City of Z - following the footsteps of the explorer Percy Fawcett, whose recently inspired the recent film. (Though there is plenty of doubt about the film and Percy himself, as this somewhat huffily worded critique points out). 

In the game everyone plays cards which form a 'hike' - one in the morning, one in the evening. How you negotiate each hike - from left to right - dictates your progress, as many cards have mandatory events, but also opportunities to manage both your resources (health, food, ammunition) and the hike  itself (adding/discarding cards). You begin with three explorers but only need one to reach the city in order to win. 

But a combination of my desire to push ourselves quickly along the trail, and Joe killing off Roy (the only explorer with the specialist knowledge we needed at a crucial moment!) meant we failed three-quarters of the way!

Ian, Andrew, Stanley, Joe and Sam: lose

Peer Sylvester: wins

With our leafy graves assured just as Andy walked through the door, the boys were packed off to bed and we perused the Alcove of Joy. Much muttering was heard before we finally agreed to revisit Lords of Waterdeep. It's been a long time, but we were all familiar enough with it - bar a couple of rules-checks - to include the Skullport expansion. 

Andrew rocketed off into an early lead, before we caught him up and - occasionally - overhauled him. Ian began to regret his big-quest strategy early on, as the rest of us were ducking and diving he was stoically left to collect adventurers - or cubes, as everyone but me insisting on calling them. Despite Andrew's healthy lead I felt pretty confident at this stage - I had the fewest skulls, and planned to play an Intrigue card in the final round to make having them even more punitive for the others. My only concern was Andy, who seemed to be collecting numerous Arcadia quests and chaining them in classic Bate style. 

Then Andy allowed everyone to return skulls to the corruption track and my plans suddenly didn't look remotely effective any more. I'm not sure what happened to Ian - he said he was coming last from about the sixth round - "just like my life" - and he was right: 

Andy 123

Andrew 109

Sam 100

Ian 81

Sticking with the Old School, we then played Poison. Once upon a time this was the GNN go-to filler, but it doesn't come out the box much these days. 

Maybe because the box is something of an artefact itself, with Berger artwork from that classic sitcom Games Night. Andy hadn't played it before, but that didn't stop him taking us to the cleaners on his very first round, scoring a measly two points. I had to draw on all my Knizian powers/luck to pull this one back from the dead:

Sam 15

Andy 17

Andrew 20 

Ian 28

With the time now gone ten, we finished off with a recent classic - NMBR9. I love this game, but despite my many plays I made a humdinger of an error - leaving a space for a 9 where I could only actually place it the wrong way up. I wasn't alone - all manner of swearing made its way around the table as the game entered its final furlong. But Ian shucked off his three last places to claim a very convincing win:

Ian 81

Andrew 76

Andy 68

Sam 60

And that was that! 

Oh, except to say Stan and I played Steam Park on Friday night. This is a dice-rolling, funfair-building game where what dice you roll dictate your tactics for the round: you want to build and attract visitors, but visitors bring dirt with them, and too much dirt at the end of the game will get you hit with huge fines.

Circular dirt, bottom left

In the midst of this simple roll-to-build thing though is a race: everyone rolls simultaneously and as soon as you're happy with your dice you grab the first (or second, or third) player marker. Finishing your dice rolling first gets you the bonus of removing dirt - and if you're last to finish, you add dirt instead. 

This can be really brutal in a two-player game, especially your opponent declares themselves happy with their very first roll. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I can imagine Katy getting a kick out of this one. 

Nicht noch einmal!

This week's GNN was looking to be reasonably populated, only for work and weather to cull us back to five: Ian was first in out of the heavy rain at my (Sam's) house, followed by equally sodden Martin and Katy, before Joe strolled in looking catalogue dry. The evening began in most un-GNN-like fashion as we sat with Sally and the boys chatting and eating apple pie, almost as if there were no games to be played.

But there were, and our plans of Clanking or Rocketing (Stephenson-wise) were abandoned for some five player options: we started with The Chameleon, the cross between Spyfall and Codenames.

Like Spyfall, cards are dealt during each round that denote who the chameleon is, whose task to A. not reveal themselves and/or B. work out what the word of the round is. The other cards and a set of dice decide on the word, which is one of about 16 visible on a face-up card - and the visible words are of a theme: animals, music genres and so on. Everyone but the chameleon knows which word is the chosen one, and after a short period of "thinking time" everyone says a single, ostensibly related, word. Then everyone discusses and guesses who the chameleon is. If they choose wrong, the chameleon wins. If they choose correctly, the chameleon can still win by identifying the word.

 chameleon not pictured

The latter was the case for us half the time - in all but one round we nailed the chameleon, but half the time they guessed the word anyway - like Spyfall, you're trying to give the impression you know the word without actually giving it away to the chameleon, and we were being rather obvious. In the final round I was the chameleon, and I decided to go fairly random and just say the word "Orange", hoping to bluff my way out of it. But as luck would have it, I was last to speak and the other words revealed to me that the correct word was Christmas. I stuck with orange, happily remembering that oranges - or satsumas, as Joe correctly pointed out - appear in stockings. Thanks to kismet and some vague words from Ian and Katy, I pulled off the only outright chameleon win of the night!

We moved on to the meat of the evening, which was Beowulf. I rarely request this but I always enjoy it, and last night was no exception. The very first bid turned into an epic battle where everyone felt too committed to drop out, and as a result cards were a scarce commodity from early on. Joe and I both took scratches and wounds, but I managed to pick up a couple of scrolls as well, whereas Joe was bereft of them.

Oh, Beowulf

Ian and Katy both managed to build themselves enormous hands of cards at some stage, whereas Martin and I seemed short of them. Halfway through I sensed it was a battle between Katy and Martin, as Joe looked to be struggling still and Ian seemed too forlorn - but I had forgotten that is merely Ian's natural demeanour.

But spare a thought for Martin, who gallantly reminded Ian in the final, epic battle - where both of them successfully risked into existence numerous cards - that when Ian's risk finally failed him he had a special card to play that negated the risk and allowed him to go again. He did, and it proved a crucial moment in determining the victor, as Martin's risk response did not fare as well:

Ian 28
Katy/Sam 26
Martin 23
Joe 14

Martin's successful risks weren't quite enough...

After the tension of bidding in Beowulf we went for a different kind of tension: bidding in Perudo. This perennial classic showed all its qualities - apart from the Calza rule - as we bluffed and brinkmanshipped our way through another twenty minutes of GNN history. Despite Joe's death spiral, it was Martin first out as the others shed dice down to palafico status and I somehow held on to all five of mine. Ian and Joe soon exited too, although my dice were depleted by the time I faced Katy thanks to two moments where I wanted to call Calza (and would have been successful) but had to raise, and was successfully dudo-ed.

It was now a face to face between Katy (one die) and myself (two). I rolled a 4 and 6 but bid one 5, hoping Katy wouldn't bid a single six. It was risky, but it paid off as she went one ace and I dudo-ed her out of the game.

Despite Joe, Ian and I agreeing we were collectively 'pooped' Martin corralled us into one more game, which was Noch Mal ("Again" in German), one of Joe's roll-and-write purchases that have been making their way to the table recently. I was curious, since I really like Rolling America and Qwixx, but was less impressed than everyone else by Kribbeln. It was new to everyone but Joe and Katy, but the game is pretty simple: six dice are rolled - three numbered, three coloured - and then the active player chooses a combo of colour and number to cross off boxes on their Noch Mal pad. All the other players then choose one of the remaining combos for themselves, with the caveat that if they can't cross off adjacent boxes exactly (i.e. they can't access those boxes from previously filled ones, or they don't have enough space) then they can't cross off anything. Players completing a column or all the boxes of a particular colour score points, and certain boxes are minus points if they end the game un-crossed.

Pre-game-boxes

I thought it was a decent game, but compared to Qwixx or Rolling America it did seem to go on for a while; long enough for some to feel it out-stayed its welcome somewhat. Everyone eventually ran out of the helpful 'joker' spaces on their pads, meaning there were turns were you could do nothing but stare balefully at the table. I think a second play would change a number of tactics and alleviate this, but I didn't get the impression it would get played again soon... Ian hated it so much he lost all his powers of arithmetic and thought 12 + 2 was twenty.

Sam 22
Joe/Katy 18
Martin 16
Ian 14

Early-game boxes. Note that columns further from the centre 

(where you must start your box-crossing) score more points. 

And everyone - bar me - stepped into the windy night. Despite the underwhelm of Noch Mal, a very fun evening. Thanks all!

Crisis? What crisis?

The third evening in GNN’s accidental games weekend took place at Joe’s and saw a rematch of Joe, Martin, Ian and myself over a hot game of Time of Crisis.

Storm clouds brewing

We began at 7.40, and decided to roll two dice to see who would go first. We all rolled eights. Clearly the omens for an evening of peculiar rolls were strong. Joe set off on his audacious new plan of trashing a card on his first go. It looked like being a mistake as his army-less Pallonia swiftly fell to an invasion from Ian and his early options were limited.

Martin began in Africa again, and clearly was making preparations for a pretender empire. I had a lot on my plate as I began in Syria again and the previously docile Sassanids were suddenly very active.

Of course, the benefit of barbarians is that, should you beat them, you get a lot of points. I had some luck with my dice, so I was able to keep knocking them back. But the real lucky dice belonged to Joe who became Emperor of Rome by getting three votes with just one die: a six, another six and then a four. People kept saying how audacious it was, but the audacity and historical importance seemed to be lost on Joe’s family who continued to drift in and out of the kitchen as if nothing had happened.

Ian fretted as he was now a firm last place with no clear path to victory. Or even to a respectable third.

The other notable event was the large number of notable events: that is to say we kept rolling sevens on the crises rolls, meaning that a new card was turned over from the event deck. We were worried that our game would be curtailed too soon because when that deck is exhausted, the game ends.

However, the sevens seemed to peter out and the game continued as normal. Joe, by now, had his feet firmly under the table at the Senate but he had to deal with mobs and his shrinking number of provinces. Martin set himself up as a Pretender in Egypt, thus robbing the Emperor of even more of the benefits.

But that ruined my plans, too, as I wanted to be Emperor and with a Pretender on the board, there isn’t much point. So I steamed across the Mediterranean and attacked him in return for Joe placating the hordes of barbarians in Syria with his Tribute card. This plan was carefully worked out between us while Martin was on the toilet. I reckon real politics is very similar.

Ian was now rock solid in Eastern Europe and had been picking up points by invading the barbarian regions when he revealed a hand containing nothing but fifteen red action points, with a card that allowed him to use them for electioneering purposes. He became Emperor of Rome and then had an epic battle against some barbarians whose exploding sixes whittled his four-legion army down to one wounded (but victorious) legion.

Martin’s game was very swingy. He went from Pretender to real Emperor and then fell right back to only having one province. As the game drew to an end, Martin had an eye on Rome and Spain and he had twelve dice to do it with. He needed six votes in both and, amazingly, he got five each time. Not a single six in any of the twelve dice he rolled. His hopes of a last minute boost up the score track were dashed.

By now Joe’s lead was insurmountable: he’d already passed the 60 point mark and all he had to do on his go was become Emperor and the game would end.

As it happened, Joe rolled a seven, turned over an event card and it was the Diocletian card and the game ended anyway. Joe had won, and in some style. He wasn’t convinced by his opening tactic despite it ending in victory. I might try it, though.

Joe 68
Ian 54
Martin 48
Andrew 42

All told, it took about four hours, as we ended at around half eleven. Totally worth it, and each one of us had at least one moment when our plans worked perfectly, along with the many moments when they didn’t.

But we hadn’t finished the whisky that Joe had generously poured us, so we ended on Kribbeln.

I rolled twenties early on, Ian picked up eleven points in round two alone but it was mostly Joe and Martin in their dice-rolling pomp. Das Exclusive deserves such displays of luck as the two locked horns. They couldn’t unlock them again by the end, though, and the tie-breaker couldn’t separate them.

Joe 26
Martin 26
Ian 17
Andrew 13

What a night, ending at 24 o’clock according to Joe’s oven. Cheers all.