Putting on the Rats

 Another week, another trip over the M32 for our gaming fix. Adam and Hannah were hosting Martin, Ian, Joe and me. We began with Arthur too, for a quick Just One. We did surprisingly well. We never had more than one couple eliminated due to duplication. Arthur was never in danger of having his clues duplicated. For “belt” he wrote “knife” (because that's where you keep a knife) and for “Sahara” he wrote “deasert” and when Hannah rubbed out the erroneous A, Arthur carefully wrote it back in. And for “Godfather” he just drew a turd. “Obviously a reference to the third film,” I quipped.

With our variant of an extra point for guessing any duplicates, we actually got over 100%.

14 points in 13 rounds 

Then Arthur and Hannah left, after Hannah reminded me that eleven years ago I made her a dish with Kimchi. I was worried that she disliked it so much that she couldn't forget the date, but instead she told me that she now makes her own!

But now we were a five piece band of gamers so we got out Show Manager. This game has artwork ranging from the perfunctory to the ghastly. “Why does he have black lips?” asked Joe after picking up one potential star of his show.

The game involves buying actors for various productions. The better the stars, the higher up the score track it will go. But the twist is that no player has enough money so you have to exchange some of those points for cash which will inevitably send them back down the score track.

I started well, with two early box office smashes but that was before Adam got going and by the time we ended, he had three shows at the top of their score tracks.

Adam 55

Martin 41

Ian 36

Joe 32

Andrew 28

Next up was Mlem. 

This time we added in an expansion, and not just the dice arena - this expansion placed random bonuses (score points, gain an extra die or a satisfyingly old school “go forward X places”) if you land on certain values. And, remarkably, we got to Deep Space. Joe assured us that it had happened plenty of times when he’d played with his family (because, he explained, his wife and daughter “don’t know when to stop rolling”) and it happened to us. In abundance!

Not to me. I took the foolish option of really making sure of first place on the most distant planet with three cats, even if no one else was really bothered about it.

Joe played an interesting game, picking up a ton of points from the expansion. At one point he argued persuasively that a “+1 die” bonus means that you can go from your last die up to two die even though, technically, you use your last die and the +1 die should, strictly speaking, just get you back up to one. Then, having done that, he immediately left the mission with his saboteur cat, taking the extra dice he’d just gained us.

Joe 50

Martin 40

Ian 36

Adam 34

Andrew 24

Martin was appalled that he’d lost, despite getting to Deep Space twice. I rued my planet-only strategy.

It was late so we ended with So Clover. And what a classic. 

Despite the curious sight of Adam leaving his clover on the table while he thought about it, it was replete with great clues, especially Joe’s clue of “Sweating” for “Ammo/Thermometer” but maybe only I think it’s a classic because I got the “sweating bullets” link.

In the end, we got them all right, even squeezing through Ian’s difficult one right at the end.

30 out of 30!

And so we left. Thanks all. It was a beauty.

Wyrm Sweet Wyrm

 A new venue always feels special, like GNN is slowly extending it’s influence across this great nation. And so, at 7.30, four of us (Katy, Sam, Joe and me) squeezed into Sam’s car and drove away to the far reaches of Bristol. It almost felt like a Novocon. Steve and Anja were the hosts, in their converted ex-care home. Anja welcomed us while Steve was upstairs on bedtime duty. Due to the delicate nature of trying to get a child to sleep, we weren’t given a tour of the whole house but what we did see was pretty impressive.

Then Martin, Adam H and Ian arrived and we began to play. Sam had brought Sticky Cthulu, thinking that Louie might enjoy it, but he wasn’t here tonight so instead eight grown adults found themselves whipping the table with sticky plastic tentacles, trying to pick up illustrated bits of cardboard chosen by the roll of two dice, with the illustrations having a vague HP Lovecraft theme. It was frantic and a bit insane. Only one of my photos did it justice.

“This is monstrous,” said Martin. “Literally,” replied Anja. Finally, Ian was awarded his third coin of the game and he was declared winner. Steve arrived and despite the look of intrigued excitement on his face, we couldn’t be persuaded to play again. As the game was being put away, mentioned that the tentacles needed to be cleaned after every game which seems like very high maintenance for a board game.

We were a nine now and Steve chatted about the supposed haunted qualities of their new home. The automatic lights on the hallways keep turning on, apparently, which initially was a bit spooky but now Steve finds it quite useful.

We split into three groups of three. Katy, Adam and Ian played World Wonders. Joe, Martin and Sam squeezed onto one half of the table and played Dawn of Ulos while Steve, Anja and I took up the rest of the table with Wyrmspan.

The room hummed with rules being explained. Joe noticed that the orc meeple in Dawn of Ulos had boobs. I was disappointed that a booklet in Wyrmspan was called “Dragon Facts” since, strictly speaking, those two words shouldn’t go together at all.

Soon after Wyrmspan began, I heard Adam say “My first wonder!” so we were clearly the last to start. Wyrmspan initially looks like Wingspan with a new look, but it is different enough to be considered a new game. So I’m told, anyway, because I couldn’t remember anything about Wingspan. We explored caverns, and enticed dragons with names of varying silliness into our sanctuary. It was all quite sedate without any real interference in other people’s plans.

Meanwhile World Wonders ended with Katy ruing her habit of building wonders whenever possible.

Adam 41 (broke the scoretrack)

Ian 32

Katy 30

And Dawn of Ulos ended after an odd episode where Sam had to take cards from Martin’s hand and Joe advised Martin “why don’t you just pretend they’re shuffled.”

Martin 154

Joe 121

Sam 90

The other six players reshuffled into two groups. Katy sat at the end of the table not fully aware that she was volunteering herself into a game of Faraway (the me of building up a high-scoring tableau of cards backwards) against Joe and Martin.

Martin 85

Katy 64

Joe 53

And Sam, Adam and Ian set up camp on the small table where they played Misfits. Sam’s audacious early use of the drunken elephant couldn’t seal a win, as Adam took first place.

Then they played Little Tavern.

Ian 28

Sam 26

Adam 17

By now, it was late and the only thing left to do was wait for the last round of Wyrmspan to play out and then listen to the scores being totted up, with help from Martin as Steve called out sums that were too difficult for him to deal with at this hour.

Waiting for the scores for Wyrmspan to come in

Steve 94

Anja 93

Andrew 73

And with that, we were off! A new venue was christened and everyone was excited by it, especially at the thought of a game of Hugo in the damp basement of a genuine* haunted house. Thanks all. See you next week!

* approx

Animal House

Sam’s kitchen table, at eight o’clock, was already groaning under the weight of three nature parks. I arrived to find Sam, Katy and Ian playing Caldera Park, with Mel watching. Sam assured us that they were almost finished. During scoring, Ian had some big scoring animals but Katy’s consistency across all groups gave her a surprise win.

Katy 153

Ian 147

Sam 139

Ian described Caldera Park as Kingdomino crossed with Take It Easy, and Sam said it was growing on him.

Next we stayed in a natural setting, this time hiking, cycling or kayaking through woodland in Trailblazers. 

It was new to Mel, so she got a quick rules explanation. I listened in since I’d only played it once and then I spent my game trying to complete the hardest end-of-game bonus despite it scoring only 6 points. And I almost did it, just one card short of having two loops around two camps. Katy really wanted a bison, Sam admitted to sacrificing some animals, Mel asked a last-minute rules clarification and Ian was tired.

Katy 78

Mel 70

Sam 64

Andrew 34

Ian 28

After this, we chose something a bit less thinky and Mlem was brought to the table. Mel admired the roll-out board made from something like wetsuit material. She was taught the rules and we were off into space! Commander Ian must have still been tired, since his first rocket exploded on the first space. Katy, too, had teething problems with her space program, suffering two early catastrophes.

No one got even close to deep space, with Sam and Mel fighting over the same planet, having both commited their x2 Planet cat to the same place. 

Sam placed his cats quickly and was on his last cat while Katy still had five. I managed to get the 4-moon bonus on the last roll of the dice and I also got a very cheap six points by colonising the lowest planet with a bonus while everyone else ignored it.

Andrew 25

Sam 23

Mel 16

Katy 11

Ian 8

Mel left at this point and the four of us ploughed into the night with Misfits. I was exploiting my newly-acquired unemployed status to stay until the end for a change. Misfits is a game that defies explanation, with a whole host of “you have to be there” moments.

I was first to use all my pieces. Sam also used his last piece on the same round, but refused the title of joint winner.

Then we played Little Tavern. More dickish moves, as Katy couldn’t resist events which inevitably made her the poorest player. Something she mentioned whenever someone else had to give money to another player for an event. In round two we started reading out each character's little quote in the style of their race. Possibly offensive but luckily there were no elves, nobles, witches etc to witness this.

Ian 26

Katy 23

Andrew 22

Sam 22

Then we played So Clover. Sam had finished his clover by the time I’d come back from the toilet. But then we floundered on everyone’s clover except Ian’s. Only 16 out of 24 so we went again.

This time I was first but got hit by a bad decoy. My clue of Kabblammm!!! went better with Strong/explosion instead of the correct Physical/explosion. Everyone else went clear, despite controversy over Katy’s clue of “Apple” for “Heavy/Pear”. Immediately after we’d solved her clover, Sam went to get an apple and a pear and it was clear that pears are actually heavier than apples.

And hats off to Ian’s clue of “Any” for “Port/Storm”. Poetic.

22 out of 24.

And we were done. Thanks all. There’s a chance of a new venue next week, so let’s hope I’m still unemployed so I have enough time to get there and back.

Junior Band

What briefly threatened to be a three surged to a six and the first few to arrive - Martin, Katy and Adam T, along with myself - elected to begin the evening with Rankster, reasoning that the others could join us on arrival. Pele was one of the first out of the box - it's getting to be a habit - as Adam was requested to rate his newsreading capacity compared to that of Queen Elizabeth II (great elocution) and Little Red Riding Hood (may not even know the word news). While the rest of us were pondering his rankings Adam H arrived, having initially gone to Joe's house by mistake. "I was too lazy to read the whole thread" he said, rationalising that as Joe was last to reply, we'd be at his house. 

We did okay at Rankster, although Martin was furious with us for proposing a Medusa would be good at pulling faces at a three-year-old. "She'd turn them to stone!" he wailed. Then after Joe arrived and we learned from Adam that the reason John F Kennedy didn't duck was because he wears a corset, the table split into threes. Adam T joined Martin and Joe for a crack at Faraway...

While Adam, Katy and I began our animal assembly duties in Caldera Park, where the goal is to group animals of a type together, and then multiply their number by how many waterholes they connect to for points. The catch is that some tiles contain more than one type of animal, and there are placement restrictions that may force you to put animals where they won't score at all. In fact, they may be killed off by weather. 

Over five rounds players take turns announcing which animal - assuming it's still available - goes on which terrain, and their fellow players must follow suit if they can. But if they can't, their opportunities expand rather than contract - if Katy says 'put a wolf in the forest' and you currently have no wolves, you can put anything you like in the forest. And if all your forest is already covered, you can put a wolf anywhere. If you have neither wolves nor forest available, the world is your oyster. 

In each round a weather tile is added, but these are unpredictable and may wipe out neighbouring animal tiles if you are unlucky. At the end of the game, you tot up your animal score but also accrue points for covering parts of your board (all forest, all river, all waterfalls etc). Katy said she really enjoyed the game right up until the end, when she discovered she'd lost. 

Adam 161

Sam 153

Katy 146

But she still loved the scorepad, even if she wasn't keen on what it had to say. Meantime Faraway, with its curious dynamic of laying out a tableau of cards before scoring them backwards (point-scoring relies on certain symbols being exposed when the card itself is flipped) had been played not once but twice! In the first game there was some mild symmetry to scoring:

Martin 90

Joe 80

Adam T 70

And in the second, Adam took his distant card-flipped revenge:

Adam 74

Joe 65

Martin 64

It was time to do a bit of seat-swapping and so Katy and Adam T switched sides so she, Joe and Martin could play Robo-Trick and I could confuse the Adams by saying 'Adam's turn!' for the next 60 minutes. 

I still haven't played Robo-Trick so I can't explain it but I recall Joe teaching me the rules and it sounded nuts. I think it was nuts, and there was a lot of minus points scored and some chagrin from Katy. Meantime, Adam H's position at the table was identical to when he played Caldera Park, only someone had removed his glasses. 

World Wonders rules are pretty straightforward but the spatial element had Adam T in knots at times and he frowned at his progress as we filled our boards with roads, buildings, and the aforementioned wonders like deistic architects intent on wiping out every last blade of grass. Meantime Martin won Robo Trick:

And to my surprise they began to play Tipperary, even though Martin said "There is literally NO interaction" in his scathingly-dismissive mode. Katy and Martin had both played before but they needed to run through the rules and so spent almost as much time learning them as playing the game itself. 

I missed the drama/lack-of though, as I was spending the last two rounds of World Wonders frustrated at my lack of options. The shitty pyramids had come out which rarely fit anywhere and I couldn't build the other two wonders either, so was literally throwing away gold to pass. Maybe another wonder or two would have made a difference, but we'll never know:

Adam H 33

Adam T/Sam 30 each

And, brief as it is, Tipperary finished too, and as they added up the sheep Adam T wondered if they might nod off halfway through counting. Joe and Martin tied on 94 points each with Katy back on 84. Martin gave a brief recap on the lack of interaction, Adam T headed home and after some further post-Tipperary scathing dismissery, the five of us played Little Tavern.

Perhaps the antidote to Tetris-Ireland's solitaire tile-placement, in Little Tavern we are regularly palming off customers we don't want to each other's tables, and when all tables are full customers will tip according to current table state (or tavern state, which means the real table). Witches like having witches around the place. Elves - or racists, as we referred to them - like having elves at the same table. Dwarves like a mix, Goblins are all called Billy-something and only tip if their leader (Billy-Billy) is present, and so on. Mix in some shenanigans in the form of optional events and this tavern is a fairly dastardly place. 

There are only six events and in both rounds we used them all up. I had an appalling start which may have been explainers curse but was quite likely surrounded-by-dicks. Katy and Adam were in a strong position and found themselves targeted in round two, but it was Katy and Martin who snaffled the shared-win courtesy of some hot elf on elf action:

Martin/Katy 26 each

Sam 25

Adam H 24

Joe 20

Now Adam H took his leave too as the rest of us took our leaves for So Clover. Probably the less said about our first attempt the better, as after a cracking opening (6 points for Martin's tile) we followed it with three pitiful threes, and despite the late hour Katy insisted we play again. This time it wasn't a perfect score either, but 20/24 was a considerable improvement, especially since mine and Katy's red herring card both fit perfectly with two of our clues, Katy's in particular (seen below) reminiscent of Martin's 'portobello' moment.

It was now past 11 though and time to call it a night. Thanks all!

Does God Play Hab & Gut

Adam, Hannah and Arthur were our hosts last night as we belatedly marked Katy's birthday with cake (brought by Katy) and kicked off the evening with an injection of comestible caterpillar while Arthur loaded the table with potential games we could play. As an eight however - along with the hosts and Katy, there were Martin, Ian, Joe and myself - we settled on Codenames Pictures. I was clue-giver for the Hillmann-Morrison team and Joe clued for everyone else.

We got off to a good start with the team successfully reconciling my clues for mischief before Joe's team hit back, opening with a salvo of success and following it with such wild and wacky clues as 'Linux' (Martin remembered there was a Penguin, Katy spotted a penguin in the cards) and we stumbled on my clue of breakfast as I hadn't spotted a melting clock was actually dribbling out of a saucepan. These are the kind of sentences you don't write about original Codenames!

Joe/Ian/Katy/Martin: clues cracked!
Arthur/Adam/Hannah/Sam: clues crocked

In theory it was now Arthur's bedtime, so we separated into two groups for the evening's main dishes. Ian Adam and Katy ruminated on a Mad King Ludwig rematch before settling on World Wonders after Katy saw the bits. Martin took Joe and I into the other room and talked us through Dawn of Ulos, which he'd been sent to review. 

The game wears its influences on its sleeve, apparently, being a mash-up of Acquire in it's shareholding and takeovers and Tigris & Euphrates in how said takeovers are resolved: here, rather than investing in buildings we are backing various factions on the map. Each turn you must play a tile that will strengthen an existing faction or perhaps introduce (or re-introduce) a new one, which are triggered by available spaces their (plastic mini) leaders can sit on. Then you may either buy up to three cards in any faction, or sell one card for its sale value, in which case you also trigger its faction-specific ability. 

As tiles are added the factions grow in strength: each one gains 1 strength for the terrain types it likes to control (2 types per faction). But as they grow in strength they also become more expensive to buy, and tempting to sell. The catch being if you sell, you are sacrificing valuable cards for their sale value, whereas at the end of the game they'll be worth their higher strength value. 

So  there are already some chewy decisions, but that's before we get to the combat/takeover, where the Tigris comparison takes over: when any of these faction-controlled terrains join up, play is suspended until the battle to control all of the connected terrain is resolved. This is a comparison of current strength, plus any matching faction cards any or all players want to contribute to boost the strength of either (or both) sides. Another catch: you must sell at least half of any cards you put towards battle, and don't get to trigger the ability. 

Whew. While we were all at degrees of bamboozlement, the vibe in the kitchen was slightly less furrowed, as various wonders were built around the pleasing mini-conurbations. 

Back on Ulos, I had concerns over Martin's Ratfolk - not actually his, but I knew he had a lot of Ratfolk cards - and I invested a fair bit of time destabilising them by pillaging - placing cubes on the terrain they like to reduce their strength. 

Then I triggered a battle where, thanks to my surfeit of Goblins, I won. Martin rued his decision to not commit more of the furry little shits to the cause, but it was too late: the Ratfolk were off the board and needed re-establishing. Joe, meanwhile, fretted over the Sheki being either absent or seemingly under-powered, but his late-game push to embolden them - and a face-off with the Orcs that I foolishly supported myself - pushed the Sheki into a more rewarding spot, and Joe into a convincing debut win:

Joe 100
Martin 89
Sam 88

(Last night I was actually second, but a rules clarification this morning pushed me into third!). 

We were all intrigued, if not fully in love. If the idea of Gods being shareholders is a stretch, the fantasy theme kind of suits what's happening on the board. The rules aren't onerous, but the ramifications of each action are, which means not only calculations of current worth and future potential but, ideally, having an idea of what cards your opponents hold. It's kinda bananas, like Hab & Gut's shares crossed with Ethnos' area control crossed with something a bit more combative. 

Or, as others have said, Acquire with T&E. I just haven't played Acquire. 

In the kitchen they had finished as well, with Adam taking the win!

Both games had taken a surprisingly long time, with the hour now past ten. We regrouped together and played co-operative Hitster, the Timeline-style game of placing musical hits in chronological order. This was mostly notable for the weird song about sailors at the docks and all of us being appalled that Beyonce's Crazy in Love is now 21 years old. TWENTY ONE YEARS! That's older than the blog, which feels like it started when Simon & Garfunkel were in the pop charts. Here you can see our bewilderment. 

With the game not having an 'official' co-op iteration, we agreed to play until we failed ten times, and did reasonably well, almost running out of table. Joe's Steely Dan-era knowledge helped us in the 60's and 70's and Ian's ear for production values often clarified things later. I only turned thirty in 2000 but anything after 1990 seemed a mystery to me, and my guesses were usually wayward. Overall though, a more than decent stab and a fun way to end the evening!

So thank you to our hosts, many happy returns to Katy and kudos to Ulos for giving us an unusual experience. As we left, Martin remarked that someone born when Crazy in Love came out would now be graduating University, and it completely ruined the mood. Until next week!

Once more unto the beach

 This week, six gamers arrived at Joe’s house in alphabetical order (Adam, Adam, Andrew, Ian, Martin, Sam) for another dose of gaming goodness. This was my first games night in a few weeks and immediately people started making jokey references to a game that I knew nothing about. How swiftly things move on without you.

We split into two groups. A quartet (Martin, Adam T, Adam H, Joe) played Challengers! Beach Party. Ian asked what new features this variant had and Adam ummed and ahhed a bit before saying “different cards”. Oh, and each player has their own special power and there’s some kind of change in the drafting method. Nothing to do with beaches, as far as I could tell.

The trio (myself, Ian and Sam) played World Wonders, a tile-placement tessellation game that allows players to build famous historical buildings with little concern for cultural or temporal fidelity. For example, Ian built Easter Island’s famous statues of Maoi near his Trojan Horse. It’s a nice game, nothing groundbreaking but fun. I build the pyramid complex at Giza for two points, even though it covered three natural resources, costing me a potential three points. A bad move, strategically, but it looked nice on my board. The scores were so close, they needed a recount.

Ian 37

Sam 36

Andrew 35

Challengers was still ongoing, so we set up Little Tavern. This is a silly, dickish game where a player picks a card at random and decides if they want to keep it at their table or place it at someone else’s. There are event cards, allowing characters to be swapped, removed or added to a table face down so that no one else knows what it is. If you get the right people sitting at your desk, then you can score big points. Ian cleverly got three romantics around his table which, instead of being the start of a menage a trois, actually got him 20+ points.

Ian 35

Sam 35

Andrew 30

Around this time, Challengers ended. Martin had won four out of the first five games, but it was Adam H v Joe in the final, with Adam coming out the winner.

After this, we reshuffled. This time the quartet (Ian, Sam, Adam and Adam) played Forest Shuffle, a game that looks lovely but I know little about. Halfway through Adam T said that he was enjoying it, but he wasn’t sure if anyone else was.

I was involved in a game of Faraway, an odd game with a wafer thin theme of going on a journey tacked onto a quite brain-burning card placement game. The idea is to put down cards that then score bonuses according to other cards in your tableau. However, in a normal game the cards would all be visible when you add up your scores, in this game that cards are revealed in reverse order and bonuses only score for whatever’s visible at the time. For example, you play a card that scores 15 points if you have three stone cards and then you have to make sure that you later play three stone cards otherwise that card is worthless when it gets turned over. There’s a certain amount of player interaction such as when Martin looked at Joe’s cards and said “What are you collecting…. Pineapples?” and I asked Joe when had Martin started calling him Pineapples.

We played twice. I managed to grab a fifth stone card right at the end which meant my 24pointer card was valid when it was revealed!

Joe 81

Martin 72

Andrew 48

Andrew 84

Joe 80

Martin 63

I had to go at this point. Any regrets I had about leaving Martin and Joe as a couple were dispelled when Martin said the next game worked better as a two-player.

I don’t know what that game was, but when Forest Shuffle ended the scores were (according to Sam’s memory)

Adam T 125

Sam 125

Adam H 116

Ian 96

Then five of them played So Clover and “did rather well”. Looking at the photo I have to tip my hat to the audacity of clueing “Water” when “river” was one of the words on a different side.

Rather well out of 30

Thanks all. See  you next week.