Viva la revolution(s)!

Christmas is a time of cheer and, if last night was anything to go by, also a time of intrigue, subterfuge and conspiracy. Six of us arrived at Sam's festively decorated kitchen for a special games night, complete with mince pies and a quiz. A quiz!

As I arrived, Quentin was setting up Eclipse. I assumed that an executive decision had been made, and that this would be tonight's main event. But others began to have doubts about the amount of time you'd need for six newbies to play it through. Also, when would we get to do the quiz? In the end, it was put away in favour of two three-players games. Something simpler that we're all familiar with. That was the plan, at least.

We began with a six-player game of Coup, which Joe had been name-dropping since his arrival. This is a simple game of bluff, as each player had two hidden cards and can make moves according to those cards. But, of course, you can pretend you have a different card and do something else. Someone then has to challenge you, and that's where the fun begins!

I had two pretty useless cards, and then I lost the slightly less useless one, leaving me with the Contessa. I just sat there, hoping someone would assassinate me so I could change my card. But the other players were more concerned with each other. Sam tried to assassinate people, but they insisted they had the Contessa and his assassin backed out, apologising and saying he must have the wrong house.

In the end, it was me (with six coins) and Quentin (with less than six). Quentin had no choice but to assassinate me. Thank God I still had the Contessa.

1. Andrew
2. Quentin
3. Joe
4. Sam
5. Adam
6. Hannah

Then there was the quiz! Sam put together some questions to see if we'd been paying attention during the past year or so. It was Joe "The Knowledge" and Quentin versus me, Adam and Hannah. We couldn't match Joe for the "Match the designer to the game" section, but we snuck past in our knowledge of GNN related trivia.

Adam, Hannah, Andrew 26
Joe, Quentin 25

Then we split into two factions. Hannah, Quentin and Sam played Lords of Waterdeep and me, Adam and Joe played Pax Porfiriana. It's a game by Phil Eklund, the same man who brought us the joys of High Frontier, and by all accounts he'd brought the same level of obsessive detail we saw before to revolutionary Mexico.

It was a bit of a hard slog, and not terribly intuitive at first (or even second) glance. The cards are packed with text, some of which has nothing to do with the game. Plus, it's very combatitive. Almost every card effects an opponent, but that may give them an Outrage point and actually do them some good. There are four different ways to win, and I wasn't sure how to achieve any of them. I was especially baffled when Joe said it was okay to attack yourself. I looked jealously across the table at the other group placating statues and raiding undermountains, while we were dealing with Mormon Lumber and the Democratic Chinese Exclusion Bill.

While I was impressed with the depth and how much game there is in the small box, there's no clear route to success. The best way to win is to try to topple the regime and hope everyone is too tired to put up a fight, which is how Adam won.

1. Adam
2. Joe & Andrew

Sam, however, may have less rosy memories of his time in Waterdeep. As I glanced over jealously, I couldn't help but notice that the three score tokens seemed to be quite some distance apart, with Quentin apparently languishing with barely ten points to his name. However, I soon learnt that he'd already been round the score track once and it was Sam who hadn't really got started. Hannah made a late dash for victory, but not enough to take first.

Quentin 166
Hannah 154
Sam 98

But a wounded Sam is an angry Sam (or, at least, slightly peeved), and he brought out his gaming muse, Biblios to play while we three struggled with "U.S. surplusing", whatever that is. It didn't let him down and pride was restored.

Sam 7
Hannah 6
Quentin 4

We ended with a couple of games of The Resistance. However, having just spread intrigue in Italy and tried to overthrow the government in Mexico, I was in no mood to zip into the future and do the same all over again. To my dismay, I was a spy both times. My tactic was to try and stay awake and hope that somehow the others would incriminate themselves. No such luck.

Game one:
Win to the resistance! Sam, Joe, Quentin, Adam
Spies: Andrew, Hannah

Game two:
Win to the resistance! Sam, Hannah, Quentin, Adam
Spies: Andrew, Joe

But that's life! Sometimes the good guys win after all. But for me, the major event of the evening was the look of horror and joy on our faces when we realised it's just one week until Stabcon 2013!

Next stop Stockport!! Woo hoo!!