Wednesday 12 February 2014

Twin Kingdom Valley

After some last minute rearrangement based on Sam’s car being broken, we congregated at Sam’s place for this week’s regular GNN fix. Getting there was no picnic, though, as rain turned briefly to hail in the half hour before we were due to begin.

Some hail, today

Six of us were there: Sam, me, Adam, Hannah, Gonz and Martin. We chose an old favourite to begin with. One we could all play together as a sextet. It was Poison. It’s been a long time since I played. I’d like to think that was why I did so badly, but it’d been a long time since anyone had played. And Gonz had never played at all.


Gonz 5
Martin 12
Hannah 15
Sam 15
Adam 17
Andrew 27

Afterwards Gonz didn’t seem impressed. He said the game just played itself: it was always obvious what the next go should be. I wish it had been obvious to me.

After this, we split into two groups of three. Adam, Gonz and Martin went for Kingdom Builder. Hannah, Sam and I chose Fresco, but it was a last minute change of heart from Hannah, since we were seconds away from breaking out Tinners’ Trail. But the new flavour of the month won a second appearance on the table in two days.

The three of us were too involved in our fresco painting (or “frescing”, as I called it) to pay much attention to the Kingdom Builders at the far end of the table, but they did end halfway through our game, and the scores were pretty tight.


Martin 70
Gonz 64
Adam 60

As they began another game of Kingdom Builder, we kept on with our depiction of various biblical scenes. At first there was some leapfrogging over each other on the score track, but before long, I started to fall behind. I put everything into a last minute push of three sections of the fresco completed in the final round (probably done with crayons, such was my rush) but it wasn’t even enough to get into second. Hannah took first place with a measured performance. I was especially impressed with her demonstration that a heavily pregnant woman can still pick up a small yellow cube from the kitchen floor when she’s dropped it. A true gamer.

Hannah 87
Sam 81
Andrew 78

After this, the second game of Kingdom Builder was drawing to a close. This time, it wasn’t so close.

Gonz 78
Adam 62
Martin 43

Then Adam and Hannah set off home, and the four remaining gamers played Love Letter (with After Eights and whiskey – how sophisticated) to round the evening off. Sam played his courtly cards better than the rest of us.

Sam 3
Gonz 2
Martin 2
Andrew 0

On the form table, Gonz remains top, Hannah leaps up a few places, and Steve continues to bob up and down between third and fifth. This week, he's fourth.







Points
Gonz 2 1 2 1 1 7
Sam 1 2 3 3 1 9
Martin 2 3 1 2 4 12
Steve 1 3 31 5 13
Hannah1 3 4 3 4 15
Adam 2 3 4 5 1 15
Andrew3 3 5 2 4 17
Anja3 2 45 519
Joe3 3 6 1 6 19
Will3 2 5 5520
Matt5 5 5 5525

3 comments:

  1. Great stuff. I really enjoyed Poison (though probably better with fewer than 6) and I'm always happy to play Kingdom Builder and Love Letter.

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  2. That last round of Fresco was TENSE! I had the paints but Andrew and Hannah got there before me and finished the painting. All I could do was touch up the altar. Great game. Good night. Thanks all.

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  3. Good games! Althought I found poison lacking, I think I'd rather play 6 nimmit, wich I find less straight forward and more exciting. And behold the power of horses when combined with shepperds! (in kingdom builder)

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