Schön of the Dead (Man’s Chest)

Seven gamers made their usual Tuesday pilgrimage to someone's house to share in the joy of board gaming. This week's house belonged to Joe and joining him were Martin, Andy, Sam, Ian, Joe's friend Matt and me.

After a little discussion, we split into two groups. Martin, Sam and Joe played a new roll 'n' write game called Ganz Schön Clever. On the other half of the table we chose Flamme Rouge as our newbie friendly option. Although, to be clear, Matt wasn't a newbie at board games by any means but we've lost too many potential regulars after a game of Quantum to take any risks.

I didn't follow Ganz Schön Clever at all, I'm afraid so the meanings behind references to foxes or owls remain a mystery for now. Joe called it "more bingo than bingo." It must've been complicated since both Sam and Joe needed Martin to double check their scores. And what remarkable scores they were.

Sam 181
Martin 181
Joe 166

As for Flamme Rogue, we were playing with the track pieces that had cobble stones but without the pieces with watering stations. Matt got a rules explanation and seemed to be in good shape from the start. My rouler, on the other hand, became a figure of fun throughout the race.

Cut adrift early on, he couldn't catch up and picked up exhaustion cards almost every round. I started to suspect that he wasn't a professional cyclist at all, but a plucky amateur that had somehow landed a place in the team.

End of the game: my rouler's 

collection of exhaustion cards.

That was the back, though. At the front, it was more changeable. The strategy seemed simple. Get over the hills as efficiently as possible and then pedal like a madman in the final stage. Matt said that he'd used too many strong cards at the start and subsequently had a weak finish. Ian took the first place with his final 4 card being enough to beat my 3 and Andy's 4. I think we were all hoping for that large card we'd been saving to come out at the end (Andy even asked Martin to chose the last card he drew into his hand, perhaps not trusting his own luck) but we were all foiled. Ian was foiled less than the rest of us, though.

1. Ian
2. Andrew
3. Andy
4. Matt

After this we had ended more or less at the same time. We reshuffled and reformed into two new groups. Martin, Sam and Andy played another game of Ganz Schön Clever while Joe, Ian, Matt and I played Zendo, which Joe repeatedly assured us was the hit of the Festive season in the Joe household.

After a rules explanation and a first round with easy rules and Joe as moderator, Matt had the same issue with the game that I had on my first play: it's hard to know what criteria a rule could possibly be made from.

But we ploughed on and the game played out in a very equitable manner. I guessed Joe's rule, Matt guessed mine, Ian guessed Matt's and finally Joe guessed Ian's rule. We ended honours even after a lengthy and often silent game of deduction.

Ganz Schön Clever finished:

Martin 233
Sam 184
Andy 146

And, since we were still fretting over Zendo, they played another new game, Cuckoo. Apparently, it is a bit like Blackjack.

Andy 12 (wins on a tiebreaker)
Martin 12
Sam 5

And now, we were a sevensome once again. At this late hour, our tastes tend toward the lighter side, but which game? Fuji Flush? Dead Man's Chest?

In the end we went with The Mind, but not a big seven-hander, rather two groups of three and four since we had two copies. Both groups had a newcomer but, astonishingly, we did not have one rules explanation for both, we had two separate explanations at the same time: Joe taught Matt and Martin taught Andy. Such is his level of competitiveness, Martin actually looked a bit disappointed when Joe finished explaining the rules before he had.

We did, briefly, consider sitting around the table in such a way that the two groups alternated around the table, but that would've been too intense. Kind of interesting, though.

Instead, we remained separate, and kept an eye on the other group’s progress. We in the four-group were doing well, until a sudden collapse in form, largely blamed by others on my lack of initiative but I insist was due to the other players’ over-confidence.

Sam, Joe, Matt - level 8
Martin, Andy, Ian, Andrew - level 8

Finally, we chose Dead Man's Chest to end the game. Matt was familiar with Perudo/Liar Dice, so once the somewhat counter-intuitive rules were explained, we were off. DMC is not a favourite game of Andy's, by any measure, but he found a way to enjoy himself by playing in a random manner which would then annoyed his neighbour, Martin. The game played out with the usual audacious bluffing that you'd expect.

Results, in order of going out...

Sam, out when Andy called 6-6, Martin passed it on, saying Dead Man, and Sam challenged wrongly.
Matt out when Joe raised a 5-4 bid to 5-5 and Matt challenged
Andrew out when Ian challenged my 6-5 bid. It was 4-2.
Martin out when Joe challenged his bid of 6-1.
Andy out when he bid 1-1 blind and Joe challenged.
Joe out when Ian called 2-2. Joe rolled looked, rolled again and bid Dead Man blind. Ian challenged. It was 6-5.
Ian wins!

And so we were done. Thanks all. As ever, a pleasure.

Everyone checks their phones while Joe explains

DMC to Matt.