by Stuart Burnham
"Man cannot exist on cardboard alone" some sage or other, once (probably)
"No, but it's gotta be worth a go hasn't it?" some wag or other retorted (probably)
(This blog,
for a single day mind you, will look and read like one of Mina's or Steph's weekly posts; minus the great photographs and intelligent words obviously, but possibly with additional f-bombs, cocks and lady gardens, so a fair trade eh?)
Hurrah! Whilst friends were busy with the Brighton Marathon 8 myself had a new PB to be proud of: Saturday was the most games I've played in a single day so far - 13 individual games across 12 hours, with a bit of walking, eating and drinking beer (& the odd coffee) for good measure. I was accompanied for the duration by son Billy*, who admirably also lasted the course (with no beer though) along with guest appearances by Mrs B and Charlie, along with several of the GFaL gang and a guest appearance or two from others of this BGG parish.
Where to start?
Let's go with convention and the beginning then;
Billy and I wandered to The Barns Cafe on an unseasonably chilly (snow in the air as well) April morning for a 10 o'clock start.
First up, a game of
Cacao for us with Jase and David.
*Billy might do his own write up of the day....This is a cheerful and light game, yet not without interesting decisions. It is a really good 30 minute game that has entertained every time I've played it. I do think that it's much better at 3 and certainly 4 however, as there could be a really juicy tile that the player to your left places and the other 2 surround, shutting you out, which adds a bit of tension and, yes, increases the randomness, but that's all the better in this type of game I think.
Keen to get at least one more game in before we were whisked away from the cafe to get to the pub for 12 we opted for a spot of
Ticket to Ride: Europe.
Billy displayed his sweet nature (not present in his games playing style) by purchasing a lovely Mocha for his thirsty Dad (ruining his image here, I know!). I'm not 100% sold on the Europe map, I'm not a fan of the stations and the angular nature of some of the routes is less aesthetically pleasing to me for some reason. Also, in this particular game, Jase demolished us by only purchasing the longest routes on the map and totally ignoring tickets and any attempt at route building.
Devastatingly effective (we probably should've twigged earlier?) it may be, but perhaps shouldn't be something that is possible in the game...?
Fifteen minutes remained before we were off so just time to squeeze in a round of
6 nimmt! (not a fave of Billy's) I thought.
He decided, not for the last time that day, to play maverick after taking cards for the first time and then proceeded to collect them at every opportunity. This not giving a toss attitude to playing "in the spirit" does make the game rather redundant. Oh well.
Whilst this was starting we had a new visitor, Ben (of this parish) with his lovely young family. I'm so sorry that we had to leave so soon after you arrived Ben - please come again and we'll stick around and play, promise! Good to meet you anyway. :D
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To the pub then!
There was a sizeable crowd by around 12:15 so after some pitches ("
Risk 2210 A.D. - it's got the chuffing moon, that's all you need to know!") we split into 4 tables for a reasonably meaty start.
I played
The Voyages of Marco Polo, teaching mostly correctly this time (unlike my confusing Glen More runthrough at the Tuesday night group). Marco Polo is an excellent game indeed (yes it is Mr Bateson!) and in this play I thought I'd attempt something different to my usual rush to Beijing and then down to Sumatra and my attitude to movement was rather sloth-like as the others zipped around the map and dropped their trading houses all over I didn't bother to move past Moscow and Alexandria. Instead I focussed on completing contracts, using the "don't pay to place dice on an occupied space" ability and a handy "pay for resources" space in Moscow to complete as many as possible, and ultimately the win. Thematically I look at this as a suitable abstraction of capitalism, others going out and doing all the leg work whilst I stayed back and just traded the goods they worked so hard to source and transport.
Elsewhere there was a table playing
A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) (I think that's what it was). Appropriate given that winter was coming (back). I'd very much like to play this at some point, it looks like a good mix of politics and back stabbing (erm, aren't they the same thing?)
Elsewhere there was a table playing
Blood Rage (which I'd term a "
Highly Thematic" game...!) that Michael had aquired for a kings ransom on the UK Facebook buying and trading group (crazy fool!) I did manage to use a stolen quote from the excellent
LoB Pithy Quotes at Michael's expense here;
"My excitement level is at 11 for this game"
"Really?"
"Yep. It does go up to 100 however..."
(he's been coming along long enough for the proper piss-taking to begin!)
Charlie had joined us and, in what should've been a recipe for disaster 2 brothers played
Risk (well, the 2210 version). However, under Paul's fine tutelage there wasn't even a raised (cross) voice between them. Charlie ended up taking control of the entire face of the planet, leaving Billy and Paul to retreat to "the chuffing moon".
NB: Charlie is crouching in this pic, he's at least 6ft3...We were onto fillers in the corner, both game wise with a spot of
No Thanks! and food wise with a wide variety of fine cuisine steadily being delivered to the King Charles Room (OK, mostly burgers and sweet potato fries). In the game I managed to just take a single card, but it was a whopper, fortunately it did arrive with a stack of chips that enabled me to pass away the rest of those turned up.
Followed by some
Archaeology: The New Expedition and
Red7 *with rulebook1.2 - this time it
almost makes sense...!
Gareth, feeling brave, dared to suggest another play of
Between Two Cities, which had been roundly dicked about with at the most recent all day session (just after Christmas) and which has remained hidden ever since. This time I held back on winding him up and opted to just play the game, although at a much faster speed, as I learned at the January OxCon event, this improves the game drastically. Ap'ing every potential tile lay and trying to calculate the scoring options in full does this game no favours. In what was something of a surprise to her (especially as he had crowned me as the victor) Gareth's wife Nicola had won.
At this juncture Gareth went hunting for something that was not deep fried to eat whilst other games were arranged. Billy opted for something "epic" (borderline "highly thematic" in fact) with
Xia: Legends of a Drift System.
He seemed to be really enjoying himself, tooling up and threatening before disastrously flying into the sun. Twice.
He said that it was a really good game, but attempted his own pithy quote with "it's just
Galaxy Trucker with metal 'effing coins" - evidently he's been reading this blog as well....:surprise:
We were now joined by Craig from Cornwall (also of this fine BGG parish) who'd been busy sticking his hands up the bottoms of all sorts of things in the name of children's entertainment in Oxford for a couple of days.
(I hope he washed them!)
He was keen to play something light to start off and so
Pictomania seemed an obvious choice...
..and 15 minutes after meeting everyone he's drawing cocks and lady gardens; you're welcome anytime sir!
For better pictures of cocks and lady gardens see below.
[o]
:shake::shake::shake:[/o]
The somewhat undernourished Gareth returned having "eaten" something unpronounceable and suitable only for rabbits went and played
Kodama: The Tree Spirits which had just arrived for Helen. I had been interested in this when the game was just called
Kigi so I'm keen to give this a try sometime, it looks utterly charming.
More trees, although somewhat more brain burning in nature, for me with another play of
Arboretum which is easily one of my most favourite card games.
I will happily play this anytime at all, its just great.
Lack of proper sustenance had seemingly caught up with Gareth and he bailed on his own event before tea-time!
Never mind, for as he left Mrs B arrived, hurrah!
I suggested we play
Takenoko as I thought she'd enjoy the relaxed nature of it (she was not in the mood for anything above light complexity) and we had 2 owners of the game in Helen and Sarah present so in the company of 3 lady garden(er)s I spent a pleasant hour pushing toys around hexes. Is this a "highly thematic game" also I wondered? Helen did get rather confused with the sounds from the neighbouring table at one point and talked about "moving the zombie" so perhaps an expansion could take this game off at a tangent..?
For yes, next door, Billy had found a willing party for
Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, the one game that he was desperate to play that day. Naturally he was a traitor and apparently nearly pulled off the win, something which seemed inevitable after Laurence rolled the dreaded tooth straight away for both his characters (that's a 1 in 400 chance I believe?) and somewhat tanked their morale. I think that the others all achieved their goals so it was only Bill who "lost" (although given the smile he was wearing I think that he certainly "won" in another sense.)
Meanwhile, death was also present over in
My Village, which is getting a lot of love and play indeed in this group, although most of them have never played the original
Village game.
Hmmm, something I should try and rectify I think.
(They're both good games, although I think I like the original better.)
I had finished Panda pushing and had a table of 5 for a game of
7 Wonders, the best drafting game (let's not go [blogpost=There][/blogpost] again sneakypete...!)
This hasn't been played as much as I'd like but with David (last spotted at the cafe circa 11:45 am, although to be fair, he had been to a wedding in the meantime) now in attendance it was a much easier sell.
I loved this play, even though I came in dead last. David, naturally, won handsomely.
I also managed a new high / low for food at the gaming table during this with a bowl of soup. Mind you, 10 minutes later a curry was plonked in front of Naomi who was also playing so it was a short lived high / low!
I really should've taken pictures just to bring some of you lot out in hives!
:shake:
Bill had also been fed with a giant burger (a much better choice I feel) and Mrs B had left for the comfy sofa and a movie at home.
Terry and Chris(?) arrived and they were quickly busy playing some of his favourites,
Glory to Rome and
Roll for the Galaxy (forgot to picture, hey, it was getting on now..!)
More Z-Man card games for me with a spot of
Parade which I will also happily play anytime.
Such pretty cards!It was now about 8:45 and I was keen to get one more "proper" game in so suggested a play of
Snowdonia.
Billy was reluctant saying "but I want to play something fun"
Immediately that was followed by "don't put that in the blog, Tony will kill me!"...:blush:
Anyway, he acquiesced and we finished with Craig, David (see what I did there?) Billy and I attempting to dig and lay track - double fog to start the game FFS!
Billy played in contrary fashion, taking and hoarding coal at every opportunity - just to piss me off I think - despite having the train that gives no ability (but does come with 2 coal). He did pick up the "2 Points per coal" contract so it was a total shitbag strategy, but it certainly wasn't anything approaching a viable one either *shakes fist*
A timely triple play by me in the final turn with my
single coal allowed me to get the required iron to make 2 bars to nab the 14 point spot at the summit and just pip David at the finish.
It was a good game to end on.
Phew.
That was a lot of gaming.
And a lot of writing up, and uploading of photos!
There may well have been other games played, I did somewhat lose track, and I did have a few beers along the way!
Roll on the next one (Gareth...?)
