by Tony Boydell
My mate Carl was recently worrying – via Facebook - the flares of his trousers what with being unable to get 6 players around the table so it was Sod’s Law that that was the exact number whot ‘turned up’ on Friday. Fortunately we had been de-camped to the White Lion’s back room, so at least we could stretch out.While the other five waited for me to arrive they played King of Tokyo of which (IIRC) Ben is currently 100% undefeated. However, Gordon’s giant dinosaur rapidly crushed Ben’s Cyber Bunny (he will play nothing else) and then ambled to victory.
Having nothing ‘for six’, the group split into two tables of three – Gordon trampling over Becky to join Dave and myself at Snowdonia– or a tweaked version of it with the recently-blogged Zugspitze (of which more, laterblog) – and he bloody won at THAT as well – just pipping me - but only 102-98-70 something.
Meanwhile, Becky and Ben taught John in the Feldian ways of The Castles of Burgundy (which sounds like the Swedish Chef if you say the German version of the name over-and-over). John was, apparently, quick on the up-take and won with a convincing total despite Ben picking up a Lottery-win of bonus points at the end.
Ben’s a bit obsessed with Burgundy at the moment (it brings ME out in a rash); apparently the aforementioned Carl introduced him to it online. Blah blah good use of dice yadda yadda 'multiple routes to victory' rhubarb rhubarb variation in the player boards ad nauseam.
Be it by luck or by destiny, our game of Snowdonia finished at the same time as the tedious fortifications of a Southern French region and – because I had to get an early night – a quick finisher was possible. I chose Guildhall which was quickly pounced upon by Becky (still smarting from being pushed out of Welsh/German rail building) and Dave – the latter compounding Becky’s evening of humiliation by robbing her of victory on the turn immediately before she would have won. Ben hasn’t played this yet but seems keen to join in – maybe if he could learn it himself rather than have me barf 16 pages of rules at him Terra Mystica-style.
John, Gordon and Ben amused themselves with the roundly ignored – possibly unjustly: Artus. The BGG community seem to have pronounced it chaotic and random but – as per – they may be missing the point. Gordon’s evening of laurel-taking was brought to a crashing end with a -50 penalty at the last with John pulling it off, just, from Ben (who was convinced he’d had the whole thing in the bag).
Apparently Coloretto was the evening’s ‘drink up’ game – a tight and tense filler with Dave declaring an no-minuses 36 for the gold medal.
I didn't even come CLOSE to winning anything this week, but would I have swapped out any one of the games we played? Not on your nelly.