Bad behaviour at IBG makes local press...........

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Players: Keith, Iain, Steph, Scott, Daniel, Jon, Gareth, Vicky, Maynard, John

A cosy 10 IBG'ers were unexpectedly relegated to the conservatory tonight, due to some sort of 'varnishing the tables upstairs' incident. We wait to see if this refurbishment of the furniture surfaces adds further to the ambience in the Riverview room. The Essen posse were en route to their weekend of fun, so it was left to the rest of us to undertake some gaming adventures in their absence.
However, tonight's events appear to have attracted the horrified attention of some disdainful locals, who were so outraged at what they observed and overheard, that they actually wrote letters of complaint about the goings-on between the IBG'ers at the London Apprentice. Oh dear.......

First up this week, a new game -

Queen's Ransom (thanks for this report Scott)
A quick card game that Steph brought along; a deduction game where players need to work out who kidnapped the Queen and where she is being held. Iain was tempted into a game with Scott and Steph, none of whom had played before so a quick rules reading was needed. In a bizarre twist, I think we got them all right before we started......
There are three suspects and three locations laid out on the table, above and underneath each suspect or location, a card with a number ranging from -2 to +2 is placed randomly and secretly. These numbers determine which suspect or location is most likely based on a combination of the two cards.
Each player has a hand of cards and the game revolves around looking at the secret information to deduce the correct Suspect and Location. You do this by spending money cards equal to the current information price which changes each round., or some cards have an action on them which you can do instead. This could be drawing extra cards or even altering the position of the secret information changing the locations and suspects. Once a player wants to make an accusation they do so on their turn and look at each card secretly to see if they are correct, if they are they reveal the details otherwise they keep quiet and the game continues without them.
Steph and Iain began by trying to deduce the location and between them they seemed to be on track. Scott took a different approach and tried to get the suspect first, however Steph spoiled the day by playing a card to randomise some of the suspect probability cards so Scott was almost back to square one. Scott just progressed to locations while Iain and Steph moved on to narrowing down the suspect. Scott hadn’t quite seen everything but made a guess anyway. He looked at all of the cards secretly and declared he wasn’t correct and the game continued.
Steph decided soon after she would have a guess picking a different location but the same suspect Scott had chosen. Since there were just the three of us we revealed everything and Steph had the correct location but the wrong suspect. Iain won by default and declared he would have got it wrong as well if he’d made a guess.
There were accusations of Scott throwing people off the right track, which was certainly fun to do, after Steph had randomised the suspects. Scott figured it was 50/50 between two suspects and unfortunately picked the wrong one. With the locations, he’d just gone with what looked like the one Steph and Iain had been focussing on - lesson for next time, don’t rely on anyone else to help you.
The game feels a bit odd but worth another try at least.
Iain won; Scott and Steph lost.

Jon had just picked up this card game from a shop in Sheen, so was keen to give it a go –

Loot

John, Daniel and Keith had apparently played this in the dim and distant past, but a rules recap was useful for all the players. Jon especially emphasised that any merchant ships left in your hand at the game end were worth minus points.
The deck of cards used in this game comprises merchant ships (worth points if you can capture them), pirate ships of variable powers (used to capture the merchant ships), pirate captains (used to bolster a pirate ship’s attack) and one admiral (used to protect your own merchant ship). On their turn, players can either draw a card or play one but not both. Once a merchant ship has been laid down, players can use their pirate ships to try to capture it. If a player’s turn comes around and he has the highest value of pirates on a particular merchant ship then he wins it. Maynard did well to get several merchant ships in front of him at one time, and managed to sneak a couple of them into his scoring pile without anyone having attacked them.
After laying down his pirate captain, Jon picked up the valuable ‘8’ ship, to get his ‘loot’ off to a good start. Daniel was certainly putting his pirates about a bit, whilst Gareth seemed intent on picking up as many cards as possible.
The deck was getting close to running out, so Jon reminded everyone that merchant ships in hand at the end of the game were worth minus points. There were nods of assent all round.
The deck duly ran out, and it was now down to whoever laid their last card to end the game. Daniel had ket his hand quite lean, and so it was not long before he slapped down his final pirate and ended the game.
Scores were totalled and Gareth laid out his hand cards to reveal at least 5 merchant ships.
“You know that they’re worth minus points don’t you?” chuckled Keith.
“No-one mentioned that rule!” protested Gareth.
“Errr…..we did actually..........twice……”
Jon 14; Maynard 13; John 5; Daniel 2; Keith 1; Gareth -8

The IBG’ers now split into 2 groups – one engaged in a serious game, the others went all ‘light and fluffy’ -

Apples to Apples
Things learned from this game:

• Daniel is definitely ‘masculine’ (having laid down ‘men’ to go with this adjective).
• Steph doesn’t believe that the Big Bang Theory is ridiculous.
• Maynard is quite literal (having picked some unknown river to match ‘shallow’).
• Jon thinks that Jordan is the very definition of a ‘sensitive’ girl.
• Vicky is rather good at this game.
• Scott isn’t.
• ‘Outstays its welcome’ is reached at 1 hour

Vicky 15; Maynard 9; Steph 9; Jon 8; Daniel 4; Scott 4

After some negotiation, the "serious, boring" table of Biker Keith, Norwegian Gareth, John Bandawotsit and Iain the Duck decided to play -

Amyitis (thanks Iain for this one)
Amyitis is a classic, generic €urogame, but don't hold that against it. Everyone except Iain caught on to the rules quickly and the game hangs together nicely - even though you have played all its mechanics in other games before.
The background story is good, although it is invisible during play and John didn't even mention it in the introduction:

"Amyitis invites players to recreate one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The game is named after the daughter (or granddaughter) of the king of the Medes, who married King Nebuchadnezzar II, ruler of Babylon, sometime in the 6th century B.C. In distant Babylon, Queen Amyitis fell homesick, missing the green mountains of her native country. The king was deeply in love, so he decided to build a mountain filled with trees for her, despite the tough climate. Players are Babylonian nobles seeking prestige, so they will spend their money and resources to assist the king with his difficult task."

Iain's game was like the Irish economy: artificial boom years and then a horrible end-game crash.
John's was like Italian economy: far out in front in ancient times, but not so impressive in later years.
Gareth's game was like the Norwegian economy: long-term investment and a solid performer.
Keith's game was like the German economy: ruthlessly efficient and possibly slightly arrogant. The only flaw in his game was that he could have probably won it half an hour earlier...
Keith won; Gareth 2nd; John 3rd; Iain 4th

The Apples to Apples crew had now split up and Vicky and Maynard recruited Jon and chose –

Small World

This game has had some unfortunate publicity in the ‘well-informed’ UK press recently, but fortunately we had a vet on hand in case our gaming session got out of hand tonight. Maynard had not played Small World before, but Vicky had played it once in the past (usually enough for her to inflict a crushing defeat on everyone else in her second game….)
Vicky started the game and immediately swamped the board with Heroic Amazons. Jon picked up the Dragon-Master Trolls, which quickly set up a defensive line of Troll’s Lairs in the South. Maynard’s opening selection was the Underground Humans, who swiftly became victims to Jon’s dragon in the south and Vicky’s Amazons elsewhere.
Both Jon and Vicky declined on the same turn, whilst Maynard decided to wait one turn longer. Vicky then brought in some Swamp Halflings, whilst Jon chose to pay a few coins to get the Spirit Orcs. This would allow him to keep his well dug-in Trolls in decline as well as the Orcs. The Orcs started to nibble away at the declined Amazons, as Vicky was racking in quite a few points from them. Maynard opted for the Seafaring Wizards as his next race, which predictably headed in a diagonal direction across the board to pick up the 3 sea areas. By this time, his Humans were about as scarce as a Wayne Rooney ‘A’ level, whilst Jon was starting to pick up quite a few points per turn. The marrieds (with a c-change from their normal policy) decided to team up to reverse this situation. Vicky brought on some Stout Skeletons to attack the Trolls in the south, but it was slow progress.
In the meantime, lured by the 4 coins sitting on them, picked up the Wealthy Dwarves, for an instant bonus of 11 coins. However, as usual, the dwarves then made little progress in battle. Maynard’s wizards had finally made it across the board, so his last throw of the dice was the Flying Tritons. These are actually a really good combination, allowing every conquest to require one less token. The only thing was, Vicky’s races seemed to be the ones enjoying most of the coastal life, so the pact made by the young lovers ended up lasting only about 10 minutes, before normal service was resumed and they were at each other’s throats again (metaphorically speaking of course…)
Thanks to her Stout ability (not an adjective usually associated with IBG’s very own strawberry-blonde…), Vicky was able to have a quick foray with some Diplomatic Ratmen before the scores were totalled up. To be fair, it wasn’t close, but I think that Maynard learned enough about the races to be much more competitive next time.
Jon 138; Vicky 105; Maynard 99


And due to the shameful behaviour of some of our IBG'ers, I feel it only right and proper to now reproduce 3 of the letters sent in to our local paper -


Dear Sirs,
I am absolutely horrified at the conversation I overheard at your ‘club’ last Wednesday evening. Three young hooligans were having an animated discussion and I was forced to endure such phrases as "I’m not going to marry you because I might need to divorce you later", "If you take any more drugs tonight you’ll lose all your money" and "I’m going to have a second child with Polly, right, then I’m going to dump her, have sex with one of my friends and finally get back together with Polly. Score!"
Most alarmingly was the delighted exclamation by one particular thug, apparently going by the name of Scott, "I’m hooked on drugs and now I’m going to become a drunk!" It didn’t appear to be the first time he had made such a statement. The other two ruffians even had to audacity to find this amusing and congratulated their cohort on making such an advantageous choice.
It is disgraceful that an innocent evening of heavy drinking should be spoiled by such immoral loutish behaviour, people like you should be kept upstairs where you belong.
 Yours disgustedly, Maj. T.P. Wühlmaus Würger (Mrs)


Sirs,
I would like to bring to your attention that in a recent game of Taj Mahal the game appeared to be played using incorrect rules. As the most prominent games blog in Isleworth I feel that this terrible deviation in standards is unacceptable. Please cancel my subscription immediately.
 Yours, etc, S. Thomason


To the "IBG'ers",
Small World? Funny Friends? Tsch, I shall not be joining your club until you start playing some real games.
 R. Knizia, Windsor


This behaviour is of course wholly unacceptable and I apologise unreservedly to the author(s) of these letters. Dan - I'm sorry.......

Funny Friends
In case anyone cares, the 2 games that caused such outrage ended something like:
Steph 5; Dan 4; Scott 4
Dan 5; Steph 3; Scott 2




For some reason tonight, everyone decided that an early night was in order, so the gaming finished before 'time' had been called. However, there was just time for Daniel to hand out some free hair-care products to everyone who was left. To Maynard (the least follically-challenged of the male IBG'ers) - some hair sculpting putty; to Jon some hair-wax; and to Gareth a tin of Brasso........

Next week we eagerly await the return of the Essen-crew, no doubt laden with lots of new gaming goodies. I can't wait........
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The cosy couples of IBG.........

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Players: Daniel, James, Paul, Jim, Scott, Steph, Noel, Tanya, Adam, Barrie, Jon, Vicky, Maynard, Emma, Tonio, Keith, Ian

Despite Gareth being absent due to some parking-space fiasco (?!) there were still 17 IBG'ers gathered at the London Apprentice tonight, including a welcome return to 4 of our 'young marrieds.' It was good to see that we hadn't scared off Noel and Tanya, who made their second appearance at the club, whilst Vicky and Maynard returned after their African safari adventure (if you get a chance, take at look at their photos - even more awesome wildlife than we get in the Riverside Room on a Wednesday night....)

Whilst we're on the subject, what do you think that being a married couple at IBG is like? Cosying up together, whispering sweet nothings in each other's ears, playing footsie under the table, helping your spouse to win every game...? Yeah, right....read on....

James had come clutching a bag of shrink-wrapped games, and it wasn’t long before he was tearing into them so that we could have a go at –

Nanuk

It’s a long time since this has appeared at IBG, but Emma’s enthusiasm was contagious so it wasn’t difficult to find some other players from amongst the early arrivees. The first hunt was doomed by Jim, but as there appeared to be more than enough fish in people’s hands, he stood alone. It turned out that Scott (as hunt leader) was lying through his teeth and we came up a poisson short, so Jim collected a hatful of animals.

3 more rounds were played, without a single innasuck making its way into the game, but as the polar bears appeared to be on their winter vacation, it didn’t matter too much.

Although the scores were quite close (as they always are in Nanuk), Jim’s early haul was enough to win him the game.

Jim 8; Steph 5; Jon 3; Emma 2; James 0; Scott 0

Next up, it was time to go back in time, forward in time and through time for a quick game of -

Back to the Future: The Card Game (thanks for this Scott)

The players were Emma, Steph, Scott, Adam and Dan. All of us except Dan had played before (specifically the other four of us all played it together on Sunday at Gameforce and it had run quite long with 5 players). It works like, and is designed by the same people who did Chrononauts.

There are various cards laid out for the timeline which is the same as at the start of the trilogy and extends through the series, some are Linchpins and some are ripple effects. The game gives players cards and playing those cards can affect other players, play items on the table or most desirably let you travel through time. Travelling through time allows you to change (flip) one or more linchpin cards where their effect ripples through certain other cards to flip them to their alternate reality side.

To win the game you have to have certain timeline events occur as indicated on your card and then de-invent time travel to ensure the timeline you want is stable. To de-invent time travel you have to change a particular linchpin but this one has a small draw deck of 5 cards and only one will be effective so it’s difficult to guarantee a win.

Unfortunately for Dan and Scott, Adam, Steph and Emma from the outset appeared to have shared goals and were soon flipping to see if they could prevent time travel after only a couple of linchpins were changed. Scott was locked out by Emma in even taking a turn at one point so the assembly line of time travel naysayers could have their shot at the win. In the end, one of them won, and two of them kind of won!

Looking for a game or two for 7 players is always tough and it was decided since the next table weren’t playing a particularly long game we’d start off short as well -

Snorta! (thanks again Scott)

Tanya and Noel joined us just in time to act completely crazy with 'animal noise Snap', the other players being Scott, Steph, Emma, Dan and Adam. With 7 players it was very tough to remember what everyone was and it was quite a riot, being in the middle of the room for maximum distraction to other tables...

We played for 5-10 minutes and I can’t quite remember exactly who won but I’m pretty sure it was either Noel or Tanya who were doing pretty well while the rest of us were suffering memory loss. There was lots of fun trying to make an owl noise from several players, from Emma’s “tweet tweet” to Stephanie’s stuttering “who....who?....who?!....hoot!”, then Adam reciting as many animals as possible when trying to guess Dan’s. Dan reluctantly accepted a loss until realising Adam hadn’t actually made the correct noise yet but Adam could remember it now - “Meow”.

However the funniest moment of the night was when Tanya sat down and immediately asked if Scott and Steph were married since they were probably having some sort of odd discussion/argument/agreement about something....

Jim had arrived early in order to get in the pre-arranged games Arkadia and Metropolys with Tonio, but due to unforeseen circumstances involving a lump of wood, Tonio was not expected to arrive at all. Jim quickly grabbed the table with the most light on it (his eyes grow dim with age) and managed to enrol Keith and Ian in a game of his shrink-wrapped copy of -

Egizia (thanks for this report Jim)

Jim explained the rules, the cards and principles of the game which for what is actually quite a simple game of resource management with multiple paths to victory but with much turn angst thrown in for good measure. Nothing new – even the theme loosely based around building monuments in Egypt is almost as old as the Pyramids themselves - but it is a well meshed set of tried and tested mechanics with a few minor twists to keep the game fresh.

Keith took an early lead grabbing much of the food resource as he sailed down the Nile, Ian and Jim floundering behind him taking whatever was left for them. But soon Jim was gaining a huge amount of stone but missed out on increasing his workforce to make use of the stone while Ian was steadily building up all his resources apart from Stone.

Towards the end of the game, Ian set up a situation for Jim to block Keith from the Sphinx cards (which award bonus VPs if certain conditions are met) but paid for it by not being able to later get into the areas he needed to complete his builds to meet the conditions on his own Sphinx cards – this one tactically clever blocking move was to cost him the game.

The end game scoring was done in the order defined in the rules and it was nip and tuck until Ian revealed his last completed Sphinx card to snatch the game. Jim had done the honourable thing by finishing last and some distance off the pace in his own game!

Ian 36; Keith 33; Jim 26

And “doing a Jim” is now defined as “explaining a rule and or feature and then not actually adhering to or using it during the playing of the game” after the bonus for building in the graves/Obelisk area was ignored for most of the game.

Meanwhile, over yonder at the dimmer end of the room, was El Grande’s little brother –

China

This was new to Paul, and Vicky and Barrie also needed a refresher. Maynard opined that he would do better this time than last as he now understood the alliance scoring at the end. We would see……

As always, this game moves along at a surprisingly fast pace. Before long, several provinces were being scored and Vicky had made good use of her fortification to double a winning score in one province. It took a while for any emissaries to make their way on to the board (as their point-winning potential is less obvious than placing houses in the provinces.)

About halfway through the game everyone seemed to go to sleep and allowed Barrie to take an easy majority in the single purple province, which included his fortification for a massive 16 points. By this time, Maynard and Jon had started placing emissaries and were set up for a few points at the game end.

With only one province left to score, the deck suddenly ran out for a second time and the game was over. Maynard and Jon had picked up several points from their alliances, whilst Vicky and Barrie had made good use of their roads. Jon had made the schoolboy error of being the only player not to place his fortification, and was consequently well off the pace.

When it came down to it, Barrie scoring double points in purple, combined with a double-point road was enough to give him a narrow victory.

Barrie 49; Maynard 46; Vicky 40; Jon 38; Paul 35

With the other tables still busy, the Snorta crowd decided to play a quick game of -

Apples to Apples (thanks once more Scott)

Traditionally played as a game to continue until you want to finish but since it was early in the night we decided to go with the rules and the first person to win 5 adjective cards wins. To describe the game in reverse fashion, it’s a bit like Dixit but without the pictures; instead you have nouns (All sorts of people, places and things), you have a hand on these nouns and each turn one player is the judge and draws an adjective. Everyone then plays a card they feel best fits that description for that particular judge and the judge decides in any way they like which card they think will win.

Such as Adam picking the ‘My Boss’ card to win for Temperamental or Steph picking ‘Throwing up’ to win ‘Scary’ (Scott having the unfair advantage of taking Steph to A&E that one night.)

Suffice it to say, Scott had the perfect cards for most players and just after once around the table had accrued his necessary five wins and the other table were wrapping up so that was perfect timing all round.

After last week's 'success', it was a return for -

Meuterer (thanks James)

At last, for me, a chance to have the game explained by Dan, Paul and Scott, rather than wading through a dodgy translation from the German… hard to believe but I’d place more trust in learning this game from Gareth than by reading the rules themselves… Which is strange as it’s actually quite a simple game once you know what you’re doing.

Each turn the captain sales the ship between 2 islands which each have a demand for specific produce. Players take it in turn to play supply cards for the selected islands and as they drop out they can pick certain roles for the ship, either roles that provide more cards, a higher payout, or a chance to mutiny or support the captain. Sword cards are played to determine the outcome of the mutiny and if successful, a new captain takes over for the next route. The skill of the game is in trying to foresee which islands are going to be visited and to stockpile supplies they need, and to time the mutinies correctly. The only downside is that the game really needs 4 players, not always possible, but otherwise it’s a great game.

So the game passed quite uneventfully, apart from when Paul twice forgot the rules (hmm, did I say a simple game… erm…) and stockpiled goods for the wrong island. Captaincy passed from Dan to Paul to James… not sure if Scott ever got to taste the trappings of power… and after 8 rounds James managed to pip Paul to claim the win…

Scott came last but as he let it be known was playing the ‘ruby’ variant (without actually letting anyone else know) and finished with 4 unused gem cards he’s claiming a moral (if deluded) victory…

At this stage I should normally list the final point’s totals here, but it would appear that they ended up in the wash with Paul’s underwear… so even if they were still available I’m not sure anyone would want to get too close....

Red Dragon Inn

(Report to follow)

Keith and Ian wandered off looking for something “meatier” or more familiar but Tonio had arrived regaling all with his tales of woe about his car, and the abandoned piece of wood he had driven over and the resulting harm this had caused to his car. He had also brought along the promised copy of - 

Arkadia (thanks to Jim again for this one)

With Paul joining the duo and Ian returning after finding no other game of interest to join, Tonio explained the game and we started.

The game itself could probably play quickly with more experienced players, but we all played rather uncertainly as the subtleties of the building and worker placement to gain different coloured medallions became apparent as we tried to manipulate the key element of the game, the exchange rate for the medallions. These were gained completing the boundaries of the building tiles that players had laid out, and then exchanging one of our 4 banners that allowed us two more workers and the chance to exchange our collected medallions for gold at the prevailing exchange rate (most gold wins the game).

Paul managed to produce a monster score on one of his banner exchanges of 52 gold – the rest of us had managed 20 or so at best – and it was this one shrewd transaction and manipulation of the market that most affected the final outcome of the game.

As Tonio had warned us, the game suddenly seemed to speed up and it was the last round as we all scratched our heads to find the best way to get the most seals and highest exchange rate for them. It was at this point Ian realised that he still had his last banner which was now useless to him and as it was impossible for any of us to recall how the game was set at the point he could have legitimately played the banner it was lost and it was this error that caused him to come last in the scoring.

Paul 94; Tonio 83; Jim 79; Ian 73.

Meanwhile on another table, there was the opportunity for some co-op action -

Ghost Stories (thanks Daniel)

We did quite well and had the game under control until a sudden rush of ghosts, including a few too many really nasty ones, got the better of us. The Monks were bumped off one by one in quick succession and the village was overrun with only six cards left till the appearance of the Wu Feng.

James and Daniel both lost.

Following a successful first outing a couple of weeks ago, it was now time to have another go at –

Chinatown

Noel and Tanya chose this game, and were joined by fellow newbies Vicky and Maynard and veteran (of one game!) Jon. Scott very kindly agreed to do a quick rules overview at the beginning, and then we were off and running. Jon remarked at the beginning that playing a trading / negotiation game with 2 married couples put him at a distinct disadvantage. However, as Vicky was quick to remind everyone, she and Maynard play boardgames with the ethos ‘every spouse for themselves.’ This can be confirmed with a quick check in the archives – Maynard’s second move in his first game at IBG was to eliminate Vicky from a game of Tsuro. Jon, therefore, did not need to fear any familial collaboration….

The main difference with the 5 player game as opposed to the 3-player game played a couple of weeks ago, is that each player has less stuff to trade each turn, but more people to trade with. This means that negotiations can sometimes be quite quick, but there were at least a couple of occasions where deals were made conditionally, based upon further trades made with a third party.

Early in the game (the second round in fact), Jon held a property space which Noel needed to complete a 5-piece Dim Sum restaurant. Jon felt that Noel did not own anything valuable enough to pay him at that point in time, but managed to broker a deal whereby Jon set up a protection racket, and Noel promised to pay him $20k each turn thereafter as compensation. Although there was no obligation for Noel to keep his end of the bargain, he proved to be an honest gent throughout the game and coughed up each turn.

Tanya quickly got herself into an unfortunate position where she had placed 4 parts of a 5-tile business, but in such a way as that none of them were connected until the missing 5th district turned up. This would prove to be an expensive district for her to purchase later on in the game.

Maynard had shown his hand a little early and placed 2 tiles of the 4-part Florist, which Jon exploited by subsequently collecting the rest of the Florist tiles in the game and putting down his own complete set. Both Maynard and Vicky had managed to get down complete 6-tile businesses, and in the latter stages of the game, the income was starting to roll in.

After the last deal had been thrashed out, the final income was collected, and Noel obligingly handed over his final $20k back-hander to Jon. Little did he know, but at that point he was actually $20k in the lead, but by handing that money to second-placed Jon, he also handed him the victory. Maybe next time he’ll be less of a nice guy……..?!

Jon $960k; Noel $940k; Vicky $780k; Tanya $760k; Maynard $730k

Saboteur was brought out, and then quickly re-boxed as it was realised that there was still time to fit in some ‘proper’ games, one of which was –

Dice Town
(Report to follow.....)

With about 30 minutes remaining, Tonio produced another 'new to the others' game –

Archaeology: The Card Game (thanks Jim)

This is a card set collection game with a not unsurprising Egyptian theme about collecting treasures and maps to make sets to gain points; the more of a set you collect or the fewer cards in the set, the more points the set is worth. Of course, the twist is that there is a “push-your-luck” element with Thieves (allowing another player to take a card from your hand) or Sandstorms (which affect all players reducing their hand size by half).

The game moved along at a fast pace and seemed to be anyone’s game until Jim managed to turn over 3 sandstorm cards in a row which meant only those who had already put down sets were in with a realistic expectation of a win and Jim had to discard two of his three Pharaoh cards (which had potentially been worth big points up until then).

Tonio 58; Paul 50; Ian 45; Jim 44.

All agreed that is was a fun, light, quick filler with a little too much luck but all would play again even though it was probably aimed more as a family game than a gamers game.

With Scott joining the remnants of a Thunderstone game (Steph, Adam, Barrie and Emma), we had another go at -

Apples to Apples (thanks again Scott)

This started as a small four player game with no end condition, just to play until people wanted to leave (or more accurately, when the pub staff reminded us they have a closing time).

Some interesting dilemmas in this game, Scott having to choose between Europe and Terrorists as most Corrupt, and Emma having a very tough time selecting between the Gulf War or Socks as the most Normal (the War almost won but Socks prevailed). Steph picked Baked Potatoes as the most Hilarious thing, (to be fair the options were not great) and there’s a whole other story about why Anne Frank may or may not be a good card to play on Hilarious.

Dan and James joined us towards the end and Dan is the wild card - he’ll pick the funniest card played, usually the polar opposite of that adjective...worth noting for the future.

Dan did well to get up to speed with the rest of us in terms of points after only playing a few rounds and James got a few too.

By the time we had to finish, Adam had accumulated the most, around 15, with the rest of us fairly close around 10, and James trailing just a little on 3 (but he had joined late!)

As mentioned above, Thunderstone also made an appearance, but that's all we know about it (apart from the fact that Barrie proclaimed loudly to the room at one point - "I've got a stone todger".......) And for those of you reading this blog who are not from the UK, please don't google 'todger' to find out what one is.....

Next week, we're sending an envoy of IBG'ers to Essen to bring back a pile of goodies, but there will still be plenty of die-hards left to play some games in their absence. See you there...

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TV series spin-off game at IBG shock (and it’s not BSG)………

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Players: Scott, Steph, Emma, Keith, John, Jon, Paul, Barrie, Gareth, Johan, Adam, Iain, Daniel

Several regulars were absent this week for a variety of reasons, but it was still a good turnout. There was a welcome return after many weeks away to the one and only Emma, as well as an appearance from John who promises us that he will now be ‘semi-regular’ (which is great because he appears to have more games than James has had nut roasts…)
Tonight saw the introduction of some cute animals (in Emma’s honour), Scott being eliminated from a game before he’d even had time to realise that it didn’t contain little wooden cubes, and an attempt by the IBG’ers to re-write the American constitution (well, someone had to…..)

Having been offered it by a LOB member who saw this at a bargain price, Scott couldn’t resist adding some more fun, silly games to his collection; maybe all the Martin Wallace and 18xx is finally getting to him... anyway he brought it along to try out -

Snorta! (thanks Scott)
The game features a host of little animal figurines and barns for up to eight players to hold an animal, but here you don’t need to feed your family or buy a Cooking Hearth, you just need to remember which animal each player has in their barns as you will only hear their sound once before the game begins.
The game works with everyone having a deck of cards with animals on them, then kind of like snap, each player flips a card on their turn and when there are two identical cards face up, the players with matching cards need to recall the opponent’s animal as quickly as possible and make their sound. Therefore, if you are Keith and you draw the cow, everyone remembers “mooo!” very easily. Result - Keith picks up a lot of cards...
The other players trying it out were Dan, Scott, Steph and Emma. After Emma had spent a few minutes looking at all of the animals and picking her favourite, we all drew randomly and began. Poor Keith had a terrible time with his cards matching so frequently that people were saying 'moo' before the cards hit the table. Emma was on fire for this game and could remember everyone’s animal noises with ease; she quickly ran out of cards and rarely picked up any.
Emma won; Scott, Steph, Daniel, Keith - all lost

Next up were more animals -

Pinguin Party (thanks again Scott)

Fast becoming the most played game (if it’s not already) at IBG and a five player bout between Scott, Steph, Adam, Emma and Gareth ensued.
Early on Gareth and Emma were doing alarmingly well, two rounds and zero points. The others were doing fairly okay. From round three onwards it all got a bit hectic and vicious as Penguins died, leaving usually very unstable pyramids and almost everyone taking some points. It’s here where Steph broke from her normal tradition of wiping the floor with everyone and taking on a hefty load of points, glaring at murder suspects across the table.
Gareth and Emma managed to keep steady but Scott did well to rein in some points and catch up for a joint win.
Scott & Gareth 5; Emma 6; Adam 7; Steph 11

And now for something completely German -
 
Meuterer (thanks to Dan for this report)

Meuterer packs an awful lot of game into such a small package. What you think ought to be a quick filler is actually a complex and involving game of bluff and strategy. It's notoriously intractable rulebook saw us playing the "Gareth Rules" for the first couple of rounds, so we rebooted only to discover toward the end of the game that we were now using one of the character roles in slightly the wrong way.
As such, there isn’t much of a report for this one, so here instead are some Fun Pirate Facts:

• The earliest documented instances of piracy are from the 13th century BC and pirates were some of the first people to operate democratic government in their communities.
• Pirates are the most common cause of the spread of Malaria in Third World countries, they can also live on a single grain of rice and are immune to an increasing number of chemical agents.

Actually I think the pages of my encyclopaedia are stuck together and some of those might actually be about Mosquitoes.
Well, at least we know the right rules to play with next time. We think.
Daniel 36; Jon 29; Steph 27; Paul 23

To play alongside the Meuterers, the 5 remaining players opted for something light -

For Sale (thanks to Scott again for this report)
Keith and Emma were new, Adam needed a refresh while John and Scott knew more than enough.
Everyone seemed to pick it up fairly quick and some reasonable winning bids in the first few rounds until Emma started caring about which property she got and also bidding was fairly aggressive to own a space station and a guaranteed win for a $15,000 cheque. Scott and John had ended up spending the most with Scott locking John out on the last bid with his remaining $2,000.
Going in to selling properties, there were lots of cries and cheers as unexpectedly low properties were winning top dollar while high values were barely selling - there must have been a banking crisis in the middle somewhere. Sadly, Emma’s tent which came with its very own snake didn’t gain her anything.
Scott & Keith 63; Adam 52; John 44; Emma 32

And now for something completely Euro -

Taj Mahal (thanks Gareth)
Taj Mahal played with the correct rules, this time. Barrie took an early lead but then had a few stand offs with Gareth who collected loads of cards. Iain built lots of palaces and Johan quietly sneaked into the lead towards the end and took the win. A very close ending.
Johan 46; Iain 44; Gareth 44; Barrie 40

And now for something completely different -

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game (thanks Scott again)
Despite having a mainstream theme the game actually looked fairly promising - there were different decks of cards to draw items, a moon changing mechanic (so that Oz can go ape on a full moon and kill all the bad guys), an assortment of monsters and a functioning board even though it looked a bit like Cluedo (it was Buffy, in the Graveyard, with the Stake). Emma picked Willow before the box was open, Adam was evil and picked the villain Adam with a few minions to aid him, Scott was Xander, John was Oz and Keith playing the lead role of Buffy.
Adam was the only one to have played before and didn’t give us much advice so we did run around like headless chickens trying to fight evil, which if I remember rightly is what they do in the show anyway. Xander managed to succeed in not being very good at fighting and after drawing a couple of help cards, was assisted by a couple of lovely ladies and they distracted him while Adam strolled over and killed Xander in about round 3, possibly earlier.
Willow by this point was trapped in a room and being beaten to death by Spike who was rolling fairly poorly and despite Willow’s best attempts and being in a room with weapons failed to escape and was killed. Buffy hadn’t heard the news and was trying to take out a vampire on the other side of town and was doing an okay job until Adam strolled over (technically running away from werewolf Oz) and beat down on Buffy. Oz got in a few bites but was back to regular old Oz pretty quick and couldn’t do much to stop Buffys death. At which point Adam had won and the rest of us had not been saved by Buffy as we clearly should have been in the original script.
Adam wins; John, Scott, Emma & Keith lose.

Like most games where one player is evil and there are multiple goody characters that individually aren’t that impressive (except Buffy of course), it’s probably best played with two or three players and have multiple characters each so that people don’t get shut out too quickly. Either that, or Scott should just learn to roll dice better....

Whilst waiting for the Taj Mahal boys to finish, there was time for a quick filler –

Pit
After its successful introduction last week, Scott brought this classic trading game back for a second outing. Neither Keith nor Paul had played before, but the rules for this game are hardly complex, so we were soon underway.
Paul cornered the first hand, with Scott unfortunately in possession of both the bull and bear for a maximum minus score. Jon then took the next 2 hands, with Paul finding that his beginner’s luck had run out to pick up minuses in both rounds.
The intention was to play 5 rounds, but realising that Johan, Gareth and Barrie had already started another game, it was cut short in favour of something meatier. The result still stands though, of course……
Jon 145; Paul 25; Keith 0; John 0; Scott -40

And the meatier game chosen was a new offering from John –

Founding Fathers

It was already 9.20pm, and John was the only person who had played the game before. The box said ‘1-2 hours’, but suspicious glances were exchanged between Jon and Paul, who remembered their game of Giants a few weeks ago….. However, with the agreement that everyone would play as quickly as possible, John began the rules explanation.
This game is basically about the forming of the American constitution – a subject that Paul apparently has a genuine interest in. It is a card-driven board game, where cards (delegates) can be used to vote for or against one of the articles, seek influence in the debating chamber or use their special event powers to affect all manner of things. Points are gained as the game goes along, with more available in a final scoring round, depending on how successfully players have debated during the preceding 4 rounds.
For some reason, the use of the events on the cards makes it feel a little like Long Shot, with the final scoring reminiscent of Loco / Quandary. However, it’s obviously a little heavier than any of those games! Having said that, Founding Fathers isn’t nearly as heavy as several of us were expecting. The choices on each turn are limited (play a card or cards, then replenish your hand) and the 4 rounds do not particularly increase in complexity as the game goes on. So, following a very clear explanation of the rules from John, we were underway.  
In the first round, Jon benefited from being able to shut down the debating chamber early on, whilst claiming a debating token for all the unclaimed factions. This led to him picking up 3 debating tokens relatively cheaply. Two of Scott’s influence markers were removed from the assembly rooms by one of the players (it may have been John…) which set him back a little, but he took it on the chin (ish) and was soon back in the fray. Keith decided to peg back John a little in the next round (on the basis that he was the only one who had played before) but the scoring was generally pretty close.
Before we knew it, we were in the last round, and Scott played a nice move in the assembly rooms, putting down 2 delegates at once which effectively ended the game. All that was left to do was score the bonuses for the debating tokens, but funnily enough, the articles had been passed with each faction having even numbers, so bonuses were determined purely on the number of tokens collected by each player. With Jon having 4 tokens, he scored 20 points for them and just managed to squeak home ahead of John, with Scott and Keith very close behind. Paul had rather suffered by not seeing much action in the debating chamber, and brought up the rear.
As is usual at IBG, the rules to new games are often checked in the proceeding week, and it appears that we were playing a couple of things incorrectly (Planners should automatically be reassigned to their holder when they come to the top of the draw pile, and the scoring at the endgame should be based on majorities in each faction, not just the numbers of tokens earned.) However, as everyone was playing the same way, it didn’t affect the game too much (although it does explain why we lapped the scoring track, which only goes up to 30!)
And when the dust had settled, the most surprising thing of all was that the game had only taken 1 hour to actually play. This is most impressive on a first outing with 4 new players, and a definite plus point for the game. This may not be the last time that you see it played at IBG (unless John never brings it again, of course…..!)
Jon 33; John 31; Scott 29; Keith 28; Paul 18

And now for something completely different part II -

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game (thanks Dan - of course...)

IBG Blog Classified ads section:

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To be honest I don’t remember a lot of the details from the second Buffy game, other than the comfortable ease with which the vampire host was dispatched with. To be fair Adam was victorious as the baddie in the earlier game, but one does start to wonder about the rather poor showing on the part of the bad guys in recent club nights. What I can tell you about the game is that it is an unexpectedly indecent amount of fun, Emma’s 437 utterances of "Willow is sooo cooool" indicate that she might be quite keen on the character, and I can apparently pull off a pretty good Seth Green pout.
Emma, Steph, Iain, Daniel - all won; Adam lost by an enthusiastic pencil to the heart...

And finally -

Endeavor (thanks again Gareth)
Johan and Barrie both attacked Gareth's cities. Barrie abolished slavery meaning Gareth lost the few cards he had. Once again at the final count Johan took the win, this time by just a point.
Johan 50; Barrie 49; Gareth 45.

(What Gareth helpfully failed to mention that he was so unimpressed with losing to Barrie, that he sold the game to him. Barrie might have to find a new gaming partner to play with though...)

So the evening drew to a close. And what with the excitement of little blonde minxes running around killing vampires, mixed with 18th century American politics, that was quite enough for one night. I can't guarantee that Sarah Michelle Gellar will be back next week, but the rest of us will be....
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